Positive View Of Human Nature Research Articles

Materialist Premises in Hobbes and Kropotkin for Antipodean Conclusions: The State of War and the Mutual Aid

A methodological similarity between Thomas Hobbes and Petr Kropotkin is the intention to elucidate a theoretical foundation to a broad audience, in the sense that they are willing to popularize a clear description of the reality and a subsequent political view. To do so, they use a scientific method, deductive (starting from empirical observations) in the case of Hobbes, inductive-deductive in the case of Kropotkin. Kropotkin also underlines the educational value of the scientific method. Although they both start their argumentations from a materialist ontology, Hobbes and Kropotkin conjecture two completely different states of nature. Hobbes describes the state of nature through the two famous metaphors homo homini lupus and bellum omnium contra omnes, while Kropotkin introduced the theory of mutual aid. Hobbes has been influenced by the scientific revolution initiated by Francis Bacon, one of his mentors, and Galileo Galilei. Kropotkin has been influenced by the ground-breaking writings of Charles Darwin together with a very fruitful Russian scientific environment. The disenchanted view of the human nature in Hobbes, a state of war due to the fact that everyone has rights on everything, helps him to legitimate sovereignty, while the positive view of human nature in Kropotkin, a spontaneous mutual aid among people in a community, helps him to legitimate anarchy. Therefore, the fascinating scientific methods of the two materialists Hobbes and Kropotkin to structure a solid political theory cannot neglect different views on human nature due to their historical contexts.

Самоактуализационный профиль представителей разных профессий

The paper presents the results of a research on similarities and differences between the components of a self-actualization profile for representatives of different types of professions. The study involved respondents from 5 professional groups: helping professions, creative professions, professions in the spheres of business entrepreneurship and information technologies, and military professions (100 people in each sample). The results suggest that flexibility in their behaviour and interaction with others is a significant component of the self-actualization profile for all sample groups. However, other prominent components differ from one group to another. For instance, representatives of helping professions are more communicative; they have a more positive view of human nature and trust in the dominance of merits. Representatives of creative professions are more creative, sensitive, and spontaneous. They are capable of reflecting on their needs and interests, unreserved in their behaviour and open in expressing their feelings; they strive to create and derive pleasure from creative activity. The entrepreneurs involved in the study appear more “internally guided”, they show independence, guided by their own principles and beliefs, and appreciate the value of growth and development. They know their own worth, and they show self-awareness and self-respect. However, being part of the business world, they may have a somewhat negative perception of human nature, and may not believe in kindness or generosity. The respondents representing IT-professions are more inclined to embrace themselves regardless of external evaluation of their merits and demerits, and have a positive view of human nature. The self-actualization profile of the military differs rather significantly from the others. They tend to live for the moment more than the representatives of the other professional groups; they appreciate and respect themselves, accept themselves for what they are with all their strengths and weaknesses, and are also more inclined to accept irritation, anger, and aggression as natural manifestations of human nature. In addition, they seek to learn and to understand the world around them more than the others. At the same time, they are less communicative and show lower degrees of sensitivity and spontaneity in manifesting their feelings and desires.

Self-Actualization, Psychological Well-Being and Daily Hassles during Adulthood

The research featured the effect of experienced and daily hassles on self-actualization and psychological wellbeing in adolescents. The study involved 360 people: 126 men and 234 women aged 20–60 years. The experiment determined the level of experienced stress and daily hassles, as well as its separate types. The women demonstrated a significantly higher level. The greatest severity of daily hassles was observed in the sphere of work, well-being, family, and finance. A comparative analysis of the level of subjective and psychological well-being by gender revealed a significantly higher level of autonomy and competence in men. An analysis of the features of self-actualization showed that the male group had higher indicators of self-understanding, autonomy, ability to live in the present, and professional self-realization, if compared to women. The women demonstrated higher indicators of orientation to universal human values, a more positive view of human nature, and higher levels of creativity. An analysis of the relationship of psychological well-being, parameters of self-actualization and stress revealed their closer ties in women than in men. The level of experienced stress and daily hassles in men and women was related to competence, autosympathy, professional self-realization, life satisfaction, satisfaction of professional activities, and financial situation. In the male group, the level of daily hassles also depended on a positive view of human nature. The women stressed the importance of self-acceptance and satisfaction with communication with parents.

PEAK leadership

AbstractConley asks why business leaders don't think of themselves as engaging in a practice, as in medicine or law. Based on the hierarchy of needs and theory of peak potential of psychologist Abraham Maslow, Conley describes seven practices for organizations to reach the highest levels. These include taking a positive view of human nature, cultivating the ability to move between transactional and transformational leadership, and focusing on your customers' highest needs. “If you create a unique corporate culture,” he writes, “it tends to drive employee happiness that enhances customer loyalty that grows market share and leads to sustained profitability.”

