What drives us to make decisions? Future-Minded explores the psychological processes of agency and control. If you've ever wondered why we think of coincidences as matters of fate rather than the result of the laws of probability, this book provides the answer. From memory and reasoning to our experiences of causality and consciousness, it unpicks the mechanisms we use on a daily basis to help us predict, plan for and attempt to control the future. Future-Minded - Features a (...) wealth of real world examples to help you engage with this fast-developing area. - Provides clear analysis of psychological experiments and their findings to explain the evidence behind the theory. Thought-provoking and highly topical, Future-Minded is fascinating reading for psychology students studying cognition or consciousness, and for anyone interested in understanding how we try to determine the future. (shrink)

Background:The understanding of factors that shape risk perception is crucial to modulate the perceived threat and, in turn, to promote optimal engagement in preventive actions.Methods:An on-line, cross-sectional, survey was conducted in Italy between May and July 2020 to investigate risk perception for COVID-19 and the adoption of preventive measures. A total of 964 volunteers participated in the study. Possible predictors of risk perception were identified through a hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis, including sociodemographic, epidemiological and, most of all, psychological factors. (...) A path analysis was adopted to probe the possible mediating role of risk perception on the relationship between the independent variables considered and the adoption of preventive measures.Results:Focusing on the psychological predictors of risk perception, high levels of anxiety, an anxious attachment, and an external locus of control predicted higher perceived risk. Conversely, high levels of openness personality and of avoidant attachment predicted a lower perception of risk. In turn, the higher was the perceived risk the higher was the adoption of precautionary measures. Furthermore, psychological factors influenced the adoption of preventive behaviors both directly and indirectly through their effect on risk perception.Conclusions:Our findings might be taken into high consideration by stakeholders, who are responsible for promoting a truthful perception of risk and proper compliance with precautionary measures. (shrink)

This book brings cutting edge neuroscience and psychology into dialogue with philosophical reflection to illuminate the loss of control experienced by addicts, and thereby cast light on ordinary agency and the way in which it sometimes goes wrong.

ObjectivesThis paper aims to identify potential areas for refinement in existing theoretical models of suicide, and introduce a new integrative theoretical framework for understanding suicide, that could inform such refinements.MethodsLiterature on existing theoretical models of suicide and how they contribute to understanding psychological processes involved in suicide was evaluated in a narrative review. This involved identifying psychological processes associated with suicide. Current understanding of these processes is discussed, and suggestions for integration of the existing literature are offered.ResultsExisting approaches to understanding (...) suicide have advanced the current knowledge of suicide in various ways. They have guided valuable research in the following areas: motivations for suicide and the psychological distress which influences suicide attempts; ambivalence about suicide; suicidal individuals’ focus of attention; and ways in which individuals who contemplate suicide differ from individuals who attempt suicide. We outline a new theoretical framework as a means to integrating all of these concepts into the three principles of control, conflict, and awareness. Within this framework, suicide is regarded as occurring due to a long standing conflict between an individual’s personal goals, culminating in an episode of acute loss of control. The new framework posits that the individual then strives to regain control through the means of suicide because of a narrowed awareness of consequences of their actions on other valued goals. This psychological mechanism of limited awareness is posited to be the common pathway by which individuals make a suicide attempt, regardless of which risk factors are present.ConclusionThis article introduces a theoretical framework that generates several hypotheses for future research, and focuses on psychological processes occurring during immediate crisis. One of the key hypotheses resulting from our predictions on how individuals progress from contemplating to attempting suicide will be tested in an ongoing program of research: Individuals who attempt suicide have a significantly reduced awareness of consequences of suicide, which would negatively impact on their important life goals, values, principles, or ideals, compared to individuals who contemplate suicide. Therapy guided by the new framework may be more flexible, immediate, and client-focused than other therapies for suicidal individuals. (shrink)

Searching for an explanation to human superiority, Friedman and Lackey offer their General Theory of Purposeful Behavior: People seek control as an end in itself--the ability to make accurate predictions is the means to that end. This tight knit theory defines the dynamic relationship between and among predictive processes responsible for human control and success. A distinctly different view of intelligence, this volume includes discussions on "Human Motivation", "Gaining Control", "Maximizing Control", and "Impediments to Control". (...) Important implications of the theory include "Achieving Success", "Working Effectively", "Educating For Control", and "The Pursuit of Happiness". (shrink)

