A psycho-social system approach to well-being: Empirically deriving the Five Domains of Positive Functioning

A new psycho-social system approach to well-being is presented, in which psychological and social functioning is understood through an empirically derived framework of five domains. A quantitative co-term analysis was performed on 3466 terms within 18,401 PsycINFO^® journal documents on topics related to positive psychology (PP) across disciplines such as psychology, education, management, business and psychiatry. The analysis revealed that research on PP topics can be classified into five broad domains: attention and awareness, comprehension and coping, emotions, goals and habits, and virtues and relationships. These domains provide a new systematic framework, the Five Domains of Positive Functioning, for understanding positive psycho-social functioning and exploring the underlying ways in which people function to achieve well-being outcomes. When used within the psycho-social system approach, the framework can be used in future research to clarify mechanisms of change, facilitate comparisons between different PP interventions and suggest ways to improve intervention effectiveness.     

Estimating the effect of word predictability on eye movements in Chinese reading using latent semantic analysis and transitional probability

Latent semantic analysis (LSA) and transitional probability (TP), two computational methods used to reflect lexical semantic representation from large text corpora, were employed to examine the effects of word predictability on Chinese reading. Participants' eye movements were monitored, and the influence of word complexity (number of strokes), word frequency, and word predictability on different eye movement measures (first-fixation duration, gaze duration, and total time) were examined. We found influences of TP on first-fixation duration and gaze duration and of LSA on total time. The results suggest that TP reflects an early stage of lexical processing while LSA reflects a later stage.     

Effects of the degree of meaning similarity on cross-language semantic priming in highly proficient bilinguals

This study aimed to determine if access to meaning can be directly achieved from the words in the two languages, examining the influence of the degree of semantic overlap between related words across languages in the pattern of priming effects. Nonassociative semantically related words (members of the same category) were used, avoiding explicitly associative relationships. Using a priming paradigm, highly proficient Catalan–Spanish bilinguals were visually presented with pairs of words that either were translations of each other, had a very close semantic relationship (in terms of shared features), a close semantic relationship, or no semantic relationship at all. Participants performed either a lexical decision task (Experiment 1) or a semantic decision task (Experiment 2). The main results of the study were the same in both language directions (Spanish–Catalan and Catalan–Spanish), showing that the degree of semantic overlap (in terms of shared features) between words in different languages can modulate priming effects, regardless of the language of the prime and the task used. These results demonstrate that there is cross-language activation of shared semantic representations and, thus, that highly proficient bilinguals can have direct access to word meaning from the two languages.     

Solving distant analogies reduces belief-based responding in transitive inference

ABSTRACT

Previous research demonstrated that relational processing in transitive inference problems can be disrupted by belief-based content. Given the premises, The horse is larger than the goat, and The goat is larger than the elephant, accepting the valid conclusion, The horse is larger than the elephant suggests use of relational processing whereas accepting the invalid conclusion The elephant is larger than the horse indicates belief-based responding. This research examined whether solving analogies influenced participants’ reliance on belief-based or relational processing. Participants generated solutions to either distant analogies (e.g. nose:scent::antenna: ______) or near analogies (e.g. nose:scent::tongue:______) before evaluating the conclusions of transitive inference problems that were valid (V) or invalid (I) and believable (B), unbelievable (U) or neutral (N). Solving distant analogies eliminated belief-based responding (possibly reflecting improved inhibitory control) and facilitated relational responding on VU problems.     

Real Relationship: The “Something More” of Psychotherapy

Although it often operates silently, the personal relationship is a part of everything that transpires between therapist and client. Following the psychoanalyst Ralph Greenson's (1967) early lead, the term Real Relationship is used to capture this personal aspect of psychotherapy. It is divided into two elements, realism and genuineness; and both these elements are further divided into magnitude and valence aspects. Research on the real relationship is almost nonexistent, and to an important extent this is due to the lack of a reliable, valid, and convenient measure. The author is involved in a research project aimed at developing such measures from both the client and therapist perspective. Examples of items are provided.     

