冯友兰人生境界论的审美维度

冯友兰特别重视心的觉解功能 ,并依据心灵觉解的程度将人生区分为自然、功利、道德、天地四种境界 ,其天地境界有着深厚的审美意蕴。达到这一境界必须运用有别于逻辑分析的直觉方法 ,即冯友兰所说的讲形而上学时的“负的方法” ,而“近于道的诗”正是形而上学“负的方法”之一。所以 ,冯友兰新理学中的人生境界论与审美理论非常接近。这一理论显示出从思维方式上融合中西的学术努力 ,对于 2 0世纪中国文艺境界论有着一定的影响。     

Understanding the emotional past: relations between parent and child contributions in emotionally negative and nonnegative events

The past event conversations of 33 mothers with their 3-year-old children (18 girls and 15 boys) were selected from a larger sample based on their discussion of negative events. Negative events included both those that were negative in topic and those that contained negative incidents but were otherwise positively themed. Within-subjects comparisons were made between the negative events and a neutral or positive event. There were few differences in how mothers and their children talked about negative and nonnegative events. Children did include more interpretations (internal state and causal references) in their negative event conversations. For both event types, mothers who talked more about the past events had children who reported more. When maternal talkativeness was controlled, involving children in the negative event conversations through deflecting the conversational turn predicted children's total contributions and number of interpretations. Repeating information and requests for information while constraining the topic was negatively related to the number of details children reported for nonnegative past events. Conversations about minor negative experiences demonstrate that mothers can influence children's involvement in discussions and understanding of the past.     

Cognitive Response Repertoires to Child Noncompliance by Mothers of Aggressive Boys

Cognitive response repertoires to videotaped child noncompliance episodes were examined in mothers of aggressive (MAs) and nonaggressive 4–6-year-old boys. Mothers provided open-ended solutions to three subtypes of child noncompliance under conditions of time pressure, or after they waited for 15 s to consider alternatives. Solutions were coded as assistance/facilitation, coercion, deference, or explanation/clarification. Compared with controls, MAs offered fewer explanation/clarification responses, more coercive responses, and fewer unique solutions during pressured responding. Two to 6 weeks later, mothers were videotaped while participating with their sons in a challenging block-building task. Maternal responses to the vignettes predicted conflict escalation during block building, even after rates of concurrent and past child noncompliance were partialled out. Implications for parent-training models are considered.     

Fear of the beast: a prospective study on the effects of negative information on childhood fear

The current study examined the effects of negative information on the enhancement of childhood fear. A large group of normal primary school children aged between 4 and 12 years (N=285) received either negative or positive information about an unknown, doglike animal, called 'the beast'. Children's fears were assessed at three points in time: before, directly after, and one week after the information about the beast was provided (i.e., pre-, post- and follow-up assessment). Results showed that type of information changed children's fear of the beast in the predicted direction with negative information increasing fear levels and positive information decreasing fear levels. This was not only the case directly after the experimental manipulation but also at one week follow-up. Furthermore, fear of the beast appeared to generalize, that is, children who became more fearful of the beast after receiving negative information, also became more apprehensive of other dogs and predators.     

Empirical support for a Type A belief system

Much of the research on Type A behavior has focused on overt manifestations of the pattern; consequently, the underlying psychological dimensions are poorly understood (Matthews, 1982). Price (1982) has proposed an elaborate, but empirically unvalidated, model suggesting that a specific set of beliefs underlies the Type A behavior pattern. A series of experiments was conducted to test the validity of Price's model and to develop a device for assessing these beliefs. The internal consistency and test-retest reliability of this measure were .94 and .84, respectively. Significant positive correlations were found with traditional measures of Type A behavior as well as various facets of anger and anxiety. Finally, subjects who endorsed a high degree of Type A beliefs set significantly higher performance standards and were less likely to achieve these standards than their low-scoring counterparts. Results are discussed with regard to the theoretical construct of Type A as well as their implications for future research and treatment.This research is an extension of a study presented at the 92nd meeting of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, Canada, August 1984Special thanks to to Drs. James A. Blumenthal, Martin T. Gipson, Abby C. King, and Ellie T. Sturgis for their helpful comments in the preparation of this article.