Although research has demonstrated the benefit of psychological detachment for employee well-being, the explanatory mechanisms related to work behaviors underlying this effect remain underdeveloped. Addressing this research gap, we consider self-discrepant time allocation (preferred–actual allocation) as a mediating mechanism through which psychological detachment affects employee well-being. We hypothesize that psychological detachment is associated with self-discrepant time allocation at work. Specifically, we suggest that employees with low detachment tend to allocate more time than preferred (...) to work activities that demand fewer self-regulatory resources, and allocate less time than preferred to activities demanding greater self-regulatory resources. These self-discrepant time allocations at work are associated with employee well-being. Polynomial regression analysis and response surface methodology were used to test the hypotheses. The results, based on a sample of 390 faculty members from 19 universities, showed that, when psychological detachment during weekends is low and self-regulatory resources are insufficient, employees will allocate less time than preferred to work activities that require more self-regulatory resources (i.e., researching activities) during the subsequent work period. Instead, employees tend to allocate more time to activities that require less resources (i.e., teaching activities). These discrepancies between actual and preferred time allocation at work activities, in turn, negatively affect employee well-being and mediate the relationship between psychological detachment and employee well-being. (shrink)

Past literature in the area of employee–customer interactions suggests that being mistreated by customers is deemed one of the most important work-related stressors for service employees. However, little is known about the effects of customer mistreatment on the family domain. In a representative sample of 221 front-line employees in the East China hairdressing industry using three separate surveys administered 1 month apart respectively, the current study explores the mediation effects of work-to-family conflict (WFC) and the moderation effects of psychological (...) detachment (PD) and leader–member exchange (LMX) on the relationship between customer mistreatment and family satisfaction (FS). The research revealed that the employees confronted with intensive customer mistreatment tended to experience high levels of WFC, and WFC mediated the effects of customer mistreatment on FS. In addition, both PD and LMX attenuated customer mistreatment’s direct effects on WFC and indirect effects on FS (via WFC). This study contributes to the managerial psychology literature related to the customer mistreatment construct and a better understanding of how PD and LMX act as a work-family spillover effect moderator of customer mistreatment on individuals. (shrink)

Previous correlational studies have shown that both psychological detachment from work and positively thinking about work during non-work time are associated with favorable affective states. In our research we integrate these contradictory findings and add more rigor to detachment research by using an experimental design. In two experimental studies conducted in the laboratory, we manipulated two different kinds of detachment from work (thinking about a hobby; explicit detachment instruction) and three different kinds of thinking about (...) work (thinking negatively, thinking positively, thinking in an unspecific way) by short written instructions. Results show that both detachment strategies lead to a reduction in negative affect (in both studies) and to an increase in positive affect (in one study). The effect of detachment was particularly strong when it was contrasted with thinking negatively about work and when end-of-workday negative affect was high. In some of the comparisons, the affective benefits of positively thinking about work were stronger than those of psychological detachment from work. Taken together, our studies demonstrate that detachment from work as well as positive thinking improves subsequent affect, highlighting the causality underlying the association between psychological detachment from work – as a core recovery experience – and subsequent affective states. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary volume questions one of the most fundamental tenets of social theory by focusing on detachment, an important but neglected aspect of social life. Going against the grain of recent theoretical celebrations of engagement, this book challenges us to re-think the relational basis of social theory. In so, doing it brings to light the productive aspects of disconnection, distance and detachment. Rather than treating detachment simply as the moral inversion of compassion and engagement, the volume brings (...) together empirical studies and theoretical comments by leading anthropologists, sociologists and science studies scholars. Taken together, these illustrate the range of contexts within which distance and disconnection can offer meaningful frameworks for action. Positioned at the cutting edge of social theory, this landmark volume will be of great interest to students and academics across the social sciences and humanities. (shrink)

Some truths cannot be accessed ‘cold’, from a detached and impersonal standpoint, but require personal commitment and even moral change in order for the relevant evidence to come to light. The truths of religion may be of this kind. Moreover, recent work in psychology and neurophysiology suggests that our knowledge of the world comes in different forms, the detached critical scrutiny associated with ‘the left-brain’ and the more intuitive and holistic awareness mediated by the ‘right brain’. Much contemporary philosophy privileges (...) the former kind of knowledge, but in areas such as religion this may be a mistake.1. (shrink)

Three views of psychological emptiness, or xū, can be found in the Zhuāngzĭ. The instrumental view values xū primarily as a means of efficacious action. The moderate view assigns it intrinsic value as an element of one Zhuangist vision of the good life. The radical view also takes it to be an element of the ideal life, but in this case the form of life advocated is that of the Daoist sage, who transcends mundane human concerns to merge with (...) nature or the Dào. The instrumental and moderate views articulate a relatively commonsensical position, on which the agent continues to pursue at least some characteristically human projects. On the radical view, by contrast, the agent ceases to exercise agency and lives a life hardly recognizable as human. The three views thus signal a tension in Zhuangist ethics, and the unattractiveness of the radical view poses a potential obstacle to the application of Daoist ideas in contemporary ethical discourse. The paper argues that there are principled grounds within Zhuangist thought for detaching the instrumental and moderate views from the radical view and rejecting the latter. (shrink)

This paper disputes the claim that our understanding of others is enabled by a commonsense or ‘folk’ psychology, whose ‘core’ involves the attribution of intentional states in order to predict and explain behaviour. I argue that interpersonal understanding is seldom, if ever, a matter of two people assigning intentional states to each other but emerges out of a context of interaction between them. Self and other form a coupled system rather than two wholly separate entities equipped with an internalised capacity (...) to assign mental states to the other. This applies even in those instances where one might seem to adopt a ‘detached’ perspective towards others. Thus ‘folk psychology’, as commonly construed, is not folk psychology. (shrink)

