Self-compassion at work: A self-regulation perspective on its beneficial effects for work performance and wellbeing

The work environment is fraught with complex demands, hardships, and challenges, highlighting the need to approach work with self-compassion each day. We propose that work self-compassion—a mindset of kindness, gentleness, and care toward oneself as an employee—may generate the resources and motivation needed for self-regulation at work. Drawing from integrated self-control theory (ISCT) and theory on self-compassion, we suggest that on days when employees hold a work self-compassionate mindset, they will exhibit greater work performance and wellbeing via enhanced resource capacity and motivation. In an experimental experience sampling study, we found that a work self-compassionate mindset reduced depletion and increased work self-esteem and thereby heightened daily work engagement and daily resilience. Consequently, employees made greater goal progress at work and experienced higher meaning in life. In a supplemental study, we show that state self-compassion at work is associated with unique variance in work outcomes beyond compassion received from coworkers. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for self-compassion in organizational contexts.     

Meaning and beauty

What place do experiences of beauty have in a meaningful life? A marginal one, at best, it would seem, if one looks at the current literature in analytic philosophy. Treatments of beauty within so-called “analytic existentialism” tend to suffer from four limitations: beauty is neglected, reduced to artistic production, saddled to theology, or taken as a mere application of a broader theoretical framework. These discussions fail to engage with the rich tradition of philosophical aesthetics. In this essay, I begin by responding to the contention that experiences of beauty cannot lend life meaning because they are passive. Drawing on work in philosophical aesthetics, I then argue that encounters with the beautiful count as genuinely meaning-conferring because they have features commonly taken as marks of meaningfulness.     

死亡凸显对消费者体验性消费选择偏好的影响及其作用机制

消费者的决策心理与购买行为会受到周边环境暴露的死亡信息的影响发生变化。本文从意义维持模型出发,通过4个实验探讨了死亡凸显对消费者体验性消费选择偏好的影响及其作用机制。结果发现,死亡凸显情境下消费者更倾向选择体验性消费。进一步分析发现,死亡凸显通过降低消费者的生命意义感提高了其对体验性消费的选择偏好。同时,社会支持对此间接效应起到了缓冲作用。研究结果初步揭示,补偿生命意义感的缺失是死亡凸显增加体验性消费选择的潜在机制,这也为新冠疫情背景下的消费者决策行为干预提供了一定参考。     

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way Through the Sermon

Abstract :  The purpose of this article is to give thought to the listener as co-creator of meaning with the preacher during the sermon event. The underlying conviction of the author is that preachers and listeners have always been co-creators but have not been recognized as such. The author sketches the history of the task of preaching as a movement from getting something said to getting something heard , and suggests that, building on this, preaching can now be viewed as getting something created . Finally, the qualities of humility, imagination , and a "catalytic consciousness" are seen as essential for any preacher willing to take up this task.     

汉语歧义词加工中抑制机制的作用过程

两个实验探讨对汉语同形歧义词和同音歧义词不适当意义（与句子语境不一致）抑制的时间进程。被试为128名大学生,实验采用意义适合性判断任务,即要求被试又快又准地判断探测词的意义与刚呈现的句子意义是否相符合,探测词分别在ISI（interstimulus interval）为200和800ms时呈现。实验结果表明：（1）ISI为200ms时对同形歧义词的不适当次要意义的抑制尚未完成;但是对同音歧义词的不适当次要意义的抑制基本完成。（2）ISI为800ms时对同形歧义词的不适当次要意义的抑制基本完成;（3）即使延长加工时间,同形歧义词和同音歧义词的不适当主要意义还是难以被完全抑制。     

DANCING WITH THE SACRED: EXCERPTS

Abstract. In excerpts from my Dancing with the Sacred (2002), I use ideas from modern science, our world's religions, and my own experience to highlight three themes of the book. First, working within the framework of a scientific worldview, I develop a concept of the sacred (or God) as the creative activity of nature, human history, and individual life. Second, I offer a relational understanding of human nature that I call our social‐ecological selves and suggest some general considerations about what it means to live meaningfully and morally in an evolutionary world. Third, I explore how we might be at home in a universe that is constantly changing and in which suffering and death are interwoven with life and new creation.     

The existential cost of economic insecurity: Threatened financial security undercuts meaning

Financial security (i.e., a person’s sense that they can afford the things they need now and in the foreseeable future) contributes to psychological health and well-being. In the present research, we explored the implications of financial security for perceptions of meaning in life. In Study 1, we found that perceptions of financial insecurity predicted perceptions of meaning in life above and beyond income. Further, income only predicted perceptions of meaning to the extent that it was associated with reduced financial insecurity. In Studies 2 and 3, we found that financial security threats undermined perceptions of meaning in life. Taken together, these studies suggest that maintaining financial security is important for a sense of meaning in life.     

Wittgenstein’s Picture Theory and the Distinction between Representing and Depicting

In this paper, I draw attention to the often-overlooked Tractarian distinction between representing (darstellen) and depicting (abbilden), provide a clear account of it and examine how it affects our understanding of the notions of ‘being a picture’, meaningfulness, truth, and falsity in the Tractatus. I also look at the recent debate in the literature on the notion of truth and show that Glock’s claim that the official theory of the Tractatus is to be accounted in terms of obtainment only and deflationary accounts such as Hacker’s derive from a failure to notice the distinction between representing and depicting (in the case of Glock) or a misconception of depicting (in the case of Hacker). Finally, I argue against the idea that either representing or depicting should be dispensed with. Both are necessary for Wittgenstein to account for every case of a proposition being a picture of reality.     

Sense of meaning and academic performance: A brief report

This study examined sense of meaning and academic performance among a sample of South African university students (n = 210, mean age = 19.49, SD = 1.99, female = 54.29%). Data on meaning were collected using the Purpose in Life Test. End of semester marks served as the academic attainment measure. Simple regression analysis with post-hoc independent-samples t-tests revealed that meaning predicts academic performance. No significant differences between genders emerged from the data. Sense of meaning is an important factor in supporting students to enhance their academic performance.     

Between Darwin and Hegel: On Dewey's Concept of Experience

"Experience" is so central to Dewey's philosophy that one must,first of all,understand what he means by the term.Diverging from the traditional conception of experience,Dewey's understanding involves two dimensions,namely,naturalism and historicism;in this,it can be seen as the unification of Darwinism and Hegelianism.Without attending to its dimension of naturalism,one would ignore experience's basic character,namely that of receptivity,while without attending to the aspect of historicism,one would ignore experience's dimension of meaning,its character of spontaneity.Dewey's notion of experience is unique.Its true value can be seen more clearly in comparison with the conceptions of experience advanced by Quine and McDowell.