A pragmatist philosophy of psychological science and its implications for replication

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Gantman ◽  
Robin Gomila ◽  
Joel E. Martinez ◽  
J. Nathan Matias ◽  
Elizabeth Levy Paluck ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Behavioral Measurement ◽  
The World ◽  
Pragmatist Philosophy

AbstractA pragmatist philosophy of psychological science offers to the direct replication debate concrete recommendations and novel benefits that are not discussed in Zwaan et al. This philosophy guides our work as field experimentalists interested in behavioral measurement. Furthermore, all psychologists can relate to its ultimate aim set out by William James: to study mental processes that provide explanations for why people behave as they do in the world.

Berensonian Formalism and Pragmatist Perception

2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Oliver O'Donnell
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
William James ◽  
Walter Pater ◽  
Historical Scholarship ◽  
Philosophy Of Perception ◽  
20Th Century Art ◽  
Pragmatist Philosophy

The ramified legacy of Bernard Berenson’s writings within 20th century art historiography is both celebrated and maligned. In an effort to help reconcile this situation, this essay argues for the partial validity of Berenson’s peculiar version of art historical formalism by detailing its historical connections to the Pragmatist philosophy and psychology of William James and by analytically correlating Berenson’s arguments with recent work in aesthetics and the philosophy of perception. The essay examines the specific example of Berenson’s analysis of Giotto’s paintings and leverages a Pragmatist interpretation of Berenson’s writings to frame Berenson’s known connections with other writers: including Adolf Hildebrand, Giovanni Morelli, and Walter Pater. In conclusion, the failure, potential, reception, and legacy of Berenson’s art historical scholarship are assessed in relation to Pragmatist ideas. Der vielfältige Einfluss von Bernard Berensons Schriften auf die Kunstgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts wird ebenso geschätzt wie verachtet. In dem Bestreben, diese Divergenzen zu berichtigen, versucht dieser Beitrag den Nachweis für die bedingte Gültigkeit von Berensons eigentümlicher Variante eines kunsthistorischen Formalismus zu erbringen, indem er einerseits seine historischen Verbindungen zur pragmatischen Philosophie und Psychologie von William James aufzeigt und indem er andererseits Berensons Argumentation ins Verhältnis zu aktuellen Debatten der wahrnehmungstheoretischen Ästhetik und Philosophie setzt. Am Beispiel von Berensons Interpretation der Gemälde Giottos führt dieser Essay eine pragmatische Analyse von Berensons Schriften durch und stellt diese ins Umfeld seiner Kontakte zu anderen Autoren: darunter Adolf Hildebrand, Giovanni Morelli und Walter Pater. Schließlich soll das Scheitern, das Potenzial, die Rezeption und das Erbe von Berensons kunsthistorischen Studien unter pragmatischen Gesichtspunkten bewertet werden.

Promoting Savings for Financial Resilience: Expanding the Psychological Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-54
Author(s):  
Crystal C. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Financial Security ◽  
Psychological Perspective ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Personal Savings

In the United States, the lack of personal savings has been a perennial concern in the world of public policy. Policymakers and other practitioners constantly struggle with how to encourage families to accumulate funds in preparation for inevitable, but often unpredictable, financial emergencies. The field of applied behavioral science has attempted to address this challenge—often with mixed or modest results. I argue that psychological science (personality and social psychology in particular) offers underappreciated insights into the design and implementation of policy interventions to improve the rate of individual savings. In this article, I briefly discuss examples of prior interventions that have attempted to increase saving and then lay out some opportunities that have not been deeply explored. Future research in this area should broaden and deepen the way that psychology is leveraged as a tool to improve the financial security of the people who are the most vulnerable.

Constructive realism: In defense of the objective reality of perspectives

Human Affairs ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roman Madzia
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
John Dewey ◽  
William James ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Objective Reality ◽  
Constructive Realism ◽  
Neural Processes ◽  
The World ◽  
Epistemological Position ◽  
Epistemological Realism

AbstractThe paper proposes an outline of a reconciliatory approach to the perennial controversy between epistemological realism and anti-realism (constructionism). My main conceptual source in explaining this view is the philosophy of pragmatism, more specifically, the epistemological theories of George H. Mead, John Dewey, and also William James’ radical empiricism. First, the paper analyzes the pragmatic treatment of the goal-directedness of action, especially with regard to Mead’s notion of attitudes, and relates it to certain contemporary epistemological theories provided by the cognitive sciences (Maturana, Rizzolatti, Clark). Against this background, the paper presents a philosophical as well as empirical justification of why we should interpret the environment and its objects in terms of possibilities for action. In Mead’s view, the objects and events of our world emerge within stable patterns of organism-environment interactions, which he called “perspectives”. According to pragmatism as well as the aforementioned cognitive scientists, perception and other cognitive processes include not only neural processes in our heads but also the world itself. Elaborating on Mead’s concept of perspectives, the paper argues in favor of the epistemological position called “constructive realism.”

