The subjectivity of the mother in the mother–son relationship. Attachment,separation, and autonomy

Abstract

Margaret Mahler and John Bowlby's positions are crucial in understanding the tensions that can arise in mother–son relationships. A more recent development of a systems view illuminates the co-construction of this relationship that occurs mainly out of awareness. A systems model of development that describes the co-construction and bi-directional influence between mothers and sons will be used in this paper. The often-neglected subjectivity of the mother is the focus, and the relationship between the mother and her adult son is viewed as a process whereby all participants strive to achieve a balance among attachment, separation, and autonomy. In addition, the contributions of the mother and the impact on her of the son's difficulties in attachment, separation, and autonomy are highlighted. In a case illustration, the subjectivity of the mother in relation to her son is explicated, showing how the son distances himself from his mother and why themother is at a loss to understand how and why this has occurred. The mother's perspective was dominated by anger and disappointment toward her son as well as by self-blame and self-justification. As a result of psychotherapy, the mother was enabled to come to terms with the estrangement of her son.     

On Failing to be Cartesian: Reconsidering the ‘Impurity’ of Descartes’s Meditation

Abstract

This paper begins from the observation that in the Meditations, Descartes never achieves the ‘pure’, thoroughly decontextualized kind of thinking he famously promoted. Some commentators have used this observation to promote pure inquiry more diligently and to criticize Descartes for failing to achieve it. Other commentators have simply called for greater historical fairness and urged that we renew our efforts to understand how Descartes’s inquiry actually does operate. This paper, although sympathetic with this second group of commentators, argues that in revisiting the tensions between what Descartes actually accomplished and what he said he was trying to accomplish, we should see a contemporary lesson, not just better historical understanding. It is argued that in spite of the strong presence in his writings of the imagery of the ‘Cartesian’ ideal of a perfectly presuppositionless philosophical standpoint, not only does Descartes himself never become a Cartesian, but his own practice provides perhaps the best evidence against the very possibility of the Cartesian ‘project of pure inquiry’ to which he aspired.     

Religiosity,happiness, health,and psychopathology in a probability sample of Muslim adolescents

The aim of the present study was to explore the religiosity associations with the self-rating scales of happiness, mental health, physical health, anxiety, and depression. A sample (N?=?6,339) of Muslim Kuwaiti adolescents was recruited. Their ages ranged from 15 to 18. They responded to four self-rating scales to assess religiosity, happiness, mental health, and physical health, as well as the Kuwait University Anxiety Scale, and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale. Boys had higher mean scores on happiness, mental health, and physical health than did girls, whereas girls had higher mean scores on religiosity, anxiety, and depression. All the correlations were significant in both sexes. They were positive between each of the self-rating scales of religiosity, happiness, mental health, and physical health, and negative between these four rating scales and both anxiety and depression. A high-loaded and bipolar factor was disclosed and labelled “Religiosity and well-being vs. psychopathology.” In the stepwise regression, the main predictor of religiosity was happiness in both sexes.     

Intertemporal Distributive Judgement

This paper considers the simple two-person two-period case of distributive judgement, and argues (a) that sensible intertemporal distributive principle should consider both the distribution of people's life time well-being and the distribution of people's well-being at each period and (b) that, if (a) is correct, Egalitarianism is more acceptable than Prioritarianism since the latter must choose either one.     

Proof-Theoretic Functional Completeness for the Hybrid Logics of Everywhere and Elsewhere

A hybrid logic is obtained by adding to an ordinary modal logic further expressive power in the form of a second sort of propositional symbols called nominals and by adding so-called satisfaction operators. In this paper we consider hybridized versions of S5 (“the logic of everywhere”) and the modal logic of inequality (“the logic of elsewhere”). We give natural deduction systems for the logics and we prove functional completeness results.     

Partner Orientation and Speaker's Knowledge as Conflicting Parameters in Language Production

Two parameters of language production, the partner model and the mentally represented knowledge about a spatial constellation, are investigated with respect to their influence on spatial reference. At issue is whether the verbally expressed point of view in route directions is primarily influenced by the needs of the partner or by the underlying mental representation of the speaker stemming from his or her own experience with an object. Two experiments in which participants (N = 90) were asked to produce a set of route directions are reported. The experimental situation was such that the point of view of the speaker did not correspond to the point of view of the partner. The results show that more participants localize from their own point of view than from the point of view of the partner. Discussion centers on the fact that speakers do not always behave in a truly partner-oriented manner.     

Canonical/redundancy factoring analysis

The interrelationships between two sets of measurements made on the same subjects can be studied by canonical correlation. Originally developed by Hotelling [1936], the canonical correlation is the maximum correlation betweenlinear functions (canonical factors) of the two sets of variables. An alternative statistic to investigate the interrelationships between two sets of variables is the redundancy measure, developed by Stewart and Love [1968]. Van Den Wollenberg [1977] has developed a method of extracting factors which maximize redundancy, as opposed to canonical correlation.A component method is presented which maximizes user specified convex combinations of canonical correlation and the two nonsymmetric redundancy measures presented by Stewart and Love. Monte Carlo work comparing canonical correlation analysis, redundancy analysis, and various canonical/redundancy factoring analyses on the Van Den Wollenberg data is presented. An empirical example is also provided.Wayne S. DeSarbo is a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories in the Mathematics and Statistics Research Group at Murray Hill, N.J. I wish to express my appreciation to J. Kettenring, J. Kruskal, C. Mallows, and R. Gnanadesikan for their valuable technical assistance and/or for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I also wish to thank the editor and reviewers of this paper for their insightful remarks.     

智慧的特质论与状态论：分歧、统整与新解

特质论与状态论之争是智慧研究领域新兴的热门话题。特质论认为智慧是稳定且不易干预的人格特质;状态论认为智慧是一种相对容易波动的心智状态,短期内可以改变且容易受外在情境的影响。基于人格心理学研究的“密度分布说”则为特质论与状态论之争提供了系统的整合模型。受此启发,本研究在以往理论的基础上提出“特质-状态正态分布假说”,旨在进一步补充完善“密度分布说”并为特质论与状态论研究提供新的理论视角。未来研究仍需结合多种智慧测量手段,加强纵向追踪研究,探索智慧本质观与密度分布说的关系,开展相应的跨文化研究。     

分类研究中的原型与样例观

该文具体分析了现代认知心理学对分类问题的主要看法,指出了当前分类研究范式存在的问题及今后进一步研究的主要方向。