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My Fragmented Bisociation Thought Experiment on Belonging, Being and Becoming

I want to see the future. We are living through a global pandemic. Anthropogenic climate change is threatening once-known conceptions of living and working, and technological leaps divide generations. Our world is once again volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambivalent. How can we as people advance and thrive despite this given tentativeness? Psychological maturation unfolds when new information is actively absorbed. Growth is a continuous, playful elaboration on contemporary and complex knowledge. One key feature that defines being human is complexity. It is in complexity and contrast that humans stand out as personalities or as communal beings. Intriguingly, the same complexity may break an individual or a social movement – as some opposites become incomprehensible. Often so, perplexity re-enforces examinations of meaning-making that encompass misery and distress, hence inflicting either adaptation or peculiarity. Creative processes unfold along this path, innovations happen, and his
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Women in Psychology

  Women in psychology traditionally were highly underrepresented in history, often dismissed and restricted. Nietzsche wrote in ‘Thus spoke Zarathustra’: “Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman hath one solution —it is called pregnancy. Man is for woman a means: the purpose is always the child.” 👀😶 Being a single mother with ambitions can feel like netted in a Kafkaesque tragedy - captured somewhere between ‘the verdict’ and ‘the castle’, alienated and guilt-ridden, tortured by fatigue and goals that seem to move away with every step forward. I long for undisrupted time to tackle a project and sit through it until it is finished. It feels like an impossible mountain climb. I often suspend an excellent workflow - in the morning when the kids get out of bed, during the day multiple times to be present with them, in the afternoon to pick them up from either daycare or school. However, as I just found out, there may be certain me
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My Positive Psychology Crisis

  I have a confession to make: I am trapped in a positive psychology crisis. Right now, reading through journal after journal, I am getting increasingly aware of the replicability issues within the field, and I progressively question the soundness of the questionnaires used, the samples selected, and the methodologies applied. In psychological science, there is a continuum of scientific precision that can be achieved. It concerns how behaviours, attitudes and emotions are measured. With all the best intentions and adherence to the scientific method, assessing positive emotions and introspective processes like subjective well-being and life satisfaction (in other terms, happiness), self-kindness, optimism, and flourishing is a difficult task. More often, these exploratory studies are done via cross-sectional samples with university populations. In other words, with WEIRD samples: Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (Henrich et
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Paul Feyerabend Would Be Outraged by Conspiracy Theories – or Would He?

  Philosophical science examines what science is and what it ought to be. But crucially, it also aims to elucidate the ethical and moral implications of science on society and humanity. During the emergence of Covid-19, conspiracy theories opposed to many facts communicated by scientists and governments. Such as claiming Covid-19 is a hoax, mask- wearing is dangerous or useless, and that vitamin d, hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug and choline dioxide, basically bleach, would prevent or heal an infection. Throughout subsequent lockdowns and restrictions imposed on the worldwide public, conspiracies arose around a new world order forced by Bill Gates and pharmaceutical companies planning vaccine developments to control the entire world population. Generally, an overarching theme within many modern conspiracies is a vehement and aggressive denial of science (or parts thereof). Anthropologic global warming and the safety of vaccines
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The New Evolution of Cognitive Enhancement: Jeopardy and Maladaptation in Biotechnology

  If you were offered technology to improve YOU, somehow, but you had to decide for one aspect of human functioning only, what would you choose? I presume it depends on what your motivation in life is. A scientist might choose to enhance cognition, an athlete to improve body function, an artist to heighten sensitivity, a stay-home parent to extend emotion, and a theologist might enjoy superior consciousness; each person might be motivated to become better at their profession or social role. Maybe you would pick one of your weaknesses and balance out an aspect you feel you need to improve? I argue technology is changing the motivation of what we strive for and what exactly should 'move' us now and in the future. Let us take a step back in history and emphasize Wilhelm Wundt's positions on volition and selective attention. The German philosopher Wundt, 'father of psychology', aimed to define the psychological principles that direct how human consciousness is pie
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What are the Social-Psychological Determinants and Consequences of Conspiracy Ideation? Can it Be Prevented? What Role Does Social Media Play?

  LITERATURE REVIEW: CONSPIRACY IDEATION (2020) Conspiracy ideation is social in context and vastly proliferated within social media. The influencing psychological factors are intricate and social consequences detrimental, thus in light of the global coronavirus crisis and accelerating conspiracy theories; research is needed to understand the phenomena. After brief key definitions, this literature review will provide an overview of the cultural and historical aspects of conspiracy ideation and allocate the social representation theory as an explanatory concept. Moreover, social-psychological factors are reviewed, and media influences and communication dynamics examined. Furthermore, social consequences will be outlined, possible ways to refute conspiracy ideation considered, and limitations to the studies involved discussed. A conspiracy theory (CT) is a reference to a secret plot to control the social and political orde
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A Contemplation on the Mind-Body Problem

  Over the summer break, I occupied myself with topics I presumed I would not encounter during my near academic endeavours. Consequently, I joined an online course by Mark Solms about ‘Neuropsychoanalysis’, a term he seminally devised (Solms, 2021) . The course brought up a persistent issue in psychology: the mind-body problem. Through the epochs, wonderers ponder if our mind is a separate entity from our body or one within. Dualists assume the division between mental events and physical events (Henley, 2019) . Monists believe our mind is embedded within the material structures of the body, foremost the brain (Henley, 2019) . This philosophical divide has caused different approaches in psychology. Behaviourists believe only observable behaviour is worth studying; the concealed activities of the mind are neglected. Whereas humanistic and psychoanalytic approaches place a high emphasis on the workings of the mind. Elucidating the brain’s physical functioning is
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