A commonly accepted claim by philosophers investigating the nature of evil is that the evil person is, in some way, the mirror image of the moral saint. In this paper I will defend a new version of this thesis. I will argue that both the moral saint and the morally evil person are characterized by a lack of conflict between moral and non-moral concerns. However, while the saint achieves this unity through a reconciliation of the two, the evil person does (...) so by eliminating moral concerns from her character. (shrink)

At one time behavioristic psychology depreciated the value of introspection and descriptive observation in an attempt to exorcise the ghosts of mentalism and introspectionism. The roots of this bias were traced to a Cartesian dualism of subject and object. Behavioristic research has typically concentrated on a specific kind of data requiring the controls of a detached third-person observer. Its findings have been far removed from the concrete "lived world" of the subject, notwithstanding the sophistication and utility of its experimental designs. (...) The task of understanding the human world of everyday life has been precluded from investigation by an exclusive reliance on explanation for the purpose of facilitating prediction. A case has been made that such a position is neither philosophically tenable nor conducive to the growth of psychology as a science. The contention of contemporary philosophers and behavioral scientists is that psychology cannot proceed as an independent science of man without combining empirical induction with experiential descriptions. Psychologists cannot exclude the role of intentionality and remain consistently within the orbit of causality. A science of psychology as the study of behavior and experience is possible through a comprehensive approach with equitable sharing of methodologies. Two methods were presented: The method of Phenomenal Study, and the method of Individual Reflection. Experiences from the real world may be studied without the earlier pitfalls of "introspectionism," or the present outcries against a meaningfulness. An application of the two methods to the experience of "feeling understood," suggests a necessary and possible rapprochement between the methods of behaviorism and phenomenology. (shrink)

Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology is first and foremost a science of the structures of consciousness. Since it is intended to yield eidetic, i. e., a priori insights, it is often assumed that transcendental phenomenology and the natural sciences are totally detached from each other such that phenomenological investigations cannot possibly benefit from empirical evidence. The aim of this paper is to show that a beneficial relationship is possible. To be more precise, I will show how Husserl’s a priori investigations on consciousness (...) can be supplemented by research in experimental psychology in order to tackle fundamental questions in epistemology. Our result will be a phenomenological conception of experiential justification that is in accordance with and supported by empirical phenomena such as perceptual learning and the phenomenon of blindsight. Finally, I shall shed light on the systematic limits of empirical research. (shrink)

Extant research suggests that workplace ostracism has a detrimental impact on the outcomes of employees. However, very little is known about the impact of workplace ostracism on sleep quality. Therefore, this study aimed to address this gap in the literature. By employing the extended stressor-detachment model, we investigated the mediating role of psychological detachment and the moderating role of coping humor. We used a self-report questionnaire and a time-lagged research design to assess employees’ workplace ostracism, coping humor, (...) psychological detachment, and sleep quality. A total of 403 valid questionnaires were obtained from participants in full-time employment in China. As predicted, the results showed that workplace ostracism is negatively associated with psychological detachment, which in turn, impairs sleep quality. We further found that high levels of coping humor buffer the negative effect of workplace ostracism on psychological detachment and sleep quality. In addition, the moderation effect of coping humor on the relationship between workplace ostracism and sleep quality is mediated by psychological detachment. Finally, based upon the results, we discuss the theoretical implications, provide practical proposals for managers and policymakers, and make suggestions for the direction of further research. Keywords: workplace ostracism, coping humor, psychological detachment, sleep quality, mediated moderation model. (shrink)

Introduction -/- 1 Précis -/- 2 Methodology: Introducing digital humanities to the history of philosophy 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Core constructs 2.3 Operationalizing the constructs 2.4 Querying the Nietzsche Source 2.5 Cleaning the data 2.6 Visualizations and preliminary analysis 2.6.1 Visualization of the whole corpus 2.6.2 Book visualizations 2.7 Summary -/- Nietzsche’s Socio-Moral Framework -/- 3 From instincts and drives to types 3.1 Introduction 3.2 The state of the art on drives, instincts, and types 3.2.1 Drives 3.2.2 Instincts 3.2.3 Types 3.3 (...) The semantic neighborhood of drive, instinct, and type 3.4 A theory of (the relations among) instincts, drives, and types 3.4.1 Drives are act-directed rather than outcome-directed dispositions 3.4.2 The reflexive turn in Nietzsche’s drive psychology 3.4.3 Triggers of drive-displacement 3.4.4 Instincts are innate drives 3.4.5 Types are constellations of instincts and other drives 3.4.6 To what extent are types, instincts, and drives fixed? 3.5 Summary -/- 4 From types to virtues 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The state of the art on virtues and values 4.2.1 Virtues 4.2.2 Values 4.3 The semantic neighborhood of virtue and value 4.4 On (the relations among) instincts, drives, types, values, virtues, and values 4.4.1 Virtues are well-calibrated drives 4.4.2 Nietzsche’s type-relative unity of virtue thesis 4.4.3 The type of the criminal 4.4.4 Nietzschean exemplarism and his ad hominem attacks 4.5 Summary -/- 5 Socializing Nietzschean virtues 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Higher-order types 5.2.1 Social character construction 5.2.2 Reflexive character construction 5.3 Eponymous trait terms and Nietzschean summoning 5.3.1 Eponymous trait terms 5.3.2 Nietzschean summoning 5.4 Summary -/- Nietzschean virtues -/- 6 Curiosity 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Curiosity in virtue epistemology 6.3 Curiosity and its affiliated emotions 6.4 Curiosity, perspectivism, and inquiry 6.5 Curiosity as a virtue 6.5.1 A preliminary characterization 6.5.2 Curiosity in the middle through late works 6.6 Summary -/- 7 Courage 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Intellectual courage in contemporary virtue epistemology 7.3 Courage as a virtue 7.3.1 A preliminary characterization 7.3.2 Courage in the middle through late works 7.4 Summary -/- 8 Pathos of distance 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Contempt and disgust in contemporary moral psychology 8.3 The semantic neighborhood of contempt, disgust, and the pathos of distance 8.4 Nietzsche on contempt 8.4.1 Spernere mundum 8.4.2 Spernere neminem 8.4.3 Spernere se ipsum 8.4.4 Spernere se sperni 8.4.5 Nietzsche aims to induce what he considers fitting contempt in receptive readers 8.5 Nietzsche on disgust 8.5.1 The use of disgust: detaching from an ideal 8.5.2 The danger of disgust 8.6 The pathos of distance 8.7 Prospects for a Nietzschean democratic ethos 8.8 Summary -/- 9 Sense of humor 9.1 Introduction 9.2 The semantic neighborhood of laughter, humor, and comedy 9.3 The Nietzschean sense of humor and its functions 9.3.1 From episodic laughter to the sense of humor 9.3.2 Affirmation and inquiry 9.3.3 Negation and inquiry 9.3.4 Affiliation with like-minded inquirers 9.4 Summary -/- 10 Solitude 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Solitude in virtue theory and Nietzsche scholarship 10.3 The semantic neighborhood of solitude 10.4 An account of Nietzschean solitude 10.5 Summary -/- Conclusion -/- 11 Conscience & integrity 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Conscience and integrity in contemporary moral psychology and Nietzsche scholarship 11.2.1 Conscience and integrity in contemporary moral psychology 11.2.2 Conscience and integrity in Nietzsche commentary 11.3 The semantic neighborhood of conscience and integrity 11.4 Distinguishing conscience, good conscience, bad conscience, and intellectual conscience 11.4.1 Conscience 11.4.2 Good conscience 11.4.3 Bad conscience 11.4.4 Intellectual conscience and integrity 11.5 Summary -/- 12 Prospectus 12.1 Future directions in moral psychology 12.2 Future directions in Nietzsche scholarship 12.3 Future directions in digital humanities and the history of philosophy . (shrink)

