Humanistic Psychology - Science topic

A very suggestive and interesting question. Indeed, today we live in the age of technology, but I must say one thing: I believe that robots created by thousands cannot do the work that one person can do with their emotions. Because no robot can fulfill the love and affection of a person for the profession. As you mentioned in your question about this, thanks to the creation of robots, unemployment is sure to rise.

Rogerian psychology create an atmosphere of psychological safety within the counseling relationship which is relevant and applicable today. Rogers believed the therapist should have unconditional positive regard for the client – that is, not judge the client’s character. If the client feels that his/her character is being evaluated, he/she will put on a false front or perhaps leave therapy altogether.

Dear Hengki Wijaya,

In my opinion, this is the sociobiological effect of the evolutionary processes, i.e. it is a trait in some sense atavistic that we inherited from our ancestors from thousands and millions of years ago.

Best wishes

Psychotherapy methods can be unified, the current treatment methods are scattered, are targeted to specific needs, because of the lack of a unified psychology theory. All psychotherapy methods serve one goal: modifying the program. People's psychological activities can describe a series of program, psychological disorders are due to the disorder of these program, modify these psychological program, is psychotherapy.

Dear Farheen

In your question you say that while doing research on "wisdom", you came across this statement by Robert Sternberg on a web article: "I looked at people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela – take your own pick – and if you compare them to Stalin and Hitler and Mao, they probably didn’t differ much in I.Q. It seemed that what differentiated them was wisdom". Then you ask where you can find the origin of this statement and how to cite it.

I think that the best way to know where you can find the origin of the statement referred to above and how to cite it is to put your two questions to Robert Sternberg. Certainly he will tell you. Note, however, that that statement is, so to speak, an ideological statement, not a scientific affirmation or truth. It is certainly the case that no one assessed the IQ of such figures nor do we know to what extent they were or were not wise people. It is certainly the case that Robert Sternberg did not look at all these people, albeit he says that "I looked at people like ... "  In the statement is also mentioned that all these figures "probably didn't differ much in IQ". Again, this is an (educated) guess, no scientific affirmation. Thus, the statement makes only conjectures, but conjectures that cannot be falsified.   

What is wisdom ? There are many definitions of it and there is no criterion for one to decide what is the best one. Note that the two groups that reflect and make research on wisdom (i.e., Paul Baltes and his colleagues at Max Planck Institute in Berlin and Robert Sternberg and his colleagues at York University, in New York) are not in total agreement with  each other regarding the several facets of wisdom. Note also, dear Farheen, that in your question it appears "wisdom" not wisdom. Why is this the case?

Epistemologist John Laudan once remarked that science only progresses through clarification of meaning. As far I see it, this is not the case of the wisdom concept. Is seems to be that wisdom is a loose concept and thus, it is all and nothing at the same time. To an extent, it reminds me of Dr. Pangloss.   

I find a reference to the following four fallacies in the NET, something in which wise people do not fall prey to: 

The Egocentrism Fallacy: thinking that the world revolves, or at least should revolve, around you. Acting in ways that benefit yourself, regardless of how that behavior affects others.  

The Omniscience Fallacy: believing that you know all there is to know and therefore do not have to listen to the advice and counsel of others.  

The Omnipotence Fallacy: believing that your intelligence and education somehow make you all-powerful.  

The Invulnerability Fallacy: believing that you can do whatever you want and that others will never be able to hurt you or expose you.

As far as I realize, we might say that moral exemplars do not fall prey to these fallacies either? So, will it be that wise people are morally good people?  And why not define wisdom as one's ability to live in harmony with him/herself, the others, and the nature? 

Best regards, Orlando

Dear Alizay,

Even before you get into the method, you need to be extremely clear on the following :

1. What do you mean by 'Feeling Good'? Is it measurable? Do you have a scale?

2. Are you sure all quotations lead to the 'feeling good' emotions? If not then how are you going to select those for your study.

3. Is this the only emotion that is triggered? How do you differentiate?

Once you are clear with these, then you may be able to identify the most appropriate methods as well.

Cheers.