Establishing Congress: Congress, the Removal to Washington, D.C., and the Election of 1800 (review)

Establishing Congress: Congress, the Removal to Washington, D.C., and the Election of 1800. By Kenneth R. Bowling and Donald R. Kennon, eds. (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2005. Pp. x, 225. Cloth, $44.95.)Establishing Congress is the fourth volume in the History of Congress, 1789-1801 Series, edited by Kenneth R. Bowling of the Documentary History of the First Federal Congress Project, and Donard R. Kennon, chief historian of the United States Capitol Historical Society. The contributors include documentary editors, political scientists, and historians, as well as an archivist and a librarian.In the least original essay in the volume, Cal Jillson portrays the presidential contest of 1800 as a struggle between two conflicting visions for America. According to Jillson, Republican candidate Thomas Jefferson's positive view of human nature led him to stand for an agricultural republic of yeoman farmers where government remained democratic and close to the people. Federalist Alexander Hamilton, harboring a more pessimistic view of human nature, preferred an urban industrial nation ordered from above by a strong federal government dominated by an energetic chief executive. John H. Aldrich sees the election of 1800 as being truly revolutionary precisely because it marked the first transfer of power from one party to an opposing one. Aldrich analyzes electoral procedures to demonstrate how very partisan the campaign was. For the first time, electors were bound to vote for either Federalists (John Adams and Charles C. Pinckney) or Republicans (Jefferson and Aaron Burr). In each state, moreover, partisan legislatures promoted their preferred candidates by choosing either winner-take-all or district-by-district voting and either popular or state legislative selection of electors. William C. diGiacomantonio addresses the aftermath of the election, when the lame-duck Federalists passed the Organic Act of 1801. Like the much more famous Judiciary Act of 1801, the Organic Act represented a last-ditch Federalist attempt to leave a permanent imprint on the federal government. The act implemented the hitherto unexercised enumerated Congressional power of exclusive jurisdiction over the federal district. Federalists pushed the measure through at the eleventh hour, fearing the Republicans would not so empower the federal government.In the only entry focused on the federal government's removal from Philadelphia to Washington in 1800, Elaine C. Everly and Howard H. Wehmann, unlike previous historians, look not to Congress's 1802 report on removal, in which partisan Republicans unfairly blasted the Federalists for corruption. Instead, Everly and Wehmann mine hitherto neglected Executive Department documents from the removal itself.C.M. Harris contends that as secretary of state and later as president, Jefferson subtly and indirectly imposed his republican ideals on the design of the U.S. Capitol. For example, Jefferson quietly substituted the name Capitol (barkening back to the principal building of the Roman Republic) in place of Congress Hall in Peter Charles L'Enfant's city plan. Jefferson also opposed entombing George Washington under the rotunda, and sought to make the House of Representatives chamber into a Newtonian Temple where legislators would be influenced by the Enlightenment's laws of nature.Rubil Morales-Vazquez examines the long campaign to build a monument to George Washington in the city that bears his name. …

Towards a balanced social psychology: Causes, consequences, and cures for the problem-seeking approach to social behavior and cognition

Mainstream social psychology focuses on how people characteristically violate norms of action through social misbehaviors such as conformity with false majority judgments, destructive obedience, and failures to help those in need. Likewise, they are seen to violate norms of reasoning through cognitive errors such as misuse of social information, self-enhancement, and an over-readiness to attribute dispositional characteristics. The causes of this negative research emphasis include the apparent informativeness of norm violation, the status of good behavior and judgment as unconfirmable null hypotheses, and the allure of counter-intuitive findings. The shortcomings of this orientation include frequently erroneous imputations of error, findings of mutually contradictory errors, incoherent interpretations of error, an inability to explain the sources of behavioral or cognitive achievement, and the inhibition of generalized theory. Possible remedies include increased attention to the complete range of behavior and judgmental accomplishment, analytic reforms emphasizing effect sizes and Bayesian inference, and a theoretical paradigm able to account for both the sources of accomplishment and of error. A more balanced social psychology would yield not only a more positive view of human nature, but also an improved understanding of the bases of good behavior and accurate judgment, coherent explanations of occasional lapses, and theoretically grounded suggestions for improvement.

Machiavellianism: dimensionality of the Mach IV and its relation to self-monitoring in a Spanish sample.

The aim of this study was to assess the measurement model of a Spanish version of the Mach IV Scale (Christie, 1970b), used to measure Machiavellianism, and its relation with the Self-Monitoring Scale (Snyder & Gangestad, 1986). 346 undergraduate students (70 males and 276 females) filled in both scales. The results of confirmatory factor analyses showed a four-factor structure to be the most adequate model for the Mach IV, with the following factors: Positive Interpersonal Tactics, Negative Tactics, Positive View of Human Nature, and Cynical View of Human Nature. These results are not in accordance with the original factor structure but are consistent with other authors' findings. A structural model between Machiavellianism and self-monitoring was tested, showing statistically significant paths between interpersonal tactics and one self-monitoring subscale.