Studies in philosophy: I. Tufts, J.H. On moral evolution. II. Willcos, W.F. The expansion of Europe in its influence upon population. III. Woods, R.A. Democracy a new unfolding of human power. IV. Sharp, F.C. An analysis of the moral judgment. V. Woodbridge, F.J.E. The problem of consciousness. VI. Norton, E.L. The intellectual element in music. VII. Raub, W.L. Pragmatism and Kantianism. VIII. Lyman, E.W. The influence of pragmatism upon the status of theology.--Studies in psychology: IX. Delabarre, E.B. Influence of surrounding (...) objects on the apparent direction of a line. X. Swift, E.J. Beginning a language; a contribution to the psychology of learning. XI. Pierce, A.H. An appeal from the prevailing doctrine of a detached subconsciousness. XII. Woodworth, R.S. The cause of a voluntary movement. XIII. Burnett, C.T. An experimental test of the classical theory of volition. (shrink)

The studies of mysticism have traditionally emphasized a common core centered around experiences of ego dissolution and unity. However, this focus on a central set of experiences tends to downplay the non-central aspects, resulting in a limited understanding that may not encompass many other types of extraordinary experiences. This article proposes a layered hierarchy model of mysticism, which reverts to the fundamental definition of mysticism and resonates with the Jamesian characteristics of mysticism as noetic and ineffable. Consequently, an extended definition (...) is put forth to characterize mysticism as the transcendence of perceived reality and the transformation of the perceiver. Within this proposed model, four layers of mysticism are delineated. Monistic Mysticism is characterized by the perception of oneness in all existence and the dissolution of selfhood, exemplified by perennialist mystical unity. Nondualistic Mysticism involves the recognition of a higher reality beyond the mundane world and the subjugation of the ego to an idealized divine, exemplified by religious experiences. Dualistic Mysticism encompasses a world of spirits in contrast to human reality, where the self detaches from and interacts with spiritual beings, exemplified by psychedelic experiences and spiritism. Pluralistic Mysticism entails numerous coexisting realities, and the self is understood to have many facets and boundless potentials, exemplified by psychic phenomena and non-physicalism. This expanded framework broadens the scope of mysticism and makes it a versatile tool for studying a wide range of human experiences under a unified framework. (shrink)

When faced with intertemporal choices, which have consequences that unfold over time, we often discount the future, preferring smaller immediate rewards often at the expense of long-term benefits. How psychologically connected one feels to one’s future self-influences such temporal discounting. Psychological connectedness consists in sharing psychological properties with past or future selves, but connectedness comes in degrees. If one feels that one is not psychologically connected to one’s future self, one views that self like a different person and (...) is less likely to wait for the future reward. Increasing perceived psychological connectedness to one’s future self may lead to more far-sighted decisions. Episodic prospection may help in this regard. Episodic prospection is our ability to ‘pre-experience’ the future by mentally simulating it, drawing on information from episodic memory and other sources. Episodic memory and prospection are thought to involve a special form of consciousness, which underpins the capacity to appreciate the connection between one’s past, present, and future selves. Simulating the future self through prospection may increase felt psychological connectedness and support future-oriented decision-making. Yet this is where a puzzle arises. The imagery of episodic memory and prospection is perspectival: often one views the visualised scenario from a detached perspective, seeing oneself from-the-outside as if viewing another person. The aim of this paper is to characterise how the perspectival imagery of prospection relates to psychological connectedness, and to show that even though such imagery involves a detached perspective it can still be used to help reward one’s future self. (shrink)

Friendship and romantic love are, by their very nature, exclusive relationships. This paper sug- gests that we can better understand the nature of the exclusivity in question by understanding what is wrong with the view of practical reasoning I call the Comprehensive Surveyor View. The CSV claims that practical reasoning, in order to be rational, must be a process of choosing the best available alternative from a perspective that is as detached and objective as possible. But this view, while it (...) means to be neutral between various value-bearers, in fact incorporates a bias against those value-bearers that can only be appreciated from a perspective that is not deta- ched—that can only be appreciated, for instance, by agents who bear long-term commitments to the values in question. In the realm of personal relationships, such commitments tend to give rise to the sort of exclusivity that characterizes friendship and romantic love; they prevent the agent from being impartial between her beloved’s needs, interests, etc., and those of other per- sons. In such contexts, I suggest, needs and claims of other persons may be silenced in much the way that, as John McDowell has suggested, the temptations of immorality are silenced for the virtuous agent. (shrink)

