Individual Self Research Articles

Process Axiology, Buddhism, Time, and Enduring Selves

Abstract This article explains that, why, and how process thinkers and Hartmanian axiologists affirm most, if not all, that Buddhism denies with respect to the positive goodness of ordinary conscious or aware lives, human and nonhuman. According to mainstream Buddhism, all the intrinsic, extrinsic, and systemic values of ordinary human existence are illusions, so we should avoid being involved with or attaching ourselves to any of them. By contrast, process thought and axiology affirm, cultivate, nurture, and encourage involvement with and attachment to all positive human values. Buddhism insists on the illusory nature of all intrinsic values (e.g., individual human selves, including ourselves), all extrinsic values (e.g., the everyday practical, useful, and sensory objects, processes, and activities of life), and all systemic values (e.g., all human thoughts, beliefs, and systems, except for the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path). Process thinkers and Hartmanian axiologists insist that such things are very real and should be taken with utmost seriousness. By “illusory,” Buddhists may mean nothing more than that all such things are temporal, fleeting, transient. For this reason, they claim, all attachment to or positive valuation of such things leads to suffering. I fully agree with the transience of all momentary actualities, but I react to and deal very differently with the positive values involved in such transience.

How Low Socioeconomic Status Hinders Organ Donation: An Extended Self Account

Abstract Past studies find that lower socioeconomic status (SES) individuals are less likely to donate organs. Building on the extended self literature, we propose that this effect occurs in part because the body is more central to the sense of self of lower-SES individuals. We test our predictions across seven studies (N = 8,782) conducted in different countries (U.S. and Brazil) with qualitative, observational, and experimental data in controlled and field settings. Results show that lower-SES individuals ascribe a greater weight to their bodies in forming their self-concept, which reduces their willingness to donate organs. Consistent with this rationale, socioeconomic disparities in organ donation are attenuated when (a) conceptions of selfhood prioritize non-physical aspects (e.g., the mind) over physical aspects (e.g., the body), and (b) appeals emphasize organ donation as a means to extend one’s sense of self (e.g., “let yourselves live through others”). Overall, this research documents an unexplored psychological barrier to organ donation and provides insights into how donation rates can be increased among lower-SES individuals.

“Moving choice to center stage” in the relationship between the self and offending: Integrating symbolic interactionism and rational choice

Symbolic interactionism (SI) and rational choice (RC) can inform two parts of one process in which an individual's self guides their choice to offend. Building on the work of others who have referenced their theoretical compatibility, I draw explicit connections between the key concepts of each perspective to propose an integrated framework for examining variation in offending both between- and within-persons. The framework proposes a process by which individuals hold several structured role-identities that inform expectations of the risks, costs, and rewards of offending, and together these role-identities comprise a core self that influences the degree to which one weighs these expectations (preferences) in behavioral decisions. Further development of this integrated model can advance empirical tests of SI and RC.

Interpretations of the Self in Hindu Philosophy: Advaita vs. Dvaita

This paper explores the contrasting interpretations of the Self (Atman) in two major schools of Hindu philosophy: Advaita Vedanta and Dvaita Vedanta. Advaita, led by Adi Shankara, posits a non-dualistic view, asserting that Atman and Brahman (the ultimate reality) are identical, and the experience of separateness is an illusion (maya). Dvaita, founded by Madhva, presents a dualistic framework, emphasizing the eternal distinction between the individual self and Brahman, advocating devotion to a personal God. This comparative study delves into the metaphysical, theological, and spiritual implications of these differing views, shaping Hindu understanding of liberation (moksha).

