Creativity,chaos, and self‐renewal in human systems

The research findings from the psychology of creativity are shown to be of considerable relevance to the study of self‐organization and self‐renewal in human systems. The characteristics of the creative person, and the nature of the creative process, particularly as they have been elaborated by Barron, are shown to be remarkably congruent with recent findings and theoretical elaborations by Abraham, Jantsch, Laszlo, Prigogine, and others in the fields of evolutionary and chaos theory. The broader social implications of chaos and evolutionary theories are fleshed out through an understanding of their characteristics in creative human systems.     

Culture,Emotion, and Well-being: Good Feelings in Japan and the United States

We tested the hypothesis that “good feelings”—the central element of subjective well-being—are associated with interdependence and interpersonal engagement of the self in Japan, but with independence and interpersonal disengagement of the self in the United States. Japanese and American college students (total N = 913) reported how frequently they experienced various emotional states in daily life. In support of the hypothesis, the reported frequency of general positive emotions (e.g. calm, elated) was most closely associated with the reported frequency of interpersonally engaged positive emotions (e.g. friendly feelings) in Japan, but with the reported frequency of interpersonally disengaged positive emotions (e.g. pride) in the United States. Further, for Americans the reported frequency of experience was considerably higher for positive emotions than for negative emotions, but for Japanese it was higher for engaged emotions than for disengaged emotions. Implications for cultural constructions of emotion in general and subjective well-being in particular are discussed.     

Global and Local processing in Williams Syndrome: Drawing versus Perceiving

It has been hypothesized that a local processing bias underlies overall visuospatial impairments in Williams syndrome (WS). However, recent studies have challenged this hypothesis by providing evidence against a local processing bias at the perceptual level. The aim of the present study was to further examine drawing and perceptual skills in children with WS using closely matched-hierarchical stimuli. In the drawing task children with WS exhibited a local processing bias. However, no significant preferential bias was found in the perceptual task. This indicates that children with WS do not systematically present a preferential bias for local information. Taken together the findings of the present study suggest that perceptual processing deficits per se are unlikely to explain local processing biases in visuoconstructive tasks often described in people with WS.     

Validating Measures of Psychological Well-being by Contrasting Samples Employed in Hazardous and Less Hazardous Work

The study investigated whether differences between contrasting groups reflect significant differences in psychological well-being scores. Membership of hazardous vs. less hazardous occupations in the same profession served as proxy measures of well-being. Antonovsky's Sense of Coherence (SOC), Block & Kremen's Ego-resiliency, and Goldberg's Emotional Stability scales were validated. Study 1 compared mine rescue team members and ordinary miners (n = 34, 41) and Study 2 police special task force members and regular officers (n = 43, 41). In Study 1, SOC and job satisfaction predicted group membership. In Study 2, satisfaction with life and extraversion scales predicted group membership, as did SOC in a secondary analysis. The SOC scale could predict psychological well-being in hazardous work settings.     

The Design and Evaluation of a Hope Enhancement Programme for Adults

The study evaluated the effectiveness of a hope enhancement programme for a group of adults and its impact on general psychological well-being. The intervention programme focused on participants' abilities to set feasible goals, planning ways to reach those goals (pathways) and increase determination and motivation (agency) to reach these goals. The workshop-format programme, consisted of six two-hour sessions conducted over five days. A pre and post-test design included an experimental group (n = 8), control group (n = 8) and ‘chat group’ (n = 8). Findings indicated that the programme increased hope levels of the experimental group as indicated by the Hope Scale and the Hopefulness Subscale of the Hunter Opinions and Personal Expectations Scale. Well-being also improved as indicated by a significant increase in sense of coherence along with a positive change in satisfaction with life. Recommendations for future research were made.     

Local/foreign status,cultural background,and organizational citizenship behaviour: A study among foreign and local workers in The Netherlands

A study in Singapore (Ang et al., 2003 Ang, S., van Dyne, L. and Begley, T. M. 2003. The employment relationship of foreign workers versus local employees: A field study of organizational justice, job satisfaction, performance, and OCB. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24: 561–583. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) found that foreign employees displayed a lower tendency to engage in Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) than their local counterparts. The explanation was that foreign employees often experience their employment relation as more disadvantageous. The present study attempted to investigate possible differences in OCB between foreign and local workers in The Netherlands. In addition, it aimed to ascertain what role the cultural dimension of “individualism–collectivism” plays in this connection. Contrasting the expectations, the foreign employees reported a higher propensity to pursue OCB than local workers. The difference in behaviour could not be explained by cultural differences. It was argued that economic and personal motives of foreign workers might have affected the self-reports of their organizational behaviour.     

The wisdom of hindsight and the limits of Humean constructivism

Ordinary normative discourse includes talk about the reasons for action we had in the past but only came to discover in hindsight. In some cases, we come to discover these reasons not because new information has come to light, but because our values have changed. Contemporary metaethical views, namely Street's Humean constructivism and Blackburn's and Gibbard's quasi-realism, have some difficulty accounting for these reasons and the claims we make about them. This difficulty hinges on the diachronic complexity of these reasons and claims. It cannot be the case that these reasons were constructed by the perspective we had in the past before our values changed. If there were no extant reasons in the past, then it would seem that our claims about them in the present cannot be true. Quasi-realists can account for the way in which reason claims purport to be true by appealing to a deflationary sense of truth and so can remain agnostic on the actual existence of these reasons. Nevertheless, Street argues that this agnosticism is inconsistent with the quasi-realists' naturalism that should have them reject the existence of such reasons. I argue that Street would suffer from an even more acute form of this inconsistency were she to account for reasons only discovered in hindsight. At best her view does no better than the view of her chosen rivals. At worst, it discounts reasons that are so central to our moral development that it fails to be plausible.     

Drive for muscularity and muscularity-oriented disordered eating in men: The role of set shifting difficulties and weak central coherence

Set shifting difficulties and weak central coherence are information-processing biases associated with thinness-oriented eating and body image pathology in women. However, little is known about the relationship between these processing biases and muscularity-oriented eating and body image pathology. We investigated whether set shifting and central coherence were uniquely related to the drive for muscularity and muscularity-oriented disordered eating in a sample of 91 male undergraduates. Participants completed the Wisconsin Card Sort Test, the Matching Familiar Figures Task, the Drive for Muscularity scale, and a modified Eating Disorders Examination-Questionnaire. Results indicated that set shifting difficulties and weak central coherence were both uniquely positively associated with the drive for muscularity, and that set shifting difficulties were uniquely positively associated with muscularity-oriented disordered eating. Results are discussed with regard to the male experience of body image and eating pathology, and in regard to muscle dysmorphia.