Matters Of Mind Research Articles

Feeling good without doing good: Comment on Orth and Robins (2022).

Reviewing the literature of the past two decades, Orth and Robins (2022) conclude that high self-esteem yields reliable benefits. In this commentary, we caution that for objective outcome measures, these effects are variable- and domain-dependent. The allure of high self-esteem remains largely a matter of mind and memory, not behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

“Hearing voices and other matters of mind” raises important issues in the cognitive science of religion, but also in the psychology and philosophy of religion

“Hearing voices and other matters of mind” raises important issues in the cognitive science of religion, but also in the psychology and philosophy of religion

Commentary on Hearing voices and other matters of mind: What mental abnormalities teach us about religions by Robert McCauley and George Graham

Commentary on Hearing voices and other matters of mind: What mental abnormalities teach us about religions by Robert McCauley and George Graham

Power of a growth mindset: why certain habits of mind matter in clinical practice

This article introduces growth mindset, exploring how people grow and change, and the way that habits of the mind can influence ‘quality improvement’ (QI). In collaboration with RCVS Knowledge, whose QI campaign supports practices to embed QI concepts into their teams, this article discusses a model developed with educationalists, researchers and clinicians that can be implemented within practice to improve outcomes.

Mind matters in mathematics and music

Mathematics and music in practice and performance, and in learning and teaching, share many characteristics, such as beauty and harmony, memory and intuition (as internal senses) and mind or intellect. These raise the principles of processing information in mathematics and music and, by implication, the role of an acquaintance with the essentials of perception, abstraction and affective connaturality in teacher education. This paper compares mathematics and music and considers the acquisition of knowledge and skills through the external and internal senses and emotions, utilizing the role of knowledge through multiple intelligences. In doing so it does not canvas the utilities of mathematics and music as fields of human endeavour so much as their role in the cultivation of serenity and knowledge in the cultured mind. This is a theoretical paper but it is based on nearly a century of teaching from the combined work of the two authors in the teaching of music and mathematics. The paper highlights the importance of inspiration in teaching, inspiration built on a thorough basis of the foundations of anthropology to include the emotions as well as the intellect. While teacher education programs rightly concern themselves with knowledge of the field of study, knowledge of pedagogy, they do not always consider the ability to inspire which is at the heart of managing and mentoring people.

Australian adolescent population norms for the child health utility index 9D-results from the young minds matter survey.

ObjectivePatient-reported outcomes of health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) are important descriptors of population health. A recent Australian adolescent population survey provided a unique opportunity to derive preference-based HRQoL.MethodsData from 2967 adolescents aged 11–17 years were analysed. An interviewer-led parent/carer questionnaire was administered for demographic variables and mental disorders of adolescents during previous 12 months using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children. A self-report survey was administered to derive HRQoL using the child health utility nine-dimensions instrument (CHU-9D). Weighted HRQoL was derived for several demographic groups, mental disorder diagnosis, and youth risk behaviours.ResultsThe total population had a mean utility of 0.78 [standard deviation (SD): 0.20]. Males had a significantly higher mean utility (0.81, SD 0.18) than females (0.76, SD: 0.21) (Cohen’s d = 0.23, p < 0.001), and utility decreased with age for both males and females (p < 0.001). Family type and some parent/carer variables were associated with significant lower HRQoL scores with small effect size. Youth risk behaviours were associated with reduced HRQoL with moderate effect sizes. Adolescents who self-harmed, had suicidal ideation, or had a mental disorder had significantly lower utilities scores with moderate to large effect sizes compared to those who did not have such conditions.ConclusionsThis study has provided contemporary Australian population norms for HRQoL in adolescents that may be used as cross comparison between studies as well as indicators allowing estimation of population health (e.g. estimation of the burden of disease) and can be used to populate future economic models.

Effect of internet use and electronic game-play on academic performance of Australian children.

This study examined the association of internet use, and electronic game-play with academic performance respectively on weekdays and weekends in Australian children. It also assessed whether addiction tendency to internet and game-play is associated with academic performance. Overall, 1704 children of 11–17-year-olds from young minds matter (YMM), a cross-sectional nationwide survey, were analysed. The generalized linear regression models adjusted for survey weights were applied to investigate the association between internet use, and electronic-gaming with academic performance (measured by NAPLAN–National standard score). About 70% of the sample spent > 2 h/day using the internet and nearly 30% played electronic-games for > 2 h/day. Internet users during weekdays (> 4 h/day) were less likely to get higher scores in reading and numeracy, and internet use on weekends (> 2–4 h/day) was positively associated with academic performance. In contrast, 16% of electronic gamers were more likely to get better reading scores on weekdays compared to those who did not. Addiction tendency to internet and electronic-gaming is found to be adversely associated with academic achievement. Further, results indicated the need for parental monitoring and/or self-regulation to limit the timing and duration of internet use/electronic-gaming to overcome the detrimental effects of internet use and electronic game-play on academic achievement.

