Affective Realm Research Articles

Towards an international dialogue. North American reflections on the Santiago Congress.

In this brief reflection on the Santiago Congress, an attempt is made to clarify some of our difficulties in international dialogue. The fantasy persists that there is only one psychoanalytic mother tongue; alongside is the wish that European, Latin American and North American approaches might be integrated. Is such integration possible or desirable? In making clinical observations are we all looking at the same phenomena and putting them into different words, or are our observations irreconcilable? It is suggested that common ground might exist more readily on some levels of abstraction than on others and that North American conceptualisations might coexist with European and Latin American conceptualisations on separate levels of abstraction. An argument is made for a reconsideration of quantitative and energic factors, especially in the realm of affect and representation, and a reintegration of such notions into structural theory. Because the tight linkage we habitually draw between theory and practice may not accurately reflect the analyst's mind at work, we cannot study too frequently the details of the clinical hour, including what we observe ourselves thinking and doing.

Research in Progress: Does Environmental Interpretation Influence Behaviour through Knowledge or Affect?

Interpretation is frequently seen as effective in managing tourist-wildlife interactions because it increases awareness about a species and encourages a conservation ethic (Beckmann 1991, Moscardo 1998). Interpretation has been advocated as the most effective management strategy for wildlife encounters (Orams 1996). Implicit in this belief is that by changing people's attitude, interpretation will change their behaviour (Roggenbuck 1992).Petty et al. (1997) define an attitude as an evaluation of an object (eg. people, animal, etc.) that exists along a dimension ranging from positive to negative. In reflecting on attitude change it helps to conceptualise an attitude as comprised of three main components: affect, cognition, and behaviour. The affective component consists of a person's feeling towards an object, the cognitive component consists of a person's knowledge and understanding of an object and the behavioural component involves a person's actual behaviour towards the object (Knudson et al. 1999).Although attitude is conceptualised as having three main components, most past research on interpretation has focused on changes in cognition (Beckmann 1991). Howard (1998) suggested that as people attend interpretive programs at leisure affective realms are important, and as such, mood theory might improve our understanding of: the intrinsically rewarding feelings that characterise this type of leisure experience; and how interpretation may influence people's behaviour. The influence of affective realms on interpretive programs is poorly understood and not well researched (Howard 1998). This paper contributes to our understanding of cognition and affect in interpretive setting by providing the results of a preliminary study conducted at Mon Repos Conservation Park.

Character Education in Business Schools: Pedagogical Strategies

This manuscript commences by articulating the need for character education in business schools. It proceeds to discuss several pedagogical strategies that develop virtue in students. The concept of character education, derived from a variety of cultures -- including the ancient Greeks -- includes cognitive, affective and behavioral realms. As such, it seeks not only to develop students' intellectual capabilities but to make them people of virtue as well. Particular pedagogical strategies addressed in the article include teaching virtues via narrative, mentor relationships, collaborative learning, service-learning and self-reflection. Programs of a number of universities are cited as examples.

An Athapaskan way of knowing: Chipewyan Ontology

The ontology of those Canadian Chipewyan who still actively hunt, fish, and trap is based on the assumption that one must maintain a harmonious communication with nature, especially with animal persons. To this end, emphasis is placed on paying attention to the full complement of holistically interacting senses, giving more attention to the intuitive and affective realms than is typical for Euro‐American ontologies. No single sensorium dominates metaphorically; greatest validity is given to firsthand, experiential knowledge attained in waking life or in dreams, with the powerful stories of the elders serving as guides to understanding. Chipewyan thought is monistic—there are no human/nature, mind/body, thought/action, or spirit/matter dualisms. There is a definite cognitive connection among the inseparability of the senses, an implicit monistic philosophy, the understanding that individual can never be separate from society, social egalitarianism, and the belief in the need for maintaining harmonious communication with animal persons. [Chipewyan, ontology, perception, inkonze, monism]

The affective realm

A major difficulty in understanding emotions is the confusion concerning the differences between emotions and related affective phenomena such as feelings, moods, affective disorders, sentiments, and affective traits. In light of such confusion, in many disputes concerning affective phenomena each side is actually referring to a different set of phenomena. This paper clarifies the differences between the various phenomena and thereby supplies a novel systematic description of the affective realm. The suggested classification is not arbitrary: it is done in light of the two basic characteristics of affective phenomena: the intentional nature of the evaluative stand, and the occurrent or dispositional nature of the feeling dimension. These characteristics express the two basic mental dimensions of intentionality and feeling. The suggested classification has significant implications for understanding emotions and other related phenomena.