In what they call their “manual of the sanities”—a positive psychology handbook describing contemporary research on strengths of character—Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman argue that “there is no true disadvantage of having too much self-control.” This claim is widely endorsed in the research literature. I argue that it is false. My argument proceeds in three parts. First, I identify conceptual confusion in the definition of self-control, specifically as it pertains to the claim that you cannot be too (...) self-controlled. Second, I consider disadvantages to having too much self-control, several of which point to the value of acting spontaneously from time to time, in a pointedly uncontrolled way. Third, I raise worries about the social and political values embedded in the science of self-control. Self-control as it is understood in the positive psychology literature benefits some people more than others, depending, for example, on their race and their socio-economic status. I conclude by briefly outlining an empirical framework for understanding self-control in traditional virtue theoretic terms as something that admits of deficiencies and excesses. (shrink)

Prior work on weakness of will has assumed that it is a thoroughly psychological phenomenon. At least, it has assumed that ordinary attributions of weakness of will are purely psychological attributions, keyed to the violation of practical commitments by the weak-willed agent. Debate has recently focused on which sort of practical commitment, intention or normative judgment, is more central to the ordinary concept of weakness of will. We report five experiments that significantly advance our understanding of weakness of will attributions (...) by showing that the ordinary concept of weakness of will is less thoroughly psychological than the philosophical debate has assumed. We begin by showing that a sizable minority of people attribute weakness of will even in the absence of a violated commitment (Experiment 1). We then show that weakness of will attributions are sensitive to two important non-psychological factors. First, for actions stereotypically associated with weakness of will, the absence of certain commitments often triggers weakness of will attributions (Experiments 2–4). Second, the quality of an action’s outcome affects the extent to which an agent is viewed as weak-willed: actions with bad consequences are more likely to be viewed as weak-willed (Experiment 5). Our most important finding is that the ordinary concept of weakness of will is sensitive to two non-psychological factors and is thus much broader than philosophers have thus far imagined. We conclude by suggesting a two-tier model that unites our findings with traditional philosophical theorizing about weakness of will. (shrink)

Runkel links Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) thinking to psychological literature and discusses it against that background.

Abstract. Our human condition is often defined in terms of human fallibility; we are human specifically because we fail to live up to our own expectations. This paper explores various conceptions of one form of human fallibility: self-control failure. Self-control failure is examined through two conceptualizations, with each conceptualization observed through a corresponding theological and psychological lens: first, as the result of a divided, conflicted humanity, as understood by the Catholic Doctrine of Original Sin and psychological Dual-Process Theories (...) of Cognition; and second, as the result of limited goal perception, as understood by Islamic conceptions of human memory and psychological Construal Level Theory. A concluding discussion considers two broader implications of the preceding analysis: first, that an appropriate understanding of human fallibility can help us to mitigate its effects, and second, that a conversation regarding overlapping concepts across academic disciplines and religious traditions can enrich understanding of said concepts. (shrink)

This study investigated the effects of the 6 Minutes Journal, a commercial diary combining several positive psychology interventions, including gratitude, goal-setting, and self-affirmation exercises, on several mental health outcome measures. In a randomized controlled trial, university students were randomly assigned to one of two groups: 6MT and a wait list control group. Participants in the intervention group were instructed to follow the instructions of the 6MT for 4 weeks. Participants in both groups completed measures of perceived stress, positive (...) and negative affect, self-efficacy and resilience at baseline, after 2, and 4 weeks. We used path-analyses with autoregressive and cross-lagged effects to test our hypotheses of the effects of the 6MT. Participants in the intervention group reported decreased levels of perceived stress and negative affect, as well as increased levels of resilience and self-efficacy compared to the control group. Positive affect was not statistically significantly influenced. The data showed a statistically significant increased levels of self-efficacy and resilience only after 4 weeks, suggesting that changing these constructs needs more time. The 6-minute diary does not appear to make individuals fundamentally more positive. However, the intervention may have a protective function against negative influences on well-being. (shrink)

