Psychology Commons^™

Insect Consciousness: Commitments, Conflicts And Consequences, Colin Klein, Andrew B. Barron

Animal Sentience

Our target article, “Insects have the capacity for subjective experience,” has provoked a diverse range of commentaries. In this response we have collated what we see as the major themes of the discussion. It is clear that we differ from some commentators in our commitments to what subjective experience is and what the midbrain is capable of. Here we clarify where we stand on those points and how our view differs from some other influential perspectives. The commentaries have highlighted the most lively areas of disagreement. We revisit here the debates surrounding whether the cortex is essential for any form …

Consciousness And Evolutionary Biology, Yew-Kwang Ng

Animal Sentience

Reber’s axiom: “Any organism with flexible cell walls, a sensitivity to its surrounds and the capacity for locomotion will possess the biological foundations of mind and consciousness” does not seem to be supported by things we know and the logic of evolutionary biology. The latter leads to the conclusion that conscious species are flexible in their behavior (rather than in their cell walls), as argued in Ng (1995, 2016). Locomotion may be completely hard-wired and need not involve consciousness. It is hard enough to explain how consciousness could emerge in a sophisticated brain: Isn’t it a harder problem to show …

Psychological Needs, Self-Regulation, And Motivation Profiles Among A Sample Of Hong Kong Chinese University Students: A Person-Centered Approach, Cecilia M. S. Ma, Daniel T. L. Shek, Catie C. W. Lai

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

To better understand factors that influence individuals’ motivation to engage in physical activity, this study aimed to identify the motivational profiles among the Chinese university students, compare the motivational profiles between genders, and explore whether satisfaction of various psychological needs vary with different motivational profiles. Two thousand and twenty-two Chinese university students completed a battery of self-report questionnaires assessing motivation regulation and psychological needs satisfaction. Three motivational profiles were identified for both genders. The overall patterns of the motivational profiles for both genders were similar. However, males (44%) were more likely than their female counterparts (19%) in self-determined profile group. …

Individual And Family Protective Factors Of Intentional And Unintentional Consumption Of Online Pornography In Hong Kong, Cecilia M. S. Ma, Daniel T. L. Shek, Catie C. W. Lai

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

The purpose of the current study was to explore how positive youth development and family functioning were related to unintentional and intentional exposure to online pornography in Chinese adolescents. A total of 1401 secondary school students (mean age=12.43) participated in the study. Findings suggested that positive youth development and family functioning were associated with lower exposure to online pornography. In particular, higher levels of spirituality, social competence, mutuality and communication were associated with lower levels of both types of exposure to online pornography. Discussion focuses on the importance of promoting positive youth development and family functioning as protective factors against …

The Difference Between Conscious And Unconscious Brain Circuits, Ezequiel Morsella, Zaviera Reyes

Animal Sentience

Theoretical frameworks in which consciousness is an inherent property of the neuron must account for the contrast between conscious and unconscious processes in the brain and address how neural events can ever be unconscious if consciousness is a property of all neurons. Other approaches have sought answers regarding consciousness by contrasting conscious and unconscious processes and through investigating the complex interactions between the two kinds of processes, as occurs most notably in human voluntary action. In voluntary action, consciousness is associated most, not with motor control or low-level perceptual processing, but with the stage of processing known as action selection.

Subjective Report Of Side Effects Of Prescribed And Nonprescribed Psychostimulant Use In Young Adults, Tess E. Smith, Michelle M. Martel, Alan D. Desantis

Psychology Faculty Publications

Background: Side effects of prescribed and nonprescribed psychostimulant use are understudied. Objectives: The study examined side effects of prescribed and nonprescribed psychostimulant use in a college sample with attention to possible gender differences. Methods: 2716 undergraduates (1448 male) between the ages of 17 and 57 years (M = 19.43 years, SD = 1.7 years) completed an online survey that included questions about the subjective side effects of prescribed and nonprescribed psychostimulant use. Results: Results suggested that prescribed users more frequently reported side effects, compared to nonprescribed users. For prescribed users, females more frequently reported appetite, somatic, and anxiety-related side …

