In this article we explore a self-regulatory perspective on the self-evaluative moral emotions, shame and guilt. Broadly conceived, self-regulation distinguishes between two types of motivation: approach/activation and avoidance/inhibition. We use this distinction to conceptually understand the socialization dimensions (parental restrictiveness versus nurturance), associated emotions (anxiety versus empathy), and forms of morality (proscriptive versus prescriptive) that serve as precursors to each self-evaluative moral emotion. We then examine the components of shame and guilt experiences in greater detail and conclude with more general (...) implications of a self-regulatory perspective on moral emotions. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of the cognitive processes implied in the ego defense known as projection. Projection is first placed in the context of the general cognitive processes of attribution and ascription. Then we address defensive projection, and identify its distinctive features. In particular, whereas general projection consists in the ascription of one's own mental attitudes to others, defensive projection implies one's rejection of the ascribed mental states, and ascription is a means for supporting this rejection. We try to (...) understand how and why ascription is functional to rejection. Then, we examine a few types of defensive projection, and identify the main components and steps in the projective process. Finally, we draw some general conclusions. (shrink)

Traditionally, developmental psychology has been characterized by two approaches, one predominantly social and the other, cognitive. Despite this separatism, develop-mentalists have expressed the need for a better understanding of how these two facets of the person interact - a need for a better account of development within the person as a whole. However, such an integration has been difficult given the incompatibility of underlying assumptions guiding these two areas of inquiry. James Mark Baldwin's integration of social and cognitive development into (...) one theory highlights the utility of historical analyses for further progress in the field. In this paper, Baldwin's dialectical theory of personal growth is placed in historical context, highlighting similarities and differences between his approach and that taken by Piaget, and the legacy of his theory in current theory and research. The importance of self, the development of knowledge in the context of social relationships and the function of imitation are emphasized. (shrink)

An individual’s accountability to oneself leads to self-regulatory behaviour. A field experiment afforded an opportunity to test this relation, given that external accountability conditions were absent. A single group pre-test/post-test design was used to test the hypothesis. A group of full-time resident management students, n ≈ 550, take four meals during the day in the institute mess. As a part of the experiment, food wastage in the form of leftovers on the plates of subjects was measured. As a pre-test, the (...) measurement occurred at two levels. Subjects could see how much they are adding to the total waste by looking at a weighing scale placed under a waste basket, and they could also see the total waste data for each of the four meals for the day and a day earlier displayed at a prominent place. After 105 days, the weighing scale under the basket was removed, and as a post-test measurement, the total waste data for the four meals were noted down for another 72 days. A manipulation test indicated that the experiment has had the desired effect of invoking self-accountability in subjects during the pre-test phase, and diluting it during the post-test phase. Time series analysis of pre-test and post-test data indicated that the wastage data decreased in the pre-test phase. However, the post-test waste data showed an increase over a period of time. The results indicate that accountability conditions like social norms invoke self-accountability cognition leading to self-regulatory behaviours in individuals. (shrink)

This paper explores the association of children and animals as an element in Western culture's symbolic universe. Three historical discourses found in the West associate animality with immaturity and growing up with the transcendence of this condition. The discourses differ in how they describe and evaluate the original animal-like condition of the child versus the socialized end product. All, however, tend to distinguish sharply between the human and the nonhuman. This paper explores expressions of this tendency in developmental theories that (...) set as the criterion of maturity the actualization of some capacity that is believed to set humans apart from animals. Seeing relationships with animals as marginally important in human development and life is a consequence of these assumptions. Simultaneously, these assumptions also marginalize the body. This constitutes a dual renunciation of body and animal, criticized for its effects both on inquiry and on our realization of the roles and values of nonhuman animals in development. Such research can help reveal the self-organizing nature of the human animal body. (shrink)

A 'sensed presence' often accompanies hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations associated with sleep paralysis. Qualitative descriptions of the sensed presence during sleep paralysis are consistent with the experience of a monitoring, stalking predator. It is argued that the sensed presence during sleep paralysis arises because of REM-related endogenous activation of a hypervigilant and biased attentive state, the normal function of which is to resolve ambiguities inherent in biologically relevant threat cues. Given the lack of disambiguating environmental cues, however, the feeling of (...) presence persists as a protracted experience that is both numinous and ominous. This experience, in turn, shapes the elaboration and integration of the concurrent hallucinations that often take on supernatural and daemonic qualities. The sense of presence considered here is an 'other' that is radically different from, and hence more than a mere projection of, the self. Such a numinous sense of otherness may constitute a primordial core consciousness of the animate and sentient in the world around us. (shrink)

This article addresses a classical question: Can a machine use language meaningfully and if so, how can this be achieved? The first part of the paper is mainly philosophical. Since meaning implies intentionality on the part of the language user, artificial systems which obviously lack intentionality will be `meaningless'. There is, however, no good reason to assume that intentionality is an exclusively biological property and thus a robot with bodily structures, interaction patterns and development similar to those of human beings (...) would constitute a system possibly capable of meaning – a conjecture supported through a Wittgenstein-inspired thought experiment. The second part of the paper focuses on the empirical and constructive questions. Departing from the principle of epigenesis stating that during every state of development new structure arises on the basis of existing structure plus various sorts of interaction, a model of human cognitive and linguistic development is proposed according to which physical, social and linguistic interactions between the individual and the environment have their respective peaks in three consecutive stages of development: episodic, mimetic and symbolic. The transitions between these stages are qualitative, and bear a similarity to the stages in phylogenesis proposed by Donald and Deacon. Following the principle of epigenetic development, robotogenesis could possibly recapitulate ontogenesis, leading to the emergence of intentionality, consciousness and meaning. (shrink)

Great effort is invested in identifying ways to change people's minds on an issue. A first priority should perhaps be enriching their thinking about the issue. With a goal of enriching their thinking, we studied the views of community adults on the DACA issue—young adults who entered the United States illegally as children. A dialogic method was employed, offering dual benefits in providing participants the opportunity to further develop their own ideas and to consider differing ideas. Yet, participants engaged in (...) dialog only vicariously by observing the talk of a pair of actors who held opposing positions on DACA. The effect on participants’ thinking was greatest in the condition in which they viewed a dialog between the two actors, rather than a comparison condition in which the actors individually expressed their positions. In control conditions, no presentation was observed. Probing questions included in all conditions encouraged a participant to examine and clarify for themselves their own position, potentially enriching it. This condition proved unsuccessful in enriching thinking; participants’ justifications for their own positions in fact became simpler and less qualified. In contrast, observing a video of a like-minded and opposing other did enrich observers’ thinking, yet to a greater degree in the dialogic than nondialogic condition. The findings thus suggest observed dialog as a promising practical approach in promoting deeper thinking. (shrink)

Piaget's social psychology is not widely discussed among psychologists, partly because much of it is still contained in untranslated French works. In this article I summarize the main lines of Piaget's social psychology and briefly indicate its relation to current theories in social psychology. Rejecting both Durkheim's sociological holism and Tarde's individualism, Piaget advances a sociological relativism in which all social facts are reducible to social relations and these, in turn, are reducible to rules, values and signs. Piaget's theory of (...) social values takes the form of a social exchange theory characterized in an abstract logical way. Piaget claims social exchange requires normative principles of reciprocity and that individual social development results in such an equilibrium because rationality itself is social and based upon social cooperation. These views, in turn, derive from Piaget's orthogenetic views concerning the course of evolution: development can be characterized as an increase in equilibrium manifested both in individual action and in social interaction. (shrink)