{"title":"Theory as behaviour: Why empathy research needs horizontal, mutualistic habits of seeing","authors":"Christa Avram","doi":"10.1177/09593543231159077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543231159077","url":null,"abstract":"I propose that theory, typically understood as a mere intellectual position, is also a habit of seeing (in the Deweyan sense). It is a form of behaviour organized through person–environment collaboration that reshapes both person and environment, facilitating and constraining subsequent potentials for action. I discuss two of psychology’s habits of seeing and their effect upon empathy research: (a) the vertical worldview, a habit of searching for reality at higher or lower levels, which neglects the empathizer’s context and (b) dualism, a habit of treating organisms as distinct from environments, which creates the problem of other minds. I present two alternative habits of seeing: (a) van Dijk and Withagen’s horizontal worldview, which looks outward to empathizers’ contexts and (b) organism–environment mutuality, which approaches organisms and environments as processes rather than entities. These latter habits, I conclude, better afford psychologists the possibility of addressing the practical problem of nonempathetic behaviour.","PeriodicalId":47640,"journal":{"name":"Theory & Psychology","volume":"33 1","pages":"330 - 345"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48699501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fiction and psychiatry","authors":"F. Oyebode","doi":"10.1177/09593543231160111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543231160111","url":null,"abstract":"The role of the humanities in medicine, especially mental health, is now well established. The importance of the subjective experience of people in the clinical encounter; the values and meanings that influence and determine how healthcare decisions are made and responded to; and the degree to which language pervades, structures, limits or enriches communication within the clinical space, are now explicit. This edited book extends, deepening our appreciation and understanding, the ways in which context, history, and politics impact on conceptional notions of madness. Furthermore, it demonstrates the capacity of literary theory to not only reflect but also to refract the realities that underlie behaviours and experiences termed madness. Finally, as if to make the point clear that the role of literature is not merely theoretical, it ends with a section on the instrumental uses of literature in clinical practice. One of the challenges of the postmodern world is the loss of the grand, monolithic narrative that disregards the emic, subsuming it within a supposed universalizing etic. Alan Weber’s chapter, “Layla and Majnun in Historical and Contemporary Conceptions of Madness in Islamic Psychology,” introduces the role of context, cultural as well as religious, in framing potential causes of inner turmoil, perhaps too, prescribing what emotions or beliefs arise in specific situations. Here then is a relativizing dialogue in which translations are inevitable with terms such as melancholia, delusionary disease, excessive love, and depression becoming the currencies that are exchanged to facilitate our cross-cultural understanding. Whether or not these terms cover the same semantic field in both Arabic and English is moot. Weber’s chapter makes it impossible to ignore the competing explanatory claims in mental health and, without saying so explicitly, centres psychiatry as a contested field. Sebastian Galbo’s chapter, “Apartheid’s Garden: Dismantling Madness in J.M. Coetzee’s Life & Times of Michael K,” develops this theme further by examining how politically oppressive systems such as apartheid South Africa can co-opt the power of diagnostic systems to disenfranchise political enemies by labelling them as mentally ill and thus fit for incarceration. In this reading, madness is not a medical condition, but a social construction perpetuated by racist and politically oppressive regimes. 1160111 TAP0010.1177/09593543231160111Theory & PsychologyReview review-article2023","PeriodicalId":47640,"journal":{"name":"Theory & Psychology","volume":"33 1","pages":"433 - 435"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45505056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why is one study technique superior to another?","authors":"D. Trafimow","doi":"10.1177/09593543231154223","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543231154223","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewers on manuscripts or grant proposals often react positively if authors use in-favor study techniques and negatively if authors use not-in-favor study techniques. A tacit assumption is that the in-favor technique is superior to alternate techniques. However, study techniques for theory testing depend on auxiliary assumptions that connect nonobservational terms in theories with observational terms in empirical hypotheses. Therefore, the extent to which a technique is useful depends on the theory and empirical hypothesis under investigation. A technique might be useful from one theoretical perspective and not useful from another theoretical perspective. Or a technique might successfully connect to one empirical hypothesis but not another. The present work threshes out some of the relevant philosophical issues.","PeriodicalId":47640,"journal":{"name":"Theory & Psychology","volume":"33 