Modern empirical psychology, as a reductionist, materialist, and positivist science, has to a great extent replaced philosophical psychology – or more precisely philosophical anthropology– in our contemporary world, and this has caused modern psychology to lose sight of what was most interesting in pre-modern psychology, namely the attempt to situate the human person in his experience of reality in the lifeworld (lebenswelt). This has resulted in the practice of psychology becoming detached from the realities of lived experience as its view (...) of human nature becomes increasingly narrow, rigid and scientistic. This is evidenced by the current “replication crisis” in modern psychology, which has severely impacted the credibility of modern psychology as a field of enquiry. This crisis arose with an increasing methodological standardisation that is being pursued at the expense of interrogating the scientistic presuppositions that ground the study of modern psychology. (shrink)

The popular mind is deep and means a thousand times more than it knows.It is fitting that the Royal Institute of Philosophy series on American philosophy include a session on the thought of Josiah Royce, for his most formidable philosophical work, The World and the Individual, was a result of his Gifford lectures in the not too distant city of Aberdeen in 1899 and 1900. The invitation to offer the Gifford lectures was somewhat happenstance, for it was extended originally to (...) William James, who pleaded, as he often did in his convenient neurasthenic way, to postpone for a year on behalf of his unsettled nerves. James repaired himself to the Swiss home of Theodore Flournoy, with its treasure of books in religion and psychology, so as to write his Gifford lectures, now famous as The Varieties of Religious Experience. In so doing, however, James was able to solicit an invitation for Royce to occupy the year of his postponement. Royce accepted with alacrity, although this generosity of James displeased his wife Alice, who ranted, ‘Royce!! He will not refuse, but over he will go with his Infinite under his arm, and he will not even do honour to William's recommendation.’ Alice was partially correct in that Royce, indeed, did carry the Infinite across the ocean to the home of his intellectual forebears, although on that occasion as on many others, he acknowledged the support of his personal and philosophical mentor, colleague and friend, William James. (shrink)

Historically, the suspension of presuppositions arose as part of the philosophical procedure of the transcendental reduction which, Husserl taught, led to the distinct realm of phenomenological research: pure consciousness. With such an origin, it may seem surprising that bracketing remains a methodological concept of modern phenomenological psychology, in which the focus is on the life-world. Such a focus of investigation is, on the face of it, incompatible with transcendental idealism. The gap was bridged largely by Merleau-Ponty, who found it possible (...) to interpret Husserl's later work in an existentialist way, and thus enabled the process of bracketing to refer, not to a turning away from the world and a concentration on detached consciousness, but to the resolve to set aside theories, research presuppositions, ready-made interpretations, etc., in order to reveal engaged, lived experience. This paper outlines the history of the suspension of presuppositions and discusses the scope and limitations of bracketing in its new sense within existential phenomenology. The emphasis is on research practice and on the phenomenological quest for entry into the life-world of the research participant. It is argued that the bracketing of presuppositions throughout the process of research should be a cardinal feature of phenomenological psychology. Of equal importance is the investigator's sensitive awareness that the investigation of the life-world and the phenomena which appear within it is a thoroughly interpersonal process, necessarily entailing the taken-for-granted assumptions implicit in all social interaction. These presuppositions are not open to bracketing. (shrink)

This paper argues that one can empirically test, via positivist methods, the post-modern attack on positivist epistemologies: Postmodern perspectives hold Knowledge and Truth to be intersubjective, consensus-driven social constructions. But traditional scientific approaches to knowledge, exemplified here by the cognitive social psychology of persuasion, seem oblivious to this and continue to detach the study of attitudes, beliefs, and emotions from that of knowledge, facts, and reason. Abandoning these artificial distinctions in both epistemology and method would enable this social psychology, reconstituted (...) as a Sociology of Persuasion, to contribute greatly to illuminating the processes of Truth and Knowledge construction in social interaction. Moreover, this would facilitate academic engagement in civic discourse. (shrink)

In April 2020, almost six out of 10 people around the world were in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Being locked down usually has a deleterious effect on the confined individual's mental health. In this exceptionally challenging context, finding ways to minimize negative mood about the pandemic is essential. Pandemic-related negative states (“negative mood”) and recovery experiences were investigated in a sample of 264 individuals who completed daily surveys four times per day over 7 consecutive days. MSEMs analyses revealed (...) that negative mood persisted from moment-to-moment through the day, thus showing a response lag effect. Further analyses revealed that when someone experienced pandemic-related psychological detachment, relaxation, mastery, control, pleasure, or relatedness at specific periods of the day, mood had improved at the next measured time period, suggesting a protective effect. However, the pattern displayed by singles with dependents suggests that some recovery experiences at specific periods during the day seem to have a backfiring effect and worsen subsequent mood. These findings bring new insight into the role of recovery experiences during lockdowns and suggest that many could benefit from such experiences throughout the day when self-isolating. However, for individuals with multiple risk factors such as being single with dependents, some recovery experiences, at specific periods during the day, might not bring the desired outcome and future research is needed to examine if guilt or domestic burden may explain this finding. Results contribute to our understanding of how to take care of one's mental health during the current pandemic, and concrete recommendations adapted to individual contexts are provided. (shrink)

Work procrastination is a retreat behavior associated with negative cognitive experience and it results in great losses to individual as well as organizational development. Understanding the antecedents of employees’ work procrastination behavior contributes to lower frequency of its occurrence. This research builds a dual-moderated mediation model from the perspective of cognitive appraisal theory and explored work procrastination behavior of employees subjected to abusive supervision. With 378 valid returned questionnaires, data collected from 32 companies in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing supports (...) our hypotheses. This result has enriched the understanding of work procrastination behavior and provided practical implications to avoide its negative effects. (shrink)