Oneness: Myth, Mystery, or ‘The Reality’

This research paper, titled "Oneness: Myth, Mystery, or The Reality," explores the concept of oneness from philosophical and scientific perspectives, examining whether it is a myth, a mystery, or a reality. Drawing from Advaita Vedanta, where the individual self (Atman) is seen as non-different from the universal consciousness (Brahman), and incorporating insights from contemporary philosophy and neuroscience, we argue that oneness transcends mere abstraction. The investigation reveals that both Eastern and Western traditions converge on the idea of interconnectedness, challenging the illusion of separateness. Additionally, empirical studies support the experiential aspects of oneness, indicating that it is not only a philosophical ideal but also a lived reality. The findings underscore the ethical implications of recognizing oneness, advocating for a holistic approach to personal and collective responsibility. Through this interdisciplinary dialogue, the paper aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of oneness as a vital framework for addressing contemporary existential and ethical dilemmas.

Colonial shadows: Exploring coloniality of being among Puerto Rican immigrants in the United States.

Coloniality, or the enduring legacy of domination and White supremacy stemming from colonization, manifests across power dynamics, knowledge systems, and personal identity. This study investigated the coloniality of being of 12 Puerto Rican adults living in the United States. We explored their perceptions of the self, other Puerto Ricans, Puerto Rican cultural patterns, and self-aspirations. Using consensual qualitative research, six domains emerged from the data, including (a) self-identity, (b) Puerto Rican pride, (c) other Puerto Ricans, (d) Puerto Rican dependency, (e) Puerto Ricans and work, and (f) reasons for migrating or staying in Puerto Rico. Results portrayed colonial power dynamics' profound and complicated mark on different aspects of the participants' individual and collective selves. Participants' language and narratives also conveyed ruptures between participants and other Puerto Ricans. Findings from our study help expand our understanding of Puerto Ricans' lived experiences of colonization, a group that still experiences the occupation and domination of its land and people. Our article also discusses the clinical and theoretical implications of this work, particularly as it pertains to Puerto Rican identity formation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Teaching Sustainable Advertising: A Trialogue Course-Project Using the SHIFT Framework

Organizations are building sustainable practices due to newer regulations and a commitment to the greater good. They are targeting the majority of consumers who want to live a sustainable lifestyle. As a result, universities have an opportunity to integrate sustainability topics into their coursework. This study addresses a curriculum gap that exists by introducing a project-based assignment using the SHIFT framework by White, Habib, and Hardisty (2019a), which outlines the triggers associated with influencing sustainable behaviors among consumers, namely, social influence, habit formation, individual self, feelings and cognition, and tangibility. We explain the relevance of the project via a literature review on the growing importance of sustainability to consumers, outline the project requirements and recommendations for execution, and share our experiences and those of our students using the project.

Постпенитенциарный идеал личности с «чистой совестью», субъектностью и «технологией работы с собой»

Introduction. The procedural approach in the study of a post-penitentiary subject is examined. In the procedural approach the most important is considered to be the analysis of formation, dynamics and novelty of personal entities. The aim of the research is to set the problem of designing a new identity of a post-penitentiary subject, starting from the change of his criminal attitude, constructive experience of guilt and stable reorientation of behaviour to the realisation of values of law-abiding activity. Methods. The dialectical method and the principle of development constituted the research methods. The main methodological approach of the study was the system approach. The study used general scientific research methods aimed at the collection, analysis, systematisation and generalisation of data, in particular, the analysis of normative legal acts and literature references directly related to the study of the problem of designing a new identity of a post-penitentiary subject. Results. The concept of “post-penitentiary ideal of a personality” is defined through the realisation and assumption of guilt for the deed, all responsibility for their future existence and activity. The article considers the problem of self-projecting of an identity of a post-penitentiary personality as an object of legal psychology research, which implies the adaptation of a personality to the “post-violent stage” of its free existence in society. In this case, a new identity, as a result of the post-penitentiary subject’s work over himself, goes beyond the individual self, as it covers broader contexts of a person’s life. Such personal transformations are possible through the introduction of effective psychological practices (correctional programs), self-design and self-development of a post-penitentiary subject. The analysis of foreign experience allowed identifying a number of “effective practices” used by penitentiary psychologists for adults and juveniles.

The Power and Pitfalls of Social Norms.

