The Porosity of Autonomy: Social and Biological Constitution of the Patient in Biomedicine

The nature and role of the patient in biomedicine comprise issues central to bioethical inquiry. Given its developmental history grounded firmly in a backlash against 20th-century cases of egregious human subjects abuse, contemporary medical bioethics has come to rely on a fundamental assumption: the unit of care (and the unit of value) is the autonomous self-directing patient. In this article we examine first the structure of the feminist social critique of autonomy. Then we show that a parallel argument can be made against relational autonomy as well, demonstrating how this second concept of autonomy fails to take sufficiently into account an array of biological determinants, particularly those from microbial biology. Finally, in light of this biological critique, we question whether or to what extent any relevant and meaningful view of autonomy can be recovered in the contemporary landscape of bioethics.     

二胎进行时:头胎儿童在向同胞关系过渡时的生理和心理变化及其影响因素

近年来,有关头胎儿童在面对母亲生第二胎时出现各种问题的新闻报道屡见不鲜。那么,是不是儿童在面对母亲生二胎时,都会出现如此消极的反应?会不会出现积极的反应呢?如果存在个体差异的话,那么面对第二胎的降临,哪些儿童更容易出现消极或者积极的变化?另外,是否有保护因素让头胎儿童更好地应对弟妹出生?是否有风险因素导致头胎儿童出现消极的结果?本项目拟开展3项子研究来回答上述这些问题。研究1分析在第二胎降临前后,头胎儿童的生理和心理变化轨迹;研究2分析调节头胎儿童生理和心理变化的个人因素(例如,气质和共情);研究3分析调节头胎儿童生理和心理变化的家庭层面的因素(例如,亲子关系与父母婚姻)。所获结果将为当前以及未来二孩家庭心理健康教育和咨询提供实证依据,具有重要的应用价值。     

Personality,Resilience, and Psychopathology: A Model for the Interaction between Slow and Fast Network Processes in the Context of Mental Health

Network theories have been put forward for psychopathology (in which mental disorders originate from causal relations between symptoms) and for personality (in which personality factors originate from coupled equilibria of cognitions, affect states, behaviours, and environments). Here, we connect these theoretical strands in an overarching personality–resilience–psychopathology model. In this model, factors in personality networks control the shape of the dynamical landscape in which symptom networks evolve; for example, the neuroticism item ‘I often feel blue’ measures a general tendency to experience negative affect, which is hypothesized to influence the threshold parameter of the symptom ‘depressed mood’ in the psychopathology network. Conversely, events at the level of the fast-evolving psychopathology network (e.g. a depressive episode) can influence the slow-evolving personality variables (e.g. by increasing feelings of worthlessness). We apply the theory to neuroticism and major depressive disorder. Through simulations, we show that the model can accommodate important phenomena, such as the strong relation between neuroticism and depression and individual differences in the change of neuroticism levels and development of depression over time. The results of the simulation are implemented in an online, interactive simulation tool. Implications for research into the relationship between personality and psychopathology are discussed. © 2020 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology     

自我提升的研究现状与展望

自我提升一直是人格和社会心理学研究中的主要问题。自我提升的概念界定可分为知觉自我与知觉他人的比较、自我知觉与外在标准的比较、基于社会关系模式（SRM）的界定等几种方法;相应地,测量自我提升的方法有社会赞许性测验、内省测验、标准差异测验、过分－宣称技术、环状设计中的测量等;介绍了自我提升与心理健康、生理变化、自尊、成绩的关系,以及自我提升的跨文化研究。最后,提出了自我提升研究中存在的不足以及今后的研究方向     

Cloninger的人格生物社会模型及其生理机制的证据

该文首先介绍了Cloninger的人格生物社会模型的7个维度,综述了该模型在神经递质、基因遗传学、脑血流以及脑电方面等的经验性证据。还探讨了该模型与其他人格生理模型之间的关系,特别是较详细比较了Cloninger的人格生物模型与Eysenck模型的差异。最后,对Cloninger的理论模型进行了评述,并提出研究生理机制、环境和个体行为的交互影响作用,是今后人格研究的一个发展方向     

Aggression: Functions and control in social systems

This paper summarizes major research achievements concerning the understanding and control of aggression and destructive violence, seen in the contexts of evolution (both biological and cultural) and systems theory. Agonistic behavior, defined as behavior functional in situations of conflict between species mates, most probably evolved out of the function of defensive behavior but has since acquired a variety of other adaptive functions as well as the potential for destructive dysfunction. Recent research demonstrates the importance of culture in regulating human agonistic behavior, directing it toward either useful functions or destructive violence. Among advanced industrial nations, the United States has the most severe problems with violence as measured by homicide and murder rates. Similar but more extreme variation can be found among tribal societies. It is through cultural change that the available scientific information concerning improved methods for directing agonistic behavior into positive and beneficial channels must be achieved. Therefore, major emphasis should be placed on research dealing with human cultural evolution. The science of bringing about desirable social change is still in its infancy.     