Switching From 'Unipolar' to Bipolar II

Given the therapeutic and prognostic importance of the unipolar-bipolar dichotomy, predicting which patients will become bipolar subsequent to index diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD) is of paramount clinical significance. We sought to characterize the profile of patients with MDD who would convert to the more subtle bipolar subtype (known as BPII) on the basis of clinical and personality variables obtained during MDD episodes. A total of 559 patients, comprehensively evaluated with the Schedule of Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia and "unipolar" MDD at entry, were administered 17 self-report personality measures. Hypomanic and manic episodes were systematically recorded over a prospective observation period of up to 11 years. We compared 48 converters to BPII (8.6%) with 22 converters to bipolar I (BPI) (3.9%) and the remaining larger group of unipolar patients. Except for greater acuteness, severity, and psychotic symptomatology, BPI converters were essentially similar to MDD nonconverters. By contrast, BPII converters were robustly distinguished from those with MDD who remained unipolar on the basis of self-report measures along the newly derived factors of Mood Lability, Energy-Activity, and Daydreaming. This profile was associated with early age at onset of MDD and pleomorphic psychopathology beyond the usual affective realm, high rates of substance abuse, as well as educational, marital, and occupational disruption and minor antisocial acts prior to discrete hypomanic episodes. Overall, BPII switchers had a more protracted and tempestuous course with shorter well intervals. "Habitual self" descriptions of temperamental instability during MDD episodes provided useful clinical information for predicting which depressed patients will switch to BPII, attaining a sensitivity of 91% for all three factors combined (23 items); Mood Lability alone (nine items) was the most specific predictor (86%), though of lower sensitivity (42%). The BPII subtype is best understood by such lability intruding into, and possibly its accentuation during, depressive episodes, thereby creating an intimate interweaving of trait and state. Clinicians must note that the foregoing temperamental profile appears more fundamental in defining the affective dysregulation of the BPII subtype than hypomanic episodes emphasized in DSM-IV.

Social Justice through Peace Education: Using Dance to Access the Affective Realm in the Non-Violent Curriculum

Social Justice through Peace Education: Using Dance to Access the Affective Realm in the Non-Violent Curriculum

The influence of affective processing in education and training

AbstractLearning is not just the acquisition and manipulation of content; how and how well we learn is influenced by the affective realm—our emotions and feelings—as well as by the cognitive domain.

Education for Democracy

This study assessed an educational program designed to enhance democratic values among junior high students. The program is counseling oriented and holistic, in that it aims at creating change on intrapersonal, interpersonal, and organizational levels as well as in the cognitive, affective, and behavioral realms. The research population encompassed 600 junior high students from six schools and 20 classrooms. A pre-posttest comparison was employed. Results of the intervention indicated an increase in democratic values, as revealed by attitudes toward school life; an enhanced democratic climate in the classroom; and a decrease in positive attitudes toward school. These findings have important implications regarding program implementation.

The Validity of the Rorschach for Assessing Cognitive and Affective Changes

Exner's (1985) Rorschach norms of children 5 to 16 years old were used to test predictions based on developmental theory, previous cognitive studies, and Achenbach and Edelbrock's (1981) norms on behavior problems in children. In the cognitive realm, the Rorschach scores reflected the predicted increase in complexity, integration, and precision of thinking; richness of ideas; conformity to socially acceptable ways of thinking; and the concomitant decrease in unrealistic, egocentric ideas. In the affective realm, the Rorschach scores reflected the predicted decrease in uncontrolled expression of affect, increase in controlled expression of affect, and increase in inwardness. However, the Rorschach scores failed to reflect the predicted decrease in anxiety and increase in depression. Finally, there was no evidence of increased accuracy of perception.

The measurement of optimism and pessimism

Procedures employed in the development and validation of a new Optimism & Pessimism Scale are described, and information about test-retest reliability is reported. Internal consistency analyses and other data suggest that optimism and pessimism are not polar opposites and bring up questions about the intrerelatedness of the cognitive and affective realms. The magnitude of the correlation between pessimism and measures of anxiety suggests a link between this measure and the Negative Affectivity construct, and the potential relationships among optimism, pessimism, the Pollyanna Principle, and Positive and Negative Affect are discussed. Conceptually, it appears that optimism and pessimism may aid in psychological defense by helping to bind anxiety.

Applying Marketing Strategy and Personal Value Analysis to Career Planning: An Experiential Approach

Those of us who teach marketing strategy can readily apply strategic course material for the benefits of career planning of our students. The experiential learning approach permits learning by discovery and self-development under the guidance of the marketing educator. It proceeds in analogy to developing a strategic marketing plan for a company through the steps of assessing a student's past achievements (the cognitive realm), understanding the role and priority of his or her personal values (the affective realm) and building on his or her preferred activity style and personal strengths (the conative realm). Subsequently a student's professional expectations are compared with expectations by (prospective) employers. Based on the personal out-look on life exogenous and endogenous factors affecting a student's instrumental and terminal values are evaluated. The result is the development of a personalized and realistic strategic career plan and range of career options.

