‘Thank God I’m not a Jungian’

This article focuses less on the content of Jung's ideas than on ways in which they act as both invitation and challenge to engage with psyche. It explores the mythic framework of Jung's approach and how this can enable individuals to live in psychological and mundane worlds in which there can be no final certainties. It elaborates three particular aspects of Jung's thinking that I have found personally valuable: his generosity of vision, his insistence that individuals engage for and with themselves rather than relying on someone else's ideas, and his ponderings on the relationship between the individual and the collective. All three aspects seem to be important elements of the work of individuation.     

Effects of achievement contexts on the meaning structure of emotion words

Little is known about the impact of context on the meaning of emotion words. In the present study, we used a semantic profiling instrument (GRID) to investigate features representing five emotion components (appraisal, bodily reaction, expression, action tendencies, and feeling) of 11 emotion words in situational contexts involving success or failure. We compared these to the data from an earlier study in which participants evaluated the typicality of features out of context. Profile analyses identified features for which typicality changed as a function of context for all emotion words, except contentment, with appraisal features being most frequently affected. Those context effects occurred for both hypothesised basic and non-basic emotion words. Moreover, both data sets revealed a four-dimensional structure. The four dimensions were largely similar (valence, power, arousal, and novelty). The results suggest that context may not change the underlying dimensionality but affects facets of the meaning of emotion words.     

年轻男同性恋者自我概念清晰性与生命意义感的关系及作用机制

通过网络抽样法对405名年轻男同性恋者进行问卷调查,考察年轻男同性恋者自我概念清晰性与生命意义感的关系,并探讨内化同性恋嫌恶和应对自我效能感在其间的作用机制。结果表明：（1）年轻男同性恋者自我概念清晰性与生命意义感呈显著正相关。（2）内化同性恋嫌恶、应对自我效能感在自我概念清晰性与生命意义感间起链式中介作用。（3）应对自我效能感在自我概念清晰性与生命意义感间起中介作用。     

Unconscious structural knowledge of form-meaning connections

We investigated the implicit learning of a linguistically relevant variable (animacy) in a natural language context (namely, the relation of forms of determiners to semantics). Trial by trial subjective measures indicated that exposure to a form–animacy regularity led to unconscious knowledge of that regularity. Under the same conditions, people did not learn about another form–meaning regularity when a linguistically arbitrary variable was used instead of animacy (size relative to a dog). Implicit learning is constrained to acquire unconscious knowledge about features with high prior probabilities of being relevant in that domain.     

Role of amygdala-prefrontal cortex circuitry in regulating the expression of contextual fear memory

The basolateral amygdala (BLA) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) are inter-connected regions involved in fear memory expression. The reciprocal nature of projections between these areas differs along the rostrocaudal extent of BLA. This study investigated the role of functional interactions between BLA and the prelimbic (PL) subregion of mPFC in mediating contextual fear memory. Freezing served as the measure of conditioned fear. Experiments 1–3 examined the effects of left, right or bilateral infusion of bupivacaine into anterior BLA (aBLA), posterior BLA (pBLA) or PL on fear memory expression. Reversible inactivation of left, right or bilateral aBLA impaired fear memory expression. Bilateral inactivation of pBLA or PL also disrupted the expression of fear memory, although left or right inactivation alone had no significant effects in either region. Experiment 4 examined the effects of functionally disconnecting pBLA and PL on contextual fear memory by infusing bupivacaine unilaterally into pBLA and PL in the ipsilateral or contralateral hemisphere. Fear memory expression was impaired by asymmetric inactivation of pBLA and PL; however, a similar effect was also observed with symmetric inactivation of these regions. Bupivacaine infusion did not affect behavior in the open field, likely ruling out non-specific effects of inactivation on innate fear and locomotor activity. These results demonstrate different roles for rostral and caudal BLA in mediating the expression of contextual fear memory. They also raise the possibility that pBLA–PL circuitry is involved in subserving fear memory expression via complex processing mechanisms, although further research is needed to confirm this preliminary finding.     