Resolving The Hard Problem And Calling For A Small Miracle, Arthur S. Reber

Animal Sentience

With the exception of the commentary by Key, the commentaries on Reber have a common feature: the commenters feel, with varying levels of enthusiasm, that there is at least some virtue in the core assumption of the Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC) theory that consciousness (or subjectivity or sentience) accompanies the earliest forms of life. The model has two important entailments: (a) it resolves the (in)famous Hard Problem by redirecting the search for the biochemical foundations of sentience away from human consciousness; and (b) it reduces the need for an emergentist miracle to a far simpler scale than is currently …

No Help On The Hard Problem, Derek Ball

Animal Sentience

The hard problem of consciousness is to explain why certain physical states are conscious: why do they feel the way they do, rather than some other way or no way at all? Arthur Reber (2016) claims to solve the hard problem. But he does not: even if we grant that amoebae are conscious, we can ask why such organisms feel the way they do, and Reber’s theory provides no answer. Still, Reber’s theory may be methodologically useful: we do not yet have a satisfactory theory of consciousness, but perhaps the study of simple minds is a way to go about …

Unconscious Higher-Order Thoughts (Hots) As Pre-Reflective Self-Awareness?, Rocco J. Gennaro

Animal Sentience

Rowlands argues that many nonhuman animals are “persons,” contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy which rests on a mistaken conception of the kind of self-awareness relevant to personhood. He argues that self-awareness bifurcates into two importantly different forms — reflective self-awareness and pre-reflective self-awareness — and that many animals can have the latter, which is sufficient for personhood. I agree that there is good reason to think that many animals can have pre-reflective self-awareness, but I think Rowlands is mistaken about its nature. His account runs the risk of leading to an infinite regress objection, and his notion of pre-reflective self-awareness …

The Psychological Concept Of “Person”, Kristin Andrews

Animal Sentience

Reluctance to overextend personhood seems to drive many of the skeptical responses in the first round of commentaries on Rowlands's target article. Despite Rowlands’s straightforward Response that we already accept some nonhumans as persons, there is still hesitation to accept that other nonhuman animals are persons. Rowlands's argument is sound but the skeptics don’t accept the Lockean notion of person. The metaphysical sense of person is a psychological one, however, and psychological properties grant one moral status according to many ethical theories.

The Logic Of Comprehensive Or Deep Emotional Change, Jeremy Barris

Humanities Faculty Research

The article proposes an analogue of conceptual change in the context of comprehensive or deep emotional change and growth, and explores some aspects of its logic in that context. This is not to reduce emotions to concepts, but to say that concepts express the sense that is already inherent in experience and reality. When emotional states change so thoroughly that their applicable concepts become completely different, they shift from one logical structure to another. At the moment or phase when one conceptual structure transforms into another, two logically incompatible descriptions both apply to the same state at the same time. …

Welcome To Dignity, Donna M. Hughes

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Traumatic Life Events: Reactions And Resilience – Part Ii, Harvey J. Burnett Jr

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Inner Self

SIGNED: The Magazine of The Hong Kong Design Institute

Hong Kong artist Pak Sheung Chuen is burnishing his already impressive reputation by creating work that seeks to understand the part of the self that is inaccessible through reasoning.

In What Sense Are You A Person?, Pamela Barone, Antoni Gomila

Animal Sentience

According to Rowlands, personhood in nonhuman animals calls for a unified mental life and pre-reflective self-awareness provides this. The concept of “person” is fuzzy. Any attempt to define it with necessary and sufficient conditions faces the problem of borderline cases satisfying only some of the conditions to varying degrees. We ask about the implications of a metaphysical sense of personhood for its moral and legal sense. Finally, we address Rowlands’s reliance on pre-reflective self-awareness and present our own criteria for personhood.

“Hot” So Fast, Alex Howe

Animal Sentience

Mark Rowlands’s target article offers a lucid, systematic treatment of a notion of personhood that has had significant influence in philosophy. The orthodox interpretation of this notion of personhood has been that it requires cognitive capacities not possessed by animals. Rowlands disputes this. However, I think his objections to the orthodox, higher-order thought (HOT) theories of mental unity may be too quick. In this commentary, I show two separable places where Rowlands’s objection to HOT theories of mental unity falls short.

