Swami Vivekananda’s Karma Yoga and Seligman’s PERMA Model: A Conceptual Study

The contemporary human civilization has reached the peaks of accomplishment in various knowledge domains. However, people are so obsessed with their extrinsic achievements that they have forgotten to see the psychological damage caused to themselves. So, it is very crucial to explore the remedies for psychological aberrations caused by the strains of modernization. In this regard, the research article attempts to explore two psychological frameworks: Vivekananda’s Karma Yoga and Seligman’s PERMA (Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment) Model. Vivekananda’s Karma Yoga places character as the centre of influence and the positive character produces appropriate behavioural or cognitive patterns. He also infers on other dimensions of positive psychology such as integration of three Gunas (Samkhya Philosophy), altruism in work and the concept of Vasudeva Kutumbakam. Besides, the article tries conceptualizing the dimensions of Karma Yoga with the PERMA Model. Seligman’s PERMA Model acts as the foundation to the western concept of positive psychology and offers objective strategies to nurture positivity in people. Although there is a subjective or objective variation in these Indian and Western frameworks, there is a commonality in each dimension of these frameworks. The research article tries to exemplify commonalities among these dimensions and their applicability in achieving personal transformation. The article also exemplifies the application value of Karma Yoga and PERMA model at the workplace and how these two frameworks may be integrated to infuse more intrinsic and extrinsic positivity in the professionals. The scope of the conceptual study is widely elaborated in the article and it may be an enlightening outcome for the professional working in the corporate world.

CULTURALLY PREDISPOSED MOTIVATION THROUGH IDENTITIES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR MULTICULTURAL ORGANIZATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

In this paper authors argue the impact of culture on motivational processes through various identities. The paper combines the most recent findings from cultural, identity and motivation theories in order to determine cultural impact on each of the elements of motivational cycle. By analyzing each theory, applicable analogous similarities are compiled to distinguish important factors and determine psychological processes that are relevant for understanding cultural impact on human motivation and behavior. Results derived from compilation are used to create implications for multicultural organizational environment. This paper concludes that among others, culture has substantial impact on individual's motivation and behavior which creates specific psychological and cognitive patterns that serve as guidance in future situations that individual encounters. Such patterns become integrated in individual and applied to various social groups and environment. Furthermore, paper provides implications stressing the importance of implementation of organizational identity, comprehensive and transparent communication and verification of social, work-related and personal identities of employees. This paper has limitations due to its theoretical framework. Since this topic implies broad interdisciplinary research, additional theoretical and empirical contributions are required in order to provide more detailed insight and implications. However, this paper contributes to the existing theories by providing compilation of their common elements from motivational perspective and arguments for stated implications

Promoting helpful attention and interpretation patterns to reduce anxiety and depression in young people: weaving scientific data with young peoples’ lived experiences

Background Anxiety and depression are common, disabling and frequently start in youth, underscoring the need for effective, accessible early interventions. Empirical data and consultations with lived experience youth representatives suggest that maladaptive cognitive patterns contribute to and maintain anxiety and depression in daily life. Promoting adaptive cognitive patterns could therefore reflect “active ingredients” in the treatment and/or prevention of youth anxiety and depression. Here, we described and compared different therapeutic techniques that equipped young people with a more flexible capacity to use attention and/or promoted a tendency to positive/benign (over threatening/negative) interpretations of uncertain situations. Methods We searched electronic databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, EMBASE, and PsycARTICLES) for studies containing words relating to: intervention; youth; anxiety and/or depression and attention and/or interpretation, and selected studies which sought to reduce self-reported anxiety/depression in youth by explicitly altering attention and/or interpretation patterns. Ten young people with lived experiences of anxiety and depression and from diverse backgrounds were consulted on the relevance of these strategies in managing emotions in their daily lives and also whether there were additional strategies that could be targeted to promote adaptive thinking styles. Results Two sets of techniques, each targeting different levels of responding with different strengths and weaknesses were identified. Cognitive bias modification training (CBM) tasks were largely able to alter attention and interpretation biases but the effects of training on clinical symptoms was more mixed. In contrast, guided instructions that teach young people to regulate their attention or to evaluate alternative explanations of personally-salient events, reduced symptoms but there was little experimental data establishing the intervention mechanism. Lived experience representatives suggested that strategies such as deliberately recalling positive past experiences or positive aspects of oneself to counteract negative thinking. Discussion CBM techniques target clear hypothesised mechanisms but require further co-design with young people to make them more engaging and augment their clinical effects. Guided instructions benefit from being embedded in clinical interventions, but lack empirical data to support their intervention mechanism, underscoring the need for more experimental work. Feedback from young people suggest that combining complimentary techniques within multi-pronged “toolboxes” to develop resilient thinking patterns in youth is empowering.

