What predicts Australian university students' intentions to volunteer their time for community service?

University students represent one target population with great potential to serve as volunteers. The primary focus on describing the characteristics of students who choose to volunteer, however, has resulted in limited understanding of the psychosocial factors impacting on students' decisions to volunteer. To bridge this gap, we used an extension of a well‐known theoretical framework, the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), to predict students' intentions to volunteer for community service. Using content and thematic analysis, we explored also students' motivations and constraints for volunteering. Students (N = 235; M age = 22.09 years) self‐reported their attitude, normative influences, control perceptions, moral obligation, past behaviour, demographic characteristics, and intentions for volunteering via questionnaire. Regression analyses showed that the extended TPB explained 67% of the variance in students' volunteering intentions. In qualitative analyses, themes primarily represented the factors contributing to low efficacy for volunteering (e.g., time constraints). Control perceptions and perceived moral obligations related to volunteering represent important future targets to encourage student volunteering for organisations providing critical services for those most in need.     

The Effect of New Religious Movement Affiliation and Disaffiliation on Reflexivity and Sense of Self

Challenging the contemporary belief that emotional damage invariably results from new religious movement (NRM) participation, this study shows that membership in and exit from a world‐rejecting NRM may initiate the development of increased reflexivity and a personal sense of self for some former members. Out of a sample of 23 former members, 12 participants were identified who report prior histories of “other‐directedness” and for whom exit from an NRM instigated a shift toward increased independence and individuality. Employing symbolic interactionist theories of self, this article conceptualizes the process through which these participants may be understood to have gained in reflexivity and personal autonomy. Four case studies demonstrate how the identity loss and uncertainty suffered following exit can “shock” former members into self‐awareness and reflexivity, instigating a period of active learning about personal emotions, thoughts, and beliefs that leads to the active construction of a stronger personal self.     

In Defense of Anti‐Archimedean Moral Realism: A Response to Recent Critics

Ronald Dworkin famously argued that many putatively nonmoral metaethical theories can only be understood as being internal to the moral domain. If correct, this position, referred to as anti‐archimedeanism, has profound implications for the methodology of metaethics. This is particularly true for skeptical metaethical theories. This article defends a version of anti‐archimedeanism that is true to the spirit rather than the letter of Dworkin's original thesis from several recent objections. First, it addresses Kenneth Ehrenberg's recent attempt to demonstrate how certain metaethical theories can be understood in a morally neutral manner. It then discusses Charles Pigden's claim that Dworkin begs the question against error theorists and nihilists by assuming a conceptual space that error theorists and nihilists would reject. It concludes that the anti‐archimedean methodology originally proposed by Dworkin is defensible, and can be used to support a robust form of moral realism.     

On The Infinitely Hard Problem Of Consciousness

I show that the recursive structure of Leibniz's Law requires agents to perform infinitely many operations to psychologically identify the referents of phenomenal and physical concepts, even though the referents of ordinary concepts (e.g. Hesperus and Phosphorus) can be identified in a finite number of steps. The resulting problem resembles the hard problem of consciousness in the fact that it appears (and indeed is) unsolvable by anyone for whom it arises, and in the fact that it invites dualist and eliminativist responses. Moreover, if this is the hard problem then we can predict that regardless of the strength of the argument for physicalism, and regardless of physicalism's truth, an ineliminable dissatisfaction is bound to accompany any physicalist theory of consciousness. Accordingly, I suggest that this is the hard problem of consciousness, and therefore that the hard problem arises from a recursively degenerate application of Leibniz's Law.     

Analysis of self-recording in self-management interventions for stereotypy

Most treatments for stereotypy involve arrangements of antecedent or consequent events that are imposed entirely by a therapist. By contrast, results of some studies suggest that self-recording, a common component of self-management interventions, might be an effective and efficient way to reduce stereotypy. Because the procedure typically has included instructions to refrain from stereotypy, self-recording of the absence of stereotypy, and differential reinforcement of accurate recording, it is unclear which element or combination of elements produces reductions in stereotypy. We conducted a component analysis of a self-management intervention and observed that decreases in stereotypy might be attributable to instructional control or to differential reinforcement, but that self-recording per se had little effect on stereotypy.     