Whereas previous research has focused on the link between workload and task performance, less is known about the intervening mechanisms influencing this relationship. In the present study, we test the moderating roles of daily recovery and total sleep time in the relationship between work pressure and daily task performance. Using performance and recovery theories, we hypothesized that work pressure relates positively to daily task performance, and that both daily recovery in the form of psychological detachment and relaxation, and (...) total sleep time independently enhance this relationship. Our hypotheses were tested in a 30-day diary study with 110 officer cadets on a cross-Atlantic voyage on a Naval sail ship. The results of multilevel modeling lend support to all three hypotheses. Taken together, our findings suggest that recovery and sleep duration between shifts play a key role in the relationship between daily work pressure and task performance. We discuss the implications of these findings for the stressor-detachment model. (shrink)

Comparative psychology, the multidisciplinary study of animal behavior and psychology, confronts the challenge of how to study animals we find cute and easy to anthropomorphize, and animals we find odd and easy to objectify, without letting these biases negatively impact the science. In this Element, Kristin Andrews identifies and critically examines the principles of comparative psychology and shows how they can introduce other biases by objectifying animal subjects and encouraging scientists to remain detached. Andrews outlines the scientific benefits of treating (...) animals as sentient research participants who come from their own social contexts and with whom we will be in relationship. With discussions of science's quest for objectivity, worries about romantic and killjoy theories, and debates about chimpanzee cognition between primatologists who work in the field and those in the lab, Andrews shows how scientists can address the different biases through greater integration of the subdisciplines of comparative psychology. (shrink)

After experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic, the status and mechanisms of leadership, and the challenges for medical workers in terms of family–work conflicts, have caused widespread concern. In the post-pandemic era, based on role theory and the stressor-detachment model, this paper seeks to break the “black box” of negative effects that can be caused by leadership, research the mechanism and boundary conditions of those negative effects, and explore factors to reduce those negative effects. We recruited 1,010 Chinese medical workers fighting (...) COVID-19 on the frontline. Our study results showed that there was a significant negative correlation between empowering leadership and work–family conflict, and this relationship was completely mediated by role stress, while psychological detachment moderated the relationship between role stress and work–family conflict. Moreover, psychological detachment moderated the mediating effect of empowering leadership on work–family conflict through role stress. Therefore, higher levels of psychological detachment were less conducive to medical workers' family–work conflict. This study has important theoretical significance and practical value for revealing the negative effects and mechanisms of empowering leadership and for medical workers to better deal with work–family relations. (shrink)

Meta-analytical research has demonstrated the benefits brought by telecommuting to wellbeing. However, we argue that such a setup in the course of the coronavirus disease pandemic exerts negative effects. On the basis of conservation of resources theory, this study determined how telecommuting depletes wellbeing through obstructing psychological detachment from work. Moreover, we incorporated family interfering with work and family–work enrichment as moderators that can buffer the negative effect of telecommuting on psychological detachment from work. Time-lagged field (...) research was conducted with 350 Chinese employees, and findings largely supported our theoretical hypotheses. The elevated level of telecommuting results in minimal psychological detachment from work, which then leads to low wellbeing. Meanwhile, the negative effect of the extent of telecommuting on psychological detachment from work is reduced by family interfering with work. These findings extend the literature on telecommuting and psychological detachment from work through revealing why teleworkers present negative feelings during the pandemic. (shrink)

Ongoing developments, such as digitalization, increased the interference of the work and nonwork life domains, urging many to continuously manage engagement in respective domains. The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent home-office regulations further boosted the need for employees to find a good work-nonwork balance, thereby optimizing their health and well-being. Consequently, proactive individual-level crafting strategies for balancing work with other relevant life domains were becoming increasingly important. However, these strategies received insufficient attention in previous research despite their potential relevance for satisfying (...) psychological needs, such as psychological detachment. We addressed this research gap by introducing a new scale measuring crafting for a work-nonwork balance and examining its relevance in job-and life satisfaction, work engagement, subjective vitality, family role and job performance, boundary management and self-rated work-nonwork balance. The Work-Nonwork Balance Crafting Scale was validated in five countries, encompassing data from a heterogeneous sample of more than 4,200 employees. In study 1, exploratory factor analysis revealed a two-factorial scale structure. Confirmatory factor analysis, test for measurement invariance, and convergent validity were provided in study 2. Replication of confirmatory factor analysis, incremental and criterion validity of the Work-Nonwork Balance Crafting Scale for job and life satisfaction were assessed in study 3. Study 4 displayed criterion validity, test–retest reliability, testing measurement invariance, and applicability of the scale across work cultures. Finally, study 5 delivered evidence for the Work-Nonwork Balance Crafting Scale in predicting work-nonwork balance. The novel Work-Nonwork Balance Crafting Scale captured crafting for the challenging balance between work and nonwork and performed well across several different working cultures in increasingly digitalized societies. Both researchers and practitioners may use this tool to assess crafting efforts to balance both life domains and to study relationships with outcomes relevant to employee health and well-being. (shrink)

This article begins with a review of studies in perception and depth psychology concerning the experience of exposure to sacred artworks in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox contexts. This follows with the results of a qualitative inquiry involving 45 Roman Catholic, Eastern and Coptic Orthodox, and Protestant Christians in Canada. First, participants composed narratives detailing memories of spiritual experiences involving iconography. Then, in the context of a darkened room evocative of a sacred space, they viewed artworks depicting Biblical themes and (...) interpreted their meanings. Stimuli included “Western” paintings from the Roman tradition—a selection from the Gothic, Northern Renaissance, and Renaissance canon—and matched “Eastern” icons in the Byzantine style. Spiritual experience narratives were analyzed in terms of word frequencies, and interpretations of sacred artworks were analyzed thematically. Catholics tended to utilize emotional language when recalling their spiritual experiences, while religious activity was most often the concern of Protestants, and Orthodox Christians wrote most about spiritual figures and their signifiers. A taxonomy of response styles was developed to account for participants’ interpretations of Western and Eastern artworks, with content ranging from detached descriptions to projective engagement with the art-objects. Our approach allows for representation of diverse Christians’ interpretations of sacred art, taking into consideration personal, collective, and cultural-religious sources of meaning. Our paradigm also offers to enrich our understanding of the numinous or emotional dimension of mystical contact. (shrink)

