Love stories in photos and life stories in words from celebrities like Joy Behar, Judy Collins, Jerry Stiller, Susie Essman, and Cat Cora. A celebration of love and commitment, these stories from renowned figures span the bridge from love at first sight to a reluctant proposal acceptance – sometimes in the same relationship. These are love stories of legend told in photos by Mort Hamburg and life stories of people destined to be with one another for the long haul, (...) written by Kashmir Hill. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Folk Psychology and the Psychological Background of Scientific ReasoningHarald Walach (bio)Keywordstheory of psychology, theory of science, psychology of science, mind-body problem, folk psychology, scientific world viewSome protagonists of science who are still married to a positivist model of how science functions see science as the pure pursuit of knowledge, free of any preconceptions, free of any personal interest, yielding clear and ideally everlasting truths beckoning humanity over from (...) a superstition ridden dark age of beliefs and would-be knowledge toward the dawn of rational insights that allow for the bettering of mankind’s problems. Scientists have followed such an implicit model since Francis Bacon’s Novum Organon, and the most recent reverberations we hear in popular science books like The God Delusion by Dawkins (2006) or in more scientific ones on how an eliminative materialist account of mental events such as Patricia Churchland’s might work (Churchland 1986). Here, it is explicitly stated that our folk-psychological accounts such as “I love Emma,” or “I have a nasty back ache” is nothing but sloppy speaking and will soon be replaced by a more scientific account, once we know the interior workings of our brains, such as “Neuron assembly xyz in my nucleus abc in brain areas efg is firing” or “Fast A1 fibers are transmitting stimuli from my lumbar region to the brain, where they override endorphin- and enkephalin-mediated inhibiting pathways, enabling the pain network to go crazy.” It has been more than twenty years now since the publication of that somewhat futuristic account, and a whole decade of the brain and countless papers have taught us that we are very far, in fact light years away, from such knowledge as eliminative and even less eliminative materialists would have us gained by now, or in another twenty years from now.Folk psychology is well and alive, and even more vital than ever, it seems. People go about having their beliefs and ideas about God, the mind, the soul, the world, and human beings in general just as well, eliminative materialists and neuroscience notwithstanding. The data presented by Fahrenberg speak a clear language: Students of different disciplines, but most prominently psychology students, adhere mostly to a dualist—ontological or methodological—world view that allows for some substantiality of consciousness. They suppose that some transcendent reality is active and about, they assume that paranormal events such as spiritual and distant healing can [End Page 209] happen, that telepathy is an option, to name but the more prominent statements to be gleaned by Fahrenberg’s tables.Sure, these are students at the beginning of their career, as they come from school, some of them in their second year, some of them mature after having done some other training. They have had contact with the scientific world view mostly through their schooling and private reading, and, of course, through our folk culture. It would be extremely interesting to see a longitudinal study, surveying the same students after four years of studies. Will they then be more conformist with the mainstream scientific notion? Will they then have changed their initial belief systems? Will they have integrated and absorbed the knowledge they were taught into their private lives and worldviews, or will they have kept them apart from each other? We do not have the answer to these questions, and surely, a next step would be to follow a cohort of students, albeit small, through their journey as they progress.Meanwhile, we can all take ourselves as an example to follow this thought along as a gedan-kenexperiment. Did we allow the knowledge we absorbed from studying to permeate our whole private life? How did we deal with any cognitive dissonance arising from information coming out of our studies conflicting with our private belief systems? Did we throw away our personal beliefs or did we organize our lives in two compartments, one for our private life, and one for our scientific knowledge?Fahrenberg’s data are unique in the sense that nobody bothers about folk psychology, and these data are the only ones that actually tap into the belief systems of those that will become scientists, teachers, therapists and trainers... (shrink)

COVID-19 outbroke in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and promptly became a pandemic worldwide, endangering health and life but also causing mild-to-severe psychological distress to lots of people, including healthcare workers. Several studies have already showed a high prevalence of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic symptoms in HCWs but less is known about the efficacy of psychological interventions for relieving their mental distress. The aims of this study were: to evaluate the psychological adjustment of Italian HCWs during the COVID-19 pandemic; (...) to investigate the efficacy of an expressive writing intervention, based on Pennebaker’s paradigmatic protocol, on their psychological adjustment; to analyze if outcomes of EW vary in function of individual differences. Fifty-five HCWs were randomly assigned to one of two writing conditions: EW or neutral writing. Psychological adjustment was assessed before and after three writing sessions. Participants who received the EW intervention showed higher improvements in ptsd, depression, and global psychopathology symptoms. Improvements in EW group varied in function of age, gender, marital status, and baseline values: young, men, married participants and those who had higher baseline scores showed a higher reduction of psychological distress symptoms while women, single and those who had lower baseline value showed increased social support, and resilience. In conclusion, the EW intervention had positive effects which varied in function of individual differences on HCWs’ psychological health. (shrink)

People live and age together in social groups. Across a range of outcomes, research has identified interdependence in the cognitive and health trajectories of ageing couples. Various types of memory decline with age and people report using a range of internal and external, social, and material strategies to compensate for these declines. While memory compensation strategies have been widely studied, research so far has focused only on single individuals. We examined interdependence in the memory compensation strategies reported by (...) spouses within 58 older couples. Couples completed the Memory Compensation Questionnaire, as well as an open-ended interview about their memory compensation practices. We found that internal, intra-individual memory compensation strategies were not associated within couples, but external, extra-individual strategies showed interdependence. Individuals’ scores on material/technological compensation strategies were positively correlated with their partners’. Reported reliance on a spouse was higher for men and increased with age. Our open-ended interviews yielded rich insights into the complex and diverse resources that couples use to support memory in day-to-day life. Particularly evident was the extent of interaction and coordination between social and material compensation, such that couples jointly used external compensation resources. Our results suggest that individuals’ reports of their compensation strategies do not tell the whole story. Rather, we propose that older couples show interdependence in their memory compensation strategies, and adopt complex systems of integrated material and social memory compensation in their day-to-day lives. (shrink)