Three standard psychometric tests were administered to parents who volunteered their children for a randomised, double-blind placebo-controlled trial of a new asthma drug and to a control group of parents whose children were eligible for the trial but had declined the invitation. The trial took place at a children's hospital in Australia. The subjects comprised 68 parents who had volunteered their children and 42 who had not, a participation rate of 94 per cent and 70 per cent, respectively. The (...) responses of these parents to the Gordon Survey of Interpersonal Values Questionnaire, the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory and the Cattell Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire were analysed by computer. There was a marked difference between the psychological profiles of the two groups of parents. Volunteering parents put more value on benevolence while non-volunteering parents were more concerned with power and prestige. The self-esteem of volunteering parents was much lower than that of non-volunteering parents. Finally, volunteering parents were more introverted, exhibited greater anxiety and low supergo, while non-volunteering parents appeared to have greater social confidence and emotional stability. Since an individual's values, self-esteem and personality may be important antecedents of behaviour, these findings suggest that parents who volunteer their children for clinical research are not only socially disadvantaged and emotionally vulnerable, but may also be psychologically predisposed to volunteering. Furthermore, these findings provide evidence for the existence of a psychosocial 'filter' effect of the informed consent procedure, which may be discouraging the better educated, more privileged and psychologically resilient members of society from participation as research subjects. (shrink)

The concept of the "locus of control" is one of the most influential in all of the psychological sciences. Initially proposed by Julian Rotter in 1966, the year 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of this remarkable breakthrough, subsequently inspiring thousands of research studies in the human sciences - research that has only served to deepen the utility of this amazing concept. Edited by John W. Reich and Frank J. Infurna, Perceived Control: Theory, Research, and Practice in the First (...) 50 Years commemorates this important anniversary by featuring contributions from leading figures of the time - some of whom were there at the very beginning of Rotter's breakthrough - to give readers a valuable historical record and measuring stick to illustrate how far we've come. Other contributors to this volume expertly present contemporary and cutting-edge summaries of the current state of our knowledge all while giving us a roadmap for future developments and directions. What have these developments revealed about basic human strengths and capacities? Why has this concept proven so remarkably effective in illuminating our everyday life in sickness and health? Perceived Control is a fascinating work that incorporates research from Rotter's original concept, and addresses many of the leading comparable concepts that have since evolved: self-efficacy, personal mastery, competence, primary and secondary control, and more specific topics such as health locus of control, learned helplessness, and other heuristic concepts discussed in many different fields of psychology and the allied disciplines. As Perceived Control skillfully attests, Rotter's work continues to thrive, leaving little doubt that its influence will endure for another half century of more. (shrink)

BackgroundIndividuals with early phase cognitive impairment are frequently affected by existential distress, social avoidance and associated health issues. The demand for efficient psychological support is crucial from both an individual and a societal perspective. We have developed a novel psychological intervention manual for providing a non-medical path to enhanced psychological health in the cognitively impaired population. The current article provides specific information on the randomized controlled trial -design and methods. The main hypothesis is that participants receiving PIPCI will increase their (...) psychological flexibility compared to participants in the active control group and the waiting list control group. The secondary hypotheses are that participants receiving PIPCI will improve psychological health compared to participants in the active control group and the waiting list control group.Materials and MethodsThis three-arm RCT will recruit participants from the cognitive centers at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm and randomize approximately 120 individuals in the early phase of cognitive impairment to either an experimental group, an active control group or a waiting list control group. Intervention outcome will be evaluated with self-report questionnaires on physical and psychological aspects of health, cognitive assessment, biological markers and health care costs. Assessments will be performed at pre- and post-intervention, as well as at a 6-month follow-up.DiscussionThe development of a potentially feasible and effective psychological intervention tailored for early phase cognitive impairment has the potential to advance the non-pharmacological intervention field. This is especially important given the extensive burden for many affected individuals and their families and the current lack of effective treatments. If the psychological intervention discussed here shows feasibility and efficacy, there is potential for far-reaching healthcare implications for patients with early cognitive impairment at risk of developing dementia.Clinical Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04356924. Date of registration: April 22, 2020. URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04356924. (shrink)