This isn't an answer but I am thinking about bird ringing and disease surveillance. It all hinges on the nature of the disease (or the prayer). I guess what you are implying is that it cannot be the case that the disease/prayer can be definitively marked as heard/cured at some moment in time (when it is treated/made) but may be later. (I pray for money to keep my aged granny and a year later she wins the pools. I suppose Go has quite a long "To Do List".) I do not know if there are diseases like this though. The bird ringing comes in because you'd need, at later points, to be able to tell (surveillance) to what extent people "found cured" had previously been ringed. (Maybe depression is an example, You get better before you get well and saying when you were fully well again is pretty hard and often retrospective.) If the quote is really about inscrutability (we will never know if x is the answer to a prayer) then I think it is untestable as stated. Or this could be complete bosh and not what you mean at all! Of course you do not really need bird rings, unambiguous identifiers would do fine (National Insurance Numbers?) but disease trials are usually heavily anonymised so this would go against the culture. You can tell I am thinking as I am writing but this might be an interesting question for educators. At the time the students may hate your lecture. 20 years on they may wish they had listened more carefully.

Hello Amy

Have you seen this:

Koltko-Rivera, M. E. (2006). Rediscovering the later version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs: Self-transcendence and opportunities for theory, research, and unification. Review of general psychology, 10(4), 302.

Table 1, p.303 displays self-transcendence in the familiar Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Very best wishes with your PhD,

Mary

Winston Churchill, another historical giant and undoubted megalomaniac/narcissist was the great war leader who brought Britain through its 'darkest hour'.  

Churchill displayed almost histrionic narcissism during his early career and engaged in schemes of destructive grandiosity.  During the years of hubris between the wars he  suffered severe depression which he referred to as his 'black dog'.

It is almost impossible to criticise Churchill without being screamed down by 'patriots' in spite of his catastrophic actions such as Gallipoli and his attacks on the working classes.  

There is no doubt that Churchill was instrumental in the destruction of Nazism and that as a war leader his megalomania was productive in many ways.  That does not mean however that we should gloss over his many severe shortcomings.

It is perhaps most telling that in the first election following the end of WW2 the electorate rejected him as the leader for peacetime.  

Dear Varuna, 

check these papers out: 

Dear Carlos, 

17% of the medical students have a Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) and the education may contribute to the sense of entitlement.  This means that they may have cognitive but not emotional empathy. In medicine you have to confront failure often. The failure is a blow to the ego. Your defense mechanism can be a NPD, which goes with a sadistic superego. "Within the cohort of medical professionals, surgeons expressed significantly higher levels of narcissism" from one of the papers. 

The three elements  of personality are :

Id i functions on ‘Pleasure principle’ and demands immediate fulfillment of needs and wants.  Ego functions on ‘Reality principle’. It deals with reality. It ensures the impulses of Id are expressed in a manner which is acceptable in the real world. The ego weighs costs and benefits before deciding on an action. Superego is the moral part of personality. It’s a product of Socialisation. It holds all the internalized moral standards and ideals acquired from parents and society. Superego is the sense of right and wrong. It provides guidelines for judgements.

regards

Rathish

Hello Desiree

I don't know if these will be of any interest:

Barsade, S. G., & O’Neill, O. A. (2014). What’s love got to do with it? A longitudinal study of the culture of companionate love and employee and client outcomes in a long-term care setting. Administrative Science Quarterly, 0001839214538636.

Stacey, C. L. (2005). Finding dignity in dirty work: The constraints and rewards of low‐wage home care labour. Sociology of health & illness, 27(6), 831-854.

Timonen, V., & Doyle, M. (2010). Migrant care workers’ relationships with care recipients, colleagues and employers. European Journal of Women's Studies, 17(1), 25-41.

I could not access the full text of these papers; the first looks as if it might be relevant and mentions exploitation (although it is dated 1991):

Eustis, N. N., & Fischer, L. R. (1991). Relationships between home care clients and their workers: Implications for quality of care. The Gerontologist, 31(4), 447-456.

Levine, C. (1999). Home Sweet Hospital The Nature and Limits of Private Responsibilities for Home Health Care. Journal of Aging and Health, 11(3), 341-359.

Winn, P. A., & Dentino, A. N. (2005). Quality palliative care in long-term care settings. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 6(3), S89-S98.

This paper gives a completely different slant to the question (did you ever see the film 'Robot & Frank?):

Robinson, H., MacDonald, B., Kerse, N., & Broadbent, E. (2013). The psychosocial effects of a companion robot: a randomized controlled trial. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 14(9), 661-667.

Best wishes with your research

Mary

Considering Humanism sees everything innately good, the related therapy approach to patient with self-concepts (ideal-self and self-image), positive regard and trying to assess the past behaviors of patients. I guess it is short and might be helpful.