The study aimed to examine the influence of personal characteristics on activity preferences using decision tree analysis and examine the effects of the variables using conventional approaches. A descriptive study was conducted with 251 nursing home residents with dementia in Korea to examine the relationship between their personal characteristics and activity preferences. Decision tree analysis was used to classify participants’ activity preferences, and preference levels were examined using logistic regression analysis. Activities were classified as either physical and social activities or (...) cognitive and affective activities. This model showed an accuracy rate of 85.7% for positively predicting physical and social activity preference and 30.3% for positively predicting cognitive and affective activity preference. Gender was the strongest determinant of activity preference. The odds of preferring physical and social activities were 3.179 times higher among women, while the odds for preferring cognitive and affective activities were 0.412 times higher among men. Notably, cognitive and affective activity preference increased to 58.8% for married male participants. This study’s findings can contribute to the development of programs to decrease behavioral and psychological symptoms among older people with dementia residing in nursing homes and provide scientific evidence for integrating these activities into long-term services for this population. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Morality in Flux: Medical Ethics Dilemmas in the People's Republic of ChinaRen-Zong Qiu (bio)IntroductionModern China is undergoing a fundamental change from a monolithic society to a rather pluralistic one. It is a long and winding road. Marxism is facing various challenges as the influence of Western culture increases. Confucianism is still deeply entrenched in the Chinese mind but various religions, including Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity are experiencing a (...) revival. Almost fifty minorities coexist in the country in addition to the majority Han people. Tension and conflict are inevitable as diverse—and sometimes incompatible—values come to the fore at this historic juncture. Many fields, including medicine, face new challenges, and in this environment the field of bioethics is flourishing.Like many countries, China is groping with the effects of new medical technology and skyrocketing health care costs. But in the context of the Chinese sociocultural environment, some unique—as well as more familiar—issues arise. None of the classic texts provide ready-made answers to these dilemmas; we must find the answers ourselves. The only reasonable way to resolve the conflicts between opposing values is through dialogue, consultation, and negotiation among the various social and cultural groups.The bioethical dilemmas receiving the most attention in China now relate to the two ends of life: birth and death. On one end are issues relating to reproductive technology, especially birth control and family planning; at the other end is euthanasia.Dilemmas Surrounding Reproductive TechnologyAccording to traditional Chinese belief, not having a child results from not having virtue. In fact, the most serious violation of the Confucian [End Page 16]principle of filial piety is to be without offspring. A Chinese man without a child experiences heavy psychological pressure, and the burden is especially onerous for women because infertility is always blamed on the wife. Wives who do not bear a child are stigmatized and mistreated—even abused—in families that stick to traditional values.In China today, this widely held belief is colliding with another reality: an apparent increase in infertility among newly-married couples. The rate may be about 5 percent. These couples turn to doctors for help.Artificial insemination by donor (AID) and by husband is now widely practiced. Eleven provinces have established sperm banks, and private doctors are performing AID for considerable fees. But procedures to address legal and ethical problems associated with the procedure have lagged behind. With the exception of a few centers in large cities, AID is undertaken without established procedures or policies relating to the selection of donors and recipients, records about those involved, or clarification of the status of the child. The legal status of the child remains unresolved.The status of the child within the community is also unresolved as traditional values clash with the application of modern technology to childbearing. The case of "The Child Who Did Not Belong" (see box), illustrates how an AID child is not accepted by the family that embraces traditional values because he is not the husband's biological child.In vitro fertilization (IVF) is another alternative. Two IVF centers are in operation, one in Beijing and the other in Changsha, and both have succeeded in producing live births. This technology has received considerable media attention and is generally accepted even among those with traditional views.But much of this medical technology is not widely accessible—especially in rural areas—and so some infertile couples resort to surrogate motherhood to ensure an heir. An infertile couple enters into a contract with a woman who has intercourse with the husband in order to bear a child for the couple. This practice is called "borrowing a wife." In some villages, the "borrowed wife" receives as much as 10,000 yuan (five times a professor's monthly salary or about $250) for a girl and double that for a boy.But the more common and thorny problems involved with the beginning of life relate to birth control, family planning, and the "one couple, one child" policy that the Chinese government instituted to curb overpopulation. The goal of that policy is to prevent China's population from exceeding 1.2 billion in the year 2000... (shrink)

Decisions about whether or not to become a parent are significant parts of normative human development. Many studies have shown that married different-sex couples are expected to become parents, and that many social pressures enforce this norm. For same-sex couples, however, much less is known about social norms surrounding parenthood within marriage. This study examined injunctive norms and descriptive norms for the pursuit of parenthood as a function of age, gender, and sexual orientation. Participants in an internet survey included (...) 1020 cisgender people from across the United States Findings showed that norms, especially descriptive norms, for the pursuit of parenthood for heterosexual people were much stronger than those for lesbian women and gay men, and that norms for lesbian women were stronger than those for gay men. These differences were more pronounced for older, heterosexual, and male participants. However, lesbian and gay participants, especially gay men, reported that lesbian and gay people ought to become parents to the same extent as heterosexual people. Overall, the results indicated that, regardless of sexual orientation, adults report that lesbian and gay married people ought to become parents, but that they expect only a minority of these couples will pursue parenthood. This research provided a glimpse into how Americans are envisioning family formation among same-sex couples today. (shrink)

A corporate executive is miserable and seeks the help of a psychotherapist. A college student is unhappy in her current major and goes to her academic advisor. A married couple struggles with discord and seeks the help of a licensed counsellor. In each case, the diagnosis and prescription will likely be the same: you are miserable because you are not doing what you want. Your path to happiness thus lies in figuring out what you enjoy doing, coming up with (...) a strategy to satisfy these desires, and then executing your plan. This is the standard approach to happiness used in much of today's counselling and psychotherapeutic practice. The Socratic, Stoic, and Confucian philosophical traditions tell a different story: you are miserable because you are not doing what you must. Through historical and contemporary case studies, analyses of key novels, reviews of modern psychological research, interviews with struggling people, and close readings of philosophical texts, The Joy of Duty illuminates the intimate connection between human joy and the performance of ethical obligation. (shrink)

This study explored the impact of financial literacy on potential entrepreneurs' intent in Saudi Arabia. It also examined saving behavior as a mediator in the relationship between financial literacy and entrepreneurial intention. The study's data were collected by an online questionnaire sent to a sample of 270 potential entrepreneurs at Abqaiq Applied College, affiliated with King Faisal University. Data analysis was done using partial least squares structural equation modeling. According to the findings, there is no direct relationship between financial literacy (...) and entrepreneurial intent. However, it has been reported that saving behavior can mediate between financial literacy and entrepreneurial intent. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic is a global threat that affects a large part of the population, but the risks associated with it are higher for some people compared with others. Previous studies show that lower socioeconomic status is associated with more chronic stress and less marital satisfaction. Thus, the uncertainty caused by the pandemic might greatly affect those who were already vulnerable. This longitudinal study explores the extent to which stress originated outside and inside the relationship is associated with marital (...) satisfaction during the Covid-19 pandemic and whether the associations are different based on the socioeconomic status of the participants. The study was conducted at two points in time with a sample of 144 married Romanian couples. We used the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model with Mediation and multi-group SEM analysis. Higher levels of external stress were associated with subsequent lower marital satisfaction for women with higher SES. For the couples with lower SES, men's level of internal stress during the first assessment mediated the relationship between their higher level of external stress at the first time point and their partner's lower marital satisfaction during the second assessment. Our results show that men and women respond differently during a crisis and that couples with lower SES are more prone to greater stress and lower levels of marital satisfaction. We finally suggest that the therapists, health professionals, policy makers, and researchers should take into account the existing vulnerabilities of a couple when offering psychological and health services during the Covid-19 pandemic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“Till Death Do Us Part”? Buddhist Insights on Christian MarriageWioleta PolinskaHigh divorce rates and declining marriage rates in Western societies draw the attention of many scholars to the fragility of contemporary marriages.1 Rampant individualism, permissive divorce law, and softening stance on divorce by mainstream Christian denominations are all listed as culprits responsible for the current marriage crisis.2 These conventional accounts, however, overlook important insights gathered by historians of marriage, (...) insights that point to a dramatic shift in the concept of marriage that occurred more than two hundred years ago. According to Stephanie Coontz, “the invention of the historically unprecedented idea that marriage should be based on love and mutual affection” 3 is responsible for greater fragility, but also for creating good, satisfying marriages that bring much happiness to people’s lives.4 Thus, the very source of fragility (the search for love and mutual affection) is also a source of deep connections and lasting relationships. While the fragility accompanying contemporary marriage is here to stay, our efforts to build strong unions need to be carefully evaluated. In what follows, I will address Christian and Buddhist approaches that aim at protecting the stability of marriage. To strengthen marriage, Christianity, from early on, focused on the permanence of marriage whether understood as a sacrament or, later on, as a covenant. Christian wedding vows that promise love, care, and enduring partnership “till death do us part” capture well the prevailing theology of Christian marriage. In contrast, Buddhism employs a concept of impermanence that implies an ever-changing reality that warrants no finality. Recent studies in psychology of mindfulness meditation show that such Buddhist concepts can translate well into effective skills for those in loving relationships. I will suggest that Christian theology might become more successful at preserving the stability of marriage by becoming less focused on the finality of couples’ bonds, and instead attending to the present reality of couples’ relationships.It is well documented that before the seventeenth century marriages were arranged by parents and fulfilled primarily political, economic, and social functions rather than individual needs. Marriage was seen as a means of enlarging one’s economic enterprise, acquiring powerful in-laws, strengthening military alliances, or (for the less [End Page 29] privileged) enlarging the family’s labor force.5 This is not to say that the notion of romantic love was unknown until the seventeenth century, but that it was not closely associated with marriage.6 In aristocratic courts of southern France, for example, romantic love appeared between an unmarried man and a married woman, and it should have been either unconsummated or adulterous.7 As late as the eighteenth century, a “sudden falling head over heels in love, although a familiar enough psychological phenomenon, was thought of as, a mild form of insanity” and an unreasonable basis for marriage.8 Romantic love became widely accepted only in the nineteenth century under the influence of Enlightenment thought, ideals of the French and American Revolutions and of the romantic movement.9Romantic love as an expression of an individual’s desire for fulfillment has its dark side, as it can unleash selfish concerns. Thus, Robert A. Johnson, a Christian theologian, defines romantic love as “airy, fantasy, projections, and an evanescent high. It is fundamentally egotistical—fixated on its own wants and whims. It can never lay the foundation for personal commitments.” 10 The Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh (b. 1926) states that love can become a kind of sickness when it forms an attachment, similar to drug dependency. When we are under its spell, we are preoccupied with the object of our love and we desire to control and possess the other. To Ven. Hạnh, this is not true love since “it is only the willingness to make use of the other person in order to satisfy our own needs.” 11 Both Johnson and Ven. Hạnh while criticizing romanticized concepts of love are not giving up on possibility of intimate love. Johnson calls this intimate connection with another person a “human love,” a love that affirms and appreciates another person as she or he actually is, in their totality. Instead of prizing... (shrink)