Chinese Religions (review)

418 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall 1995© 1995 by University ofHawai'i Press farm while in retirement in New Jersey. Since he is in his nineties and still in good health, he indulges himself a little by talking about the secrets of his long life. This is a credible memoir. Chen was at the center ofmany turbulent events. Yet despite the bitter experiences he suffered at times, he does not write with bitterness about them. While he writes with candor and clarity, he is restrained and could have said more about the inner politics of the GMD. Students ofmodern China will find his memoir interesting reading. The book will be particularly useful to graduate students because ofthe introduction and the extensive notes based on exhaustive research, drawing on primary and secondary sources, by the editors , who have also provided a select bibliography and a substantial glossary. Edmund S. K. Fung University ofWestern Sydney, Nepean Julia Ching. Chinese Religions. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1993. XV, 275 pp. Paperback $18.95. This is a comprehensive history of Chinese religions that covers everything from prehistory and antiquity to foreign religions and prospects for the present and future . At every major point it compares the Chinese tradition with the Hebrew and Christian, and discusses as well Chinese influence on the religions of Korea and Japan. Its terms are carefully defined, and it includes a good bibliography. It is very much a book written by a fine research scholar who is also an experienced teacher. Professor Ching is best known for her work on the history of Chinese philosophy and on comparisons of Chinese and Christian thought, and both of these topics are emphasized in the present book. Indeed, the strongest chapters are those that deal with the religious dimensions of Chinese philosophy (chapters 3, 4, 5, and 9) and with Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Judaism, Islam (chapter 10), and Christianity (chapter 11) in China. These chapters in particular are worth review by China specialists who may not be aware ofrecent research on these topics . Professor Ching's training in the Christian tradition is particularly helpful in her discussions ofwhether Confucius was a "prophet" (pp. 65-67) and ofparallels between Mencius' positive view ofhuman nature and the views of Greek Christian theologians such as Gregory ofNyssa (p. 77). Professor Ching concludes that the insistence within Confucianism on "the priority ofthe way of Heaven" Reviews 419 and on "self-transcendence" indicates that this tradition remains "religious at its core" (p. 84). Another strong point ofthis book is the discussion of the role ofwomen and female deities in antiquity (pp. 46-48), Daoism (pp. 95-96), Buddhism (pp. 147148 ), popular religion (pp. 219), and in connection with other topics as well. Nonetheless, as is inevitable in a book with such a wide scope, there are a few problems as well. The otherwise admirable discussion ofChinese philosophy is marred at one point by the use of the outdated term "Neo-Taoism" (pp. 96-101) to refer to such third- and fourth-century a.d. philosophers as Wang Bi and Guo Xiang. Since the new Daoist religion, the teaching of "the newly appeared Lord Lao," was developing at that same time, it is confusing to use "Neo-Taoism" to refer to contemporary philosophy. In any case, the philosophers ofthis period wrote commentaries on the I-jingand Lun-yu as well as the Lao-zi and Zhuang-zi, so it is difficult and perhaps not necessary to try to encompass their thought in a single term. The larger problem here is the extent to which Chinese Religions is a review of the history of Chinese philosophy, including Neo-Confucianism, a story often told elsewhere, though usually without the same focus on religious dimensions. Despite its valiant attempt to discuss a wide variety of topics, the discussion in this book remains weighted toward intellectual history. Thus, for example, there is no discussion reflecting the recent research ofAnna Seidel and of Donald Harper on exorcism and views ofthe afterlife in the Warring States and Han periods , research important for our understanding ofboth early common religious traditions and antecedents ofDaoist religion.1 Wang Chong's valuable testimony about the state ofreligious...

Assumptions of Human Nature, and Initial Expectations and Behavior as Mediators of Sex Effects in Prisoner's Dilemma Research

This research investigated the influence of assumptions regarding human nature, expectations of opponent's initial behavior and early game interpersonal behavior on subsequent levels of cooperation in a mixed motive, nonzero sum game. It was hypothesized that differential effects for males and females may be due to their different assumptions, expectations, and different responses to initial interpersonal behavior. It was found that: (1) women had a more positive view of human nature, however assumptions about human nature were not related to initial expectations or behavior; (2) women had a slightly higher expectation of cooperation from their opponents and this was highly related to initial cooperation; (3) women had more unconfirmed expectations of cooperation and for women this was negatively related to early game levels of cooperation; and (4) initial levels of cooperation and early game interpersonal patterns of cooperation were an important influence on later levels of game behavior and these factors were more influential for males.

Philosophies of Human Nature and Personal Religious Orientation

Two hundred subjects were dichotomized into extrinsic and intrinsic along the dimension of Personal Religious Orientation (Allport, 1968). Tests for differences between means of these two groups revealed a significant tendency for the intrinsics to hold a more positive view of human nature as measured on the Philosophy of Human Nature Scale (Wrightsman, 1964). A further comparison between the upper and lower quartiles of the same sample revealed that the differences occurred primarily on the subscale designating trustworthiness, in that instrinsics perceived people to be more trustworthy than did extrinsics.

Relation of field dependence to the "Philosophies of Human Nature".

To study the function of personality variables in the perception of other people, 52 undergraduate males were administered the Philosophies of Human Nature Scale and the Embedded-figures Test. Relatively low but significant positive correlations were found between field independence and trustworthiness, altruism, and the positive view of human nature. There was no significant correlation between field independence and strength of will, independence, complexity, and variability. Apparently, the personality of the one perceiving is relevant to what is perceived in the other person.