Memory and Counterfactual Simulations for Past Wrongdoings Foster Moral Learning and Improvement

In four studies, we investigated the role of remembering, reflecting on, and mutating personal past moral transgressions to learn from those moral mistakes and to form intentions for moral improvement. Participants reported having ruminated on their past wrongdoings, particularly their more severe transgressions, and they reported having frequently thought about morally better ways in which they could have acted instead (i.e., morally upward counterfactuals; Studies 1–3). The more that participants reported having mentally simulated morally better ways in which they could have acted, the stronger their intentions were to improve in the future (Studies 2 and 3). Implementing an experimental manipulation, we then found that making accessible a morally upward counterfactual after committing a moral transgression strengthened reported intentions for moral improvement—relative to resimulating the remembered event and considering morally worse ways in which they could have acted instead (Study 4). We discuss the implications of these results for competing theoretical views on the relationship between memory and morality and for functional theories of counterfactual thinking.     

Assessing miserly information processing: An expansion of the Cognitive Reflection Test

The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT; Frederick, 2005) is designed to measure the tendency to override a prepotent response alternative that is incorrect and to engage in further reflection that leads to the correct response. It is a prime measure of the miserly information processing posited by most dual process theories. The original three-item test may be becoming known to potential participants, however. We examined a four-item version that could serve as a substitute for the original. Our data show that it displays a .58 correlation with the original version and that it has very similar relationships with cognitive ability, various thinking dispositions, and with several other rational thinking tasks. Combining the two versions into a seven-item test resulted in a measure of miserly processing with substantial reliability (.72). The seven-item version was a strong independent predictor of performance on rational thinking tasks after the variance accounted for by cognitive ability and thinking dispositions had been partialled out.     

试析高校创新氛围的营造路径

21世纪是一个充满了激烈竞争的世纪,是一个由“创新”引领时代潮流的世纪。国家富强,社会发展,教育进步离不开这一主旋律,更离不开具有创新思维的人才。本文通过探讨营造校园创新氛围的路径,来阐释校园创新氛围对大学生创新思维的养成有着至关重要的作用。     

Analytic thinking reduces belief in conspiracy theories

Belief in conspiracy theories has been associated with a range of negative health, civic, and social outcomes, requiring reliable methods of reducing such belief. Thinking dispositions have been highlighted as one possible factor associated with belief in conspiracy theories, but actual relationships have only been infrequently studied. In Study 1, we examined associations between belief in conspiracy theories and a range of measures of thinking dispositions in a British sample (N = 990). Results indicated that a stronger belief in conspiracy theories was significantly associated with lower analytic thinking and open-mindedness and greater intuitive thinking. In Studies 2–4, we examined the causational role played by analytic thinking in relation to conspiracist ideation. In Study 2 (N = 112), we showed that a verbal fluency task that elicited analytic thinking reduced belief in conspiracy theories. In Study 3 (N = 189), we found that an alternative method of eliciting analytic thinking, which related to cognitive disfluency, was effective at reducing conspiracist ideation in a student sample. In Study 4, we replicated the results of Study 3 among a general population sample (N = 140) in relation to generic conspiracist ideation and belief in conspiracy theories about the July 7, 2005, bombings in London. Our results highlight the potential utility of supporting attempts to promote analytic thinking as a means of countering the widespread acceptance of conspiracy theories.     

MATRIX THINKING: AN ADAPTATION AT THE FOUNDATION OF HUMAN SCIENCE,RELIGION, AND ART

Intrigued by Robinson and Southgate's 2010 work on “entering a semiotic matrix,” we expand their model to include the juxtaposition of all signs, symbols, and mental categories, and to explore the underpinnings of creativity in science, religion, and art. We rely on an interdisciplinary review of human sentience in archaeology, evolutionary biology, the cognitive science of religion, and literature, and speculate on the development of sentience in response to strong selection pressure on the hominin evolutionary line, leaving us the “lone survivors” of complex, multiple lines of physical and cultural evolution. What we call Matrix Thinking—the creative driver of human sentience—has important cognitive and intellectual features, but also equally important characteristics traced to our intense sociability and use of emotionality in vetting rational models. Scientist, theologian, and artist create new cultural knowledge within a social context even if alone. They are rewarded by emotional validation from group members, and guided by the ever present question, “Does it feel right?”     