Recent studies of the evolution of religion have revealed the cognitive underpinnings of belief in supernatural agents, the role of ritual in promoting cooperation, and the contribution of morally punishing high gods to the growth and stabilization of human society. The universality of religion across human society points to a deep evolutionary past. However, specific traits of nascent religiosity, and the sequence in which they emerged, have remained unknown. Here we reconstruct the evolution of religious beliefs and behaviors in early (...) modern humans using a global sample of hunter-gatherers and seven traits describing hunter-gatherer religiosity: animism, belief in an afterlife, shamanism, ancestor worship, high gods, and worship of ancestors or high gods who are active in human affairs. We reconstruct ancestral character states using a time-calibrated supertree based on published phylogenetic trees and linguistic classification and then test for correlated evolution between the characters and for the direction of cultural change. Results indicate that the oldest trait of religion, present in the most recent common ancestor of present-day hunter-gatherers, was animism, in agreement with long-standing beliefs about the fundamental role of this trait. Belief in an afterlife emerged, followed by shamanism and ancestor worship. Ancestor spirits or high gods who are active in human affairs were absent in early humans, suggesting a deep history for the egalitarian nature of hunter-gatherer societies. There is a significant positive relationship between most characters investigated, but the trait “high gods” stands apart, suggesting that belief in a single creator deity can emerge in a society regardless of other aspects of its religion. (shrink)

The _Biakē _custom, an ancient practice among the Ogoni indigenous people, refers to a system by which certain girls or women are not allowed to marry, but are legitimately allowed to raise children for their parents or family, because of some peculiar circumstances of the household, thus the idea of ‘mothers but not wives.’ However, the _Biakē _practice has been misconstrued with the malapropism called ‘_Sira_-Custom,’ implying a system in which the first daughters are not given out for marriage. (...) This study focused on the philosophical foundation of _Biakē _and its implications on the Ogoni contemporary society. The study discovered that there was never a time in Ogoni history when _Sira _(first daughters) was denied the right to marry out. Every Ogoni daughter is eligible for marriage. The study argues that though the philosophy of _Biakē _emphasizes the continuity of the family/lineage, women serving under _Biakē _and their children may experience psychological trauma due to the absence of a “father figure” and other unmet needs. Using the prescriptive method, this paper advocated for the promulgation of laws, and regulations to modify the _Biakē _custom to accommodate the Ogoni modern-day reality. (shrink)

One longitudinal study of married couples and one experiment tested the hypothesis that the experience of sexual desire for an alternative sexual partner might heighten feelings of desire for one’s long-term romantic partner, and conversely, sexual desire for one’s long-term partner might heighten desire for alternative partners. A daily-diary study of newlywed couples revealed that (a) on days people reported heightened interest in alternative partners, they also reported increased desire to have sex with their partner and (b) on (...) days people reported heightened desire to have sex with their partner, they also reported increased interest in alternative partners. An experimental study of partnered individuals revealed that people primed with sexual desire for an alternative partner reported increased sexual desire for their romantic partner (relative to a control condition). People primed with sexual desire for their romantic partner, however, did not report increased sexual desire for alternatives. Taken together, these findings support evolutionary perspectives on the function of sexual desire. Findings are consistent with the broader hypothesis that sexual desire is not partner-specific. (shrink)

Psyche, the daughter of a Greek king, was so beautiful that people stopped worshipping Aphrodite; instead they turned their adoration to the girl who modestly rejected any divine honours. Aphrodite, enraged, sent her son Eros to contrive a spell to make this beautiful maiden fall in love with an ugly creature. Seeing her, however, Eros fell in love and could not obey his mother. Short version: Aphrodite, jealous, tried to sabotage Psyche with impossible tasks. After great struggle, Psyche escaped (...) the traps with the help not of the gods but of the creatures of nature. Finally, Eros appealed to Zeus to set her free. With his consent the happy couple married on Mount Olympus celebrated by all the gods including Aphrodite. Psyche bore a daughter, Voluptas (better known as Pleasure), and so goes this great myth. Weary of the mainstream’s claim that only it is scientific, and its dismissal of phenomenology as “conjecture”, this paper is an effort to return to the origins of the study of the fascinating and frustrating old psyche. To conserve (a) its most fundamental approach, (b) most empirical method, and (c) most lived psychological content, the author urges students to ask first the persistent – since the Greeks – and necessary philosophical questions (ontological, epistemological, ethical, and so forth). He proceeds from there to show that phenomenology can (a) resurrect the psyche and its neglected meanings both experienced and expressed in action, (b) rescue behaviour from the Procrustean bed of “the scientific method” and resuscitate it as lived, (c) expose the myth of objective consciousness, and (d) reaffirm that freedom makes the psyche not less but more available to science by letting human reality show itself. Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Emmanuel Levinas have inspired over forty years of classroom rebellion and conservation of a psychology of incarnate humankind. These philosophers have provoked an alternative understanding of the characteristics of science (empirical, objective, reductive, and so forth). Finally, this paper reasserts a moral science with attention to the “psychology for the Other” over a “psychology for the self” with the paradoxical content: we can sabotage ourselves with selfinterested power and discover ourselves in the service of the weakness of others. The call to responsibility is the most fundamental characteristic of the psyche. (shrink)