1","pages":"386 - 402"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42573540","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Psychological resilience: Connecting contemporary psychology to ancient practical philosophy","authors":"Joel Owen","doi":"10.1177/09593543231153820","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543231153820","url":null,"abstract":"Over the last five decades, a substantial and increasing number of scholarly studies have appeared on the topic of resilience, but relatively little attention has been paid to the way in which it relates to a body of work in ancient Greek and Roman practical philosophy. In this article, I review contemporary research on psychological resilience alongside a discussion of ancient practical philosophy such as it was conceived of by philosophers such as Socrates, the Cynics, the Stoics, and the Epicureans. I suggest that acknowledging and exploring the connections between these two fields has the potential to enrich the study both of psychological resilience and of ancient practical philosophy. Having drawn attention to a number of important points of connection, I discuss some of the theoretical implications for our current understanding of resilience and finish by pointing towards several areas of potential interest for future exploration on this topic.","PeriodicalId":47640,"journal":{"name":"Theory & Psychology","volume":"33 1","pages":"366 - 385"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41778036","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Helen L Ma, Michael R W Dawson, Ruby S Prinsen, Dana A Hayward
{"title":"Embodying cognitive ethology.","authors":"Helen L Ma, Michael R W Dawson, Ruby S Prinsen, Dana A Hayward","doi":"10.1177/09593543221126165","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543221126165","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cognitive psychology considers the environment as providing information, not affecting fundamental information processes. Thus, cognitive psychology's traditional paradigms study responses to precisely timed stimuli in controlled environments. However, new research demonstrates the environment does influence cognitive processes and offers cognitive psychology new methods. The authors examine one such proposal: cognitive ethology. Cognitive ethology improves cognitive psychology's ecological validity through first drawing inspiration from robust phenomena in the real world, then moving into the lab to test those phenomena. To support such methods, cognitive ethologists appeal to embodied cognition, or 4E cognition, for its rich relationships between agents and environments. However, the authors note while cognitive ethology focuses on new methods (epistemology) inspired by embodied cognition, it preserves most traditional assumptions about cognitive processes (ontology). But embodied cognition-particularly its radical variants-also provides strong ontological challenges to cognitive psychology, which work against cognitive ethology. The authors argue cognitive ethology should align with the ontology of less radical embodied cognition, which produces epistemological implications, offering alternative methodologies. For example, cognitive ethology can explore differences between real-world and lab studies to fully understand how cognition depends on environments.</p>","PeriodicalId":47640,"journal":{"name":"Theory & Psychology","volume":"33 1","pages":"42-58"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9893303/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10661700","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Going round in squares: Theory-based measurement requires a theory of measurement","authors":"F. Hasselman","doi":"10.1177/09593543221131511","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543221131511","url":null,"abstract":"In their article on theory-based measurement, Borgstede and Eggert (2023) argue that a substantive formal psychological theory that is capable of predicting expected measurement outcomes for the theoretical objects of measurement it posits to exist is both necessary and sufficient for psychological measurement. They reveal that measurement in psychology mostly concerns the estimation of latent variables and compares unfavorably to the development of measurement in the history of physics. They, however, fail to include a comparison with the great advances in theory-based measurement achieved in modern physics. In this commentary, I describe how measurement is formalized in classical physics and examine what would be required to formalize the physical measurement of psychological phenomena. I conclude that, without an examination of the theoretical assumptions underlying current measurement procedures and a formal notion of psychological measurement, it is unlikely that psychological science will be able to generate the substantive theories suggested by Borgstede and Eggert.","PeriodicalId":47640,"journal":{"name":"Theory & Psychology","volume":"33 1","pages":"145 - 152"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47018695","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why force a square peg into a round hole? The ongoing (pseudo-)problem of psychological measurement","authors":"K. Slaney","doi":"10.1177/09593543221128522","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543221128522","url":null,"abstract":"In this commentary on Borgstede and Eggert’s article “Squaring the Circle: From