Theory-practice contradiction in therapy-relevant psychodiagnosis

In the contribution the recent situation of the therapy-important psychodiagnostic is discribed as characterized through a contradiction. On one hand there's an substantial pressure for an effective treatment, on the other hand we have only a few well developed theoretical models and practical instruments. Three empirical questions in the experience of conflicts are investigated: First the rather few percentage of conscious conflicts as consequence of the substantial unconsciousness from central motives; second the still relative abstract definition of needs, and third problems in diagnostic of the so called personality strukture'. The article is closed with a discussion of some new possibilities of a action-related diagnostic of conflicts and motives.     

Humour as the Playful Sidekick to Language in the Zhuangzi

Humour in the Zhuangzi is used to question the priority that human beings bestow upon language and thought, revealing both its limitations and its possibilities. Hierarchies and conventions are overturned and both the sense and senselessness of language are celebrated. Humour also opens up a world in which a plethora of perspectives is acknowledged and the purpose of purposelessness is underscored. Encouraging us to take laughter seriously also allows us to view the seeming gravity of the human condition with increased levity.     

God Versus Party: Competing Effects on Attitudes Concerning Criminal Punishment,National Security,and Military Service

We explore how images of God interact with political party to predict attitudes concerning the appropriate role of government in both criminal punishment and national security. Using the second wave of the Baylor Religion Survey (2007), we analyze the extent to which beliefs regarding God's moral judgment moderate the influence of party affiliation on opinions about the death penalty, fighting terrorism, punishing criminals, serving in the military, and U.S. involvement in the Iraq War. Specifically, we find that Democrats who believe in a judgmental God tend to support more conservative policies. In fact, attitudes converge such that the effects of party membership are erased if rival partisans both believe in a judgmental moral authority.     

The Duality of American Christian Nationalism: Religious Traditionalism versus Christian Statism

While posited as a unified ideology, Christian Nationalism (CN) actually contains two distinct views of what it means to be a “Christian Nation”—one which envisions a Christian civil society separate from the profanities of politics, what we call “Religious Traditionalism.” The other envisions a Christian federal government where power is wielded exclusively by ethno-religious insiders, or “Christian Statism.” Multiple waves of two national surveys confirm that current measures of CN contain these two factors, which have become increasingly divergent in the past 20 years. In addition, we find that Christian Statism predicts nativism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and racial distrust while Religious Traditionalism, in most instances, predicts the opposite. Historically, Religious Traditionalists have always sought to influence civil society and focused mainly on family/sexual issues. But a different brand of CN has emerged, wherein all federal and state authority should rightfully and exclusively belong to Christian Statists.     

Hungary for Religion: A Supply-Side Interpretation of the Hungarian Religious Revival

The collapse of Soviet Communism has brought about sweeping revivals of religion in most of Eastern Europe and the Soviet successor states. This astonishing change in religious activity appears ideal for further testing of the supply-side theory of religious change. In this paper I investigate whether the dramatic religious revival in Hungary can be explained using a supply-side framework. I begin with a brief sketch of the history of religion in 20th-century Hungary in order to place current data in the proper context. Next, I present data from national surveys of Hungary and eyewitness accounts to assess the causal relationship between religious restrictions and religious activity as predicted by supply-side theory. Then I investigate secularization accounts of religious activity in Hungary and conclude that the supply-side thesis best fits the available data. Finally, I indicate the leveling off of the Hungarian revival due to decreased religious competition and posit future expectations concerning religious activity in Hungary.     

Interactively guided introspection is getting science closer to an effective consciousness meter

The ever-increasing precision of brain measurement brings with it a demand for more reliable and fine-grained measures of conscious experience. However, introspection has long been assumed to be too limited and fallible. This skepticism is primarily based on a series of classic psychological experiments, which suggested that more is seen than can be retrospectively reported (Sperling, 1960), and that we can be easily fooled into retrospectively describing intentional choices that we have never made (Johansson et al., 2005, Nisbett and Wilson, 1977). However, the work by Petitmengin, Remillieux, Cahour, and Carter-Thomas (2013) could resolve this dilemma. They showed that subjects can be interactively guided to become better aware of their past experience, thereby overturning the “choice blindness” results of Johansson et al. (2005). Although some more fine-tuning of the experimental protocol is needed, interactively guided introspection may well become the most reliable and exhaustive measure of consciousness.     

The Art of Becoming Human: Morality in Kant and Confucius

Kant and Confucius maintain that the art of becoming human is synonymous with the unending process of becoming moral. According to Kant, I must imagine a world in which the universality of my maxims were possible, while realizing that if such a world existed, then morality would disappear. Morality is an impossible possibility because it always meets resistance in our encounter with nature. According to Confucius, human beings become moral by integrating themselves into the already meaningful natural order that is tian 天. Like Kant, he upholds the dignity of human beings. For Kant this dignity rests on the autonomy of each human being’s reason, while for Confucius it is dependent upon our interconnection with each other, demanding ongoing self-extension. Despite these differences, the two thinkers would concur that our efforts at humanization are unceasing and that we may never fully live up to our human potential.     

The extended body: a case study in the neurophenomenology of social interaction

There is a growing realization in cognitive science that a theory of embodied intersubjectivity is needed to better account for social cognition. We highlight some challenges that must be addressed by attempts to interpret ‘simulation theory’ in terms of embodiment, and argue for an alternative approach that integrates phenomenology and dynamical systems theory in a mutually informing manner. Instead of ‘simulation’ we put forward the concept of the ‘extended body’, an enactive and phenomenological notion that emphasizes the socially mediated nature of embodiment. To illustrate the explanatory potential of this approach, we replicate an agent-based model of embodied social interaction. An analysis of the model demonstrates that the extended body can be explained in terms of mutual dynamical entanglement: inter-bodily resonance between individuals can give rise to self-sustaining interaction patterns that go beyond the behavioral capacities of isolated individuals by modulating their intra-bodily conditions of behavior generation.     

Organic Virtue: Reading Mencius with Rousseau

Both Rousseau and Mencius espouse a process-oriented morality that is attuned to nature. Rousseau maintains that human beings exit the realm of nature as soon as the process of civilization begins, necessitating the need for morality. Because he views the ‘natural’ human being as the pre-social and independent protohuman, the attempt to recapture the lost harmony of the state of nature will always fall short and the process of becoming moral is an endless task. Mencius, however, views nature as a dynamic process suggesting that morality demands a conscious participation in and extension of nature's rhythms. Artifice and nature are not as sharply demarcated as in the thought of Rousseau because morality is the particularly human way of integrating into the cosmos, by extending and channelling the flow of qi.