Social norms have long been considered across the social and behavioral sciences for their effects on human behavior. This review focuses on norms that explicitly or implicitly convey socially shared views about what people should or should not do. Such injunctive norms can be powerful influences on behavior through internalization or through formal or informal enforcement. They can underpin interventions to shape people's behavior through conformity but can also be drawn upon by individuals to question social practices. However, norms also have pitfalls and may fail to affect behavior as intended: They can pose a threat to the individual's self (autonomy, morality, values), compromise motives and social meanings (intrinsic motivation, trust, sincerity), or be egocentrically reconstrued (through biased perceptions and selective social/temporal referents). Depending on one's stance on an issue, such pitfalls may also be turned into powers to inoculate against undesirable norms or to advance social change.

Social Preferences and Redistributive Politics

Abstract We study the link between social preferences and a behaviorally validated measure of support for redistribution. We uncover three fundamentally distinct social preference types: predominantly selfish, inequality averse and altruistic individuals. Inequality averse and altruistic individuals display a much stronger support for redistribution, particularly if they are more affluent. Beliefs about the role of effort and luck for success play no role for selfish individuals but are highly relevant for other-regarding individuals. Finally, while inequality averse individuals display strong support for policies aimed at reducing the incomes of the rich, altruistic individuals are considerably less supportive of these policies.

Selfhood Beyond Death

Abstract There is a strong secular consensus that death terminates subjective consciousness. In this paper I show that this consensus can be meaningfully doubted for entirely secular reasons. After formulating the strongest possible argument which supports this consensus, I argue that it inconsistently excludes Constitutive Russellian Panpsychism (CRP) from consideration. CRP, I maintain, is fully consistent with the possibility of post-thanatological consciousness. To flesh out this account, I develop an account of the Panpsychist Self (PS) that can be axiomatically derived from CRP. I then show that the PS has the right metaphysical structure to ensure that the persistence of consciousness beyond brain death aligns with the persistence of our individual selves.

Индивидуальное и универсальное «я» с точки зрения буддийской философии – на примере анализа причины «ухода» Л.Н. Толстого

The development of Buddhist thought is characterized by the existence of many schools and a variety of approaches while maintaining ideological integrity. The doctrine of no-self (Skt. anātman) is considered one of the key tenets of the Buddhist worldview. However, this idea needs significant clarification. Due to the fact that initially the Buddha’s sermons did not contain dogmatic principles, but were addressed to different people in relation to different circum­stances, the doctrine of anātman received many interpretations – from the com­plete denial of the Self to the consideration of the individual Self as a “small self”, which must be harmonized with the “universal self”. The article examines the differences in understanding of the Self, in particular conceptions about the individual and “universal self” using the example of reflections on the rea­sons for Leo Tolstoy’s escape from his home, put forward by thinkers who expressed the points of view of various branches of Buddhism – Hinayana and the Far Eastern schools of Mahayana. The author focuses on the fact that Buddhism carries enormous potential for the development of philosophical thought, since its very basis contains a polemical impulse and the possibility of discussing problems at different levels with the involvement of heterogeneous cultural and historical experience

Lost in time and space? Multisensory processing of peripersonal space and time perception in people with frequent experiences of depersonalisation.

Perception of one's own body in time and space is a fundamental aspect of self-consciousness. It scaffolds our subjective experience of being present, in the here and now, a vital condition for our survival and well-being. Depersonalisation (DP) is characterised by a distressing feeling of being "spaced out," detached from one's self, as well as atypical "flat" time perception. Using an audio-tactile paradigm, we conducted a study looking at the effect of DP experiences on peripersonal space (PPS)-the space close to the body-and time perception. Strikingly, we found no difference in PPS perception in people with higher DP experiences (High DPe) versus low occurrences of DP experiences (Low DPe). To assess time perception, we used the mental time travel (MTT) task measuring the individuals' capacity to take one's present as a reference point for situating personal versus general events in the past and the future. We found an overall poorer performance in locating events in time relative to their present reference point in High DPe. By contrast, Low DPe showed significant variation in performance when answering to relative past events, while High DPe did not. Our study sheds light on the close link between altered sense of self and egocentric spatiotemporal perception in individuals with DP experiences, the third most common psychological symptom in the general population.