The sequel to COVID-19: the antithesis to life

The sequel to COVID-19: the antithesis to life

The Pauli–Jung Conjecture and Its Relatives: A Formally Augmented Outline

Abstract The dual-aspect monist conjecture launched by Pauli and Jung in the mid-20th century will be couched in somewhat formal terms to characterize it more concisely than by verbal description alone. After some background material situating the Pauli–Jung conjecture among other conceptual approaches to the mind–matter problem, the main body of this paper outlines its general framework of a basic psychophysically neutral reality with its derivative mental and physical aspects and the nature of the correlations that connect these aspects. Some related approaches are discussed to identify key similarities to and deviations from the Pauli–Jung framework that may be useful for cross-fertilization.

Do you follow? Rethinking causality in archaeology

AbstractPhilosopher and physicist Karen Barad (2003; 2007; 2012) has brought a new understanding of causality to the academic discourse (agential realism theory). Inspired by this new take on causality, I problematize the argument that archaeologists ‘follow’ materials. I begin by challenging the act of ‘following’ on two counts (causality and universalism), and then consider the work of Malafouris (2008a) – a thinker whose ideas have the potential to remediate this issue through his examination of the ‘in-between’ humans and matter. I argue that, despite offering an inspirational approach to mind–matter relationships, the dialectical relationship he evokes remains problematic from a Baradian perspective as it is still rooted in ‘following’. I suggest that Barad’s agential realism offers a valuable conceptual framework for researchers who are weary of ‘unilateral’ linear causality and keen to move beyond dialectical thinking (Barad 2007, 214).

A Comparative Study of Plato’s and Jane Austen’s Concept of Love in Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice demonstrates the encounter of the two ruling faculties of human beings: reason and passion. The characters of this novel who are mostly young people are involved in the matters of heart and mind, seeking love and affection from their beloved ones while simultaneously burdened by the codes of manners and mannerisms of their society. Although many studies have been conducted on the subject of marriage and love on Austen’s novels, the nature of this love has not been given its proper attention. A comparative study of Plato’s concept of love and that envisaged in Jane Austen’s novel clarifies a lot of things among which we can refer to their difference in the extent of realism as the former depicts love in its ideal form and the latter in its practical sense. Serving as a means to deepen the readers’ understanding, this essay introduces a new perspective to Austen studies by examining Platonic concepts of love in Pride and Prejudice in the light of the information gleaned from Plato’s two famous works that directly deal with the concept of love: Phaedrus and Symposium. The study shows that despite being Platonic in her approach to love, Austen differs from Plato in that she tries to confine love to decorum under the veil of social relationships which bespeaks of the fact that Austen’s time in early Victorian period gives priority to the practice of love in a real context over intellectual concern for what it might mean or might not.

Much ado about nothing? Why going non-semantic is not merely semantics

This paper argues that deciding on whether the cognitive sciences need a Representational Theory of Mind matters. Far from being merely semantic or inconsequential, the answer we give to the RTM-question makes a difference to how we conceive of minds. How we answer determines which theoretical framework the sciences of mind ought to embrace. The structure of this paper is as follows. Section 1 outlines Rowlands’s (2017) argument that the RTM-question is a bad question and that attempts to answer it, one way or another, have neither practical nor theoretical import. Rowlands concludes this because, on his analysis, there is no non-arbitrary fact of the matter about which properties something must possess in order to qualify as a mental representation. By way of reply, we admit that Rowlands’s analysis succeeds in revealing why attempts to answer the RTM-question simpliciter are pointless. Nevertheless, we show that if specific formulations of the RTM-question are stipulated, then it is possible, conduct substantive RTM debates that do not collapse into merely verbal disagreements. Combined, Sections 2 and 3 demonstrate how, by employing specifying stipulations, we can get around Rowlands’s arbitrariness challenge. Section 2 reveals why RTM, as canonically construed in terms of mental states exhibiting intensional (with-an-s) properties, has been deemed a valuable explanatory hypothesis in the cognitive sciences. Targeting the canonical notion of mental representations, Section 3 articulates a rival nonrepresentational hypothesis that, we propose, can do all the relevant explanatory work at much lower theoretical cost. Taken together, Sections 2 and 3 show what can be at stake in the RTM debate when it is framed by appeal to the canonical notion of mental representation and why engaging in it matters. Section 4 extends the argument for thinking that RTM debates matter. It provides reasons for thinking that, far from making no practical or theoretical difference to the sciences of the mind, deciding to abandon RTM would constitute a revolutionary conceptual shift in those sciences.