IPALION: A FORTRAN IV program for comparing interpersonal perceptions in dyads

Comparisons of interpersonal perceptions as a technique of inquiry in psychotherapy, education, marriage counseling, and business management, and in other communication-intensive contexts, have evoked widespread interest by workers in a variety of disciplines (e.g., Bryant, 1974; Drewery, 1969; Goffman, 1959; Newcomb, 1961; Taguiri, 1958; Watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967). Many of these investigators have maintained that, since the meaning of behavior to interacting persons is mediated through the interplay of perceptions each has of the other, data on interpersonal perception are essential to a fuller understanding of dyadic behavior systems. Acquisition of such data somehow eliciting information about the interperceptions of members of a dyad across different cognitive and affective realms of their relationship and subsequently comparing selected perceptions of the two parties in order to isolate areas of accuracy and inaccuracy in their perceptual relationship. I One of the most widely known efforts in this regard is the interpersonal perception method (IPM) developed by Laing, Phillipson, and Lee (1966), which represents an extension of Dymond's (1949) early work on interpersonal perception. Laing et al. report a method and an instrument for examining the interperceptions of husband-wife dyads that comparing pairs of perceptions with respect to specified issues in their relationship (e.g., respects, takes seriously, hates, etc.). Such comparisons at several perceptual levels provide a glimpse of how accurately members of a pair can identify each other's perceptions. Recently, Alperson (1975) has demonstrated the logical integrity of the IPM and the inferences derived from it concerning agreement, understanding, and realization.t' Despite the promise and logical versatility of this method, a number of investigators suggest why so little refinement or application of the IPM has been attempted. Alperson (1975) indicates that the scoring procedures are tedious and difficult. Kotkas (1969) writes that the original IPM questionnaire entails a

Media Effects Reconsidered

Arguments are presented for looking at cognitive outcomes as dependent variables in communication research rather than placing emphasis only on affective realms. This approach also brings attention to the independent-dependent variable emphases found in the communication literature over the last few decades. The social context of media use and the motivations that spring from this contextual embeddedness are also discussed with regard to information utility and the distribution of information availability. Finally a comment is offered on how these perspectives may relate to developments in new media technology.

The Transmission of Political Values from Parent to Child

In understanding the political development of the pre-adult one of the central questions hinges on the relative and differentiated contributions of various socializing agents. The question undoubtedly proves more difficult as one traverses a range of polities from those where life and learning are almost completely wrapped up in the immediate and extended family to those which are highly complex social organisms and in which the socialization agents are extremely varied. To gain some purchase on the role of one socializing agent in our own complex society, this paper will take up the specific question of the transmission of certain values from parent to child as observed in late adolescence. After noting parent-child relationships for a variety of political values, attention will be turned to some aspects of family structure which conceivably affect the transmission flows.I. Assessing the Family's Impact: “Foremost among agencies of socialization into politics is the family.” So begins Herbert Hyman's discussion of the sources of political learning.1 Hyman explicitly recognized the importance of other agents, but he was neither the first nor the last observer to stress the preeminent position of the family. This viewpoint relies heavily on both the direct and indirect role of the family in shaping the basic orientations of offspring. Whether the child is conscious or unaware of the impact, whether the process is role-modelling or overt transmission, whether the values are political and directly usable or “nonpolitical” but transferable, and whether what is passed on lies in the cognitive or affective realm, it has been argued that the family is of paramount importance.

The Transmission of Political Values from Parent to Child

In understanding the political development of the pre-adult one of the central questions hinges on the relative and differentiated contributions of various socializing agents. The question undoubtedly proves more difficult as one traverses a range of polities from those where life and learning are almost completely wrapped up in the immediate and extended family to those which are highly complex social organisms and in which the socialization agents are extremely varied. To gain some purchase on the role of one socializing agent in our own complex society, this paper will take up the specific question of the transmission of certain values from parent to child as observed in late adolescence. After noting parent-child relationships for a variety of political values, attention will be turned to some aspects of family structure which conceivably affect the transmission flows.I. Assessing the Family's Impact: “Foremost among agencies of socialization into politics is the family.” So begins Herbert Hyman's discussion of the sources of political learning.1 Hyman explicitly recognized the importance of other agents, but he was neither the first nor the last observer to stress the preeminent position of the family. This viewpoint relies heavily on both the direct and indirect role of the family in shaping the basic orientations of offspring. Whether the child is conscious or unaware of the impact, whether the process is role-modelling or overt transmission, whether the values are political and directly usable or “nonpolitical” but transferable, and whether what is passed on lies in the cognitive or affective realm, it has been argued that the family is of paramount importance.