Jung and Pauli

In his early theories of the structure of the psyche, psychic energy and psychodynamics, Jung was influenced by William James's understanding of the complementary insights of depth psychology and the discoveries of subatomic physics, and his concept of field in physics and the study of the subconscious. In his relationship with Freud, Jung initially struggled with a sexually-based drive theory. But he gradually came to conceive libido as a quantitative concept, a psychic analogue of physical energy. In their own languages, both C. G. Jung and Nobel physicist Wolfgang Pauli explored the evolution of scientific thought from the naive insights about process in alchemy through Newtonian causality, space-time theories of relativity to quantum mechanics. Jung had access to thirteen hundred of Pauli's dreams. The first four hundred were basis for his research into alchemical symbolism in a modern psyche. In a later collaboration, Pauli supported Jung's synchronicity principle as scientific, and Jung fostered Pauli's understanding of the archetypal and collective factors in the psyche. They each explored the interconnections between the energies of psyche and matter, and the possibilities of acausal order and synchronicity. Pauli's ground-breaking discoveries gave scientific demonstration of alchemical intuitions. Through him, alchemical and archetypal insights entered the discourse of physics. Through Jung, the apprehensions of microphysics entered our psychological language and thought.     

Is the Self other to the self? Why does the numinosum feel like another? The relevance of Matte Blanco to our understanding of the unconscious

Using Ignacio Matte Blanco’s approach to the unconscious, this paper attempts to explain why the experience of the Self or the unconscious, for example in dreams, is difficult for the ego to understand. Matte Blanco believes that the logic of the unconscious is radically different from the logic of consciousness. The unconscious uses processes that Matte Blanco refers to as symmetry and generalization. Symmetry means that the converse of any relationship is identical to it, so that asymmetrical relationships are treated as if they were symmetrical. Generalization means that the unconscious treats any object as belonging to a larger class of objects that is a subset of an even larger class which is in turn a subset of a wider class ad infinitum. Hence Matte Blanco’s idea of the unconscious as infinite sets. These unconscious mechanisms, combined with the possibility that the unconscious has more dimensions than consciousness, contribute to the difficulty of understanding dreams, and help to explain why the Self is experienced as other to the ego.     

On the distribution of the maximum likelihood estimator of Cronbach's alpha

The asymptotic normal distribution of the maximum likelihood estimator of Cronbach's alpha (under normality) is derived for the case when no assumptions are made about the covariances among items. The asymptotic distribution is also considered for the special case of compound symmetry and compared to the exact distribution.The authors would like to thank Willem J. Heiser, an associate editor and the reviewers for valuable and helpful comments to improve the quality of this work.     

The effects of sex,self gender type,and partner's gender type on interpersonal adjustment during a first encounter: androgynous and stereotypically sex‐typed couples

The present study compared the effects of sex, self gender type, and partner's gender type on interpersonal adjustment during a 5‐min first encounter of androgynous and stereotypically sex‐typed couples. The 52 subjects were assigned to one of four mixed‐sex couple types: sex‐typed male and female (MF); sex‐typed male and androgynous female (MA); androgynous male and sex‐typed female (AF); and androgynous male and female (AA). Questionnaires (the State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory, and Iceberg Profile) and subjects' behaviors during the interaction were assessed. These data were analyzed by sex, self gender type and partner's gender type using a 2 × 2 ×2 analysis of variance. Our hypothesis that androgynous individuals may have better interpersonal relationships was supported by some of our findings. Androgynous individuals may have better interpersonal adjustment.     

Conditional discrimination in mentally retarded adults: the effect of training the component simple discriminations.

Two subjects with retardation who exhibited generalized identity matching, but who had extensive histories of failure to acquire arbitrary matching, were exposed to a series of conditions designed to train separately the components of a two-choice conditional discrimination. First, the successive discrimination between the sample stimuli was established by programming a different schedule of reinforcement in the presence of each sample stimulus. Schedule performance was acquired and maintained by both subjects, but neither acquired arbitrary matching. To train the simultaneous discrimination between the comparison stimuli, 1 subject was then exposed to a series of simple discrimination reversals and subsequently failed to acquire arbitrary matching. Both subjects acquired arbitrary matching under a procedure that maintained both the sample and the comparison discrimination by first presenting entire sessions composed of one sample-comparison relation and then gradually reducing the number of consecutive trials with the same sample until sample presentation was randomized (schedule performance was maintained). Removal of the schedule requirement had no effect on arbitrary matching accuracy. Both subjects subsequently demonstrated control by relations symmetric to the trained relations.     

Transfer of relational stimulus control in conditional discriminations.

Four adults were trained, using instructions and a matching-to-sample procedure, to select Stimulus B1 in the presence of Stimulus A1, B2 in the presence of A2, and B3 in the presence of A3 (the AB relations). Analogous PQ relations were trained. Afterwards, one stimulus in Set A and another stimulus in Set B appeared together as a sample, and novel Stimuli X1 and X2 were the comparisons. Responses to X1 were reinforced if the two stimuli in the sample had been related in the previous training (e.g., A1 and B1), and responses to X2 were reinforced if the two samples had not been related (e.g., A1 and B2). These were the ABX relations. In a test in which a stimulus of Set P and another of Set Q were the samples and X1 and X2 were the comparisons, 2 subjects selected X1 when the samples were P1 and Q1, P2 and Q2, and P3 and Q3, and selected X2 in the presence of the other six sample combinations (P1Q2, P1Q3, P2Q1, P2Q3, P3Q1, and P3Q2). Another subject showed the same responding after additional training. In the second experiment, 3 adults and an 11-year-old child were trained on AB, PQ, and ABX relations, and they showed the symmetrical relations BA and QP upon testing. Then all 4 of these subjects responded accurately to the PQX test. Results of Experiments 1 and 2 showed novel, consistent comparison selection based on the previously established relation between the two stimuli in the sample. In a third experiment, 3 of the subjects who had shown PQX relations were trained on EFX relations, with pairs of E and F stimuli as samples and X stimuli as comparisons. When the EF relations were tested, all 3 subjects consistently selected F1 in the presence of E1, F2 in the presence of E2, and F3 in the presence of E3 from the first trial. The results of Experiment 3 showed novel stimulus relations after training with a more complex conditional discrimination format.     

THE RELIGIOUS DIMENSIONS OF THE BIOLOGICAL NARRATIVE

Abstract. A cell/molecular biologist challenges the thesis that science and religion are two ways of experiencing and interpreting the world and explores instead the possible ways that the modern biological worldview might serve as a resource for religious perspectives. Three concepts—meaning, valuation, and purpose—are argued to be central to the entire biological enterprise, and the continuation of this enterprise is regarded as a sacred religious trust.     

Prosocial rule breaking,ingroups and social norms: Parental decision-making about COVID-19 rule breaking in the UK

The British public generally adhered to COVID-19-related restrictions, but as the pandemic drew on, it became challenging for some populations. Parents with young children were identified as a vulnerable group. We collected rich, mixed-methods survey data from 99 UK-based parents (91 mothers) of children under 12, who described their lockdown transgressions. Household mixing was the most prevalent broken rule. Template analysis found that rule breaking was driven by ‘ingroup-level’ prosocial motivations to protect the mental and social health of family and loved ones, and that parents were ‘engaged’ decision-makers who underwent careful deliberation when deciding to break rules, making trade-offs, bending rules, mitigating risks, reaching consensus, and reacting to perceived rule injustices. Cumulative link models found that the perceived reasonableness of rule violations was predicted by social norms. Rules were broken by parents not for antisocial reasons, but for ‘ingroup-level’ prosocial reasons, linked to supporting loved ones.