Editor's Note

Editor's Note

Boundary Conditions: Crossing Spatial Boundaries as a Matter of Mind

A key step in understanding different ways of experiencing the world, consists in exploring the limits of the human mind and the languages we use to make sense of our surrounding worlds. The concept of boundary is central in this endeavor. When we think of a boundary in the broadest sense, we think of an entity (or event) demarcated from its surroundings. Whether these boundaries reflect the structure of the world or just the organizing activity of our mind is a matter of intense philosophical debate. In this paper, human spatial thinking is a starting point to further explore our interactions with and within our environment. I argue that biosemiotics offers the most suitable framework for doing so, as it integrates humans in the larger communication network flow. Yet the spatial aspect of communication has received only limited attention in the biosemiotic literature. Furthermore, basing myself on my recent crossover practice in art/science, I argue that an embodied-embedded approach is necessary to dissolve and redefine spatial categories, allowing the investigation and potential crossing of the boundaries of our perceptual worlds.

Intercultural Da’wah Taxonomy for a Pluralist Society

Intercultural da‘wah is an act of effective communication pertinent to the matters of heart, mind and emotion. Intercultural da‘wah begins with search of commonality. In other words, it does not repudiate others but invites for reflection on features that are shared in common. In terms of its intellectual and practical paradigms, intercultural da‘wah serves as means of formatting and shaping Muslims approaches to the pluralist society. The term of taxonomy is generally defined as the process of classifying things into groups within a larger system according to their similarities and differences. Nonetheless, Benjamin Bloom created the taxonomy for categorising levels of abstraction, thus providing a useful structure in which to describe lesson plan components in learning and teaching methodology. He divided the structure into six components: knowledge; comprehension; application; analysis; synthesis; and evaluation. This paper attempts to investigate the applicability of Bloom’s taxonomy to the process of building the methodology for intercultural da‘wah in a pluralist society. The paper suggests that the six components of Bloom’s taxonomy could be useful to da‘wah workers in finding similarities in the moral paradigms across cultures. This in turn will enable them to dynamically appreciate others and engage in effective communication to disseminate the peaceful message of Islam.

Mind matters: A meta-analysis on parental mentalization and sensitivity as predictors of infant-parent attachment.

Major developments in attachment research over the past 2 decades have introduced parental mentalization as a predictor of infant-parent attachment security. Parental mentalization is the degree to which parents show frequent, coherent, or appropriate appreciation of their infants' internal states. The present study examined the triangular relations between parental mentalization, parental sensitivity, and attachment security. A total of 20 effect sizes (N = 974) on the relation between parental mentalization and attachment, 82 effect sizes (N = 6,664) on the relation between sensitivity and attachment, and 24 effect sizes (N = 2,029) on the relation between mentalization and sensitivity were subjected to multilevel meta-analyses. The results showed a pooled correlation of r = .30 between parental mentalization and infant attachment security, and rs of .25 for the correlations between sensitivity and attachment security, and between parental mentalization and sensitivity. A meta-analytic structural equation model was performed to examine the combined effects of mentalization and sensitivity as predictors of infant attachment. Together, the predictors explained 12% of the variance in attachment security. After controlling for the effect of sensitivity, the relation between parental mentalization and attachment remained, r = .24; the relation between sensitivity and attachment remained after controlling for parental mentalization, r = .19. Sensitivity also mediated the relation between parental mentalization and attachment security, r = .07, suggesting that mentalization exerts both direct and indirect influences on attachment security. The results imply that parental mentalization should be incorporated into existing models that map the predictors of infant-parent attachment. (PsycINFO Database Record

Dark Matter of the Mind: The Culturally Articulated Unconscious by Daniel L. EverettChicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. 378 pp.

Dark Matter of the Mind: The Culturally Articulated Unconscious by Daniel L. EverettChicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. 378 pp.