@Gianrocco           In your question introduction I am reminded of Parmenides...'the road is unknowable".....'whatever is dreamt must exist',  'nothing is ever brought into existence, nothing leaves existence', a void does not exist.  And I compare the non-existence of void with the void of the Greek philosopher Democrites within which occurs recombination that produces variety. Then later with Aristotle who makes the plane the species of the surface rather than as Euclid the surface of the sphere the species of the surface.

    Laying in the 'void' between Parmenides and Aristotle is the question of existence, induction as a means of knowledge, the statistical method of modern science...if it is a void that traverses Parmenides and Aristotle it contradicts Parmenides claim that a void does not exist, and if Parmenides is correct and a 'void' does not exist, the existences of modern science become but abstracted myth and refer to the class of existences of thought only and not to material substance that it claims witness. 

    This is where I place my understanding of Kant, the 'void' of science, empty spaces within the atom turn out not to be a 'void' at all but Kants' 'I think'....it is not sound or coherent in (scientific) claims to speak of what is unconditionally unwitnessible, e.g. electrons, atoms, or distant places too far to ever reach for witness.  It follows that it is also illogical to believe that the thought process can be captured scientifically, the "I think" precedes science, refers to the exact abstracted objects intended to capture it or consciousness...i.e. introspection is not able to capture the thought process to either material or transcendental aspects,  "I think" underlines all, is (the only possible) universal, to refer beyond "I think" in abstraction is to refer beyond existence and  its' witness. I would add to (clarify) Parmenides assertion that all mental content exists, ..  content cannot exceed what is experience based, path based, possibility for the transcendental object. Though...'are there unicorns anywhere?',  for the human the transcendental is all that exists,  only humans can make claim to thought, to their own existence.

   I am addressing this topic because think it is important to take issue; -scientific discovery is not the same as the discovery that precedes the evolution of new concepts, science is but a concept.  Machines were discovered before the ways of their functioning was questioned and investigated. There is lot of confusion historically about the potential of science. Science is captive to a paradox of Judio-Christian ethics, is but a physical tool not unlike a spear or hammer, and has only human suffering and a simple morality of right and wrong rather than nature to refer to regarding ethics and survival.  There must be something inherent to the transcendental so that one can claim:

          "the transcendental"  if and only if "existence".

I don't see why you couldn't do this. In your example, depending on the numbers involved and power considerations , you could look at the relation between early life adversity and depression separately in those who had the mindfulness intervention and those who didn't. or alternatively look at the whole pooled cohort and include mindfulness intervention +/- as a regression covariate in the anaysis of depression vs early life adversity.

There could possibly be ethical issues if the subjects only signed up for a specific psychiatric examination  and the early life adversity questions were too stressful 9as an example)

Thanks Benami. This has been helpful . . . we are still deciding which is the best way to configure the research methodology.

Glenn

Thank you all. But i think i still need more resources. 

Professor Allessandro, the thesis you shared looks important but it is not in English.

For a large online community, I'd try posting to the subreddit SampleSize on the website Reddit. It's designed to allow you to post surveys publicly.  Then I'd probably use other social network site postings to send people to the survey I'd posted.

The involvement in religious organisations in connection with volunteering is discussed/acknowledged in the following - I was wondering if you had seen these:

Astin, A. W., & Sax, L. J. (1998). How undergraduates are affected by service participation. Service Participation, 39(3), 251.

 Gerstein, L. H., Wilkeson, D. A., & Anderson, H. (2004). differences in motivations of paid versus nonpaid volunteers 1. Psychological reports, 94(1), 163-175. (spiritual/religious values, spiritual fulfilment, positively associated with volunteerism).

 Clary, E. G., Snyder, M., & Stukas, A. A. (1996). Volunteers' motivations: Findings from a national survey. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 25(4), 485-505. (see next ref. below)

 Gage, R. L., & Thapa, B. (2012). Volunteer motivations and constraints among college students analysis of the volunteer function inventory and leisure constraints models. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 41(3), 405-430.

You can find Brijesh Thapa  on ResearchGate, and download this paper. In it, the paper by Clary et al 1996 (see above) is discussed; Clary et al. adding ‘religious duty’ to the VFI (pp.413-4 in Gage & Thapa) is mentioned in their literature review. The researchers then look at volunteer characteristics (research question1) and motivations to volunteer (research question 2), incorporating the aspect of religion (especially question 2).  