Creating agents that proficiently interact with people is critical for many applications. Towards creating these agents, models are needed that effectively predict people's decisions in a variety of problems. To date, two approaches have been suggested to generally describe people's decision behavior. One approach creates a-priori predictions about people's behavior, either based on theoretical rational behavior or based on psychological models, including bounded rationality. A second type of approach focuses on creating models based exclusively on observations (...) of people's behavior. At the forefront of these types of methods are various machine learning algorithms. This paper explores how these two approaches can be compared and combined in different types of domains. In relatively simple domains, both psychological models and machine learning yield clear prediction models with nearly identical results. In more complex domains, the exact action predicted by psychological models is not even clear, and machine learning models are even less accurate. Nonetheless, we present a novel approach of creating hybrid methods that incorporate features from psychological models in conjunction with machine learning in order to create significantly improved models for predicting people's decisions. To demonstrate these claims, we present an overview of previous and new results, taken from representative domains ranging from a relatively simple optimization problem and complex domains such as negotiation and coordination without communication. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.4 (2005) 307-310 [Access article in PDF] Aesthetics, Criticism, and Psychotherapy John Z. Sadler Keywords aesthetics, psychiatry, psychotherapy, Sibley In his wide-ranging survey of how Kantian aesthetic theory is implicated in psychothera-py, John Callender has raised at least a dozen potentially profound and rewarding possibilities in applying aesthetic theory to psychiatry and psychotherapy. Although the idea of marrying aesthetic theory to psychiatry and psychotherapy is (...) not new, Callender's direction of the merger is distinctively novel. The mid-twentieth century had a distinct literature in applying psychoanalytic and psychiatric theory to aesthetic experience, summarized by the sizable bibliography by Norman Kiell, Psychiatry and Psychology in the Visual Arts and Aesthetics: A Bibliography (1965). This line of interdisciplinary work influenced a later generation of art historians and literary theorists in applying (particularly) psychoanalytic theory to interpretation and appreciation of the arts, contributions that are still being developed today, along with the emergence of complementary viewpoints from cognitive neuroscience (Peretz and Zatorre 2003; Rose 2004; Zeki 1999). Callender's project, however, is quite the converse—he wishes to show how philosophical aesthetics can contribute to psychiatry and clinical psychology. Exploring the aesthetics of psychiatry is the innovation.Before focusing my own comments on a few of Callender's points, I wish to call attention to the substantive questions he has directly raised or implied by his discussions. These questions are worthy of further development in this and other journals, and I hope that Callender will succeed in engaging the minds of his readers and inspire them to work in this exciting area in the philosophy of psychiatry. In his elegant review of Kant's key theoretical points of aesthetics, his discussion provokes us to consider the kinds of evaluations that patients make of themselves (moral? aesthetic? others?), as well as the kinds of evaluations clinicians make in their judgments of psychopathology. Evolutionists may wonder about the adaptive significance of aesthetic capacities (e.g., derivatives of grooming? mating displays?). In presenting Kant's notion of "disinterestedness" or contemplative judgment, readers may wonder about overlap with notions of therapist neutrality and unconditional positive regard. Should therapist relationships with patients be dominated by a similar aesthetic sensibility? What does the aesthetic posture have to do with the therapist posture?Importantly, Callender notes the connections and ambiguities between moral values and aesthetic values. This is borne out in his later discussions of clinical case material (considered again below). He focuses primarily on the duplication of aesthetic and moral values in the same terms of praise (honesty, integrity, originality), but there is no question that aesthetic experiences are had by viewers of art exhibiting perverse or depraved [End Page 307] imagery (consider, for instance, Francis Bacon's "3 Screaming Popes" or, even more extremely, the grotesque staged photographs of Joel-Peter Witkin). The implication here is that (as an example) to understand the aesthetics of sadomasochistic art may help us to understand the psychology of sadomasochistic people.By the time he introduces his case material, Callender has raised the issue of intersubjectivity in aesthetic experience, an experience that may be devoid of discursive cognitive content but may be profound with emotional content, thus challenging tenets of cognitive psychology and psychotherapy. His discussion of cases reflecting elements of Kant's components of aesthetic judgment point toward new ways of understanding psychopathology as disturbances in aesthetic self-appraisal.I would like to return to the problem of moral and aesthetic judgments in psychotherapy and in psychopathology. Dr. Callender presents three cases—a woman who has been traumatized by multiple instances of sexual abuse, a young girl with postpartum depression with fears of losing her child because of bad mothering, and a third patient with anorexia nervosa who demonstrates the typically distorted body self-image. I suggest that the aesthetic nature of these patients' self-judgments is not so clear cut as Callender suggests. His sexual abuse case summary certainly suggests a woman consumed by shame. Because shame is a typical "moral emotion," the question is raised of moral badness being involved in her self-concept as well as, or perhaps... (shrink)

A single mother is a person who is accountable for raising their children alone because they do not have a husband or live-in partner. Single mothers claim to have no co-parenting relationships at all, comparing single parents to those who are married, cohabiting, or without children, single parents experience the worst work-life balance. A single parent may feel overwhelmed by the demands of juggling child care, a career, paying bills, and maintaining household responsibilities. Single-parent households frequently deal with several (...) extra obligations and possible complications that other families would not. The study also emphasizes the difficulties and coping mechanisms faced by contractual single parents as well as their lived experiences. The study's findings, which were based on an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, were as follows: (1) Work-life balance can be difficult for single parents. They struggle to keep their jobs while taking care of their family because they are the only ones in charge of the children. (2) Single contractual mothers face particular difficulties due to a lack of resources for basic expenses. (3) Contractual single women lean on their kids, the good people in their lives, and their faith in God to get through problems. (shrink)

One of the important areas of study of religious psychology is to examine the reflection of worship in the spiritual life of individuals in the context of worship psychology. In this field survey, the relations between the level of meaning in life and hopelessness of individuals who performed the ʿUmra worship are examined. The study is conducted with 214 Turkish participants who performed ʿumra in Saudi Arabia. The collected data is analyzed by questionnaire technique. "Personal Information Form", " Meaning in (...) Life Questionnaire (MLQ)" and "Beck Hopelessness Scale" are used as data collection tools. The obtained data is analyzed in the SPSS 23.0 statistical program. One Sample t-Test, Pearson Moments Multiplication Correlation Analysis, Independent Sampling t-Test, One Way ANOVA and Tukey HSD tests are used to analyse the data. It is found that the research group's level of meaning in life above average; the level of hopelessness is below average significantly. There is a significant negative correlation between meaning in life and hopelessness, feelings about the future, loss of motivation, expectation about the future. There is a significant positive correlation between searched meaning and hopelessness and loss of motivation.Summary: Many religions have some types of worship involving visiting places considered as sacred and performing some rituals there. In Islam it is called ʿUmra, which is visiting the Kaʿba without being dependent on a certain time frame except for the pilgrimage month. There are certain rites to perform ʿumra, such as entering a state of iḥrām (ritual purity in which certain actions are not permissible), completing circumambulation, and saʿy (striving to do a certain act; walking) between the hills of al-Ṣafā and al-Marwa. ʿUmra worship is a comprehensive and versatile worship, which contains psychological, sociological, physical and financial characteristics.Studying the relationship between religious beliefs and practices, the religious rituals and their psychological effects and functions of ceremonies are the some essential research topics of Psychology of Religion. Existing research in this area usually reveals the existence of a positive relationship between the religious beliefs and practices and between meaning in life and hope. Individuals who believe in a religion can find a meaning and purpose in life through prayer and worship, and at the same time have more positive future expectation to endure the difficulties of life. Meaning and hope are intertwined, which complete each other. Hopelessness is closely related to depression and suicidal desire. There is a need to find meaning and purpose in life in order to hold on to life, and for looking to the future with confidence, and overcoming difficulties.It is known that people tend to be more religious and concentrating worship during periods of loss of meaning for various reasons. ʿUmra, which includes almost all type of worship, is a special worship, which has the potential to contribute to the individual's intense emotional life for gaining new awareness and developing different behaviours to cope with such difficulties. It is because the individual would have many experiences to see the cause of existence, the meaning of his/her life, and his/her future expectation during the ʿumra worship. Thus, he/she can overcome his/her hopelessness and loss of meaning and look to the situation from different perspectives. Therefore, in this study, the following questions are explored: Does ʿumra make a positive contribution to the psychological experience of the individuals, as expected? Does ʿumra has any effect on the level of loss of meaning and hopelessness that accompanies the psychological troubles? How does the demographic variables make difference in the level of meaning in life and hopelessness of individuals who perform ʿumra? In order to find answers to these questions, the relationship between the meaning of life - the hopelessness and the ʿumra was investigated. For this purpose, the meaning and hopelessness levels of the individuals who are performing ʿumra worship were measured by psychometric methods and the relations between them were analyzed. In addition, it has been tested whether there is a difference in the meaning in life and hopelessness according to demographic variables such as gender, marital status and educational status. 214 people aged between 18-82 years participated in the research. The survey data was collected from Turkish participants who perform ʿumra in the cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia in May 2015. "Personal Information Form", " Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ)" and "Beck Hopelessness Scale" were used as data collection tools. The obtained data were analyzed in the SPSS 23.0 statistical program. One Sample t-Test, Pearson Moments Multiplication Correlation Analysis, Independent Sampling t-Test, One Way ANOVA and Tukey HSD tests were used for the purpose of analysis of the data.The most important finding of the survey is meaning in life scores of individuals who are performing the ʿumra are above average (t = 20,50; p ˂ 0,01); and scores of hopelessness are below average significantly (t = -29,80; p ˂0,01). There is a significant negative correlation between presence of meaning subscale and hopelessness (r = -,288; p ˂ 0,01); and positive correlation between search for meaning subscale and hopelessness (r =,169; p ˂ 0,05) and loss of motivation (r =,285; p ˂ 0,01). The findings show that ʿumra can affect the meaning in life positively and the hopelessness negatively. There was no significant difference between the meaning in life scores and education level and gender variable (p ˃ 0,05). As the level of education increases, hopelessness scores decrease significantly (F = 2, 627; p ˂ 0,05). Hopelessness scores show a significant difference according to gender (t = -2,708; p ˂ 0,01). Men's hopelessness levels are significantly higher than women’s. Moreover, the meaning in life of married individuals is significantly higher than single individuals (F = 3,859; p ˂ 0,05). As the age and developmental stages progressed, meaning in life (F = 7,274; p ˂ 0,01) and hopelessness scores (F = 8,119; p ˂ 0,01) significantly increased.ʿUmra may have a rapid and intensive effect on the psychology of the individual and his/her sense of world. Relevant studies in the literature also imply such results. Since ʿumra is both a journey and a collective worship, it involves many types of worship, such as praying, reading scripture, repentance and so on. The findings of this study were discussed with reference to the findings about pilgrimage and the findings of study of meaning in life and hopelessness in different samples. On the other hand, the conditions in which the data collected, the study group chosen, the instruments and techniques used for this research constitute the limitations of the present study. However, the time period in which the worship was practiced and reaching the participants in these places of worship, and the measurement of the level meaning in life and hopelessness associated with their worship of ʿumra indicates the importance and originality of this research. The results can be used in other research projects. Studies on the different psychological effects of ʿumra worship can be enriched by longitudinal investigations. (shrink)

