The other side of rumination: reflective pondering as a strategy for regulating emotions in social situations

Recent studies have questioned the idea of rumination as a unitary dysfunctional process and identified an adaptive subcomponent: reflective pondering. We tested whether reflective pondering could represent an adaptive strategy of regulating emotions, and contrasted it with reappraisal and acceptance, strategies linked to major psychotherapeutic approaches. Participants (103 students) received training in one of these and were exposed to a negative mood induction consisting of social scenarios, both in the presence and in the absence of the specific emotion regulation instruction. Acceptance was more useful than reflective pondering in impacting negative emotions and anxiety. Reappraisal was more efficient than pondering for anxiety. However, moderation analysis showed that social anxiety (SA) levels influenced the comparative efficiency of reappraisal and acceptance as contrasted to reflective pondering for negative emotions and anxiety. Participants low in SA made equal use of all strategies, while for those high in SA reappraisal and acceptance were more efficient than pondering. Our results provide preliminary evidence that reflective pondering can, in some circumstances, be an adaptive regulation strategy.     

Does Current Social Philosophy Develop Progressively?

This article begins with clarification of the notion of progress. The author believes that it is possible to consider progress objectively, if by progress we understand a positive change in the effectiveness of something. He mentions two types of progress: progress of improvement and progress of augmentation. He then distinguishes evaluative from reflective philosophy. Evaluative philosophy gives answers to the second and third of Kant's famous three questions; reflective philosophy answers the first, dealing with the limits of human knowledge. Progress in evaluative philosophy takes the form of augmentation. But in reflective philosophy it could take the form of improvement. The author believes, however, that it is not an easy task to improve contemporary social philosophy. Three main obstacles are: the “anthropological turn” in philosophy, the challenge of postmodernism, and the turning of social philosophy into a kind of useful knowledge.     

The Wisdom Jar

Abstract

Supervisors can use a wide range of skills and exercises when terminating counseling supervision with supervisees at the end of a practicum class. This article presents an experiential creative activity, the Wisdom Jar, as a metaphor for discussing specific lessons with supervisees. The use of creativity and the integration of symbols and metaphors provided supervisees with images to reflect upon after completing a counseling practicum clinical experience.     

The Relationship Between Personality Traits and Reflective Judgment Among Female Students

Forty-three female undergraduate and graduate students preparing for careers as educators provided Omnibus Personality Inventory and Reflective Judgment Interview data. The sample included 14 seniors, 15 master's candidates, and 14 doctoral candidates. Each educational level group included participants with a range of intellectual disposition scores as measured by the Omnibus Personality Inventory. Scores on six scales of the Omnibus Personality Inventory correlated significantly with Reflective Judgment Interview scores (p < .05): thinking introversion, response bias, altruism, autonomy, complexity, and theoretical orientation. These findings support the conclusion that postformal reasoning, as described in P. M. King and K. S. Kitchener's (1994) reflective judgment model of cognitive development, is related to measurable personality traits.     

What Kind of Normativity is the Normativity of Grammar?

The overall goal of this article is to show that aesthetics plays a major role in a debate at the very center of philosophy. Drawing on the work of David Bell, the article spells out how Kant and Wittgenstein use reflective judgment, epitomized by a judgment of beauty, as a key in their respective solutions to the rule‐following problem they share. The more specific goal is to offer a Kantian account of semantic normativity as understood by Wittgenstein. The article argues that Wittgenstein's reason for describing language as a collection of language games is to allow for a perspective that shows those games as internally purposive without any extralinguistic purpose. This perspective also allows for that union of the general rule and its particular application in practice that the original paradox of rule‐following is wanting.     

Positive education of stoic warriors as reflective practitioners in the profession of arms

This paper traces connections between Stoicism and Positive Psychology for helping to inform and guide the education of warriors in the Profession of Arms. Peterson and Seligman advocate six core virtues and associated character strengths, which the authors illustrate from the practice of leadership education at the Squadron Officer School and The Air University. A synopsis of Costa and Kallick’s Habits of Mind is introduced to illustrate how awareness of the ways virtue and character strengths can guide the reflective warrior with wisdom and determined action. The authors also highlight insights from the work of Chris Argyris and Donald Schön on double-loop learning, reflective-thinking-in-action, and couple those insights with Dietrich Dörners’ emphasis on the advantages of simulations to offer experimentation by practitioners to better prepare them ‘think of, and then do, the right things at the right times and in the right way.’ Finally, a virtual world learning simulation developed by the authors to support student experimentation with double-loop learning on character strengths and habits of mind is described to illustrate the art-of-the-possible for the positive education of stoic warriors.     

Reflections of the student teacher

This paper explores the concept of reflection and its changing role in the journey of the student teacher. It presents part of the findings of a year-long investigation into the reflective practice of student teachers during their training year. Specifically, it investigates the reflections of the student teachers’ lessons during the PGCE (Post/Professional Graduate Certificate of Education) year at a higher education institution (HEI) in England. The strengths and weaknesses of the student teachers’ lessons are analysed and how these reflections change as they reach Newly Qualified Teachers (NQT) status.     

Reflective boot camp: adapting LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® in higher education

This qualitative study investigates the experiences of using an adaptation of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® as a reflective practice pedagogy with occupational therapy graduate-level students and faculty. LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is an innovative facilitated methodology that uses brick-building and metaphoric storytelling as a form of communication and problem-solving. Participants engaged in a four-step kinesthetic experience as a means to achieve a serious objective. Results of the study indicated affirmative participant outcomes that included: accelerated group cohesion; an appreciation for inclusive learning where student voice was amplified; a language for emotional content and deeper meaning-making; and an experiential process using materials that appealed to various learning styles. A small number of participants experienced minor tension with the process provoking unanticipated reflective learning. The results of this study indicate that using the kinesthetic brick modeling methodology for reflective practice is a promising higher education pedagogical option.     

Challenges affecting the development of metalearning capacity in Taiwanese secondary school students

This paper examines the challenges faced in the Taiwanese secondary school context during the development of the students’ metalearning capacity. During two rounds of action research over the 2011–2012 and 2012–2013 school years, 12 and 15 10th grade students respectively took full part in a metalearning programme as an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) elective course. The students’ reflective journals and interview responses were qualitatively examined through content analysis. The results showed that despite the effects of the programme on the students’ development of metalearning capacity, challenges remained, including (1) the cultural norms in education; (2) scaffolding difficulties; (3) assessment of reflection; and (4) linguistic challenges.     

The Meta-Justification of Reflective Equilibrium

The paper addresses the possibility of providing a meta-justification of what appears to be crucial epistemic desiderata involved in the method of reflective equilibrium. I argue that although the method of reflective equilibrium appears to be widely in use in moral theorising, the prospects of providing a meta-justification of crucial epistemic desiderata are rather bleak. Nor is the requirement that a meta-justification be provided obviously misguided. In addition, I briefly note some of the implications of these results for our use of the method of reflective equilibrium and for the best interpretation of the method.