Hiding in plain sight: Older U.S. purpose exemplars

ABSTRACT

Despite significant research on purpose in adolescence and early adulthood, little is known about purpose in older adults. This paper defines purpose as ongoing commitment to and sustained action toward goals that are meaningful to the self and aim to contribute beyond the self. This study of purpose in later life draws on interviews of 102 respondents drawn from a U.S. nationally representative sample of 1198 men and women aged 50–92. Eighteen interviewees are identified as exemplars of purpose beyond the self and are matched with a comparison group of non-purposeful peers. Interview coding revealed that, in contrast to the non-purposeful comparison group, the purpose exemplars describe their lives as including several interconnected sources of well-being: purpose beyond the self, positive relationships, positive life engagement, a sense of competence, and freedom balanced with the desire to contribute. Implications for practitioners and the public are discussed.     

The value of life purpose: Purpose as a mediator of faith and well-being

This study investigated the relationship between faith, life purpose, and well-being, and the potential mediational effects of life purpose between faith and well-being. One hundred and three male and female college students completed a life purpose measure designed for the current study, the General Life Purpose Scale, as well as the Perceived Wellness Scale (Adams, T.B. (1995). The conceptualization and measurement of wellness (Doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1995). Dissertation Abstracts International, 56(6–B), 3111) and the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire (Plante, T.G., & Boccaccini, M.T. (1997). The Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire. Pastoral Psychology, 45, 375–387). Results indicated that life purpose significantly mediated the relationship between faith and well-being. The importance of these findings for clinicians and educators is discussed.     

“If only I had” versus “If only I had not”: Mental deletions,mental additions,and perceptions of meaning in life events

ABSTRACT

The present research investigated the relationship between meaning perceptions and the structure of counterfactual thoughts. In Study 1, participants reflected on how turning points in their lives could have turned out otherwise. Those who were instructed to engage in subtractive (e.g. If only I had not done X…”) counterfactual thinking (SCT) about those turning points subsequently reported higher meaning perceptions than did those who engaged in additive (e.g. ‘If only I had done X…’) counterfactual thinking (ACT). In Study 2, participants who reflected upon life events from the perspective of understanding the past (versus preparing for the future) tended to engage in more SCT than ACT. Finally, in Study 3, participants engaged in more SCT than ACT about life events whose meaning was perceived as certain (as opposed to uncertain) – presumably to maintain their pre-existing sense of meaning. Implications for the study of counterfactual thinking and meaning are discussed.     

Beyond-personal love – Experiencing love beyond the person

ABSTRACT

Love is seen as interpersonal phenomenon in western society. The love of things that are non-interpersonal or ‘beyond-personal’ is less understood. A sample of 208 adults responded to a questionnaire asking what they loved, and how much they loved 61 common objects, activities, experiences and ideas. An exploratory factor analysis yielded five distinct categories of beyond-personal love including spiritual ideology, physical activity, material objects, hedonic experiences and social experiences. Loving physical activities predicted life satisfaction, happiness, and presence of meaning. Loving social experiences predicted happiness and presence of meaning. Loving hedonic experiences, spiritual ideas or material objects did not predict any of the outcome variables when all factors were considered, but material love was correlated with search for meaning. Results show that beyond-personal love can be considered adaptive, yet the target of beyond-personal love can predict whether one feels life satisfaction, feels subjectively happy or has meaning in one’s life.     

Structural properties of personal meaning systems: A new approach to measuring meaning of life

This article introduces a new qualitative–quantitative approach to assess meaning of life. The participants described their sources of meaning and how they were interconnected. Four quantitative measures for (1) the accessibility of meaning-related knowledge, the degree of (2) differentiation and (3) elaboration of personal meaning systems, and (4) their coherence were calculated. The sample consisted of 59 theology and science students. The study tested (a) whether the structural properties of personal meaning systems predicted health and well-being, and (b) reflected different degrees of expertise in constructing meaning. Differentiation, elaboration, and coherence measures correlated with health and well-being and predicted life satisfaction. Theology students presented more differentiated, elaborated, and coherent personal meaning systems than science students. Both results indicate that assessing structural properties of personal meaning systems can be a promising new approach to measure meaning of life.