scholarly journals Psychology in an Indeterminate World

2021 ◽  
pp. 174569162095800
Author(s):  
Ludger van Dijk
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Ecological Perspective ◽  
Ecological Approach ◽  
Material World ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
The World ◽  
Indeterminate World ◽  
Over Time

By sharing their world, humans and other animals sustain each other. Their world gets determined over time as generations of animals act in it. Current approaches to psychological science, by contrast, start from the assumption that the world is already determined before an animal’s activity. These approaches seem more concerned with uncertainty about the world than with the practical indeterminacies of the world humans and nonhuman animals experience. As human activity is making life increasingly hard for other animals, this preoccupation becomes difficult to accept. This article introduces an ecological approach to psychology to develop a view that centralizes the indeterminacies of a shared world. Specifically, it develops an open-ended notion of “affordances,” the possibilities for action offered by the environment. Affordances are processes in which (a) the material world invites individual animals to participate, while (b) participation concurrently continues the material world in a particular way. From this point of view, species codetermine the world together. Several empirical and methodological implications of this view on affordances are explored. The article ends with an explanation of how an ecological perspective brings responsibility for the shared world to the heart of psychological science.

scholarly journals Słownictwo dotyczące świata fauny i flory w Symbolice wiosennej Stefanii Ulanowskiej

2021 ◽  
pp. 60-72
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Andrejczyk
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Reconstructed Image ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Selection Of

The object of interest in this sketch is an analysis of the vocabulary indicating selected elements of the world of fauna and fl ora in Symbolika wiosenna (Spring symbolism) by Stefania Ulanowska (Kraków 1884). The collected language material is characterised by wealth and complexity of the subject matter. The indicated vocabulary has not been characterised yet. This paper employs elements of the cognitivist description of language. The selection of this method enables depiction of the relation between linguistic knowledge and encyclopaedic knowledge. Language becomes an indispensible element of mental processes of the perception of the world (Tokarski 1995; Miodunka 1980). The analysis of the excerpted material clearly shows that the discussed spring symbolism usually invokes, contrary to the prototype, the semantic fi eld related to ‘śmierć’ (death) rather than ‘życie’ (life). The reconstructed image of the folk idea of spring largely deviates from the ideas established in the consciousness of language users in general, which is confi rmed by the discussed examples. It presents unit connotations that are individualised and present in the consciousness of members of small rural communities of those times. Keywords: Stefania Ulanowska – vocabulary of fauna and flora

scholarly journals The structure of professional attorney’s consciousness

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 217-220
Author(s):  
O.A. Hulbs ◽  
O.V. Kobets ◽  
V.V. Ponomarenko ◽  
A.D. Turyanskіy
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Legal Reform ◽  
Professional Behavior ◽  
Professional Activities ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Psyche ◽  
Ukrainian Society

The problem of studying consciousness has been quite relevant and significant throughout the lifetime of psychology, since it is the consciousness that builds the inner picture of the world and forms a semantic representation of reality, performing the reflective, regulatory and instrumental functions of the human psyche. Consciousness arises and forms in the process of regulation of social activity and allows a person to set himself a certain goal, to isolate himself from the outside world, to determine his attitude to the objects and phenomena of the outside world. The objective necessity of successful socio-economic development of the Ukrainian society, the task of formation of the state of law, implementation of a complex of measures related to the implementation of legal reform lead to an increase in the role of professional   attorney, their responsibility for the results of their activities. The professional consciousness of   attorney is a special phenomenon of modern reality, the study of which is possible only with a thorough analysis of it as a theoretical and legal construction. Proceeding from the approaches developed in psychological science, in some cases, this kind of consciousness can be regarded as a set of views, ideas, theories, representations and feelings of a group of people with a certain status of a   attorney, with respect to the law, current and desirable. In others - as a "reflection of legal reality" by   attorney in the process of carrying out their professional activities. Features of the content of professional consciousness of   attorney should be analyzed, based on the following elements: professional knowledge, attitude to the profession, skills of professional behavior

scholarly journals PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITION OF GRIEVING FAMILY MEMBERS AND THEIR RESOCIALIZATION

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-27
Author(s):  
Olena Kostyuk ◽  
Olena Boychuk
Keyword(s):  
Posttraumatic Growth ◽  
Personal Growth ◽  
Personal Development ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Negative Behavior ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Social Rehabilitation ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
National University