Consciousness And The Unity Of Mind, Mark Rowlands

Animal Sentience

Several types of objection have been raised against the arguments I presented in my target article, “Are animals persons?” Among the objections are the following: (1) the claim that animals are persons is of little significance, (2) my use of the Lockean conception of the person is questionable, (3) whether a creature qualifies as a person is a matter of social construction rather than objective fact, (4) reflective consciousness is more important than I realize, (5) my reliance on implicit self-awareness in the account of personhood is ill-advised, (6) my account entails that too many creatures qualify as persons, and …

Insects: Still Looking Like Zombies, Christopher S. Hill

Animal Sentience

In arguing that insect brains are capable of sentience, Klein & Barron rely heavily on Bjorn Merker’s claim that activity in the human mid-brain is sufficient for conscious experience. I criticize Merker’s claim by pointing out that the behaviors supported by midbrain activity are much more primitive than the ones that appear to depend on consciousness. I raise a similar objection to Klein & Barron’s contention that insect behaviors are similar to behaviors that manifest consciousness in human beings. The similarity is weak. I also respond to the related view that integrative activity in mid-brain structures is sufficient to explain …

Zen Noir Vis-À-Vis Myers-Briggs Personality Typology: Semiotic Multivalency As Grounds For Dialog, Edward J. Godfrey

Journal of Religion & Film

Marc Rosenbush’s film, Zen Noir (2004) is at first glance a Buddhist film wherein a troubled detective finds himself at a Zen temple with a murder to solve. But upon further investigation, it becomes evident that the film can also be understood in terms of Myers-Briggs personality typology, which is an extension of the personology and depth psychology of C.G. Jung. This suggests a multivalency which allows the imagery of the film to be interpreted in two different ways; as both suggesting Zen enlightenment and Jungian individuation. To assist with this comparison, this paper introduces the Ten Ox-Herding Paintings of …

Nit Nitay Garabame: Analyzing Mental Illness And Art Therapy Within Dakar’S Atelier D’Ex-Pression Artistique, Alaina Orr

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As mental health issues are usually given low priority in countries of sub-Saharan Africa, including Senegal, mental illness continues to be an emerging topic of discourse (Rand 2015). In Dakar, the practice of art therapy has been used for decades to provide those living with mental illness or going through trauma with a method for selfexpression when words fail to articulate their situations or mental states. Situated within Hôpital Fann’s psychiatric hospital, Clinique Moussa Diop, is an art therapy workshop known as l’Atelier d’EX-PRESSION Artistique1, which provides the space, structure, and material for persons with mental illness to work with …

Mission In Evolving Cultures: Constructively Managing Music-Related Conflict In Cross-Cultural Church Planting Contexts, David R. Dunaetz

Selected Faculty Publications

The choice of music, an essential element of worship and church life, must be addressed in cross-cultural church planting contexts. As cultures evolve, church planters are faced with choices about musical styles that may lead to interpersonal conflicts within the church. The purpose of this study is to empirically examine factors that may enable cross-cultural church planters to constructively manage music-related conflicts when they arise. Members of church plants, like all people, have various goals when entering into such conflicts. They are concerned about the content of the conflict (i.e., the musical style) and thus have content goals. They are …

Incremental Clinical Utility Of Adhd Assessment Measures With Latino Families, Margaret A. Grace

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common disorder beginning in childhood, with related symptoms and impairment across settings often persisting into adolescence and adulthood if effective treatment is not provided (Bernardi et al., 2012). Therefore, the early and accurate assessment and diagnosis of ADHD is critical. While the prevalence of ADHD symptomatology has been found to be consistent between Latinos and European Americans (Morgan, Hillemeir, Farkas, & Maczuga, 2014), there is little research on the best practices for assessing ADHD in Latinos. The current study sought to examine the incremental clinical utility of two parent- and teacher-report measures of ADHD symptomatology …

Reconceptualizing Women's Stem Experiences: Building A Theory Of Positive Marginality, Valerie N. Streets

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Since the 1980s, disciplines such as psychology and sociology have discussed the construct of positive marginality. Positive marginality describes the perception that belonging to a non-dominant cultural or demographic group can be advantageous rather than oppressing. To date, research on positive marginality has explored the construct in a qualitative manner across a number of demographic groups (e.g., Jewish women in social sciences, African American women in predominantly Caucasian workplaces). Because women are largely underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, the current research examined positive marginality in a STEM context. This research advances the existing understanding of positive …

An Enchanting Witchcraft: Masculinity, Melancholy, And The Pathology Of Gaming In Early Modern London, Celeste Chamberland