Evidence-based practice in cognitive–behavioural therapy

Cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) is a practical, goal-focused approach that helps children understand the relationship between their thoughts, feelings and behaviours. The aim is to identify the dysfunctional and distorted cognitions associated with their psychological problems and to create more functional and balanced cognitive patterns that create less emotional distress and more helpful behaviours. CBT has strong evidence as an effective intervention for children and adolescents with emotional problems. The benefits for children with physical health and chronic conditions appear promising, although further research is required to substantiate these gains.

A Metaphorical Analysis of Female Worship in the Kam Epic: Songs of Kam Remote Ancestors

Metaphor is a cognitive mechanism in which people understand an abstract and unfamiliar object by comparing it to a more concrete and familiar one, according to rhetoric, while modern cognitive linguistics holds that metaphor is a cognitive mechanism in which people understand an abstract and unfamiliar object by comparing it to a more concrete and familiar one, according to modern cognitive linguistics. It’s a basic human cognitive and thinking model. Therefore, cognitive metaphor study is devoted to revealing the deep cognitive patterns of language and explaining various cognitive behaviors through languages. Myth is an important vector of human culture and has a profound influence on the formation of national cultural psychology. The Kam’s epic Songs of Kam Remote Ancestors as a narrative ancient song of the Kam covers the longest history of the Kam and has the highest content about the Kam’s ancestors. This epic has many descriptions of woman ancestors and a large number of metaphors of women as well, which reflects the unique position of women in the Kam culture. This study draws on the cognitive metaphor theory to investigate the female metaphors with the purpose of uncovering the development and evolution of the Kam’s woman worship perception in their history by using MIP metaphor identifying method.

The Sense of Supernatural Agency

The sense of supernatural agency constitutes a defining characteristic of the religious sphere of life. But what accounts for the continued cross-cultural recurrence of this psychological phenomenon over the course of human history? This paper reviews evidence indicating that the source of panhuman or universal cognitive patterns of thought and behaviour such as this lies in the common characteristics of the evolved human mind. Further, that the sense of the supernatural is constituted by a unique combination of commonly recurring cognitive processes that together give rise to a panhuman conviction in the reality of supernatural agencies able and (when minded) willing to assist each individual in situations deemed beyond the capacities of that individual. These cognitive processes are driven most acutely by existential anxiety in response to extrinsic physical, economic and social pressures indicating that religiosity is best understood as a social-psychological phenomenon.

Manipulative Shallow Processing Induced by Presuppositions and Topics: Theoretical Perspectives and Experimental Evidence

The paper shows that implicit strategies for questionable contents are frequent in persuasive texts, as compared to texts with other purposes. It proposes that the persuasive and manipulative effectiveness of introducing questionable contents implicitly can be explained through established cognitive patterns, namely that what is felt by addressees as information coming (also) from them and not (only) from the source of the message is less likely to be challenged. These assumptions are verified by showing examples of “implicitness of evidential responsibility” (essentially, presuppositions, and topics) as triggers of lesser attention in advertising and propaganda. A possible evolutionary path is sketched for three different pragmatic functions of presuppositions, leading to their availability for manipulation. The distraction effect of presuppositions and topics is also explained in relation with recent developments of Relevance Theory. Behavioral evidence that presuppositions and topics induce low epistemic vigilance and shallow processing is compared to recent neurophysiological evidence which does not confirm this assumption, showing greater processing costs for presuppositions and topics as compared to assertions and foci. A proposal is put forward to reconcile these apparently contrasting data and to explain why they may not be in contrast after all. Also due to natural language quick processing constraints (a “Now-or-Never processing Bottleneck”), effort devoted to accommodation of presupposed or topicalized new contents may drain resources from concurrent epistemic vigilance and critical evaluation, resulting in shallower processing.

