EMBODIED COGNITION,CHARACTER FORMATION,AND VIRTUE

The theory of embodied cognition makes the claim that our cognitive processes are, at their core, sensorimotor, situated, and action‐relevant. Our mental system is built primarily to control action, and so mind is formed by the nature of the body and its interactions with the world. In this paper we will explore the nature of virtue and its formation from the perspective of embodied cognition. We specifically describe exemplars of the virtue of compassion (caregivers of individuals with developmental disabilities in L'Arche communities), speculating as to what might have been the formative influences in their character development. Embodied formation is understood in the context of the openness of human cortical systems to formation by social interactions, and in terms of the openness to reorganization and change of complex dynamical systems. Specific formative influences explored include interpersonal imitation, social attachment, language, and story.     

The pillars of strength for first-grade adjustment – Parental and children's character strengths and the transition to elementary school

The present study aimed to explore the relations between parental and children's character strengths and children's school adjustment during the critical period of school entry. Participants were 479 parents and 16 first-grade teachers of 479 first-grade schoolchildren from five public elementary schools in Israel. Children's and parents’ character strengths were measured by parental questionnaires, based on the Values in Action inventories of strengths. In addition, teachers completed questionnaires about their students’ cognitive, social, emotional, and behavioral school adjustment. Findings showed that parents’ intellectual, interpersonal, and temperance strengths were positively related to their children's school adjustment. In addition, children's intellectual, interpersonal, group-interaction, temperance, and transcendence strengths were positively related to broad aspects of first-grade adjustment. The present study provides an initial exploration of the contribution of personal and parental strengths to young children's optimal adjustment to elementary school.     

Self-perceived strengths among people who are homeless

This study examined self-perceived strengths among 116 people who were homeless. Those who had experienced a longer period of current homelessness tended to report fewer personal strengths (r?=??0.23). Nonetheless, in spite of their marginalized position in society, the vast majority of participants (114 out of 116) perceived personal strengths. A prior diagnosis with mental illness was not associated with the number of strengths reported, but self-perception of strengths was associated with altruistic orientation. The Values in Action (VIA) taxonomy of character strengths captured many of the responses generated by this population. The most frequently mentioned character categories included social intelligence, kindness, persistence, authenticity and humour. The most frequently mentioned other strengths included personal skills (e.g. music, sports), job skills, intelligence and education. The results have relevance for efforts to build self-perceptions that facilitate escape from homelessness.     

Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) and Elementary School Aged Children’s Aggression: Results from a Cluster Randomized Trial

This study reports on aggressive outcomes from a cluster randomized trial of the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) curriculum. Fourteen elementary schools were randomly assigned to intervention or control condition and third grade students were followed through the fifth grade. Teacher and self-reports of student aggression, conduct problems, delinquency, acting out problems, and social information processing (SIP) variables were collected. Linear change for each of the SIP variables was noted with control students demonstrating increased normative beliefs about aggression, increased aggressive social problem solving, increased hostile attribution bias, and increased aggressive interpersonal negotiation strategies over time while PATHS students remained relatively stable. Teachers reported significant curvilinear change in student aggression, conduct problems, and acting out behavior problems; all favoring PATHS students.     

Relational-oriented character analysis

Referring to the diversity of psychoanalysis of today, a position called relational-oriented character analysis is discussed. It is stated that relation and character as concepts refer to different and partly contradictory points of view in psychoanalysis, the first one emphasising mobile, dynamic aspects of personality, the second underlining stable, structural aspects. The principle aim of the article is to argue how the two perspectives can be theoretically combined in an overriding object-relational (two-person) conception and to discuss some implications for analytic technique. Finally, convergences and differences with other positions or schools in contemporary psychoanalysis are suggested.     

Authoritarian reactions to terrorist threat: Who is being threatened,the Me or the We?

