Subjective Psychological States Research Articles

Psychologism Revisited in Logic, Metaphysics, and Epistemology

Psychologism is a philosophical ideology that seeks to explain the principles of logic, metaphysics, and epistemology as psychological phenomena. Psychologism has been the storm center of concerted criticisms since the nineteenth century, and is thought by many to have been refuted once and for all by Kant, Frege, Husserl, and others. The project of accounting for objective philosophical or mathematical truths in terms of subjective psychological states has been largely discredited in mainstream analytic thought. Ironically, psychologism has resurfaced in unexpected guises in the form of intuitionistic logic and mathematics, cognitivism, and naturalized epistemology. I examine some of the principal objections to psychologism – distinguishing roughly between good and bad or philosophically acceptable versus unacceptable psychologism – and consider the extent to which a new wave of psychologism may be gaining prominence in contemporary philosophy, and the light its successes and failures may shed on the original concept and underlying perspective of classical psychologism.

Self-esteem in children: do goal orientations matter?

Although perceived competence has been identified as an essential component of global self-esteem, individual differences in the way competence is conceptualised have been virtually ignored. Achievement goal theory suggests that two conceptions of competence operate in achievement contexts: competence can be conceived as capacity or improvement. These two conceptions are embedded within two goal orientations, namely task and ego orientation. The study examined the relationship of goal orientations and perceptions of athletic ability to global self-esteem. Children (N = 907) attending summer sports camps participated in the study. Children completed the Perception of Success Questionnaire and the Self-Esteem Scale and recorded their perceptions of normative athletic ability. High task-oriented children reported significantly higher self-esteem than low task-oriented children. Among high task-oriented boys, those with high perceived ability had higher self-esteem. In addition, high ego-oriented boys had high self-esteem when they perceived themselves as having high ability in relation to their peers. Finally, among low task-oriented girls, those with high perceived ability reported higher self-esteem. The findings are consistent with the tenets of achievement goal theory that success and failure are subjective psychological states. It is recommended that different conceptions of competence are considered in the study of self-esteem.

Flow and Occupation: A Review of the Literature

Flow is a subjective psychological state which occurs when one is totally involved in an activity. Elements of the flow experience include the focusing of attention on a clear goal, a loss of self-consciousness, an altered sense of time, and a sense that the activity in itself is rewarding. Through a review of the literature, the author presents conditions linked to the experience of flow that pertain to traits of the person, properties of the activity, and the interaction between the two. The relevance of flow theory to occupational therapy and occupational science is discussed. Considerations for research on flow and occupation are outlined.

Discursive strategies of subjects with high altitude hypoxia: extreme environment.

A discourse analysis was carried out on nine European lowlanders during a 2-month scientific expedition at high altitude including a 3-week stay in extreme survival conditions at the summit of Mt. Sajama (6542 m), in order to contribute to the understanding of psychological adaptation to extreme environments. This discourse analysis was part of a wide-ranging scientific investigation involving 12 scientific and medical research protocols which targeted human adaptation to high altitude chronic hypoxia. The objective of this study is to better understand the presence of linguistic markers capable of translating the subject's psychological state when faced with a threatening environment. This study was based on a method of propositional speech analysis developed by Ghiglione and Blanchet which emphasizes the cognitive function of verb categories, modalizers and adjuncts used by subjects. The method was developed in conjunction with psychopathological studies of the depressive state. Speech was recorded at time T1, 4 days after reaching the summit of Mt Sajama, and at time T2, 2 days before descending the mountain peak. These results revealed that in the absence of depression in any psychopathological sense of the word, normal subjects would react to their environment with a depressive component. However, the results of this study equally illustrate for some subjects a correspondence between those states with a depressive component and a physiological incomplete adaptation to high altitude. This correspondence could reflect the pathogenic effect of an adaptation deficit or could be in keeping with the literature concerning an incomplete adaptation effect induced by a latent depressive state.

Psychophysiological effect of odor

Techniques to measure the activity of the taste and odor molecules at the olfactory epithelium, taste bud, and brain response levels are now being used to determine and measure the actual transduction of the chemical information to the brain waves. We studied a number of methods of measuring brain wave responses to odorants and we settled on an electroencephalographic method of measuring the slow brain waves [> 13 Hz] at the frontal location on the scalp. This technique known as contingent negative variation (CNV) measures the early component [at 400 to 1000 ms] of the beta wave variation, which can be negative, positive, or neutral depending on the odorant being presented to the subject. This component is almost independent of the subject's psychological state, degree of arousal, or level of consciousness and is known as the external component. The experimental paradigm creates a reproducible result in which odorants may be classified as stimulating, sedating, or neutral. These psychophysiological effects of odors on man appear to offer a means to determine precognitive responses directly related to the effect of the chemical messenger. There does not appear to be any bias as to sex, national origin, or race. At this point in our research efforts, we do not see evidence that there is a bias related to age. It is proposed that some of the problems of classical sensory evaluation can be helped by the use of psychophysiological recording techniques, such as CNV, as a measurement of brain activity and response to flavor and aroma.

Blind grasping and Fregean senses

The foregoing considerations have shown that on the Fregean model, no descriptive rendition of the meaning of a word, and no feature of the subject's psychological state, will be sufficient to answer the question of how reference takes place. Reference is determined by an independent semantical object, and the mind is limited by its perceptual access to this external semantical realm. The psychological and epistemic states of the language user will be causally influenced by this perceptual contact, and such causal influences will enable the subject to evince the appropriate behavioral signs of comprehension. But the internal effects produced by the perception of meaning are not in principle sufficient to individuate their semantical causes, and hence some of the prominent criticisms of the traditional theory are simply not applicable to Frege's system.

Mysticism and Experience

The definition of mysticism has shifted, in modern thinking, from a patristic emphasis on the objective content of experience to the modern emphasis on the subjective psychological states or feelings of the individual. Post Kantian Idealism and Romanticism was involved in this shift to a far larger extent than is usually recognized. An important conductor of the subjectivist view of mysticism to modern philosophers of religion was William James, even though in other respects he repudiated Romantic and especially Idealist categories of thought. In this article I wish first to explore William James' understanding of mysticism and religious experience, and then to measure that understanding against the accounts of two actual mystics, Bernard of Clairvaux and Julian of Norwich, who, for all their differences, may be taken as paradigms of the Christian mystical tradition. I shall argue that judging from these two cases, James' position is misguided and inadequate. Since James' account has been of enormous influence in subsequent thinking about mysticism, it follows that if his understanding of mysticism is inadequate, so is much of the work that rests upon it.

Rethinking the Concept of User Involvement

Within the field of information systems, user involvement generally refers to participation in the systems development process by potential users of their representatives and is measured as a set of behaviors or activities that such individuals perform. This article argues for a separation of the constructs of user participation (a set of behaviors or activities performed by users in the system development process) and user involvement (a subjective psychological state reflecting the importance and personal relevance of a system to the user). Such a distinction is not only more consistent with conceptualizations of involvement found in other disciplines, but it also leads to a number of new and interesting hypotheses. These hypotheses promise a richer theoretical network that describes the role and importance of participation and involvement in the implementation process.