Three Dual Ontologies

In this paper we give an example of intertranslatability between an ontology of individuals (nominalism), an ontology of properties (realism), and an ontology of facts (factualism). We demonstrate that these three ontologies are dual to each other, meaning that each ontology can be translated into, and recaptured from, each of the others. The aim of the enterprise is to raise the possibility that, at least in some settings, there may be no need for considerations of ontological primacy. Whether the world is made up of things, or properties, or facts, may be no more than a matter of how we look at it.     

Putnam, Peano, and the Malin Génie: could we possibly bewrong about elementary number-theory?

This article examines Hilary Putnam's work in the philosophy of mathematics and - more specifically - his arguments against mathematical realism or objectivism. These include a wide range of considerations, from Gödel's incompleteness-theorem and the limits of axiomatic set-theory as formalised in the Löwenheim-Skolem proof to Wittgenstein's sceptical thoughts about rule-following (along with Saul Kripke's ‘scepticalsolution’), Michael Dummett's anti-realist philosophy of mathematics, and certain problems – as Putnam sees them – with the conceptual foundations of Peano arithmetic. He also adopts a thought-experimental approach – a variant of Descartes' dream scenario – in order to establish the in-principle possibility that we might be deceived by the apparent self-evidence of basic arithmetical truths or that it might be ‘rational’ to doubt them under some conceivable (even if imaginary) set of circumstances. Thus Putnam assumes that mathematical realism involves a self-contradictory ‘Platonist’ idea of our somehow having quasi-perceptual epistemic ‘contact’ with truths that in their very nature transcend the utmost reach of human cognitive grasp. On this account, quite simply, ‘nothing works’ in philosophy of mathematics since wecan either cling to that unworkable notion of objective (recognition-transcendent) truth or abandon mathematical realism in favour of a verificationist approach that restricts the range of admissible statements to those for which we happen to possess some means of proof or ascertainment. My essay puts the case, conversely, that these hyperbolic doubts are not forced upon us but result from a false understanding of mathematical realism – a curious mixture of idealist and empiricist themes – which effectively skews the debate toward a preordained sceptical conclusion. I then go on to mount a defence of mathematical realism with reference to recent work in this field and also to indicate some problems – as I seethem – with Putnam's thought-experimental approach as well ashis use of anti-realist arguments from Dummett, Kripke, Wittgenstein, and others.     

Curiosity as a Guide to the Virtuous Life

We are concerned here with the existential question: In order to live a virtuous life, whether it is better to commit one's life to good works among humankind or to the perfection of one's spiritual being by turning away from humanity and devoting oneself entirely to God. We examine this issue—a controversy in moral philosophy from the time of the ancient Greeks—in a short story by Leo Tolstoy.     

汉语语句重音的分类和分布

通过两个独立进行的重音标注实验对汉语语句重音的分类和分布进行了初步探讨。实验l是由60位普通被试参加的音节重音突显度的知觉实验。实验2是由本文三位作者参加的重音类别标注实验,在此实验中语句重音被划分为节奏重音和语义重音。实验2中对于语句重音的分类性标注结果得到了实验l中普通被试对音节重音突显度知觉结果的支持,这说明人们确实能够感知到两种不同类型的重音。实验结果还表明,节奏重音倾向于出现在较大韵律单元内的最末韵律词的末音节上,并且与适当的停延相伴生,语义重音的分布则与语句的韵律结构的关系不大。     

Some Comments on The Problem of Reductionism in Contemporary Physical Science

Is reductionism simply a methodology that has allowed science to progress to its current state (methodological reductionism), or does this methodology indicate something more, that the material universe is determined in full by its smallest components (ontological or causal reductionism)? Such questions lie at the heart of much of the contemporary religion–science dialogue. In this essay I suggest that the position articulated by philosopher–theologian Bernard Lonergan is particularly suitable for dealing with these questions. For Lonergan, the criterion of the real is simply its verified intelligibility and not its imaginability. Each of the various levels of reality, as studied in sciences such as physics, chemistry, biology, and sensitive and rational psychology, consists of an intelligible integration of what on the lower level would be simply random occurrences. The things studied by the various sciences (atoms, molecules, cellular organisms, animals, human persons, and so on) are intelligible unities, and no one level is somehow more real than any other. I argue that such a scheme, while seeming somewhat counterintuitive, is best able to deal with the multilayered reality of the contemporary physical and life sciences and provide an opening to the richness of the social sciences and the achievements of human culture.