传统中国文化处理心理健康问题的三种思路

近年来 ,从中国文化的角度进行心理健康问题的研究越来越多 ,但是从文化整体的角度对这一问题的研究尚嫌不够。本文认为 ,虽然传统中国文化没有现代心理学意义上的心理健康的说法 ,但是由于人的存在的共同性 ,传统中国文化客观上具有处理心理健康问题的功能。这表现为三种思路 :信仰—养性的思路 ,养生—治身的思路 ,迷信—功利的思路。它们各自对心理健康有自己的见解和做法。文章分析了这三种思路的基本情况和特征 ,并进一步讨论了它们对当代心理健康研究的启发     

Biology Precedes, Culture Transcends: An Evolutionist's View of Human Nature

I will, first, outline what we currently know about the last 4 million years of human evolutionary history, from bipedal but small-brained Australopithecus to modern Homo sapiens, our species, through the prolific toolmaker Homo habilis and the continent wanderer Homo erectus. I shall then identify anatomical traits that distinguish us from other animals and point out our two kinds of heredity, the biological and the cultural.
Biological inheritance is based on the transmission of genetic information, in humans very much the same as in other sexually reproducing organisms. But cultural inheritance is distinctively human, based on transmission of information by a teaching and learning process that is in principle independent of biological parentage. Cultural inheritance makes possible the cumulative transmission of experience from generation to generation. Cultural heredity is a swifter and more effective (because it can be designed) mode of adaptation to the environment than the biological mode. The advent of cultural heredity ushered in cultural evolution, which transcends biological evolution.
I will, finally, explore ethical behavior as a model case of a distinctive human trait, and seek to ascertain the causal connections between human ethics and human biology. My conclusions are that (1) moral reasoning—that is, the proclivity to make ethical judgments by evaluating actions as either good or evil—is rooted in our biological nature; it is a necessary outcome of our exalted intelligence, but (2) the moral codes that guide our decisions as to which actions are good and which ones are evil are products of culture, including social and religious traditions. This second conclusion contradicts those evolutionists and sociobiologists who claim that the morally good is simply that which is promoted by the process of biological evolution.     

Can Science Help Construct a New Global Ethic? The Development and Implications of Moral Transformation Theory

This paper reports the results of a ten-year search for consensus among scientific findings on the nature of the origin and development of moral sensitivity and morality. Significant agreement on six underlying factors was found. Based on these foundations, a new theory of moral transformation and a scientific "global ethic" relating to the global ethic of Hans Kung and the Parliament of the World's Religions is proposed. Fields surveyed include psychology, sociology, political science, economics, history, and gender and feminist studies in social science; physics and biology in natural science; and brain research, archaeology, and both old and new evolutionary studies and theory, including chaos, self-organizing, and other nonlinear theories, in systems science.     

Reversibility of single-incentive selective associations.

Rats were trained to press a lever in the presence of a tone-light compound stimulus and not to press in its absence. In each of two experiments, schedules were designed to make the compound a conditioned punisher for one group and a conditioned reinforcer for the other. In Experiment 1, one group's responding produced food in the presence of the compound but not in its absence. The other group's responding terminated the compound stimulus, and food was presented only in its absence. When tone and light were later presented separately, light controlled more responding than did tone in the former group, but tone gained substantial control in the latter. The same effects were also observed within subjects when the training schedules were switched over groups. In Experiment 2, two groups avoided shock in the presence of the compound stimulus. In the absence of the compound, one group was not shocked, and the other received both response-independent and response-produced shock. When tone and light were presented separately, the former group's responding was mainly controlled by tone, but the latter group's responding was almost exclusively controlled by light. These effects were also observed within subjects when the training schedules were switched over groups. Thus, these single-incentive selective association effects (appetitive in Experiment 1 and aversive in Experiment 2) were completely reversible. The schedules in which the compound should have been a conditioned reinforcer consistently produced visual control, and auditory control increased when the compound should have become a conditioned punisher. Currently accepted accounts of selective associations based on affinities between shock and auditory stimuli and between food and visual stimuli (i.e., stimulus-reinforcer interactions) do not adequately address these results. The contingencies of reinforcement most recently associated with the compound and with its absence, rather than the nature of the reinforcer, determined whether auditory or visual stimulus control developed.