The issue of sexual relations between spouses is a major cause of broken homes in Nigeria and Christian couples are not an exception. People believe that a large percentage of broken homes have the root of their problem traced to sex. The preponderance of broken homes notwithstanding, most studies in this area have been from the socio-scientific and medical cum psychological point of view and many more have focused on teenagers and young people to the exclusion of (...) class='Hi'>married couples that need healing in this regard. This article is aimed at bringing out biblical instruction concerning the issue of sex that could help to restore peace to many homes at the verge of breaking down. The focal passage is 1 Corinthians 7:1–5, which was Paul’s instructions to the Corinthian church when they faced a similar problem. This article is an exegetical analysis of the passage and is read rhetorically with the Nigerian situation in mind. It concludes that sex must be enjoyed within the ambits of marriage and within this ambit, the only reason for abstinence is mutual agreement for the purpose of prayer.Contribution: The article upholds gender equality in initiating and enjoying sex and rejects looking down on women who request sex. It also calls for the eradication of female genital mutilation, a tradition based on making women not enjoy sex. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Influence of Anxiety and Literature's Panglossian NoseMichael AustinIScheherazade may be the protagonist of The Thousand and One Nights, but her stories are the heroes. Her audience for these stories consists only of her sister and her husband, the great sultan Shahryar, who three years earlier had vowed to avenge his wife's infidelity by marrying a new woman each night and executing her the following morning. With the supply (...) of virgins in the kingdom running short, Scheherazade forces her father, the royal vizier, to allow her to marry the Sultan, assuring him that she has a plan to end his bloody practice. Her plan is simple: every night, Scheherazade tells Shahryar a piece of a story. Many of these stories are overtly didactic, and some are even thinly veiled allegories of Shahryar's own situation, but Scheherazade aims to do more than simply rehabilitate the sultan with pedagogically sound morality tales. She weaves her stories together, often using multiple frames and levels of embedded narrative, to make sure that the night always ends in the middle of at least one story, and, each morning, the Sultan postpones his sentence of death one day so he can hear the conclusion.Scheherazade's gambit succeeds—with the Sultan and with readers everywhere—because it taps into a very deep human need for literature, which, broadly defined, includes folk tales, songs, oral epics, and other forms of narrative expression. Stories have been a source of pleasure for human beings for a long time—much longer than there have been writing systems to record them. And, during all this time, as Paul Hernadi writes, "the pleasure of succumbing to literary seduction has long served as a psychological reward for what was once and perhaps still is [End Page 215] a biologically advantageous thing to do."1 Scheherazade's stories give Shahryar pleasure—more pleasure, arguably, than the sexual encounters that precede them. In more than a thousand marriages (assuming three full years since he began the practice), sexual pleasure never entices the sultan to suspend his vow. With an entire kingdom full of potential wives, of course, he need never fear an end to such pleasures. The pool of wives who can bring the pleasure of narrative to the marriage bed is much smaller indeed.But pleasure alone cannot explain Scheherazade's success; if it could, she would not have to end each night in the middle of a story. By doing so, she combines the pleasure of narrative with the anxiety of incompleteness. Scheherazade's cliffhangers work on Shahryar for the same reason that they work on us today: we expect to find out what happens in a story, and we experience anxiety when this expectation is frustrated. This anxiety is just as deeply rooted in biology and natural selection as the "pleasure of succumbing to literary seduction." Most of the things that produce great anxiety in people—such as snakes, spiders, fire, high places, large bodies of water, contaminated surfaces, and unknown social situations—constitute very real threats to our survival. Anxiety is nature's way of telling us to pay extra attention around potentially dangerous things or to take steps to avoid such things whenever possible. Pleasure and anxiety work hand in hand, as carrot and stick, to encourage, or discourage, the same fitness-enhancing behaviors. Eating when we are hungry gives us pleasure; wondering where our next meal is coming from gives us anxiety.The pleasure and anxiety that we experience in literature are neurologically indistinguishable from the same responses that we experience in the life-or-death situations for which they were designed. According to John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, "fictional worlds engage emotion systems while disengaging action systems.... An absorbing series of fictional events will draw out of our mental mechanisms a rich array of emotional responses—the same responses that would be appropriate to those same events and persons if they were real."2 The ability to respond in this way appears to be unique to human beings, but it also appears to be a universal element of human nature. People everywhere tell and respond to stories, and many people devote considerable... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reflections on Benjamin ButtonHenry Alexander (bio)IBenjamin Button was born at the age of seventy and as the years accumulated, grew younger physically. There are in his life three separate lines or threads. His chronological age begins in September of 1860 and terminated seventy years later. His "bodily age" consists of those stages of physical changes and of the different ways that he looked to others and to himself. In (...) 1860, he was an old man; his hair was sparse, scraggly, and nearly white; he had "a long smoke-colored beard"; his eyes were faded, watery, and tired; his teeth were ancient; his skin wrinkled, his voice had a cracked quaver and he had an aged stoop, even though he was five feet eight inches tall. From that time on, he gradually and steadily lost these characteristics of old age and became younger looking both to others and to himself until that time in 1930 when, an infant in his white crib, everything "faded out altogether from his mind." Finally, the third thread in Button's life consists of various psychological stages, attitudes, and feelings: his querulousness, his compliancy, his inquisitiveness, his assertiveness, his love for his wife, his business ability, his generosity, his enthusiasm for pleasure, his discontent with home life, his love of military activity and excitement, his delight in the company [End Page 1] of young women, the pleasure he took in his youthful appearance, his ambition to succeed at Harvard, the humiliations he suffered, his childish cheerfulness. These three threads in Benjamin Button's life—his chronological age, his bodily age, and his psychological age are seldom congruent and frequently unharmoniously interwoven.There are times when in ordinary life we may distinguish one or another of these threads out of a person's life. We may on occasion comment that someone looks so much older than she is where physical hardship, unusual sickness, or emotional pressures have left their scars. We may remark that another is so very young for her age, where, for example, inexperience, callousness, naivete show themselves in a person whose age would not lead us to expect such traits. We may remark upon how well one has kept oneself in shape when one's physique, muscle tone, and endurance are those of a decidedly younger person. Sometimes, certain traits of character—crabbiness, bossiness, old womanishness, crankiness, arbitrariness—associated with the elderly, may unexpectedly emerge in young people. Sometimes, traits perhaps conventionally associated with youth may crop up at a later stage of life, for example, carelessness, daredeviltry, sensuality, self-absorption, etc. The theme comes out in cases where we are surprised or shocked by the discrepancies between age and appearance or by changes in appearance or by psychological shifts which strike one as dissonant with one's own or another's age. There must be numerous variations on such discrepancies and they crop up from time to time in the ordinary course of things.But Benjamin Button's life was not ordinary. Those three threads of a person's life which may on occasion be singled out or contrasted are in his case systematically independent of one another. His years bear little relation to his physical age. His psychological states reflect little, if anything, of his years. Except for his middle years (between thirty-five and forty, say), there was little congruence between his chronological age, on the one hand, and his physical appearance or his psychological life, on the other.This dissonance between physical and chronological age has its ironical twists. For instance, when Benjamin was about twenty (in years), he met Hildegarde Moncrief (to whom he was later married). During their first meeting, she mistook him for his father's brother and she told Benjamin that fifty is "the mellow age" and that she "loves fifty." Of course, he appears to be a man of fifty, but he has forgotten how he appears [End Page 2] to others. He even "longed passionately to be fifty" (p. 73).1 The irony is that to Hildegarde and to everyone else, he was fifty.One anomaly that runs through much of Benjamin Button's life is his unawareness as to how... (shrink)