English

The article examines the use of metaphors in a prominent Hindu scripture named Bhagavad-gītā. Although Hindu scriptures have been analyzed for centuries, the focus is rarely on metaphors. Bhagavad-gītā has 700 verses in 18 chapters and it records a historical conversation between Lord Krishna and Prince Arjuna. Krishna teaches Arjuna philosophical concepts, which are frequently articulated through metaphors. The article selects an English translation of Bhagavad-gītā by Swami Prabhupāda and it pursues a text analysis, which is grounded in conceptual metaphor theory (CMT). The analysis identifies the source and target domains for the metaphors, and interprets their functions. The article only explores metaphors of enlightenment, as Bhagavad-gītā instructs people to become enlightened. The concept of enlightenment is conceptualized by enlightenment is a journey, knowledge is sight, knowledge is taste and knowledge is an object. Bhagavad-gītā conceives people as body, mind and soul because a body and mind (matter) are required to understand a soul (spirit). It endorses four yogas or methods (devotion, meditation, transcendental knowledge, virtuous acts) to obtain the results of enlightenment, which terminate reincarnation and grant Paradise. Bhagavad-gītā lists two guides (mentor, scripture) although personal endeavor must be invested to move from matter to spirit. The article traces the choice of metaphors to physical and cultural experiences, besides the motivation of the translator. These metaphors may be inspired by the human body or ancient India but they should resonate with modern people. Moreover, Prabhupāda’s translation utilizes the metaphors to make Vaishnavism comprehensible to Westerners and to validate the denomination.

Accuracy and projection in perceptions of partners' recent emotional experiences: Both minds matter.

In 2 studies involving 96 married couples (Study 1) and 118 romantic couples (Study 2), we investigated partners' perceptions of each others' recently experienced emotions. In both studies, both individuals within each couple independently provided reports of (a) their own recently experienced emotions, (b) their perceptions of their partners' recently experienced emotions, and (c) the extent to which they had expressed the emotions they had experienced to their partner. We then assessed the extent to which perceptions of partners' emotions were (a) accurate (i.e., in agreement with partners' independent reports of their own feelings) and (b) a function of the perceiver's own emotions (i.e., projected). Significant evidence for both accuracy in perceiving emotions (4 of 7 emotions in Study 1; 8 of 9 emotions in Study 2) and for projection of perceivers' own emotions onto partners was obtained (5 of 7 emotions in Study 1; 9 of 9 emotions in Study 2). Effects for all remaining emotions trended in the same directions. There was almost no moderation of these effects by targets' having knowingly expressed the emotions. Implications of the patterning of findings for different emotions for the social functions of accuracy and projection in perceiving emotions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Fateful Ties: A History of America's Preoccupation with China by Gordon H. Chang

Fateful Ties: A History of America's Preoccupation with by Gordon H. Chang. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2015. 314 pp. $32.95 US (cloth). This study offers a sweeping overview of America's relations with last 400 years. Uniquely, book's focus on those Americans whose creative imaginations considered what meant for United States (6). Although use of previously unknown archival materials is limited, author's argument is powerful. He contends that American preoccupation with from seventeenth century to present day has been so fateful that it deeply affected formation of American identity. Manifest Destiny and Open Door were two of most important concepts that shaped US foreign relations nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and both stemmed from American preoccupation with China. While US inherited mystique from Europe, was not just a marketplace to Americans; the Far East was reason to reach far west, to fulfill nation's Manifest Destiny. To Americans, was a matter of mind and spirit more than of pocketbook. To prove his point author considers ways of thinking, values and attitudes, and cultural assumptions rather than particulars of diplomacy and politics of policy (3-6). Thus, book is filled with direct and indirect quotations from prominent American politicians, missionaries, merchants, writers, philosophers, and entertainers; from George Washington and Alfred Mahan to Shirley MacLaine. The impression reader is left with is that America's lasting preoccupation with was almost a romantic infatuation. According to Gordon H. Chang, while Western Europe remains fulcrum of American foreign policy, in terms of perceived future of nation, no other country looms as importantly as China (258). Early Americans, such as Benjamin Franklin and Amasa Delano, initially praised as a place of wealth, culture, and wisdom, which could be emulated by their young nation. This perspective changed, however, around 1840 during First Opium War and caused to appear backward, idolatrous, and resistant to change. Nevertheless, Chang argues that and US continued to have a special relationship or spiritual connection as well as a power over American imagination (47-51). The US maintained its official position of neutrality during various conflicts between and Western powers until turn of twentieth century, when Washington's Open Door doctrine intervened and prevented realization of threats to China's sovereignty and territorial integrity from Western powers and Japan. When Japan invaded 1930s, America consistently and firmly sided with China, a position that led to attack on Pearl Harbor 1941. The author writes with obvious sentimentality that [f]or many, war and its aftermath confirmed conviction that fates of America and were intimately intertwined (170). …