 Zappalà, G. (2000). How many people volunteer in Australia and why do they do it?. Smith Family. http://orfeusresearch.com.au/web_images/bp-04-00_online.pdf

Acknowledges religious beliefs as a reason to volunteer.

 Also worth reading the discussion in:

Borgonovi, F. (2008). Doing well by doing good. The relationship between formal volunteering and self-reported health and happiness. Social Science & Medicine, 66(11), 2321-2334.

 Narayan, D., & Cassidy, M. F. (2001). A dimensional approach to measuring social capital: development and validation of a social capital inventory. Current sociology, 49(2), 59-102.

I hope these reflect your literature requirements, Mary 

Hello, Richard and Béatrice. To answer the question baldly is "No," and I confess that I had not picked up subsequently on Adler's evolution. My excuse is that I hail from the Rogerian camp. Having gotten that out of the way, I am greatly intrigued by several aspects of your conversation. Neither in order nor exclusively: (1) The study and appreciation of the growth and development of the ideas of any great thinker is always enlightening. (2) The notion of power, rather than pleasure, being fundamental to the psychology of neurosis rings true if one considers human evolution (the archaeology of neurosis and the theoretical reconstruction of human development, as it were). (3) Which leaves me in a position. The link to Durbin 2004 <http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-128445468.html> goes to an Oops page, regrettably.  I am left, as an unwashed and unlearned undergraduate, seeking bibliographical signposts. Where do you suggest I begin?

I think (and hope) that humanistic psychology will see a return to some original ideas by folks like Maslow and Rogers (Otto Rank as well). At some point, humanistic psychology split into Malsow's "transpersonal psychology," which flopped, and the positive psychology that we see today. But if you were to open Maslow's "Further Reaches of Human Nature" you'd find a LOT of original ideas that have yet to be tested. The hierarchy of needs got famous and many of Maslow's interesting ideas fell away. 

Thanks Beatrice for your reply. Because I am focusing mainly on depression in the elderly in nursing homes, I had not come across positive psychotherapy in other pathologies (here, schizophrenia and psychosis). It's good to know research is curently being conducted on positive psychotherapy.

I would really like to know if any inroads have been made in positive psychotherapy in nursing homes. I really haven't seen much done in the US in this area. I suspect that this is because nursing homes in the US don't usually have psychologists on staff.

I am doing research in France where nursing homes now almost all have psychologists. I am currently doing a study to ascertain if positive psychology interventions can lower depression levels and increase affect in depressed nursing home residents. I am at the early stages, but I suspect that the benefits from these interventions will be incremental at best. I see these interventions more as a supplement to supportive therapy that can be offered by the psychologist. If anyone has any input to give, I'm all ears!

It's particularly interesting doing research on positive psychology in France, as there is a real backlash against the field. For example a recent cultural magazine had on its cover a smiling Ken doll with the title "Shut up an be happy." The articles mainly criticize positive psychology while clumping it together with anything along the lines of untested personal development. Other intellectuals here have made the accusation that positive psychology is a US export with a latent capitalist agenda to convince people to ignore economic inegalities and just "be happy". The field of positive psychology would appear to be, after the CBT wave, yet another potential threat to psychoanalysis, which is the main approach adhered to teeth and nails in this country...

Hello,

I`m interested in collaboration on topic on entitlement and well-being. Our team is interested both in social psychology and personality psychology fields in cross-cultural context. I attach brief description of project. If you find it interesting please contact with me.

best,

Magda

Dear Jodie

I dont believe that we can measure or predict drop of client after first appointment with measure. Why? If clients are not willed,or able to continue after the first session, it did not fit. When it does not fit we cannot be sure that the relationship between therapist and client leads him to tell you the truth. Muran et al., (1994), were the first to raise the question whether patient-rated measures of the working alliance are rating compliance but not the working alliance (collaboration), because they could demonstrate that friendly submissive patients reported constantly a good early alliance.

I believe it ist a challenge to the competence of the therapist to realize, and to detect alliance ruptures.

Muran, J. C., Segal, Z. V., Samstag, L. W., & Crawford, C. E. (1994). Patient pretreatment interpersonal problems and therapeutic alliance in short-term cognitive therapy. J Consult Clin Psychol, 62(1), 185-190.

Greetings

Egon