Religion's historical mistrust of sexuality shapes people's behavior by inhibiting liberal sexuality. Still, it is unclear whether this inhibitive role also includes common, normative sexual behavior, particularly in secularized contexts. Moreover, the possible mediating effects emotions, affects, and thoughts have on the association between religiosity and restricted sexuality have never been integrated into a single model. Finally, cross-religious differences in common sexual behavior have still yet to be documented. We addressed these three issues in two studies, with samples of (...) Catholic and Muslim tradition (total N = 446). Consistently across samples, religiosity predicted, either directly or indirectly, less frequent common heterosexual behaviors and masturbation, partly through sexual guilt and inhibition, and/or decreased sexual fantasy and the search for sexual pleasure. However, married Muslims’ religiosity, unlike Catholics’, did not directly undermine fertility-oriented sexuality and the search for pleasure. Religion's role in restricting sexuality seems to be rooted in deep psychological rationale. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Arthur Efland's and Richard Siegesmund's Reviews of The Arts and the Creation of MindElliot W. Eisner, Lee Jacks Professor of Education and Professor of ArtWhen I was invited by the Editor of The Journal of Aesthetic Education to respond to two unidentified reviews of my latest book, The Arts and the Creation of Mind, I thought that I would encounter a bevy of negatively critical comments, which (...) would give me the opportunity to respond equally as critically to theirs. Fortunately — perhaps unfortunately — the reviews prepared by Arthur Efland and Richard Siegesmund are not in the least bit negative. This, of course, is a boon to the book's author, but a bane to the creation of lively debate. I am happy to say that though their purposes differ, both Efland and Siegesmund got it essentially right. Efland's comments put my work in a historical context, particularly the emergence of interest in cognition and, in general, in the higher mental processes as they were called during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. It is true that interest in cognition was in the air at that time, in the field of philosophy, and in the fields of linguistics and psychology as well. My own work is a part of that particular zeitgeist in the twentieth century.I was not aware at the time that I was being influenced by such a broad movement, but, alas or alack, I was. In some ways, the writing that John Dewey did during the early and mid 1930s, particularly his work on art as rendered in Art as Experience, presaged the interest linguists, psychologists, and philosophers developed in the conditions of communication and its relationship to symbolic systems and thought.1 Dewey has been a major influence on my thinking as have Susanne Langer and later Nelson Goodman.2 [End Page 96] The historical perspective that Efland provides is a useful accounting of where ideas about cognition were and where they are now. I do not know whether I have extended the thinking that is being done on cognition, but I certainly have tried to provide a fulsome account of the connections between cognition and the educational mission of the arts, especially the visual arts. Efland's historical portrayal is a useful picture of the period and, I would say, the significance of this way of thinking for education.Siegesmund pushes farther than Efland, in my view, into the sources of human understanding, particularly the function of somatic knowledge in grasping, or better yet, framing meaning. His notion of what might perhaps best be called visual reasoning marries two concepts that are seldom related; the visual and the reasonable. Reason is often associated with matters of logic, and matters of logic pertain to connections between language in its formal sense and with the relationships among numbers within numerical systems. Qualitative relationships are not typically regarded as manifestations, even at their best, of rational forms of thinking. Emotional, yes. Rational, no. As readers of my works know, I reject that conception of the limits of human rationality and Siegesmund does as well. His focus on embodied knowledge, or what is sometimes called somatic knowledge, is a promising conception of the sources of choice and judgment. There is, after all, more known than what can be told, to paraphrase Michael Polayni.3What pleases me most about Siegesmund's account of my work is its receptivity to the students he teaches. The ultimate educational test of any piece of writing is the extent to which people see meaning in it and apparently, at least for the students that Siegesmund teaches, meaning for most is there. I am pleased. What I have always tried to do in my work is to avoid prescribing recipes or formulaic procedures because I do not believe either works very well when one is working with human beings, but rather to provide concepts through which the educational world can be viewed, practice reflected upon, options identified, and action taken. Apparently these aims are being met in some university classrooms in which The Arts and the Creation of Mind is being used. One caveat.Although it is true, as... (shrink)

Runkel links Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) thinking to psychological literature and discusses it against that background.

Folk stories featuring prosocial content are ubiquitous across cultures. One explanation for the ubiquity of such stories is that stories teach people about the local socioecology, including norms of prosociality, and stories featuring prosocial content may increase generosity in listeners. We tested this hypothesis in a sample of 185 Hadza hunter-gatherers. We read participants a story in which the main character either swims with another person (control story) or rescues him from drowning (prosocial story). After hearing the story, participants (...) played a dictator game with dried meat sticks and then were given a recall test of facts presented in the story. There was moderate evidence for a small effect of the prosocial story: participants who heard the prosocial story gave an estimated 0.22 [90% HDI: −0.12–0.57] more meat sticks than those who heard the control story. However, the association between generosity and sex, marital status, and region of residence was stronger; men gave more than women, unmarried participants gave more than married participants, and participants living in a region with more exposure to markets gave more than participants living further from markets. There was no evidence that the prosocial story was more easily recalled than the control story. These results provide some support for the hypothesis that prosocial stories can increase prosociality in listeners, though the effect of hearing a single story is small. (shrink)

This volume demonstrates how readers can become more effective parents, teachers, students, coaches, managers, or work supervisors, while also gaining practical skills to enhance their self-motivation, communication skills, and intervention acumen. The first eight chapters explain evidence-based principles from applied behavioral science that can be used to improve the human dynamics of any situation involving behavior. Fundamentals from humanism are integrated strategically to show how an ABS intervention can be more acceptable, influential, and sustainable. The following twelve chapters detail the (...) deployment of ABS interventions to optimize performance in a wide variety of fields, including occupational and transportation safety, quantity and quality of organizational work behavior, healthcare, athletic coaching, parenting, pre-school and college education, environmental sustainability, and the control of obesity and alcohol abuse. Applied Psychology provides a thorough review of the latest research in relation to these domains and explores issues for future investigation. (shrink)