This article seeks to critically question the internal logic and coherence of ‘anti-doping’ through the case study of advantage-seeking practices in the sport of Brazilian Jui-Jitsu (BJJ). We provide an analysis of the recent controversy between high-profile fighters Gordon Ryan and Nicky Rod involving the relative morality of image and performance enhancing drug (IPED) use compared with ‘greasing’, whereby BJJ athletes apply substances, such as oil or lubricants, to the body to make it harder for opponents to establish a grip (...) or maintain control during grappling exchanges. We employ this case study to highlight the impasse between the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) ethical foundation of the ‘spirit of sport’ and the anti-doping industry’s ‘anti-policy’ stance. We then query why a host of non-chemical advantage-seeking practices are normalised and overlooked within the rigid and constrictive systems. Ultimately, we characterise WADA as a myopic compliance system that stifles moral debate around advantage-seeking in sport and is hamstrung by an ethical discord between anti-policy and the neo-Aristotelian ideal of the spirit of sport. We close with a call for a holistic ethical understanding of advantage-seeking in sport and the need to encourage stakeholders to ‘think institutionally’ in order to establish a malleable and reactive response to doping. (shrink)

Prior studies have shown that people imagine their personal future to be more positive than their country’s collective future. The present research extends the nascent literature by examining the valence and perceived control of personal and national future events in a new experimental paradigm, the cultural generalizability of the findings, and the relation of future thinking to psychological well-being. US college students (Study 1) and US and Turkish community participants (Study 2) imagined what might happen to them and their (...) country in three time points (i.e., next week, next year, and in 10–15 years). They then rated the emotional valence and perceived control of the events and completed a psychological well-being measure. Both US and Turkish participants imagined their personal future to be more positive than their country’s future, whereas they attributed higher perceived control to their countries for national future events than to themselves for personal future events. The positivity of national (Study 1) and personal future events (Study 2) predicted better psychological well-being, whereas perceived control did not. These original findings enrich our theoretical understanding of future thinking. (shrink)

Limitations of Dienes & Perner's (D&P's) theory are traced to the assumption that the higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness is true. D&P claim that 18-month-old children are capable of explicitly representing factuality, from which it follows (on D&P's theory) that they are capable of explicitly representing content, attitude, and self. D&P then attempt to explain 3-year-olds' failures on tests of voluntary control such as the dimensional change card sort by suggesting that at this age children cannot represent content (...) and attitude explicitly. We provide a better levels-of-consciousness account for age-related abulic dissociations between knowledge and action. (shrink)

Suicide ideation is an essential predictor of suicide deaths and is highly prevalent among Chinese adolescents. Several studies have highlighted the significant association between parental psychological control and suicide ideation. However, few studies have focused on the potential mechanisms underlying this relationship. This study investigated the chained mediating effects of resilience and maladjustment problems on the relationship between parental psychological control and suicide ideation among Chinese adolescents. A total of 2,042 students in junior high school completed measurements. The (...) results revealed significant correlations among parental psychological control, resilience, maladjustment problems and suicide ideation. Even after controlling for the effects of gender and grade, parental psychological control positively predicted a significant effect of suicide ideation. Furthermore, suicide ideation was linked with parental psychological control through three pathways: the mediating role of resilience, the mediating role of maladjustment problems, and the chained mediating roles of resilience and maladjustment problems. These findings have broad implications for the field of suicide studies. High levels of parental psychological control, low levels of resilience, and high levels of maladjustment problems may increase the occurrence of suicide ideation. (shrink)

According to many virtue ethicists, one of Aristotle’s important achievements was drawing a clear, qualitative distinction between the character traits of temperance and self-control. In an influential series of papers, John McDowell has argued that a clear distinction between temperance and self-control can be maintained only if one claims that, for the virtuous individual, considerations in favor of actions that are contrary to virtue are “silenced.” Some virtue ethicists reject McDowell’s silencing view as offering an implausible or inappropriate (...) picture of human virtue, but they argue that virtue can still be clearly distinguished from self-control by the absence of motivational conflict alone. In this paper, I argue that this criticism of McDowell is at most half right. If the silencing view is false, so that virtue can have a cost and the virtuous person can justifiably feel negative emotions in response to that cost, there is no principled reason why the virtuous person cannot also have motivational conflict. So, if one rejects the silencing view, then one must allow that the distinction between virtue and self-control is at most a matter of degree. (shrink)

Drawing on theories of William James, Freud, and Dewey, as well as on studies in mood control, cognitive therapy, and artificial intelligence, this...

