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Moral psychology is a field of study in both philosophy and psychology. Historically, the term "moral psychology" was used relatively narrowly to refer to the study of moral development. Moral psychology eventually came to refer more broadly to various topics at the intersection of ethics, psychology, and philosophy of mind. Some of the main topics of the field are moral judgment, moral reasoning, moral sensitivity, moral responsibility, moral motivation, moral identity, moral action, moral development, moral diversity, moral character, altruism, psychological egoism, moral luck, moral forecasting, moral emotion, affective forecasting, and moral disagreement.
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Ego depletion is the controversial idea that self-control or willpower draws upon a limited pool of mental resources that can be used up. When the energy for mental activity is low, self-control is typically impaired, which would be considered a state of ego depletion. In particular, experiencing a state of ego depletion impairs the ability to control oneself later on. A depleting task requiring self-control can have a hindering effect on a subsequent self-control task, even if the tasks are seemingly unrelated. Self-control plays a valuable role in the functioning of the self on both individualistic and interpersonal levels. Ego depletion is therefore a critical topic in experimental psychology, specifically social psychology, because it is a mechanism that contributes to the understanding of the processes of human self-control. There have both been studies to support and to question the validity of ego-depletion as a theory.
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Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is an eight-week evidence-based program that offers secular, intensive mindfulness training to assist people with stress, anxiety, depression and pain. Developed at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in the 1970s by Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn, MBSR uses a combination of mindfulness meditation, body awareness, yoga and exploration of patterns of behaviour, thinking, feeling and action. Mindfulness can be understood as the non-judgmental acceptance and investigation of present experience, including body sensations, internal mental states, thoughts, emotions, impulses and memories, in order to reduce suffering or distress and to increase well-being. Mindfulness meditation is a method by which attention skills are cultivated, emotional regulation is developed, and rumination and worry are significantly reduced. During the past decades, mindfulness meditation has been the subject of more controlled clinical research, which suggests its potential beneficial effects for mental health, as well as physical health. While MBSR has its roots in Buddhist wisdom teachings, the program itself is secular. The MBSR program is described in detail in Kabat-Zinn's 1990 book Full Catastrophe Living.
Attentional control, colloquially referred to as concentration, refers to an individual's capacity to choose what they pay attention to and what they ignore. It is also known as endogenous attention or executive attention. In lay terms, attentional control can be described as an individual's ability to concentrate. Primarily mediated by the frontal areas of the brain including the anterior cingulate cortex, attentional control is thought to be closely related to other executive functions such as working memory.
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Mindfulness has been defined in modern psychological terms as "paying attention to relevant aspects of experience in a nonjudgmental manner", and maintaining attention on present moment experience with an attitude of openness and acceptance. Meditation is a platform used to achieve mindfulness. Both practices, mindfulness and meditation, have been "directly inspired from the Buddhist tradition" and have been widely promoted by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Mindfulness meditation has been shown to have a positive impact on several psychiatric problems such as depression and therefore has formed the basis of mindfulness programs such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based pain management. The applications of mindfulness meditation are well established, however the mechanisms that underlie this practice are yet to be fully understood. Many tests and studies on soldiers with PTSD have shown tremendous positive results in decreasing stress levels and being able to cope with problems of the past, paving the way for more tests and studies to normalize and accept mindful based meditation and research, not only for soldiers with PTSD, but numerous mental inabilities or disabilities.
Metacognitive therapy (MCT) is a psychotherapy focused on modifying metacognitive beliefs that perpetuate states of worry, rumination and attention fixation. It was created by Adrian Wells based on an information processing model by Wells and Gerald Matthews. It is supported by scientific evidence from a large number of studies.
Avishai Henik is an Israeli neurocognitive psychologist who works at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU). Henik studies voluntary and automatic (non-voluntary/reflexive) processes involved in cognitive operations. He characterizes automatic processes, and clarifies their importance, the relationship between automatic and voluntary processes, and their neural underpinnings. Most of his work involves research with human participants and in recent years, he has been working with Archer fish in order to examine evolutionary aspects of various cognitive functions.
Social cognitive neuroscience is the scientific study of the biological processes underpinning social cognition. Specifically, it uses the tools of neuroscience to study "the mental mechanisms that create, frame, regulate, and respond to our experience of the social world". Social cognitive neuroscience uses the epistemological foundations of cognitive neuroscience, and is closely related to social neuroscience. Social cognitive neuroscience employs human neuroimaging, typically using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Human brain stimulation techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct-current stimulation are also used. In nonhuman animals, direct electrophysiological recordings and electrical stimulation of single cells and neuronal populations are utilized for investigating lower-level social cognitive processes.