Psychological well-being manifests itself in all aspects of human activity and is essential to understanding whether young people experience life satisfaction and whether, as they mature, well-being can be associated with different levels of personal autonomy. This quantitative study was developed within the framework of international research on young people’s autonomy in the transition to adulthood. Its main objectives were to analyze the relationship between psychological well-being and autonomy and examine potential variations between the two variables according to (...) age. To this end, Ryff’s Psychological Well-Being Scale and the Transition to Adulthood Autonomy Scale designed by Bernal et al., were used with a sample of 1,148 young people aged 16–21 from Madrid, Spain, and Bogotá, Colombia. The results show that almost all the dimensions on the Psychological Well-Being Scale correlate significantly and positively with the dimensions on the EDATVA scale. Specifically, moderate correlations were obtained between self-organization on the EDATVA scale and purpose in life and environmental mastery on the Psychological Well-Being Scale. In turn, autonomy on Ryff’s scale obtained the highest correlation with understanding context on the EDATVA scale. It was also found that the older 18–21 age group obtained higher scores than the younger 16–17 age group in all dimensions on both the EDATVA and the Psychological Well-Being Scale. Earlier studies endorse the results found in this research, especially the differences in the scores for both scales according to age groups. This opens avenues for future research to analyze the relationship between psychological well-being and autonomy as independent variables in other sectors of the population. (shrink)

E. Rae Harcum argues that Christians do not have to give up their religious faith to keep the contributions of science. He confronts the relation between the human body and its non-material parts—the mind and spirit—and provides a way of looking at these metaphysical issues.

After four decades of China’s family planning policy, the shrinking family size and increasing life expectancy pose special challenges for the one-child generation in terms of providing care for aging parents. The current study explored young adults’ responses to such pressure by examining their concerns about elder care, attitudes toward nursing homes, and living arrangement after marriage in a sample of 473 Chinese working young adults from six cities in China. Results showed that although most of the young adults reported (...) to have thought about the issue of parents’ elder care, the majority did not worry a lot about it. Only children expressed similar levels of worrying as those with siblings did. However, educational level, rather than sibling status, was systematically related to concerns about parents’ elder care and attitudes toward nursing homes. People with higher education tended to worry less about elder care, and were less likely to consider placing parents in nursing homes as a violation of filial piety. Analyses of the married sub-sample revealed that only children were more likely to co-reside with parents after marriage than those with siblings. And the main reason for co-residence was that the younger generation needed their parents’ help for childcare, rather than to better take care of their parents. Implications for parents’ elder care among Chinese only children were discussed. (shrink)

There is a well-established relationship between isolation and both morbidity and mortality in the context of addiction recovery, yet the protective effects of intimate and familial relationships have not been adequately assessed. The current paper uses the European Life In Recovery database to assess the association between relationship status and living with dependent children on recovery capital of people in recovery from drug addiction, operationalised by the Strengths And Barriers Recovery Scale. The study participants were drawn from the REC-PATH (...) study and supplemented by a second sample recruited by the Recovered Users Network across various European countries, resulting in a combined sample of 1,313 individuals completing the survey, primarily online. The results show that, in recovery, those who are married or co-habiting reported significantly greater recovery strengths and fewer barriers to recovery, and reported greater gains in recovery capital across their recovery journeys. Similar associations are found for participants who have dependent children living with them. There is also some indication that this association is stronger for female than for male participants. Finally, having more people that one can rely on and a greater proportion of people in recovery in the social network are both linked to greater recovery capital and greater self-reported growth in recovery capital. We conclude that this study provides further evidence in favour of a “social cure” in recovery, in which close familial ties are associated with stronger recovery resources. (shrink)

The reproducibility movement in psychology has resulted in numerous highly publicized instances of replication failures. The goal of the present work was to investigate people’s reactions to a psychology replication failure vs. success, and to test whether a failure elicits harsher reactions when the researcher is a woman vs. a man. We examined these questions in a pre-registered experiment with a working adult sample, a conceptual replication of that experiment with a student sample, and an analysis of data compiled (...) and posted by a psychology researcher on their public weblog with the stated goal to improve research replicability by rank-ordering psychology researchers by their “estimated false discovery risk.” Participants in the experiments were randomly assigned to read a news article describing a successful vs. failed replication attempt of original work from a male vs. female psychological scientist, and then completed measures of researcher competence, likability, integrity, perceptions of the research, and behavioral intentions for future interactions with the researcher. In both working adult and student samples, analyses consistently yielded large main effects of replication outcome, but no interaction with researcher gender. Likewise, the coding of weblog data posted in July 2021 indicated that 66.3% of the researchers scrutinized were men and 33.8% were women, and their rank-ordering was not correlated with researcher gender. The lack of support for our pre-registered gender-replication hypothesis is, at first glance, encouraging for women researchers’ careers; however, the substantial effect sizes we observed for replication outcome underscore the tremendous negative impact the reproducibility movement can have on psychologists’ careers. We discuss the implications of such negative perceptions and the possible downstream consequences for women in the field that are essential for future study. (shrink)

Recently, the variety of the financial frauds have increased, while the number of victims became difficult to estimate. The purpose of this paper is to present the main profiles of financial frauds’ victims using a reviewing method. The analysis captures the main theoretical and empirical background regarding the motives and circumstances of becoming a victim, the dynamics of several social and demographical characteristics of this type of victims, as well as a sample of relevant case studies from some developing countries. (...) The main finding is that, in literature, most of the victims are male people of different ages, employed, married or single, regardless the level of education. For developing countries such as China, India and Nigeria, the majority of victims act out of naivety and desire to escape from poverty, while some victims from Latin America, China and Nigeria are influenced by greed and lack of empathy, without thinking of further consequences for their families and friends involved. Moreover, most of the victims are convinced to invest in financial schemes by family members, friends, or acquaintances. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Minds, Memes, and MultiplesStephen R. L. Clark (bio)AbstractMultiple Personality Disorder is sometimes interpreted as evidence for a radically pluralistic theory of the human mind, judged to be at odds with an older, monistic theory. Older philosophy, on the contrary, suggests that the mind is both plural (in its sub-systems or personalities) and unitary (in that there is only one light over all those lesser parts). Talk of gods and (...) demons has been a way of arranging elements of human mind and motivation. The one light, or center, is something which requires mental discipline to discover rather than being immediately obvious. This indeed is what even Descartes (sometimes blamed for introducing the notion of a simple, transparent self) really intended. Discovering or uncovering the Self is a psychotherapeutic as well as a philosophical imperative.Keywordsconsciousness, gods, Multiple Personality Disorder, passivity, thought alienationMultiple Personality 1The phenomena popularly identified as evidence of “multiple personality disorder” are strangely attractive. The stories suggest that those who provide, who are, the evidence for this disorder are usually in acute distress, but those who wish to believe in it find the idea almost exhilarating. Most of us would rather wish to think that we had undeveloped possibilities, that it would be exciting to be a married academic today, a celibate bus-driver tomorrow and a teenage hooligan on Sundays. The impulse to put aside our duties, or our habits, can be a powerful one, and only the sober thought that we would not, after all, succeed in keeping our lives separate keeps us single. The notion that there are people who take the risk, that our bodies could house a multitude, is one we would wish to believe. At the same time, we wish to remember that such divisions bring their own problems, and as easily suspect that those who apparently succeed in dividing themselves up must have suffered serious trauma in the past, and be plagued by missed appointments and self-hatred in the present. Some of us believe that “multiple personality” reveals a truth about us all, that none of us is actually the simple, heroic self that we pretend: “the self” is only an occasionally concordant swarm of impulses, easily divided. Others of us suspect that it is a wish to avoid responsibility, and guilt, that causes some of us to pretend not to be the selves that actually we are (see Rycroft 1987).On earlier occasions (notably Clark 1991b), I have myself expressed some doubt about reports of Multiple Personality Disorder, and suggested that they should be seen as fictions or dramatic representations (whether by the patient or the reporter) which should not be judged as “true” or “false,” but rather as “interesting” or “pernicious.” Stephen Braude, in a recent excellent book, seems at first to side with the true believers: it is absurd, he suggests, not to believe the many reports of fugue, discordance and fully developed multiples (Braude 1991; see also Wilkes 1984, [End Page 21] Brennan 1990). Maybe a few such reports are over-credulous: it would not be surprising that the occasional clever criminal successfully pretended not to know what an alien other did with his body. But there are, he says, too many independent records to disbelieve, and not only the distant stories of Miss Beauchamp (Prince 1908) or Eve (Thigpen & Cleckley 1954, 1957). Since the 1970s the number of reported cases has been rising again. It may be that some, many, or all the cases are artifacts, in the sense that the doctor’s expectations helped to produce or develop the varied personalities: “when a client walks into the therapist’s office and sits down, the expectation framework of the therapist immediately comes into play” (Crabtree 1985, 211; see also Hawthorn 1983). But the evidence is also compatible with the thought that psychotherapeutic fashion now allows the therapist to notice, rather than invent, the phenomena. Multiples often wish to conceal their condition, it is said, and only observers alerted to the possibility will notice them. Conscious or half-conscious role-playing, which would perhaps be less philosophically interesting, cannot explain more than a few of the cruder cases.In short... (shrink)