The Self Question in Woolf and Deshpande Women: Gender Performances Through the Lens of Goffman’s Dramaturgy

Amidst the dilemma on switching gender roles in a conservative society, the experiences of women as a gender in collective has always been the ‘other’ irrespective of the socio- cultural differences. Even varying in degrees of experiencing the 'otherness', the expectation persists in accepting the otherness as gender roles and gendered responsibilities. The choosen works decodes the ties which bind women to their gender roles and dilemmas in deviating from those to commit to their individual self. The study employs a close analysis of examining the experiences of the female characters and their gender performances. The investigation extends to the application of Goffman's Dramaturgy over the characters' performances of gendered social roles. In conclusion, the article tests the idea of confining women in their gender roles for the benefit of the society by screening them from committing to their individual self as portrayed in Mrs. Dalloway and That Long Silence.

Virtual Self-identity and its Relationship to Self-esteem among University Students during Corona Pandemic

The main objective of this research is to test the factor structure of digital self-identity scale and its relationship to self-esteem among Arab university students during COVID-19 pandemic. 243 available participants had been drawn from university students whose age ranged from 18 to 46 years (M=21, Std= 4.54 years). The study relied on the correlational approach. The study tested three models of the structure of the virtual self-identity scale (the autonomous model, the relational model, and the interactive model). The results showed that the relational model was superior to the interactive model in light of the matching indicators. The results of the study found a negative correlation between self-esteem and virtual self-identity. Accordingly, the identity of the virtual self is the result of the alternation of the individual's internal selves or the result of the interaction of types of selves.

Duality of Personality in the Life and Work of Fyodor Sologub

Recently, there has been a lot of interest in the work of Fyodor Sologub, also known as Fyodor Kuzmich Teternikov, one of the most prominent representatives of Russian symbolism. As a continuer of the traditions of classical Russian literature, first of all N. Gogol, F. Dostoevsky and A. Chekhov, F. Sologub developed his own approach to the issues of philosophy, aesthetics, religion, and poetics, creating a unique universe model. This article addresses the crisis of realism in the works of F. Sologub, expressed through the motif of gnoseological disorientation, i.e. destruction of consciousness. The feeling of loneliness provided Sologub with powerful incentives for the creative process. The topic of morbid relationship between his poetic personality and inner, individual self, the hero’s dissatisfaction with his own self and his worries regarding inadequate assessment of his creative capabilities ran like a red thread throughout his entire creative life. Crisis and “duality” in the work of F. Sologub is expressed through the motive of knowledge and delusion, loss of correct orientation, through the destruction of consciousness. The hero of F. Sologub is constantly immersed in a state of madness, frenzied detachment from reality, splitting and degeneration.

심리적 특성이 쇼핑동기와 쇼핑중독에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

Consumption is not just a lifestyle pattern, but has become an important act that expresses an individual's self and identity. With the development of Internet shopping, consumers have become able to use shopping conveniently. At the same time, the negative behavior of shopping addiction has become a social problem. Consumption behavior is deeply related to an individual's psychological state as well as the economic situation or surrounding environment. In particular, self-esteem has a significant impact on these consumption patterns. In the past, the association between various psychological charactetistics and shopping addiction has been widely studied, but due to the large number of variables, in-depth studies focusing on self-esteem, self-control, impulsivity, and materialism are lacking. Therefore, this study examined self-esteem, self-control, impulsivity, and materialism as factors affecting shopping addiction among college students. To do this, a survey was conducted among college students who have experienced or are interested in shopping addiction, and hypotheses were tested using SPSS 23.0 and Smart PLS 4.0. TI1e research results are like this. First, self-esteem had no effect on shopping motivation, rejecting H1-2, and self-control had no effect, rejecting H1-3. Therefore, HI was pai.1ially accepted. Second, shopping motivation has a positive effect on Shopping Addiction, so H2 is accepted.