Occasional Papers

In seeking to illuminate the ways in which inchoate models of addiction emerged alongside the unprecedented popularity of gambling in Stuart London, this paper will explore the intersections between a rudimentary pathology of addiction and transformations in the epistemology of reason, the passions, and humoral psychology in the seventeenth century. By exploring the connections between endogenous and exogenous categories of mental illness, this study will examine the ways in which medicine, social expectations, and religion intersected in the seventeenth century alongside the historical relationship between evolving concepts of mental illness, stigma and the politics of blame and responsibility in the …

Human Creativity As A Vehicle For Societal Change: Can Social Action Through Art And Music Drive Positive Societal Change In Jordan?, Marina Qutab

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This case study addresses a gap in the research on society and culture as it examines the relationship between social action through human creativity and positive societal change in Jordan. This relationship was studied through the following methods: six formal interviews with three Musicians, one Artist, one Organizational Behavior and Work Psychologist, and one Cognition and Didactics Researcher; one informal interview with a Jordanian taxi driver; and 30 oral surveys provided to students at The University of Jordan. The researcher’s main goal was to investigate how human creativity expressed through music and the arts can address current pressing environmental and …

Initial Validation Of The Race-Ethnicity Supervision Scale (Ress), Stephanie Bartell

Dissertations (1934 -)

In this dissertation study, the author reports on the initial psychometric evaluation of the Race-Ethnicity Supervision Scale (RESS) with data collected from three studies and 307 mental health counseling and psychology trainees. Exploratory factor analyses yielded a 29-item scale with a four factor model (a) Promoting Supervisee Racial/Ethnic Cultural Competence, (b) Development and Responsivity to Cultural Identity in Supervision, (c) Perceived Supervisor Cultural Competence, and (d) Harmful Supervisory Practices. RESS scores were internally consistent and remained stable over a 3-week period. Construct validity evidence suggested RESS scores were positively related to MSI scores and unrelated to social desirability. Limitations and …

The Humanities, Brain Science And The Unforgiving Minute, Raymond L. Forbes

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Many independent authors from a wide variety of disciplines have come to a similar, if somewhat startling, conclusion; that we are currently at another “tipping point” in human history. Our arrival at this particular juncture in time seems to be the consequence of a potent mix of past trends and contemporary forces. Collectively, these energies act to feed exponentially growing technical and social change. In addition, there appears to be some agreement by thoughtful observers that the turmoil of our present epoch can be personified by four factors: volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity More specifically, the technical and societal changes …

Prejudice Toward Atheists In The United States As Related To Perceived Prevalence, Wanda D. Brooks

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

By manipulating mortality salience (MS) in place of life-threatening events to stimulate death-related thoughts, the current research contributes to the body of research supporting Terror Management Theory. It was hypothesized that religious participants should exhibit cultural worldview defense by scoring higher in anti-atheist prejudice following the MS manipulation than would those in the control condition. Further, this research extends the current research into Terror Management Theory as a cause for conflict among out-groups and explores its effects on cultural worldviews in the area of prejudice toward atheists. This includes examining how the perception of an increasing prevalence of atheists contributes …

Alleged Insanity: Frank Johnson Sr., Racial Injustice, And The Failure Of The Mental Health Care System In South Carolina, Jonathon P. Johnson

Senior Theses

This thesis is about Frank Johnson Sr. and the circumstances that led to his downfall as a farmer and father of six, to his tragic death in the isolation of a racially segregated mental institution 18 miles away from his home. Using his life and incarceration at the South Carolina State Park mental health facility, I argue that racial injustice contributed to his tragic death and the woefully inadequate treatment thousands of African Americans in South Carolina received during Jim Crow. Additionally, I argue that the tragic circumstances around my great grandfather’s institutionalization and death were part of an enduring …

“My Heart Falters, Fear Makes Me Tremble” (Isaiah 21:4 Niv): Emotions And Prophetic Writings In The Bible, Gerald A. Klingbeil, Chantal J. Klingbeil

Faculty Publications

"Emotions are an intricate part of what it means to be human. They are part of complex coping mechanisms installed by a Creator God whose own emotions are reflected in humanity’s creation in the imago Dei, the “image of God” (Gen. 1:27).¹ Joy, exuberance, anticipation, pleasure, delight, and happiness, must have all been part of God’s original make-up of humanity, for they characterize our existence today. We also experience, however, anger, sadness, sorrow, fear, depression, dejection, misery, and fury—emotions that became part of our emotive repertoire following the Fall in Genesis 3.²

Unfortunately, we have traditionally …