Daily mental lapses and the subjective experience of true self-alienation

The current research drew upon cross-sectional evidence that feelings of being disconnected from one’s “true” self (true self-alienation) covary with tendencies to become mentally detached from present environmental stimuli (mind wandering). Two longitudinal studies tested the prospective associations between true self-alienation and mind wandering. Study 1 found evidence for a positive association between true self-alienation and mind wandering at the trait level only. Study 2, which employed a more optimal design, revealed reciprocal positive prospective associations between with-in person fluctuations in “true” self-alienation and mind wandering. Our results provide new evidence for the association between true self-alienation and mind wandering and suggest that basic aspects of conscious experience are prospectively linked to feelings of self-alienation.     

Journal reviews

Journals reviewed: Allain‐Dupré, Brigitte. ‘Né et non né: réflexions sur la fratrie empêchée’, Cahiers Jungiens de Psychanalyse Lanyado, Monica. ‘The symbolism of the story of Lot and his wife: the function of the “present relationship” and non‐interpretative aspects of the therapeutic relationship in facilitating change’ Commentaries on ‘The symbolism of the story of Lot and his wife’, Journal of Child Psychotherapy Mayer, Elizabeth Lloyd. ‘On “Telepathic Dreams?” An Unpublished Paper by Robert J. Stoller’, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association Lawrence, Marilyn. ‘Loving them to death: the anorexic and her objects’, International Journal of Psychoanalysis Eshel, Ofra. ‘Whose sleep is it, anyway? Or “Night Moves”’, International Journal of Psychoanalysis Schore, Allan N. ‘Minds in the making: attachment, the self‐organizing brain, and developmentally‐oriented psychoanalytic psychotherapy’, British Journal of Psychotherapy     

Five-year-old children's difficulty with false belief when the sought entity is a person

A total of 153 children (excluding those who erred on control questions), mainly 5 and 7 years of age, participated in two experiments that involved tests of false belief. In the task, the sought entity was first at Location 1 and then, unknown to the searching protagonist, it moved to Location 2. In Experiment 1, performance was well below ceiling in 5-year-olds when the sought entity was a person, and this contrasted with a task in which the sought entity was a physical object. Performance was especially inaccurate when the sought person moved of his or her own volition rather than when the sought person was requested to move by a third party. Interestingly, 5-year-olds were more likely to nominate Location 1 when asked where the searching protagonist would look first than when asked what he or she would do next. In Experiment 2, however, 5-year-olds also tended to nominate Location 1 following a question that included the word "first" even in a test of true belief--a patently incorrect response. Altogether, the results suggest that 5-year-old children have considerable difficulty with a test of false belief when the sought entity is a person acting under his or her own volition. This suggests that 5-year-olds' handle on states of belief is surprisingly fragile in this kind of task.     

Consistent Belief in a Good True Self in Misanthropes and Three Interdependent Cultures

People sometimes explain behavior by appealing to an essentialist concept of the self, often referred to as the true self. Existing studies suggest that people tend to believe that the true self is morally virtuous; that is deep inside, every person is motivated to behave in morally good ways. Is this belief particular to individuals with optimistic beliefs or people from Western cultures, or does it reflect a widely held cognitive bias in how people understand the self? To address this question, we tested the good true self theory against two potential boundary conditions that are known to elicit different beliefs about the self as a whole. Study 1 tested whether individual differences in misanthropy—the tendency to view humans negatively—predict beliefs about the good true self in an American sample. The results indicate a consistent belief in a good true self, even among individuals who have an explicitly pessimistic view of others. Study 2 compared true self‐attributions across cultural groups, by comparing samples from an independent country (USA) and a diverse set of interdependent countries (Russia, Singapore, and Colombia). Results indicated that the direction and magnitude of the effect are comparable across all groups we tested. The belief in a good true self appears robust across groups varying in cultural orientation or misanthropy, suggesting a consistent psychological tendency to view the true self as morally good.     

Moral Seriousness

“Philosophy as a way of life” has its roots in ancient ethics and has attracted renewed interest in recent decades. The aim in this paper is to construct a contemporized image of Socrates, consistent with the textual evidence. The account defers concern over analytical/theoretical inquiry into virtue, in favor of a neo-existentialist process of self-examination informed by the virtue of what is called “moral seriousness.” This process is modeled on Frankfurt’s hierarchical account of self-identification, and the paper suggests an expansion of Frankfurt’s concept of a person to include “full” personhood, in which the apprehended “meaning” of one’s “whole life” is taken as a necessary condition for eudaimonia (meaning of life) and is characterized by phenomenological transcendence. In addition, the importance of the informed scrutiny of a community of philosophers to the self-examination process is discussed.     

Contemplative dialogue as the basis for a transdisciplinary attitude: Ecoliteracy toward an education for human sustainability

Our EcoDialogue Center is an educational space for human sustainability within the University of Veracruz. We propose that creating sustainable knowledge requires re-thinking how we conceive ourselves as human beings. This requires paying attention to what we call “the quality of being,” which means caring about and attending to the physical–emotional–mental–spiritual as the foundation of education. This way we can create a space where we can dialogue contemplatively where all dimensions of our lives interact; the physical, the emotional, the communitarian, the social politic, the planetarium, and the spiritual being act with social–environmental responsibility.     

Self-knowledge,belief, ability (and agency?)

Matthew Boyle [(2011). “Transparent Self-Knowledge.” Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 85 (1): 223–241. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8349.2011.00204.x] has defended an account of doxastic self-knowledge which he calls “Reflectivism”. I distinguish two claims within Reflectivism: (A) that believing that p and knowing oneself to believe that p are not two distinct cognitive states, but two aspects of the same cognitive state, and (B) that this is because we are in some sense agents in relation to our beliefs. I find claim (A) compelling, but argue that its tenability depends on how we view the metaphysics of knowledge, something Boyle does not consider. I argue that in the context of the standard account of knowledge as a kind of true belief – what I call the Belief Account of knowledge – the claim faces serious problems, and that these simply disappear if we instead adopt an Ability Account of knowledge, along the lines of that defended by John Hyman [(1999). “How knowledge Works.” The Philosophical Quarterly 49 (197): 433–451; John Hyman (2015). Action, Knowledge, and the Will. Oxford: Oxford University Press]. I find claim (B) less compelling, and a secondary aim of the paper is to suggest that once we reject the Belief Account of knowledge, and move over to an Ability Account, there is no explanatory role for (B) left to play.     

Dyadic Nexus Fighting Two‐Front Battles: A Study of the Microlevel Process of the Official‐Religion‐State Relationship in China

This article provides a microlevel perspective of the interacting dynamics between religion and the Chinese state, demonstrating how religious leaders and local officials negotiate with each other pragmatically, continually withstanding pressure from hardline religious masses and state bureaucracy. This perspective, constructed using qualitative data on the True Jesus Church, also helps to answer a critical empirical question left open in scholarly discussions: When and how does the state regulative power on religion come to the fore in the economic reform emphasizing pragmatic religion‐state cooperation? The findings show how religious leaders and local officials have become pragmatic, cooperating to form a dyadic nexus that tackles regular affairs in a practical way, though it may run the risk of fracture when lay members and bureaucratic superiors pressure leaders and officials, respectively, to take hardline positions. The leaders and officials have continually fought two‐front battles while shuttling between negotiations with their nexus partner and aligning with their hardline sources of pressure. This study may shed light on future research of the Chinese religion‐state relationship in general by illustrating a microlevel, integrative, dynamic approach.