Endorsement of authoritarian attitudes has been observed to increase under conditions of terrorist threat. However, it is not clear whether this effect is a genuine response to perceptions of personal or collective threat. We investigated this question in two experiments using German samples. In the first experiment (N = 144), both general and specific authoritarian tendencies increased after asking people to imagine that they were personally affected by terrorism. No such effect occurred when they were made to think about Germany as a whole being affected by terrorism. This finding was replicated and extended in a second experiment (N = 99), in which personal and collective threat were manipulated orthogonally. Authoritarian and ethnocentric (ingroup bias) reactions occurred only for people highly identified with their national ingroup under personal threat, indicating that authoritarian responses may operate as a group‐level coping strategy for a threat to the personal self. Again, we found no effects for collective threat. In both studies, authoritarianism mediated the effects of personal threat on more specific authoritarian and ethnocentric reactions. These results suggest that the effects of terrorist threat on authoritarianism can, at least in part, be attributed to a sense of personal insecurity, raised under conditions of terrorist threat. We discuss the present findings with regard to basic sociomotivational processes (e.g., group‐based control restoration, terror management) and how these may relate to recent models of authoritarianism.     

Discrimination of Visual Patterns Protracted in Time: A Preliminary Report on the VS Test

The present study, consisting of two experiments, was designed to examine the effects of list length and display time on the short-term retention of paired-associate material. In Experiment I, with 90 Ss, a three-by-three-by-five mixed analysis-of-variance design was used with three levels of list length (five, seven, and nine city-temperature pairs), three levels of display time (15, 30, and 60 seconds), and five trials per S. In Experiment II, with 20 Ss, four of the nine conditions involved in Experiment I were tested each week for 10 weeks, with 20 trials per week. The overall results indicate significant effects on storage-and-retrieval capacity as a function of list length, display time, and extended periods of practice.     

“We may be pirates,but we are not protesters”: Identity in the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Radical activist organizations face the complex task of managing their identity so as to draw political attention but also to appear legitimate and thus gain public support. In this article we develop a picture of the identities of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) members, a group mostly known for their direct action against whaling, via a thematic analysis of material from the SSCS website and interviews with SSCS members. In online commentary, founder Captain Paul Watson establishes several deliberately paradoxical notions of who the Sea Shepherds are. We relate these identity statements to interviews with core activists to examine how they manage the identity conflicts resulting from the group identity, such as being seen as “pirates” and “hard lined vegans.” We found that SSCS positions themselves as a diverse and unstructured organization, yet distinctively passionate and willing to take action where others will not. The implications of this research are discussed in relation to the importance of understanding the constraints and conflicts around political activist identities.     

Self‐Harm Focus Leads to Greater Collective Guilt: The Case of the U.S.‐Iraq Conflict

Collective guilt from harm one's group has caused an out‐group is often undermined because people minimize or legitimize the harm done (i.e., they generate exonerating cognitions). When a group action has harmed both the in‐group and an out‐group, focusing people on “self‐harm”—ways in which the in‐group has harmed itself—may elicit more collective guilt because self‐harm is less likely to be exonerated. In Study 1, American participants who focused on how the invasion of Iraq had harmed the United States expressed greater collective guilt over harm inflicted on the people of Iraq than those who focused on Iraqi suffering. Study 2 showed that this effect is due to reductions in exonerating cognitions among people focused on self‐harm. We consider the implications of these findings for intergroup reconciliation, particularly in situations where two groups have been involved in open conflict.     

Aging,Agency, and Activism: Older Women as Social Change Agents

Current cohorts of older women are potential social activists, and their potential to contribute to social change is examined. It is argued that engagement in social action is positive and empowering for aging women. Older women both contribute to and benefit from social capital, connections among individuals in social networks, and norms of reciprocity (Putnam, 2000 Putnam , R. ( 2000 ). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community . New York : Simon & Schuster .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). Recommendations are offered for organizations that wish to recruit and engage older women as members. A feminist therapy perspective is consistent with the empowerment of older women as social agents.