This dissertation contains a philosophical project and a psychological project. Together, they explore two central themes, and the relation between them: (1) doxastic control and the ethics of belief, and (2) the moral and epistemic import of close personal relationships. The philosophical project (Chapters 1 and 2) concerns a central puzzle in the ethics of belief: how can we make sense of apparent obligations to believe for moral or practical reasons, if we lack the ability to form beliefs in (...) response to such reasons? I draw on empirical work in emotion regulation to make progress on this problem of doxastic control. The psychological project (Chapters 3 and 4) concerns the role of relational closeness in moral judgment: though empirical moral psychology has traditionally focused on judgments about anonymous strangers, I contribute to a growing body of work showing how personal relationships can dramatically affect moral reasoning. Chapter 1, “Acceptance and the Ethics of Belief,” develops an empirically plausible and mechanistically detailed account of acceptance, the attitude classically characterized as “taking a proposition as a premise in practical reasoning and action.” I argue that acceptance centrally involves preventing a belief from playing its characteristic role in guiding cognition, reasoning, and action, that this centrally involves a “cognitive gating” operation, and that this view gains empirically plausibility by its analogy to well-studied strategies in emotion regulation. Ultimately, I defend acceptance as doxastic response modulation. I propose that this account holds promise for addressing puzzles in the ethics of belief—a domain plagued by the central theoretical challenge of our inability to believe for non-evidential reasons. Chapter 2, “Reframing Epistemic Partiality,” applies my account of acceptance to a specific debate in the ethics of belief: the epistemic partiality debate, which asks whether we sometimes ought to believe against the evidence regarding our friends. Though compelling, the partialist view has been plagued by serious objections. I argue that the debate has been focused on the wrong doxastic attitude: recasting our duties of friendship as duties of acceptance, rather than belief, satisfies the partialist intuitions, without falling prey to the varied objections against the view. Chapter 3, “What We Would (but Shouldn’t) Do for Those We Love” builds on prior work demonstrating that people say they are far more likely to report a distant other, compared to a close other, who commits a serious moral transgression. Across four studies, I demonstrate that people not only say they would protect close others more than distant others, but also that they say it is morally right to show such partiality towards close others. Furthermore, I show that people say that they would protect close others more than they think they should—suggesting that moral decisions involving those closest to us may be a context in which people are particularly likely to fail to do what they think is right. Chapter 4, “How Relationship Affects Adolescents’ Decisions to Report Moral Transgressions,” investigates how 6th-9th graders respond to the transgressions of close versus distant others. Given the social importance of peer relationships in adolescence, the role of relationship is central to understanding this stage of moral development. I show that adolescents—like adults—are more likely to report distant others who transgress than close others, and more likely to report serious moral transgressions than minor ones. (shrink)

A prominent feature of late nineteenth-century psychology was its intense preoccupation with precision. Precision was at once an ideal and an argument: the quest for precision helped psychology to establish its status as a mature science, sharing a characteristic concern with the natural sciences. We will analyse how psychologists set out to produce precision in 'mental chronometry', the measurement of the duration of psychological processes. In his Leipzig laboratory, Wundt inaugurated an elaborate research programme on mental chronometry. We (...) will look at the problem of calibration of experimental apparatus and will describe the intricate material, literary, and social technologies involved in the manufacture of precision. First, we shall discuss some of the technical problems involved in the measurement of ever shorter time-spans. Next, the Cattell-Berger experiments will help us to argue against the received view that all the precision went into the hardware, and practically none into the social organization of experimentation. Experimenters made deliberate efforts to bring themselves and their subjects under a regime of control and calibration similar to that which reigned over the experimental machinery. In Leipzig psychology, the particular blend of material and social technology resulted in a specific object of study: the generalized mind. We will then show that the distribution of precision in experimental psychology outside Leipzig demanded a concerted effort of instruments, texts, and people. It will appear that the forceful attempts to produce precision and uniformity had some rather paradoxical consequences. (shrink)

'Gaining control' tells the story of how human behavioral capacities evolved from those of other animal species. Exploring what is known about the psychological capacities of other groups of animals, the authors reconstruct a fascinating history of our own mental evolution. The result is a provocative and insightful book.