Relational trauma can be understood as a psychological injury that occurs in the context of abusive interpersonal relationships and appears to be correlated with a wide array of mental illnesses. However, one potential harm of trauma that has not received much attention from philosophers is the threat it poses to authenticity. To understand why relational trauma potentially creates impediments to authentic agency, we need to consider two other phenomena that are commonly associated with it: (i) dissociation, and (ii) diminished (...) habitual trust. Whereas trauma-related dissociation commonly involves bodily alienation and detachment from the self, diminished habitual trust often leads to alienation from others. I maintain that dissociative detachment and diminished habitual trust often are mutually reinforcing and that, together, they can cause agents to become disconnected from themselves, others, and the reality of what has happened to them. What implications does this have for authentic agency among traumatized individuals? After outlining existing conceptions, I emphasize the important sense in which authenticity is relational and scaffolded by social connections. I also discuss several competencies that undergird authenticity and argue that the interplay between dissociative detachment and attenuated habitual trust can make it difficult for traumatized individuals to develop and sustain these competencies. Thus, the trauma they have experienced impedes their ability to conduct their lives in accordance with their genuine cares and desires. (shrink)

In passing remarks, some commentators have noted that for Nagel, physicalism is true. It has even been argued that Nagel seeks to find the best path to follow to achieve future physicalism. I advance these observations by adding that for Nagel, we should discuss the consciousness problem not in terms of physical and mental issues but in terms of our desire to include consciousness in an objective/scientific account, and we can achieve this only by revising our self-conception, i.e., folk psychology, (...) to develop a more detached view of experience. Through the project of objective phenomenology, Nagel aims to achieve some sort of objective, detached, and scientific explanation of the subjective nature of experience. This project seeks to make the truth of physicalism intelligible and consciousness more amenable to scientific study, potentially raising an even broader concept than the one physicalism originally proposes. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Philosophy may be accused of being an exclusive theoretical enterprise. Although it is concerned with the important issues of life it may appear to be a purely academic matter pursued by few educated scholars and therefore somehow detached from everyday way of being of people uneducated in philosophy. In the field of the philosophy of sport, the essential ambition is to provide relevant insights into a vast area of sport that will promote our philosophical understanding and knowledge of the (...) relevant topics. This paper offers another perspective on the role of philosophy in sport. I argue that philosophy is not just about reflecting from an academic distance, but the process of philosophizing could be situated within the sporting practices. This type of relationship between philosophy and sport is already apparent in ancient Greece where philosophers (such as Pythagoras or Socrates) liked to be engaged in physical exercises and to combine them with philosophical discussions with athletes. The article explores a practical role of philosophy in sport, namely the process of philosophical thinking and dialogue with athletes and their coaches. It offers insights into methodology, goals, benefits, and limits of using philosophy in practice. I reflect on my personal experience of being a mental coach and philosophical consultant in sport in the Czech Republic. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the relevance of using philosophy (philosophical practice) in the sporting environment. In doing so, I reflect on the nature and purpose of philosophical thinking and its possible relation to sport psychology and mental coaching. (shrink)

Psychogenic depersonalization is an altered mental state consisting of an unusual discontinuity in the phenomenological perception of personal being; the individual is engulfed by feelings of unreality, self-detachment and unfamiliarity in which the self is felt to lack subjective perspective and the intuitive feeling of personal embodiment. A new sub-feature of depersonalization is delineated. 'Prosthesis' consists in the thought that the thinker is a 'mere thing'. It is a subjectively realized sense of the specific and objective 'thingness' of the (...) particular object thought about. I show that prosthesis is an important cognitive feature of depersonalization, and may be psychologically connected with the tendency of depersonalized individuals to report 'philosophical' types of thinking. Indeed, several philosophical issues concerning the identity of the self appear to have been enhanced by prosthesis experiences. Thus, far more efficient than William James's experimental attempts to uncover philosophical truths under the influence of nitrous oxide intoxication, prosthesis may be a safe and recommended experience for philosophers. The history of depersonalization theories is presented from Krishaber to Freud, and the main approaches to prosthesis criticized. Finally, a fresh approach to psychogenic depersonalization is outlined on the basis of certain cognitive similarities with visual agnosia. This paper may be understood as continuing the Jamesian tradition 'experimental abnormal psychology', that is, of examining extraordinary mental states with an eye to their philosophical implications. (shrink)

Religious texts and historical narratives are instrumental in defining appropriate emotions and moral reasoning in a culture. In the Bhagavad Gītā, the warrior Arjuna is faced with a twofold dilemma: are his emotions appropriate and should emotions influence his actions? The Gītā is thought to be a redacted text with three primary layers: the original verses, the Sāmkhya/Yoga layer, and the devotional bhakti layer. Cross-cultural psychological theories of emotions are employed to analyze the layers of the Gītā. It is (...) argued that each of the three layers corresponds with one of three possible moral codes as proposed by R. A. Shweder and his colleagues (1997; 2000): the Ethic of Autonomy (promoting personal well-being and avoiding shame); the Ethic of Community (maintaining social order and emotional detachment); and the Ethic of Divinity (upholding cosmic order and endorsing emotional devotion). These three perspectives remain relevant for deciding emotionally laden moral dilemmas today. (shrink)

In the philosophy and psychology of perception there exists a long-standing debate about the detachability of the visual from the conceptual contents of perception. The article analyses the implications of this dilemma for the attribution of aesthetic properties independent of the classification of aesthetic objects and the possibility of aesthetic formalism.