Latent Variables to Theory-Based Measurement,” (2023) three problematic areas of their proposed psychological measurement framework are identified. These pertain, respectively, to (a) confusions regarding the meaning of “meaning”; (b) vagueness and ambiguity in Borgstede and Eggert’s theory-based measurement framework; and (c) the decidedly thin promise of the aim of replacing ordinary “folk” psychological concepts with theoretically defined formalisms. The commentary concludes with the suggestion that building a psychological measurement framework on the model of the physical sciences may be likely to create more problems than it solves.","PeriodicalId":47640,"journal":{"name":"Theory & Psychology","volume":"33 1","pages":"138 - 144"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42182417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Meaningful measurement requires substantive formal theory","authors":"M. Borgstede, F. Eggert","doi":"10.1177/09593543221139811","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543221139811","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we take the opportunity to elaborate on some aspects of our article “Squaring the Circle: From Latent Variables to Theory-Based Measurement” (Borgstede & Eggert, 2023) that gave rise to the concerns uttered by Hasselman (2023) and Slaney (2023), and to clarify why we think that theory-based measurement is indeed necessary and sufficient for the establishment of meaningful psychological measurement procedures. Moreover, we will illustrate how theory-based measurement might be accomplished in psychology by means of an example from behavioral selection theory.","PeriodicalId":47640,"journal":{"name":"Theory & Psychology","volume":"33 1","pages":"153 - 159"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41630771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Self-Knowledge as self-improvement in Plato’s dialogues and cognitive behavioural therapy","authors":"Chloe Bamboulis","doi":"10.1177/09593543221136103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543221136103","url":null,"abstract":"Some researchers who examine the similarities between philosophy and psychology conclude that engaging in philosophy can improve one’s mental health, instead of, or in addition to, traditional forms of therapy. This article reinforces this by establishing the relationship between self-knowledge as self-improvement in Plato’s dialogues and in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Despite multiple important points of congruence, some authors have rejected the idea that self-knowledge in Plato can be assimilated to self-knowledge in psychotherapy. Here, I argue against this criticism by focusing on three key areas of interest: (a) self-knowledge as improving one’s beliefs via objective (nonsubjective) means, (b) self-knowledge as resulting in objective (nonsubjective) outcomes, and (c) self-knowledge as progress towards the Good. I reinforce the link by demonstrating that CBT uses methods which are equally objective as those of the Platonic dialogues. I then continue by claiming that the outcome of self-knowledge in both is also equally objective. Finally, I explore the nature of their relationship. Instead of arguing that self-knowledge in CBT is a modern version of Platonic self-knowledge, I propose that although not intended to, it functions as a preparatory process for one to be able to participate in Platonic self-knowledge.","PeriodicalId":47640,"journal":{"name":"Theory & Psychology","volume":"33 1","pages":"346 - 365"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"65324559","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Worth-Conscious theory: Understanding the role of birthright self-worth and application to clinical practice","authors":"Dawna Daigneault, Chris Brown","doi":"10.1177/09593543221135559","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543221135559","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we introduce a theory of worth consciousness that builds on the research from self-worth with attention to the importance of honoring birthright self-worth (BSW), which is foundational to human dignity. This new empirically testable construct, Worth-Conscious theory (WCT), concerns human worth and requires individuals to recognize and acknowledge their value and significance (i.e., worth) even when smaller (e.g., family) and larger (e.g., community and society) systems fail to support them in affirming and repairing their worth. Self-Worth is the birthright of all individuals; hence our central aim is to introduce and explain the four pillars of self-worth, which are major tenets of WCT that align with Erikson’s developmental stages. These four pillars of self-worth (self-awareness, self-respect, self-esteem(ed), and self-confidence) are instrumental in understanding clients’ life challenges, presenting issues, and how to assist them in repairing and maintaining their worth. More specifically, many clients’ mental health issues, interpersonal conflicts, and other concerns can be directly or indirectly related to the experience of negative and critical beliefs about their worth and, more specifically, that their BSW has not been affirmed or realized throughout the lifespan.","PeriodicalId":47640,"journal":{"name":"Theory & Psychology","volume":"33 1","pages":"306 - 329"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46985753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}