Abstract. Introduction. Personal development in competitive and adverseconditions gives us plenty of examples that show negative behavior andincapability of making peace between nations. The situation in the world todayconfirms the previous statement, Ukraine suffers more than many other countriesbecause of the powerful neighbor from the East who forces our country to accepthis conditions. The war in Eastern Ukraine is the consequence of this irrationaland atavistic tendency. We are the victims of the aggravation between twodialectic processes of social activism: disconnection (destructive situations, ATO,loss of a family member, family break up, heightened level of aggression in thecommunity) connection (constructive and creative appearances, adaptation inconditions of forced immigration, posttraumatic growth, resocialization afterovercoming trauma, tendency for reconciliation, personal growth in a newprofession).This is the reality that requires psychological science and practice to find quickand accurate answers because the goal is to save people's mental health in militaryand mobilization conditions.Purpose. The main goal of the research is to generalize the information aboutpsychological features of the people who have experienced loss. Also to spot thestages of women's post-loss resocialization and factors that have a positive impacton that resocialization.Methodology. The authors of this paper made research on the psychologicalfeatures of the people who have experienced loss due to military situation in theEast of Ukraine and who need psychotherapy to help the process ofresocialization. Conclusions. The facts stated in the paper that helped to analyze the situationwere received during work in the period of 2015-2018 at the center of psycho-social rehabilitation at National University of "Kyiv Mohyla Academy". 5370people have addressed to the center to get help during this period. 1414 of themhave gotten individual consultations, 3953 have participated in group therapies.

scholarly journals THE TURN OF THE SCREW: HENRY JAMES AS AN AUTHOR AND A CRITIC

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-67
Author(s):  
M.B. Rarenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Henry James ◽  
William James ◽  
Absolute Truth ◽  
The Core ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World ◽  
New Type ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
The Absolute

The article considers the story by Henry James (1843 – 1916) «The Turn of the Screw» (1898 – first edition, 1908 – second edition) in connection with the emergence of a new type of narrator in the writer's late prose. The worldview and creative method of H. James are formed under the influence of the philosophy of pragmatism, which became widespread at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries thanks to the works of the writer's elder brother, the philosopher William James (1842 – 1910). The core of pragmatism is the pluralistic concept of William James based on the assumption that knowledge can be realized from very limited, incomplete, and inadequate «points of view» and this leads to the statement that the absolute truth is essentially unknowable. The epistemological statements of William James's theory is that the content of knowledge is entirely determined by the installation of consciousness, and the content of the truth in this case depends on the goals and experience of the human, i.e. the central starting point is the consciousness of the person. Henry James not only creates works of art, but also sets out in detail the principles of his work both on the pages of fiction works of small and large prose, putting them in the mouths of their characters – representatives of the world of art, and in the prefaces to his works of fiction, as well as in critical works.

Influence of Carl Jung and William James on the Origin of Alcoholics Anonymous

2000 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven W. Finlay
Keyword(s):  
Life Events ◽  
Alcoholics Anonymous ◽  
William James ◽  
History Of Psychology ◽  
Carl Jung ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Carl Gustav Jung ◽  
A Current

Alcoholics Anonymous is probably the most influential self-help organization in the world, with a current worldwide membership approaching 2 million. The origin of the organization has ties to Carl Gustav Jung and William James, 2 very prominent figures in the history of psychology. A brief history of the events that led to the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous is presented, with particular emphasis on the influence of Jung and James. An account of relevant life events of both Jung and James is provided, in addition to a summary of their views on alcoholism and its treatment. Speculation is offered on how the 2 men might view their unsolicited association with the organization.

Societal Change and Wisdom: Insights from the World after Covid Project

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor Grossmann ◽  
Oliver Twardus ◽  
Michael E. W. Varnum ◽  
Eranda Jayawickreme ◽  
John McLevey
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Societal Change ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
The World ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Societal Changes ◽  
Time Capsule ◽  
The Common

How will the world change as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic? What can people do to best adapt to the societal changes ahead? To answer these questions, over the course of the summer-fall 2020 we launched the World After COVID Project, interviewing more than 50 of the world’s leading scholars in the behavioral and social sciences, including fellows of national academies and presidents of major scientific societies. Experts independently shared their thoughts on what effects the COVID-19 pandemic will have on our societies and provided advice for successful response to new challenges and opportunities. Using mixed-method and natural language processing analyses, we distilled and analyzed these predictions and suggestions, observing a diversity of scenarios. Results also show that half of the experts approach their post-Covid predictions dialectically, highlighting both positive and negative features of the same prediction. Moreover, prosocial goals and meta-cognition—two chief tenants of the Common Wisdom model—were evident in their recommendations for how to cope with possible changes. The project provides a time capsule of experts’ predictions during major societal changes. We discuss implications for strengthening focus on prediction (vs. mere explanation) in psychological science as well as the value of uncertainty and dialecticism in forecasting.

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