Indian philosophy is a term that refers to schools of philosophical thought that originated in the Indian continent. Buddhism is one of the important school of Indian philosophical thought. Happiness is much pursued by individuals and society in all cultures. Eastern and western cultures have understood well-being and evolved ways and means to promote well-being over the years. Buddhism pursues happiness by using knowledge and practice to achieve mental equanimity. In Buddhism, equanimity, or peace of mind, is achieved by detaching (...) oneself from the cycle of craving that produces dukkha. So by achieving a mental state where you can detach from all the passions, needs and wants of life, you free yourself and achieve a state of transcendent bliss and well-being. The journey to attain a deeper form of happiness requires an unflinching look into the face of a reality where all life is seen as dukkha or mental dysfunction. Buddhism is a philosophy and practice that is extremely concerned with the mind and its various delusions, misunderstandings and cravings but, happily for us, sees a way out through higher consciousness and mindful practice. Perhaps it is because of this seemingly dim view of reality that happiness in Buddhism is so tremendously full; the ideas contained in Buddha's teachings point to a thorough engagement with lived reality. Ironically, it is through such an engagement with one's self, the world and reality that one is able to achieve a transcendent happiness. Equanimity, a deep sense of wellbeing and happiness, is attainable through proper knowledge and practice in everyday life. The objective of this paper is to the study the conception of happiness Buddhist philosophy. This paper is divided into four parts (i) meaning of Indian philosophy and its relation with Indian psychology, (ii) Buddhist philosophy, (iii) Buddhist conception of happiness and (iv) relevance of Buddhism in present day world. (shrink)

Religious texts and historical narratives are instrumental in defining appropriate emotions and moral reasoning in a culture. In the Bhagavad Gıtā, the warrior Arjuna is faced with a twofold dilemma: are his emotions appropriate and should emotions influence his actions? The Gıtā is thought to be a redacted text with three primary layers: the original verses, the Sāmkhya/Yoga layer, and the devotional bhakti layer. Cross-cultural psychological theories of emotions are employed to analyze the layers of the Gıtā. It is (...) argued that each of the three layers corresponds with one of three possible moral codes as proposed by R. A. Shweder and his colleagues (1997; 2000): the Ethic of Autonomy (promoting personal well-being and avoiding shame); the Ethic of Community (maintaining social order and emotional detachment); and the Ethic of Divinity (upholding cosmic order and endorsing emotional devotion). These three perspectives remain relevant for deciding emotionally laden moral dilemmas today. (shrink)

Recent studies have identified two important findings on infants’ capability of taking others’ perspectives and the difficulty of ignoring perspectives irrelevant to the acquired perspective. Unfortunately, there is insufficient consensus on the interpretation of these phenomena. Two important features of perspective-taking, embodiment and aging, should be considered to reach a more appropriate hypothesis. In this paper, the mechanism of perspective-taking can be redefined through the well-known process of self–other distinction, which is inherent to humans, without resorting to either the assumption (...) of controversial systems or an excessive reduction to executive functions. Therefore, it is hypothesized that the implicit mentalizing observed in infancy comes from the loosening phenomenon and lasts lifelong and that the self-representation separated from one’s own body by the detachment function is sent to other perspectives for explicit perspective-taking. This hypothesis can not only explain both the robustness of perspective-taking in the older adults and the appearance of egocentric/altercentric bias in adults but also is consistent with the findings in brain science and neuropathology. Finally, some issues to be considered are presented to improve the validity of this hypothesis. (shrink)

Clinical psychologists describe decentering as the mental operation in which a subject “moves out” of immersion in a mental state. Such decentering is philosophically puzzling. It involves that a subject attends to her mental state to distance herself from it. That is, she attends to the state to make it less determining of her processing. This paper provides a philosophical explanation of the nature of decentering. It analyses decentering as a complex mental operation composed of two sub-operations: introspection and (...) class='Hi'>detachment. Drawing on this analysis, the paper argues that decentering involves certain dynamics of attention and attention control that pose an important challenge to a selection for action theory of attention. This challenge concerns adequately describing the workings of detachment in decentering. The paper discusses how a selection for action theory might reply, yet it argues that all the available replies involve unattractive aspects. The paper closes with broader perspectives, suggesting that decentering might also pose a puzzle for other theories of attention. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.2 (2004) 221-223 [Access article in PDF] John J. Conley. The Suspicion of Virtue: Women Philosophers in Neoclassical France. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002. Pp. xi + 222. Cloth, $39.95. The rediscovery of forgotten women philosophers began in the 1970s and has yielded important results by broadening substantially the intellectual history of early modern Europe. In The Suspicion of Virtue: Women Philosophers (...) in Neoclassical France, John J. Conley expands even more the corpus of philosophical texts written by women to include five authors whose work has never been considered in this context. Five salonnières, traditionally considered the authors of light literature, are the subject of Conley's book. By expanding the "map of philosophy sites and genres" (159), Conley has looked beyond the university setting and beyond the female philosophers associated with the major male figures of [End Page 221] the period. He argues that the salon produced important female philosophers whose intellectual power was especially revealed in their highly original consideration and discussion of virtue and whose work provides an alternative to the philosophy produced by the canonical male authors of the seventeenth century.As he explores the moral philosophies of Sablé, Deshoulières, Sablière, Vallière, and Maintenon, Conley shows us how the salon promoted experimentation with alternative methods of philosophical analysis. Specifically, the salon produced philosophical arguments that were "characterized more by debate and by epigrammatic commentary than by the lecture and the treatise" (158). It promoted new methods of argument and focused thematically on moral issues.The works of the Jansenist Madame de Sablé rely on the maxime, the literary genre associated most closely with salon culture. In her Maximes, Sablé engages in moral psychology to offer a critique of aristocratic society. She writes about the pride and self-interest that defines this milieu, and she draws a clear distinction between a physical aristocracy (based on blood and rank) and a spiritual aristocracy of the virtuous. For this author, the essential trait of the individual is moral identity, not family or heritage.The poetry and philosophy of Madame Deshoulières is rooted in naturalism and inspired by the works of Lucretius and Gassendi. For her, virtue involves "an ecological reverence for the material world" (49). She addressed the vice and confusion that come from human misconceptions about nature. In particular, the human refusal to accept mortality reflects a broader refusal to accept the materialist nature of human beings. The belief in human superiority and immortality constitutes an attack on nature and explains human efforts to dominate nature. The belief in human immortality in turn raises issues of morality because it produces in humans hubris and the consequent mistreatment of the animal world and material environment. For Deshoulières virtue involves reverence for the material world.With Sablière the ethical person is the "redeemed saint, the sinner freed to a life of charity by the sovereign action of God and summoned to a particular set of moral duties in the midst of austere prayer" (94-95). Her maxims refer ultimately to spiritual abandonment to the will of God, and Sablière combines a deeply mystical piety, shaped by contact with Quietism, and the idea of the sovereignty of God, derived from Augustinian theology. The individual is dependent upon God's grace, and to live a moral life requires serious contemplation and communication with God and pyschological detachment from self, a relationship that springs from God's initiative.La Vallière also interprets virtue in an Augustinian vein, but her approach to virtue does not insist on abandonment of the world. She writes about knowing God through the experiences of repentance and conversion. Her Reflections on the Mercy of God is a dialogue with God on the part of repentent female voice. Her voice is definitely gendered, and she witnesses to God's mercy.Finally, Conley shows us in turn that the salonnières brought to their discussion of virtue an interest in etiquette and manners that derived from the distinctive experiences of women. Here the... (shrink)