家庭因素中父母情感温暖、文化性与责任心对大学生职业决策自我效能的中介与中介调节研究

目的：探讨大学生家庭因素中父母情感温暖教养方式、文化性家庭环境与责任心对职业决策自我效能的中介效应与中介调节效应。方法：采用责任心量表、职业决策自我效能量表、父母教养方式评价量表和家庭环境量表,对大学四个年级1207名学生进行测量,运用SPSS12.0、AMOS17.0对数据进行统计分析。结果：（1）父母情感温暖通过责任心对大学生职业决策自我效能具有稳定而持久的间接作用。（2）文化性作为父母情感温暖的调节变量,其与父母情感温暖的交互作用对责任心具有明显的预测作用,并通过责任心中介变量,对大学生职业决策自我效能产生稳定而持久的间接作用。     

想象重要他人对自我评价转移的影响

研究目的：本研究的目的是在中国文化背景下,考察想象不同的重要他人对于个体自我评价转移的影响,并探讨自尊在其中的调节作用。考虑到大学生年龄相当,拥有相似的角色经验,故本研究选用了大二女生作为被试。研究选择了三类重要他人：父母、同性朋友、异性朋友（包括男朋友）,由于每一类重要他人所对应的关系自我各不相同,所以研究编制了针对不同重要他人的自我评价特质词表,作为因变量测量的工具。 过程与方法：本研究设计了两个实验,实验中将用到录音机。实验一为单因素实验设计,在三个实验室同时展开,各个实验室的想象重要他人分别为父母、同性朋友、异性朋友。主试告知参与者,本实验将进行一项大学女生的想象力测试,首先聆听一段描写风景的散文录音,进行想象练习。然后请她们在头脑中想象一位指定的重要他人,比如想象重要他人的形象、语言、行为等特征,尽可能详细生动。想象结束,首先请被试回忆并填写刚才想象的主要内容。然后告诉被试,另一个课题组正在搜集有关“当代大学生自我形象”的资料,请她们帮忙填写《自我评价特质词表》,对自己的一些特质进行评价。最后,主试向参与者致谢并进行了解释。实验二的想象重要他人为同性朋友和男朋友,实验过程与实验一基本一致,在自我评价测量中采用了专门针对“同性朋友”和“男朋友”的量表,并在想象完成后填写自尊量表。 结果与结论：本研究所有统计检验的显著性水平在a<0.05的水平上进行。研究探讨了中国文化背景下大学女生的关系自我评价特质,发现其与西方文化背景下的关系自我评价特质显著不同。证明了想象重要他人影响个体自我评价的维度,并会产生自我评价转移的现象,没有发现自尊变量的调节作用。     

The Ecological Self: Metaphor and Developmental Experience?

The term ecological self, used within the fields of deep ecology and ecopsychology, is considered here from the viewpoint of developmental research and theory, within the context of contemporary relational psychoanalysis. Both developmental theory and more specifically our concept of health are explored with the inclusion of relatedness to the nonhuman world and an emphasis on embodiment and interactive experience. Illustrations and examples are drawn from research, clinical work with adults and the literature of natural history.     

Oneness Experience: Looking Through Multiple Lenses

This article defines healthy oneness experience and establishes the progressive, life enhancing components of the experience. The author clarifies the paradox that a cohesive, well-integrated self allows unitive, non-self-definitional experiences. The author attempts to work the cultural/clinical border by exploring oneness phenomena as they occur in art, religion, literature and the clinical consulting room. The author uses psychoanalytic tools to understand non-clinical experiences of oneness. Through compelling accounts of such experiences as described by artists, writers and meditators, psychoanalytic theorizing about oneness is illumined further.