The Role of Cognitive Patterns in Modelling Reality by Means of Natural Language (The Case Study of the English Cognitive Pattern “Cleanness / Dirtiness”)

In the field of cognitive linguistics it is accepted that, before developing its capacity for abstract and theoretical thought, the human mind went through the stage of reflecting reality through concrete images and thus has inherited old cognitive patterns. Even abstract notions of the modern civilization are based on traditional concrete images, and it is all fixed in natural language units. By way of illustration, the author analyzes the cognitive pattern “сleanness / dirtiness” as a constituent part of the English linguoculture, looking at the whole range of its verbal realization and demonstrating its influence on language-based thinking and modeling of reality. Comparing meanings of language units with their inner forms enabled the author to establish the connection between abstract notions and concrete images within cognitive patterns. Using the method of internal comparison and applying the results of etymological reconstruction of language units’ inner form made it possible to see how the world is viewed by representatives of the English linguoculture. Apparently, in the English linguoculture images of cleanness / dirtiness symbolize mainly two thematic areas: that of morality and that of renewal. Since every ethnic group has its own axiological dominants (key values) that determine the expressiveness of verbal invectives, one can draw the conclusion that people perceive and comprehend world fragments through the prism of mental stereo-types fixed in the inner form of language units. Sometimes, in relation to specific language units, a conflict arises between the inner form which retains traditional thinking and a meaning that reflects modern reality. Still, linguoculture is a constantly evolving entity, and its de-velopment entails breaking established stereotypes and creating new ones. Linguistically, the victory of the new over the old is manifested in the “dying out” of the verbal support for pre-vious cognitive patterns, which leads to “reprogramming” (“recoding”) of linguoculture rep-resentatives’ mentality.

Metaphorical Image of Future of Russia in Context of Constitutional Reform of 2020 (French Media)

The article examines the cognitive patterns of the representation of the image of the future of Russia in the French media (Le Monde, L’Express, Le Point, RFI, Libération, Le Nouvel Observateur). The analysis of a corpus of 140 French metaphors, updated in the context of the constitutional reform in Russia in 2020 and performing a predictive function in the process of conceptualizing the future of Russia, is carried out. It is noted that in order to achieve the set goal of the work, it is advisable to use the method of cognitive research of metaphors, united by the target sphere of metaphorical expansion. The results of the analysis of the leading metaphorical models of the image of the future of Russia are presented: “The future of Russia is the past / USSR / old age / decline”, “Russia in the future is an absolute monarchy / limited space / fortified military facility”. It is shown that the image of the future of Russia is formed in the French media exclusively by negative metaphorical word usage. It is concluded that the metaphorical expressions used to describe the constitutional reform in Russia in 2020 are being updated by the French political elites to form the image of Russia as an undemocratic country devoid of a positive future.

Promoting helpful attention and interpretation patterns to reduce anxiety and depression in young people: Weaving scientific data with young peoples’ lived experiences

BACKGROUND: Anxiety and depression are common, disabling and frequently start in youth, underscoring the need for effective, accessible early interventions. Promoting adaptive cognitive patterns could reflect “active ingredients” in the treatment and/or prevention of youth anxiety and depression. Here, we described and compared different therapeutic techniques that equipped young people with a more flexible capacity to use attention and/or promoted a tendency to positive/benign (over threatening/negative) interpretations of uncertain situations. We also consulted young people with lived experiences on how effective these strategies are used in daily life and their views on whether additional techniques could be used to promote resilient cognitive patterns.METHODS: We searched electronic databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, EMBASE, and PsycARTICLES) for studies containing words relating to: intervention; youth; anxiety and/or depression and attention and/or interpretation, and selected studies which sought to reduce self-reported anxiety/depression in youth by explicitly altering attention and/or interpretation patterns. Ten young people with lived experiences of anxiety and depression and from diverse backgrounds were invited to give their views on our findings.RESULTS: Two sets of techniques, each targeting different levels of responding with different strengths and weaknesses were identified. Cognitive bias modification training (CBM) tasks were largely able to alter attention and interpretation biases but the effects of training on clinical symptoms was more mixed. In contrast, guided instructions that teach young people to regulate their attention or to evaluate alternative explanations of personally-salient events, reduced symptoms but there was little experimental data establishing the intervention mechanism. Young people reported on additional strategies that could be targeted to promote adaptive cognitive patterns. DISCUSSION: CBM techniques target clear hypothesised mechanisms but require further co-design with young people to make them more engaging and augment their clinical effects. Guided instructions benefit from being embedded in clinical interventions, but lack empirical data to support their intervention mechanism, underscoring the need for more experimental work. Young peoples’ feedback suggest that combining complimentary techniques within multi-pronged “toolboxes” to develop resilient thinking patterns in youth is empowering.