Jonathan B. Freeman is an American psychologist and associate professor of psychology at Columbia University. He is best known for his work on the neuroscience of person perception and social cognition, as well as mouse-tracking methodology in cognitive science. His research focuses on the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying split-second social judgments and their impact on behaviour.
Affect labeling is an implicit emotional regulation strategy that can be simply described as "putting feelings into words". Specifically, it refers to the idea that explicitly labeling one's, typically negative, emotional state results in a reduction of the conscious experience, physiological response, and/or behavior resulting from that emotional state. For example, writing about a negative experience in one's journal may improve one's mood. Some other examples of affect labeling include discussing one's feelings with a therapist, complaining to friends about a negative experience, posting one's feelings on social media or acknowledging the scary aspects of a situation.
Process tracing methods in psychology are defined as observations which are made before the participant has come to a decision. These observations are used to present us with information regarding the psychological processes occurring within a participant, while they are weighing their choices. More specifically, process tracing methods examine participant's information acquisition process, how much information or content they've acquired, for how long this process occurred etc. Process tracing methods can also test the subtleties of decision making, since how the information is presented can change decisions, which can shed more light in what influences decisions and how people process information. Most of these methods are considered to be particularly unobtrusive, since the processes that they study are generally natural, and do not interfere with the decision process. Process-tracing in psychology can consist of various methods, namely observational, experimental, physiological, or neuroscientific.
References
- ↑ APA Online: College women underperform on tests when in the minority.
- ↑ Inzlicht, Michael; Ben-Zeev, Talia (2000). "A threatening intellectual environment: Why females are susceptible to experiencing problem-solving deficits in the presence of males". Psychological Science. 11 (5): 365–371. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.24.1847 . doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00272. PMID 11228906. S2CID 2887128.
- ↑ Stereothreat , retrieved 2018-03-23
- ↑ Saunders, Blair; Milyavskaya, Marina; Inzlicht, Michael (2015). "What does cognitive control feel like? Effective and ineffective cognitive control is associated with divergent phenomenology". Psychophysiology. 52 (9): 1205–1217. doi:10.1111/psyp.12454. PMID 26041054. S2CID 206286673.
- ↑ Inzlicht, Michael; Schmeichel, Brandon (2012). "What is ego depletion? Toward a mechanistic revision of the resource model of self-control". Perspectives on Psychological Science. 7 (5): 450–463. doi:10.1177/1745691612454134. PMID 26168503. S2CID 3899310.
- 1 2 Inzlicht, Michael; Bartholow, Bruce; Hirsh, Jacob (2015). "Emotional foundations of cognitive control". Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 19 (3): 126–132. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2015.01.004. PMC 4348332 . PMID 25659515.
- ↑ Teper, Rimma; Segal, Zindel; Inzlicht, Michael (2013). "Inside the mindful mind: How mindfulness enhances emotion regulation through improvements in executive control". Current Directions in Psychological Science. 22 (6): 449–454. doi:10.1177/0963721413495869. S2CID 146587497.
- ↑ Legault, Lisa; Inzlicht, Michael (2013). "Self-determination, self-regulation, and the brain: Autonomy improves performance by enhancing neuroaffective responsiveness to self-regulation failure". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 105 (1): 123–138. doi:10.1037/a0030426. PMID 23106250. S2CID 3899238.
- ↑ Inzlicht, Michael; Tullett, Alexa; Good, Marie (2011). "The need to believe: a neuroscience account of religion as a motivated process". Religion, Brain, & Behavior. 1 (3): 192–251. doi:10.1080/2153599X.2011.647849. S2CID 18064680.
- ↑ Inzlicht, Michael; Kang, Sonia (2010). "Stereotype threat spillover: How coping with threats to social identity affects aggression, eating, decision making, and attention". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 99 (3): 467–481. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.600.1063 . doi:10.1037/a0018951. PMID 20649368.
- ↑ Inzlicht, Michael; Shenhav, Amitai; Olivola, Christopher Y. (2018). "The Effort Paradox: Effort Is Both Costly and Valued". Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 22 (4): 337–349. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2018.01.007. PMC 6172040 . PMID 29477776.
- ↑ "Ghost Effects | By Patchen Barss | Winter 2018 | University of Toronto Magazine". magazine.utoronto.ca. Retrieved 2018-03-23.
- ↑ Yong, Ed. "Psychology's Replication Crisis Can't Be Wished Away". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2018-03-23.
- ↑ "How much of the psychology literature is wrong?". apa.org. Retrieved 2018-03-23.
- ↑ Engber, Daniel (2016-03-06). "Everything Is Crumbling". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339 . Retrieved 2018-03-23.
- ↑ "Guest Post: Check Yourself before you Wreck Yourself". sometimes i'm wrong. Retrieved 2018-03-23.
- ↑ "Psychology's Replication Crisis Is My Crisis". Undark. Retrieved 2018-03-23.