Luck permeates our lives, and this raises a number of pressing questions: What is luck? When we attribute luck to people, circumstances, or events, what are we attributing? Do we have any obligations to mitigate the harms done to people who are less fortunate? And to what extent is deserving praise or blame a ected by good or bad luck? Although acquiring a true belief by an uneducated guess involves a kind of luck that precludes knowledge, does all luck undermine (...) knowledge? And how accurate are our luck attributions anyway? The academic literature has seen growing, interdisciplinary interest in luck, and this volume brings together and explains the most important areas of this research. It consists of 39 newly commissioned chapters, written by an internationally acclaimed team of philosophers and psychologists, for a readership of students and researchers. Its coverage is divided into six sections: (i) The History of Luck, (ii) The Nature of Luck, (iii) Moral Luck, (iv) Epistemic Luck, (v) The Psychology of Luck, and (vi) Future Research. The chapters in these sections cover a wide range of topics, from the problem of moral luck, to anti-luck epistemology, to the relationship between luck attributions and cognitive biases, to meta-questions regarding the nature of luck itself, to a range of other theoretical and empirical questions currently being investigated by ethicists, epistemologists, and psychologists. By bringing this research together, the Handbook serves as both a touchstone for understanding the relevant issues and a first port of call for future philosophical and psychological research on luck. (shrink)

Exploring illusions of control in a wide variety of domains, the authors posit a practical way to minimize negative consequences.

Much work on the sense of agency has focused either on abnormal cases, such as delusions of control, or on simple action tasks in the laboratory. Few studies address the nature of the sense of agency in complex natural settings, or the effect of skill on the sense of agency. Working from 2 case studies of mountain bike riding, we argue that the sense of agency in high-skill individuals incorporates awareness of multiple causal influences on action outcomes. This allows (...) fine-grained differentiation of the contributions of self and external factors to action outcomes. We further argue that the sense of agency incorporates prospective awareness of actions that are possible in a situation and awareness of the limits of control. These forms of sense of agency enable highly flexible, context-sensitive strategic control, and are likely to contribute to high interindividual variability in responses to complex tasks. (shrink)

Few studies have examined the relationship between personality traits and social networking sites (SNSs) with a dominant concentration on the personality alterations under SNSs influence. The relationship between personality and privacy control was less focused and discussed. In order to figure out the internal mechanism of such link among youth SNSs users, the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was extended by including Five-Factor Model of Personality to explore how personality traits interact with privacy control behavior on SNSs. The (...) investigation using the theoretical method mentioned led to several hypotheses which were later assessed by an online study conducted within randomly chosen college students (N = 201) from two randomly chosen universities in China. This sampling strategy was designed to mimic the situation of targeted research population in the most reasonable way. The results suggested neuroticism and openness predicted SNSs privacy. Neuroticism and openness predicted “networked privacy” was also found. Theoretical implications of these findings were addressed. (shrink)

The present research examined relationships between parental autonomy support, parental psychological control, and Chinese emerging adults’ autonomous regulation in their university studies as well as dysregulation in social media engagement. A total of 287 Chinese university students reported on their perceived parenting styles, psychological needs, and behavior regulation. Results showed that basic psychological need satisfaction was positively associated with parental autonomy support and autonomous regulation of learning; need frustration was positively correlated with parental psychological control and dysregulation in (...) social media engagement. More importantly, psychological need frustration was a mediator of the relation between parental psychological control and dysregulation in social media engagement. Our findings suggest that students living in an autonomy-supportive familial environment tend to have satisfied psychological needs as well as autonomous learning behavior. Impairment of psychological needs could be one of the mechanisms through which psychologically controlling parenting was linked to dysregulation of social media use in Chinese culture. (shrink)