Gert on Subjective Practical Rationality

The purpose of this paper is to consider Joshua Gert’s novel view of subjective practical rationality in his book Brute Rationality. After briefly outlining the account, I present two objections to his view and then consider his own objections to a rival approach to understanding subjective rationality which I take to be much more plausible.

Well-being and Spirituality from a Korean Perspective: Based on the Study of Culture and Subjective Well-being

Criteria for well-being and spirituality are culturally bound. In this article, therefore, the notions of well-being and spirituality were reconsidered from a Korean perspective. Two major conceptual approaches that pertain to “subjective well-being” research in social psychology provide the methodological framework for this study. While “bottom-up” approaches focus on how external events and situations influence happiness, “top-down” approaches center on diverse variables within an individual and his or her culture. Noting the cultural differences between American and Korean self-construals (i.e., independence vs. interdependence), the author argues that Koreans need to construct “top-down” approaches to both well-being and spirituality. Reviewing Robert Emmon’s concept of “spiritual intelligence,” the author also suggests an integrative model for spirituality and well-being in Korea.     

Age and Gender Differences in Adaptation and Subjective Well-being of Older Adults Residing in Monastic Religious Communities

The purpose of this study was to explore age and gender differences in the adaptation and well-being of older adults residing in Catholic monasteries. Participants included 235 members, age 64 and older, from the Order of St. Benedict. 2 (Age) × 2 (Gender) analyses of variance were computed to determine significant differences. Young-old persons reported greater friendship, coping behaviors, and personal growth, however, old-old individuals reported greater engagement in religious coping and greater depression. In addition, women reported greater coping behaviors, life satisfaction, and personal growth, but men reported greater depression. The results have implications on how pastoral care providers and counselors can improve quality of life among older adults living in contemplative religious settings.     

Lupus Symptoms Inventory (LSI): Development and Validation of a Self-evaluation Inventory of the Subjective Symptoms of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

The goal of this study was to develop a simple, easy, and quick self-report measure, the Lupus Symptom Inventory (LSI), designed to evaluate subjective symptoms of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE). The internal consistency of the LSI was tested, as well as its concordance with physician reports and serological indicators of disease activity by evaluating the self-reports of 46 patients with SLE who completed the LSI daily for a one-month period. Throughout this one-month period, parameters of serological activity and routine medical check-up were obtained. The results showed a high internal consistency of the LSI, with a Cronbach alpha of .86. Additionally, a contingency analysis showed agreement between medical report and patient self-report on the same day for six of seven lupus symptoms (difficulty breathing (p < .004), joint pain (p < .001), loss of appetite (p < .003), general malaise (p < .005), fatigue (p < .005), and skin rash (p < .018)) but not for abdominal symptoms. Finally, differences were found between LSI scores of patients with high versus low serological activity (χ²(1) = 5.302; p < .021), with the former presenting higher LSI scores than the latter. These results show that the LSI may be a reliable and valid instrument for evaluating the subjective symptoms of the disease as well as its fluctuations.     

Is Psychology Based on a Methodological Error?

It is believed a proven fact that variables in social and personality psychology match to normal distribution with its single peak. Multiple peaks are explained by independent variables. However, after a comprehensive data analysis of more than 8.000 patients and on the basis of a bio-psycho-social model with 27 scales, we arrived at the conclusion that normal distribution and the psychometric error theory cannot withstand critical analysis in large samples. Beyond the “truth” that is proved by distribution-dependent statistical inferences, there exists another “truth” that is denied by the empirical doctrine. This “truth” is influenced by compensatory belief systems and explains paradoxes in quality of life research. We hypothesize that items, referred to life risks are micro-stressors, triggering self-regulatory processes as a humanly inherent response, deeply anchored in human evolution. Especially when exposed to threatening experiences, self-focused attention generates amplified multimodal distributions and subverts the methodological premises by an ambivalence-bias between thrill and threat, hopes and fears, pleasure and pain, success and failure, etc. In this article we want to focus attention to the incommensurability between test theoretical axioms and the way people usually respond to self-focused items. We discuss basic distribution patterns and approach to an evolutionary theory of fluctuation of validity.

Marginally perceptible outcome feedback, motor learning and implicit processes

Participants struck 500 golf balls to a concealed target. Outcome feedback was presented at the subjective or objective threshold of awareness of each participant or at a supraliminal threshold. Participants who received fully perceptible (supraliminal) feedback learned to strike the ball onto the target, as did participants who received feedback that was only marginally perceptible (subjective threshold). Participants who received feedback that was not perceptible (objective threshold) showed no learning. Upon transfer to a condition in which the target was unconcealed, performance increased in both the subjective and the objective threshold condition, but decreased in the supraliminal condition. In all three conditions, participants reported minimal declarative knowledge of their movements, suggesting that deliberate hypothesis testing about how best to move in order to perform the motor task successfully was disrupted by the impoverished disposition of the visual outcome feedback. It was concluded that sub-optimally perceptible visual feedback evokes implicit processes.     

The influence of instructions and terminology on the accuracy of remember–know judgments

The remember–know paradigm is one of the most widely used procedures to examine the subjective experience associated with memory retrieval. We examined how the terminology and instructions used to describe the experiences of remembering and knowing affected remember–know judgments. In Experiment 1 we found that using neutral terms, i.e., Type A memory and Type B memory, to describe the experiences of remembering and knowing reduced remember false alarms for younger and older adults as compared to using the terms Remember and Know, thereby increasing overall memory accuracy in the neutral terminology condition. In Experiment 2 we found that using what we call source-specific remember–know instructions, which were intended to constrain remember judgments to recollective experiences arising only from the study context, reduced remember hits and false alarms, and increased know hits and false alarms. Based on these data and other considerations, we conclude that researchers should use neutral terminology and source-specific instructions to collect the most accurate reports of the experiences of remembering and knowing arising from the study context.     

Development as Happiness: The Subjective Perception of Happiness and UNDP’s Analysis of Poverty, Wealth and Development

This paper examines to what extent the concept of happiness is complementary to the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) human development approach in the evaluation of poverty, wealth and development. The deconstruction of UNDP's discourse on and its measurement of these concepts show that its perspective is highly arbitrary. Poverty is exclusively defined as lack and state of ill-being, inferior to wealth regarded as a state of abundance and well-being. Development then becomes a teleological process trying to promote well-being through abundance. Yet, this external perspective of UNDP on well-being is questioned by the subjective perception of the individuals themselves. Happiness studies—which define happiness as the degree to which an individual judges the overall quality of his life-as-a-whole favorably—prove that higher levels of UNDP's development indicators are not necessarily better for subjective well-being. Despite methodological and conceptual problems, happiness studies discover that the individuals' perception of poverty, wealth and development can differ considerably from UNDP's perspective. Increased income, better objective health and higher levels of education do not automatically lead to greater happiness. Furthermore, additional dimensions essential for human happiness are detected by the research, yet not taken into account by UNDP. A country ranking comparison between the two approaches confirms the different visions of well-being. The integration of a happiness indicator in its analysis of poverty, wealth and development is thus indispensable for UNDP in order to correct its analytical and also practical approach to development.