Mereological nihilism: quantum atomism and the impossibility of material constitution

Mereological nihilism is the philosophical position that there are no items that have parts. If there are no items with parts then the only items that exist are partless fundamental particles, such as the true atoms (also called philosophical atoms) theorized to exist by some ancient philosophers, some contemporary physicists, and some contemporary philosophers. With several novel arguments I show that mereological nihilism is the correct theory of reality. I will also discuss strong similarities that mereological nihilism has with empirical results in quantum physics. And I will discuss how mereological nihilism vindicates a few other theories, such as a very specific theory of philosophical atomism, which I will call quantum abstract atomism. I will show that mereological nihilism also is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that avoids the problems of other interpretations, such as the widely known, metaphysically generated, quantum paradoxes of quantum physics, which ironically are typically accepted as facts about reality. I will also show why it is very surprising that mereological nihilism is not a widely held theory, and not the premier theory in philosophy.     

Antecedents of mentoring support: a meta-analysis of individual,relational, and structural or organizational factors

The value of mentoring is growing substantially as organizations take a renewed interest in employee development to better survive in the dynamic and competitive market today. In the wake of this renewed interest, this meta-analysis was conducted to quantitatively review the multi-level antecedents (e.g., individual, relational, and structural/organizational) of different kinds of mentoring support (e.g., career, psychosocial, role modeling) in organizational settings and to revisit the theoretical underpinnings of each antecedent. Results indicated some key antecedents of mentoring support at individual (e.g., protégé's proactivity, protégé's learning goal orientation, mentor's transformational leadership), relational (e.g., affect based trust, perceived similarity), and structural/organizational levels (e.g., organizational support for mentoring, supervisory mentoring). Recommendations for future research and organizational practice of mentoring are presented.     

Beyond common features: the role of roles in determining similarity

Historically, accounts of object representation and perceived similarity have focused on intrinsic features. Although more recent accounts have explored how objects, scenes, and situations containing common relational structures come to be perceived as similar, less is known about how the perceived similarity of parts or objects embedded within these relational systems is affected. The current studies test the hypothesis that objects situated in common relational systems come to be perceived as more similar. Similarity increases most for objects playing the same role within a relation (e.g., predator), but also increases for objects playing different roles within the same relation (e.g., the predator or prey role in the hunts relation) regardless of whether the objects participate in the same instance of the relation. This pattern of results can be captured by extending existing models that extract meaning from text corpora so that they are sensitive to the verb-specific thematic roles that objects fill. Alternative explanations based on analogical and inferential processes are also considered, as well as the implications of the current findings to research in language processing, decision making, and category learning.     

BEAUTY IN THE LIVING WORLD

Almost all admit that there is beauty in the natural world. Many suspect that such beauty is more than an adornment of nature. Few in our contemporary world suggest that this beauty is an empirical principle of the natural world itself and instead relegate beauty to the eye and mind of the beholder. Guided by theological and scientific insight, the authors propose that such exclusion is no longer tenable, at least in the data of modern biology and in our view of the natural world in general. More important, we believe an empirical aesthetics exists that can help guide experimental design and development of computational models in biology. Moreover, because theology and science can both contribute toward and equally profit from such an aesthetics, we propose that this empirical aesthetics provides the foundation for a living synergy between theology and science.     

A confusion of tongues between psychoanalysis and philosophy: Is the controversy over drive versus relational theory a philosophical one?

In recent years the controversy over Drive versus Relational models of the psyche has become entangled in a philosophical controversy over epistemology. Some have argued that the Drive model was a relic of an age of positivistic science, while Relational models are a product of a postmodern condition. This paper argues that the controversy need not be a philosophical one, and that Relational views are not, in fact, a product of postmodernism, nor are they necessarily dependent on a postmodern epistemology. Separating the epistemological from the psychological more carefully may help return the debate to its proper, psychoanalytic domain, and perhaps contribute to a more fruitful dialogue across what, at times, seems like an abyss between Relational views and Drive theory.     

Political Psychology as Social Aesthetics

Political psychology may be legitimately developed as a "social aesthetic.&;rdquo; Its activities generate social forms, much as in the arts. While logic works within the confines of society's language, aesthetic forms work with its sensibility, in the understanding that significance lies within the unitary wholes. In this sense, political psychology cannot be separated from psychology in general. In both cases we participate in the generation of form. However, because these forms enter society in significant ways, reflexive attention must be given to what it is we create. Mechanical forms, which are common to the field and to society generally, contribute to a condition of social alienation; in contrast, the form of a game is more closely related to the spontaneous creation of community.     

See the devil and tame him

Born in 1921, professor of philosophy at the University of Warsaw and art theory in the Polish Academy of Sciences; has published twelve books and more than three hundred articles (bibliography in volume 14 of A. Mercier (ed.).Philosophers on Their Own Work. Bern: 1990) ranging over the history of aesthetics, Marxist and Soviet aesthetics, and issues related to the status of the arts in contemporary Western culture.     

Network Analysis in Community Psychology: Looking Back,Looking Forward

Network analysis holds promise for community psychology given the field's aim to understand the interplay between individuals and their social contexts. Indeed, because network analysis focuses explicitly on patterns of relationships between actors, its theories and methods are inherently extra‐individual in nature and particularly well suited to characterizing social contexts. But, to what extent has community psychology taken advantage of this network analysis as a tool for capturing context? To answer these questions, this study provides a review of the use network analysis in articles published in American Journal of Community Psychology . Looking back, we describe and summarize the ways that network analysis has been employed in community psychology research to understand the range of ways community psychologists have found the technique helpful. Looking forward and paying particular attention to analytic issues identified in past applications, we provide some recommendations drawn from the network analysis literature to facilitate future applications of network analysis in community psychology.     

Do Our Facebook Friends Make Us Feel Worse? A Study of Social Comparison and Emotion

People often compare themselves to others to gain a better understanding of the self in a process known as social comparison. The current study discusses how people engage in a social comparison process on Facebook, and how observing content from their Facebook friends may affect their emotions. A 2 (comparison direction) × 2 (relational closeness) × 2 (self‐esteem) between‐subjects experiment was conducted with 163 adult participants. The results revealed a significant 3‐way interaction such that people with high self‐esteem would be happier receiving positive information than negative information from their close friends, but the effect would be the opposite if the information was from a distant friend. There was no such difference for people with low self‐esteem.     

The Relational aggression scale (RAS): Psychometric properties of a newly developed measure of relational aggression

Introduction

Relational aggression (RA) is a growing and worrisome problem, particularly among adolescents, that can result in negative psychological consequences for those involved. Therefore, it is important to develop instruments to detect these incidents and understand the problem so as to design effective intervention strategies.