The Cocreation of Crazy Patchworks: Becoming Rhizomatic in Systemic Therapy

In the field of systemic therapy, there has been much discussion recently about the narrative self. This concept refers to the idea that the self is narratively constructed in and through the stories which someone tells about him/herself. The story is thereby not only viewed as a metaphor for selfhood: Selfhood is not compared to a story, it is a story. But what kind of story are we talking about here? If the self is a story, what does that story look like? These questions are explored in this article. Starting from the possibilities and limitations of traditional and postmodern visions on the self as a story, an alternative vision is illustrated. By considering the self as a rhizomatic story, we not only create a useful view of the way narrative selfhood is constructed within a therapy context, but we also stimulate therapists to coconstruct—together with their clients—patchworks of self‐stories. By using story fragments of our own practice, we illustrate the rhizomatic thinking and its possibilities in therapy.     

Event detail and confidence in gambling: The role of counterfactual thought reactions

Differences in people’s reactions to the same events described with full vs. sketchy information are examined. It is hypothesized that differences in counterfactual thought reactions to varying levels of event detail shape confidence in, and willingness to gamble on similar, future events. In three experiments, participants were presented with different types and levels of event detail about their performances on a trivia test, on several games of blackjack, or on gambling on a professional horse race. Upward counterfactual thoughts were observed more frequently in response to losing events containing high levels of detail and specificity. Importantly, counterfactual thought frequency also mediated the relationships between event detail and the level of confidence in and willingness to gamble on similar, future events. Evidence also indicates that this relationship is based on the hindsight bias that results from counterfactual thinking. Results are discussed in terms of cognitive processes and decision making research.     

From Strategic Planning to Strategic Design: Reconceptualizing the Future of Strategy in Organizations

In this article I present an overview of critiques of strategic planning, focusing on their conceptualizations of the environment. I first outline the need for a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of the environment of strategy, and then outline some of the alternatives to strategic planning and their underlying bases in constructivism and the sciences of complexity. I conclude by arguing that Banathy's systems design methodology is eminently suited to the process of strategy formulation, and should be explored more deeply within this context.     

Book reviews

Wilfred Bion is regarded as a psychoanalytic purist and his austere portrayal of the analytic aim and attitude is often considered to make impossible demands on patient and analyst alike. Not surprisingly, the applicability of Bion's theory and recommended practice to once-weekly psychotherapeutic work is often questioned. Bion is thus ambivalently regarded by psychotherapists as the embodiment of an analytic ideal, whose developmental theories are important, but whose practical utility is doubted, especially in the context of the typical therapeutic setting. This paper seeks to challenge these assumptions by presenting the once-weekly therapy of a woman with attenuated mentalizing capacity and a tendency to destructive acting out. The therapy was guided by the application of central concepts, models and ‘technical’ principles emerging from my understanding of Bion's work. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that Bion's utility is not confined to formal psychoanalytic settings and that his work may be usefully applied in more modest psychotherapy contexts.     

Book reviews

D. E. M. Gardner: Susan Isaacs: A First Biography. Methuen Educational Ltd., 1972. Price £1.50.

Marion Milner: On Not Being Able to Paint. Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., London, 1971. Price 90p

Paul Nordoff and Clive Robbins: Therapy in Music for Handicapped Children, with a foreword by Benjamin Britten. Victor Gollancz, London, 1971. Price £1.80.

The Mental Health Book Review Index: an Annual Bibliography of Books and Book Reviews in the Behavioural Sciences, Vol. 17, 1972, XXVI. Price $10.00. Published by the Council on Research in Bibliography, Inc., c/o Research Center for Mental Health, New York University, New York, N.Y. 10003. (Address orders to: Mental Health Book Review Index, c/o Paul Klapper Library, Queens College of the City University of New York, Flushing, New York 11367, U.S.A.)