Global trends increasingly appear to be legitimizing same-gender relationships, yet international research shows that despite statutory rights to marry—and by extension, adopt children—same-gender couples continue to experience difficulties when trying to adopt. Primary among these barriers are the persistent heteronormative beliefs, which strongly underpin the unfounded myths about parenting abilities of same-gender couples. Such biased beliefs are perpetuated by some adoption professionals who oppose placing children with lesbian or gay couples. In 2013, New Zealand passed the Marriage Equality Act, making (...) it possible for same-gender couples to legally marry—and by extension, adopt. This provided an opportunity to investigate the perceptions of New Zealand professionals about children being placed with same-gender couples, in a country often perceived to be more tolerant of LGBT people. New Zealand social workers and lawyers (an under-studied group)—the professions most likely involved in adoption—were recruited via professional bodies. Because studying perceptions and beliefs on socially sensitive topics are highly susceptible to social desirability, we designed an instrument utilizing multiple methods to assess and corroborate participants’ views about placing children for adoption with couples of the same gender. Administered online and anonymously, the survey included demographic questions, evaluation of negative-meaning and positive-meaning statements, and used a sc... (shrink)

Managing cardiac illness is not easy because it dramatically disrupts people’s daily life and both the patient and his/her spouse are at risk for experiencing distress, which, in turn, may affect the support provided by the partner as caregiver. The partner, in fact, is the main source of support, but his/her support may sometimes be inadequate. In addition, dyadic coping could likely be a moderating factor. The main aim of the present study was to examine the role that dyadic (...) coping plays in moderating the link between patient and partner cardiac illness-related distress and partner support. The study included 100 married couples faced with cardiac illness who completed a self-report questionnaire. We analyzed our data in PROCESS using multiple regressions in order to assess the moderating effects of DC responses in the relationship between the couple’s cardiac illness-related distress and partner support. With regard to patient distress, results showed that higher levels of patient anxiety and depression were linked with ineffective partner support. With regard to partner distress, higher levels of partner depression were linked with hostility; higher levels of partner depression and anxiety were associated with less partner support for patient engagement. Moreover, the association between distress and partner support was moderated by the quality of DC. In particular, low positive DC represented a risk factor for both the patient and the partner during a cardiac illness, as low positive DC exacerbated the link between patient and partner distress and less effective partner support styles. Also, higher levels of negative DC were risky for couples: The association between distress and less adequate partner supportive behaviors was stronger in the case of higher negative DC. These results imply a need for psychosocial interventions for couples in cardiac illness, especially for couples lacking relational competences, such as positive dyadic coping. (shrink)

In section one of this paper, I review some of the leading research on cheating behavior, and in section two I do the same for cheating motivation. Section three then outlines several requirements for honesty and dishonesty, and I explain why, in light of the current psychological evidence, these requirements do not seem to be met. Finally in section four I step back and consider an important implication if my conclusions are correct.

Objective: The objective of our current research is to compare the different psychological interventions and distinguish the most effective way to treat psychological crisis according to different clinical manifestations in people affected by coronavirus disease 2019. No previous systematic review has provided a comprehensive overview by performing a Bayesian network meta-analysis of this current topic.Method: A systematic review and a Bayesian network meta-analysis were conducted on randomized controlled trials, non-RCTs, case–control studies, self-controlled case series, cohort studies, and cross-sectional studies (...) of all the available interventions for psychological crisis in people affected by COVID-19. We searched the electronic databases EMBASE, PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and Cochrane Library, as well as the Chinese databases such as Sinomed, Chinese Biomedicine Literature, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, WanFang Database, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure, from 2019 to April 30, 2020. The main outcomes were self-rating anxiety scale, self-rating depression scale, patient health questionnaire, and symptom checklist. The study is registered with Inplasy, number 202050076.Result: Sixteen self-controlled case series comprising 1,147 participants compared five different psychological interventions with four different measurement scales were included in this study. For effectiveness, all the psychological therapies were significantly more effective than before intervention. Our results showed that supportive therapy, which is adjusted to the COVID-19-related mental crisis, is the best treatment compared with behavioral therapy, nursing-based psychological therapy, traditional Chinese medicine therapy, and COVID-19-related standard training at reducing the anxiety-related symptoms assessed by SAS. When measured by SDS, BT was better than ST and NBPT treatment for reducing the depression symptoms. And ST was better than BT and ST+BT as assessed by PHQ-9. In the end, the last network meta-analysis indicated that NBPT was more effective than ST by the measurement of SCL-90.Conclusion: Our research suggested the potential effectiveness of psychological interventions for decreasing psychological crisis in people affected by COVID-19 and try to introduce the best effective treatment options for clinical practice according to the clinical manifestations of psychological problems, but further confirmation from high-quality RCTs is needed. (shrink)

What should we do if climate change or global injustice require radical policy changes not supported by the majority of citizens? And what if science shows that the lacking support is largely due to shortcomings in citizens’ individual psychology such as cognitive biases that lead to temporal and geographical parochialism? Could then a plausible case for enhancing the morality of the electorate—even against their will –be made? But can a democratic government manipulate the will of the people without losing (...) democratic legitimacy? This paper explores the problems that governmental manipulation of voters pose for democratic legitimacy and the tensions between non-manipulated input and morally acceptable output. These venerable issues of political theory resurface in light of recent suggestions to tackle today’s global mega-problems by Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu. They suggest that to avert the looming catastrophe, governments should alter psychological traits of the citizenry through biomedical means, from pharmaceuticals to genetics. However, we argue that a government cannot rule with democratic legitimacy if elected by a will of the people it manipulated before. Normatively, conferring power from the governed onto governors is a one-directional relation that is incompatible with manipulation. But while it is tempting to rebut suggestions to morally enhance the people as antithetical to essential ideas of democracy, swift rebuttals tend to overlook the deeper challenge: Majoritarian decision-making may lead to inacceptable outcomes. The dilemma between input and output runs through major works in political theory. Rather than wishfully ignoring the dangers of democracy, democratic theory has to provide answers. (shrink)