Reaching for Virtue, Stumbling on Sin: Concepts of Good and Evil in a Postmodern Era

Although our culture struggles to understand the origins and nature of good and evil behavior, the disciplines of psychology and psychoanalysis contribute to the discourse primarily indirectly. By examining early Judaism and Christianity, the authors seek to clarify the foundation of contemporary understanding of good and evil in Western society. Looking through the multiple filters of religion, philosophy, psychoanalysis and psychology, groundwork is laid for definitions of good and evil, which can be understood subjectively and measured objectively. As we investigate morality, will, and choice in the varied ologies and across time, we note how much emotion and volition are secondary in modern thinking about evil. Moreover, the place of will as a positive force in development is largely ignored, except by prescient thinkers like Otto Rank. To grasp evil's nature we need to integrate past with present, contrast conscious to unconscious desires, and allow that being bad is not necessarily unnatural or pathological, but can be a transitional stage in the growth of one's conscience.     

Controlling the uncontrollable. Self-regulation and the dynamics of addiction

The multidisciplinary research on addictions generally promotes the assumption that addictive behavior is caused and maintained by the external psychoactive substance, which accordingly is considered to be ‘addictive in itself’. The present article challenges this widespread assumption by engaging in a detailed examination of the psychodynamic structures of addiction. Tracing addictive behavior back to problems in affect regulation, the article discusses the object, motivation, dynamics, and developmental origins of addiction. Linking the problem with the topic of transitional object relations, the article eventually argues that addictive behavior amounts to a desperate pursuit for self-control. The tragedy of the addict is that he or she only manages to replace one sense of uncontrollability with another.     

Risk it? Direct and collateral impacts of peers' verbal expressions about hazard likelihoods*

When people encounter potential hazards, their expectations and behaviours can be shaped by a variety of factors including other people's expressions of verbal likelihood (e.g., unlikely to harm). What is the impact of such expressions when a person also has numeric likelihood estimates from the same source(s)? Two studies used a new task involving an abstract virtual environment in which people learned about and reacted to novel hazards. Verbal expressions attributed to peers influenced participants’ behaviour toward hazards even when numeric estimates were also available. Namely, verbal expressions suggesting that the likelihood of harm from a hazard is low (vs. higher) yielded more risk taking with respect to said hazard. There were also inverse collateral effects, whereby participants’ behaviour and estimates regarding another hazard in the same context were affected in the opposite direction. These effects may be based on directionality and relativity cues inferred from verbal likelihood expressions.     

Motivated reasoning and verbal vs. numerical probability assessment: Evidence from an accounting context

A perplexing yet persistent empirical finding is that individuals assess probabilities in words and in numbers nearly equivalently, and theorists have called for future research to search for factors that cause differences. This study uses an accounting context in which individuals are commonly motivated to reach preferred (rather than accurate) conclusions. Within this context, I predict new differences between verbal and numerical probability assessments, as follows: first, individuals will justify an optimistic verbal assessment (e.g., somewhat possible) by retaining the option of re-defining it, in case of negative outcomes, as though the phrase really means something different, and, for that matter, means more things. This re-definition will maintain some connection to the original meaning of the phrase, but de-emphasized relative to the new meaning. Second, based on this behavior, I also predict individuals’ verbal probability assessments to be (1) more biased and yet (2) perceived as more justifiable than their numerical assessments. I find supportive evidence in an experiment designed to test the hypotheses. This study contributes to motivated reasoning and probability assessment theories (1) with new evidence of how individuals can word-smith in multiple attributes of a phrase to justify reaching a preferred conclusion, and (2) with new, reliable differences between verbal and numerical probability assessments. This study has important theoretical and practical implications relevant to organizational contexts in which people assess the likelihoods of uncertainties in words or numbers, and with motivations to reach a preferred conclusion.     

Predicting the directionality of probability words from their membership functions

Teigen and Brun have suggested that distinct from their numerical implications, most probability phrases are either positive or negative, in that they encourage one to think of reasons why the target event will or will not occur. We report two experiments testing our hypotheses that (a) the direction of a phrase can be predicted from properties of its membership function, and (b) this relation is invariant across contexts, and (c) —originally formulated by Teigen and Brun (1999)—that strong modifiers intensify phrase directionality. For each phrase, participants encoded membership functions by judging the degree to which it described the numerical probabilities 0.0, 0.1, …, 1.0, and also completed sentences including the target phrase. The types of reasons given in the sentence completion task were used to determine the phrase's directionality. The results support our hypotheses (a) and (b) regarding the relation between directionality and the membership functions, but we found only limited support for hypothesis (c) regarding the effects of modifiers on directionality. A secondary goal, to validate an efficient method of encoding membership functions, was also achieved. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Precursor behavior and functional analysis: A brief review

Researchers have developed precursor functional analyses to provide an alternative, and presumably safer, format for functional analysis of severe problem behavior. When researchers use functional analysis contingencies for precursor behaviors, it is possible to infer functional characteristics about severe problem behaviors based on patterns of less severe precursor behaviors, permitting practitioners to complete the assessment with less risk to clients, practitioners, or others. The current paper discusses recent advances in the development and validation of precursor identification, and offers suggestions and future directions for investigating and implementing precursor functional analyses. We propose a decision‐making model, in which practitioners integrate procedures to identify precursors into the functional‐analysis process, to expedite the analysis of severe problem behaviors.     

Taurek, Numbers and Probabilities

In his paper, “Should the Numbers Count?" John Taurek imagines that we are in a position such that we can either save a group of five people, or we can save one individual, David. We cannot save David and the five. This is because they each require a life-saving drug. However, David needs all of the drug if he is to survive, while the other five need only a fifth each. Typically, people have argued as if there was a choice to be made: either numbers matter, in which case we should save the greater number, or numbers don't matter, but rather there is moral value in giving each person an equal chance of survival, and therefore we should toss a coin. My claim is that we do not have to make a choice in this way. Rather, numbers do matter, but it doesn't follow that we should always save the greater number. And likewise, there is moral value in giving each person an equal chance of survival, but it doesn't follow that we should always toss a coin. In addition, I argue that a similar approach can be applied to situations in which we can save one person or another, but the chances of success are different.     

Grace and Imagination: From Fear to Freedom

Creative use of our imagination is essential if we are to live a vibrant life. Although our use of imagination is often blocked by various fears, D. W. Winnicott's insights into play, aggression, and the use of transitional objects open up paths towards greater freedom. The sacred texts, symbols, and liturgies of our religious traditions can then become the toys which engage us in profound and re-creating soul play. Through grace and the evocative examples of our teachers, we can find ways to use our imagination more freely to deepen our spiritual life and psychological wholeness.     

Discovering the Inner Life of a Child

Abstract

Using Winnicott's concept of transitional space, joint attention, theory of mind, and a case vignette, the author describes techniques in elucidating and elaborating a child's play space, hence, psychic life. Explicating the child's theory of mind uncovers the dynamics, motives, conflicts, and unconscious material used by the analyst to form interpretations and encourage the child's self-reflective function (Fonagy & Target, 1996). Finally, a case vignette illustrates the enhancement of play space by elucidating the child's theory of mind.