Listening and Legibility: Urban Surfaces Against ‘Overarching Meanings’ in Lispector’s The Besieged City

Listening and Legibility: Urban Surfaces Against “Overarching Meanings” in Lispector’s The Besieged City. This paper looks into the literary dismantlement of projections of totality and objectified knowledge in women’s modern writing, focusing on Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector’s novel The Besieged City. My central claim is that her writing opposes “geographies of reason,” indirectly arguing for an untranslatability of the self inside modernity’s model of legibility and communication. In this novel, Lispector’s alternative to the discoursing, male-dominant, rational public realm is not the introspective inner space of subjectivity, but an innovative world-making poiesis founded on the substitution of the individual self with “the wider life of the world” that remains always a-centric and anti-textual. I investigate the ways in which Lispector opposes opaqueness to legibility, seeking the uncharted territory outside the logic of historical time or the colonial gaze. Reading Lispector’s novel through the notion of “writing by ear” (bearing multiple meanings, mostly in relation to the re-negotiation of the voice-dominant Western perception about writing) will prove useful in understanding the intricate and tangled relation between Euro-American literature and the Global South in terms of complex forms of heritage hybridization and designs of global memory. Keywords: poiesis, totality, Global South, creolization, urban, listening, modernity

“Here’s Dissociative Identity Disorder, and we’re not that”: a constructivist grounded theory exploration of multiplicity experiences

ABSTRACT Background People who identify as “multiple” are people who share a singular body with other individual selves. Whilst there are similarities to clinically defined criteria of dissociative and psychosis diagnoses, people with multiplicity lack an impairment in functioning due to being a multiple self, and often lack amnesia. Methods Six areas of focus (identified via an online consultation with members of the multiplicity community) were explored with 34 individuals: experts-by-experience (10 semi-structured interviews, 15 surveys), support networks (two interviews, four surveys), and professionals (one interview, two surveys). Constructivist grounded theory was used to examine the qualitative data collected. Results An emerging model was constructed to conceptualise the experience of being multiple. “(Mis)understanding”, “Media”, “Language”, and “Recognition and Regulation” were identified as core, reciprocally influential processes. Discussion The findings support the notion that the experience of being multiple is experientially distinct from a clinical understanding of dissociative and psychosis experiences. Positive processes can allow experts-by-experience to live well as a multiple self. Tailored support, understanding, and language is required to allow for validation of experiences and specific support to be accessed, both formally and via peer networks. Further research is necessary to elaborate our ever-growing understanding of this under-researched area.

Unearthing Beauty

This article explores the relationship between experiences of beauty and leadership in times of rupture. It draws from a broad trans-disciplinary literature centering beauty as an aesthetic experience that allows access to more holistic knowledge in the midst of uncertainty. Such an approach, it is argued, can offer leaders distinct pathways to cultivate greater awareness and capability as they sense into, and seek to generatively influence complex living systems. It then describes research where a group of systems leaders were offered a guided experience of beauty. Using an art-based methodology, the findings suggest beauty stimulated an increased aesthetic sensitivity to novel insights, emotions, and perspectives that fell outside of the participants’ customary experience. Additional impacts included a felt-sense of connection with others, an invitation to express oneself more authentically, and a willingness to experience discomfort. Based on these findings, I argue that working with beauty, and with aesthetic processes more generally, may be a critical awareness practice that bridges the logical and the analogical mind and invites an attunement to something larger than the individual self that is at once transpersonal and ecologically grounded. Such an orientation, I argue, builds upon the principles and practices of complexity leadership to include a way of being that is both sensitive to beauty and attempts to create more of it in the world. I call this way of being a leadership of devotion and argue its pursuit invites important inner work: the restoration of our capacity to feel, see, and act in service of a just and equitable future for all.