This article is situated within the framework of schema therapy and offers a comprehensive and clinically useful list of schema modes that have been identified as being relevant to conceptualizing complex psychological problems, such as those posed by personality disorders, and, in particular, the way that those problems are perpetuated. Drawing on the schema therapy literature, as well as other literature including that of cognitive behavior therapy and metacognitive therapy, over eighty modes are identified altogether, categorized under the widely (...) accepted broad headings of Healthy Adult, Child modes, Parent modes and coping modes which are, in turn, divided into Surrender, Detached/Avoidant, and Overcompensator. An additional category is included: Repetitive Unproductive Thinking. This draws attention to the recognition by metacognitive therapists that such covert behaviors play a significant role in amplifying distress and perpetuating a range of psychological problems and symptoms. In addition to the modes themselves, several concepts are defined that are directly relevant to working with modes in practice. These include: default modes, blended modes, mode suites and mode sequences. Attention is also drawn to the way in which Child modes may be hidden “backstage” behind coping modes, and to the dyadic relationship between Child modes and Parent modes. Also relevant to practice are: the recognition that Critic voices may have different sources and this has implications for treatment, the concept of complex modes in which several submodes work together, and the fact that in imagery work and image of a child may not represent a Vulnerable Child, but a Coping Child. The modes and mode processes described are directly relevant to clinical practice and, in addition to being grounded in the literature, have grown out of and proved to be of practical use in conceptualizing my own cases, and in supervising the cases of other clinicians working within the schema therapy framework. (shrink)

Freud, working from a background in clinical neurology and against a backdrop of burgeoning theory development in biology and neurophysiology, thought that the layers of the mind mirrored the layers of the brain although he was well aware of the conceptual problems involved in trying to identify the two. His associationist view, based on a neurobiological and evolutionary approach to the mind tends to underestimate the role of consciousness in a holistic conception of the psyche. The role of language and (...) the disciplines and practices which structure the psyche make it a domain in which negotiated solutions to life challenges are produced from the socio-cultural resources of discourse applied to the biological propensities resulting from innate dispositions and learning history. Although the biological and social realms obey fundamentally different rules, their psychological effects are realised in a common medium — the brain — a fact that can be detached from reductive approaches to psychology or psychiatry and can give substance to the idea of the body being inscribed like a surface on which events have left their trace. (shrink)

There has recently been a resurgence of philosophical and scientific interest in the foundations of self-consciousness, with particular focus on its altered, anomalous forms. This paper looks at the altered forms of self-awareness in Depersonalization Disorder (DPD), a condition in which people feel detached from their self, their body and the world (Derealisation). Building upon the phenomenological distinction between reflective and pre-reflective self-consciousness, we argue that DPD may alter thetransparencyof basic embodied forms of pre-reflective self-consciousness, as well as the capacity (...) to flexibly modulate and switch between the reflective and pre-reflective facets of self-awareness. Empirical evidence will be invoked in support of the idea that impaired processing of bodily signals is characteristic of the condition. We provide first-hand subjective reports describing the experience of self-detachment or fracture between an observing and an observed self. This split is compared with similar self-detachment phenomena reported in certain Buddhist-derived meditative practices. We suggest that these alterations and changes may reveal the underlying and tacit transparency that characterises the embodied and basic pre-reflective forms of self-consciousness, in the same way that a crack in a transparent glass may indicate the presence of an unnoticed window. (shrink)

Patients suffering from depersonalization complain of feeling detached from their body, their mental states, and actions or even from themselves. In this chapter, I argue that depersonalization consists in the lack of a phenomenal feature that marks my experiences as mine, which is usually called “mineness,” and that the study of depersonalization constitutes a neglected yet incomparable probe to assess empirically the scope, role, and even the nature of mineness. Here is how I will proceed. After describing depersonalization (§2) and (...) arguing that it involves a lack of mineness (§3) I will confront a series of objections (§4). I will then spell out what depersonalization can teach us about the scope of mineness (§5), about its role and psychological function (§6) and even about its nature (§7). (shrink)