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What conception of mental architecture can survive the evidence of neuroplasticity and neural reuse in the human brain? In particular, what sorts of modules are compatible with this evidence? This book shows how developmental and adult neuroplasticity, as well as evidence of pervasive neural reuse, force a revision to the standard conceptions of modularity and spell the end of a hardwired and dedicated language module. It argues from principles of both neural reuse and neural redundancy that language is facilitated by a composite of modules (or module-like entities), few if any of which are likely to be linguistically special, and that neuroplasticity provides evidence that (in key respects and to an appreciable extent) few if any of them ought to be considered developmentally robust, though their development does seem to be constrained by features intrinsic to particular regions of cortex (manifesting as domain-specific predispositions or acquisition biases). In the course of doing so, the book articulates a schematically and neurobiologically precise framework for understanding modules and their supramodular interactions.

This book describes computational models of reading, or models that simulate and explain the mental processes that support the reading of text. The book provides introductory chapters on both reading research and computer models. The central chapters of the book then review what has been learned about reading from empirical research on four core reading processes: word identification, sentence processing, discourse representation, and how these three processes are coordinated with visual processing, attention, and eye-movement control. These central chapters also review an influential sample of computer models that have been developed to explain these key empirical findings, as well as comparative analyses of those models. The final chapter attempts to integrate this empirical and theoretical work by both describing a new comprehensive model of reading, Über-Reader, and reporting several simulations to illustrate how the model accounts for many of the basic phenomena related to reading.

Darwin has long been hailed as forefather to behavioural science, and even more so nowadays, with the growing popularity of evolutionary psychologies. This is the first book to examine Darwin’s own extensive writings about psychological matters. It finds that Darwin’s fulcrum was the agency of living creatures—both in his psychology and in his theory of evolution. A careful reading of Darwin’s writings on topics from climbing plants to babies shows that no individual-based theory of evolution can explain everything about human action. The interpersonal domain, group-life and culture, are also key, whether we consider the dynamics of conscience, emotional expressions or the dramas of desire. For example, Darwin argues that the anatomy and physiology of evolutionarily ‘purposeless’ facial movements gain meaning through their perception by others. His explanation of blushing adds a layer of complexity to such recognition—my blush results from my perception of how you are reading me. A similar reflexive dynamic governs how Darwin understands sexual desire, conscience, the setting of social standards, and the place of culture in human agency. Testing the main plank of Darwin’s psychology—that a capacity for group-interaction underpins the most human aspects of human agency—has awaited contemporary research, being recently confirmed by film-studies of young babies. Darwin’s writings frame a surprisingly well-resourced arena for elaboration of a socialized, agentic account of how we and our fellow creatures live. Moreover, Darwin stands at the forefront of moves toward an evolutionary biology in which organisms lead and genes follow.

The Etherized Wife provides a comprehensive examination of the evolution of sex therapy through the prism of gender. The book makes the argument that in sex therapy, like other domains of life in which men set the standard of normality, women have been judged normal to the degree they match men’s expectations. What is particularly striking about this bias is that it contradicts therapists’ overt identification with feminism and the battle against women’s inequality. To support these claims, Leslie Margolin maps a series of case studies drawn from the discipline’s own literature—the articles and books that have been, and continue to be, treated as exemplars of the discipline’s collective consciousness. Through examination of case studies that focus on discrepancies in sexual desire, where the man wants more sex and the woman less, the book shows how therapists have favored the man’s side. The Etherized Wife shows how the sex therapy discipline has unintentionally enshrined male sexuality as the model of normal, healthy sexuality.

Why did people mobilize for the Arab Spring? While existing research has focused on the roles of authoritarian regimes, oppositional structures, and social grievances in the movement, these explanations fail to address differences in the behavior of individuals, overlooking the fact that even when millions mobilized for the Arab Spring, the majority of the population stayed at home. To investigate this puzzle, this book traces the reasoning processes by which individuals decided to join the uprisings or to refrain from doing so. Drawing from original ethnographic interviews with protestors and non-protestors in Egypt and Morocco, Dornschneider utilizes qualitative methods and computational modeling to identify the main components of reasoning processes: beliefs, inferences (directed connections between beliefs), and decisions. Bridging the psychology literature on reasoning and the political science literature on protest, this book systematically traces how decisions about participating in the Arab Spring were made. It shows that decisions to join the uprisings were “hot,” meaning they were based on positive emotions, while decisions to stay at home were “cool,” meaning they were based on safety considerations. Hot Contention, Cool Abstention adds to the extensive literature on political uprisings, offering insights on how and why movements start, stall, and evolve.

This book investigates the psychological background of contemporary societal problems such as hate speech, authoritarianism, and divisive forms of identity politics. As a response to these phenomena, the book presents the basic premise that a democratic society needs citizens who do more than just express their preference for free elections, freedom of speech, and respect for constitutional rights. Democracy has vitality only if it is rooted in the hearts and minds of its participants who are willing to plant it in the fertile soil of their own selves. In the milieu of tension created by societal power clashes and absolute-truth pretensions, the book investigates how opposition, cooperation, and participation work as innovative forces in a democratic self. Democracy is understood as a personal learning process and as a dialogical play between thought and counter-thought, between imagination and counter-imagination, and between emotion and reason. The book is written for social scientists, teachers, and journalists.

Mastering the Job Market: Career Issues for Master’s Level Industrial-Organizational Psychologists is the definitive source for practical advice and data-based recommendations addressing key issues leading to successful careers as industrial-organizational (I-O) master’s practitioners. Both the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the American Psychological Association have reported a bright outlook for I-O master’s graduates. The increased interest in and growth of I-O master’s programs and graduates are attributed to higher visibility in the workplace, readily obtained jobs, interesting work, and great pay. A large nationwide survey of I-O master’s practitioners and their employers lays the foundation for the data-based recommendations throughout the book. Authors from top-ranked I-O master’s programs address topics such as the job search, applying for jobs, on-boarding, organizational roles, salaries, career transitions, and maintaining professionalism throughout one’s career. Critical insights into the nuts and bolts of conducting a job search and other specific strategies are provided to enable job seekers to land one or multiple job offers within six months of graduation. Competencies identified as essential for success as an I-O practitioner include core I-O knowledge and skills, as well as enabling competencies such as oral communication, business acumen, consulting skills, project management, ethics, and technical writing. Mentoring is discussed, and three best practices are recommended for maximizing mentoring relationships. Recommendations are made for professional development opportunities for I-O master’s graduates to increase their knowledge and skills and to advance their careers. Graduates overwhelmingly perceive their I-O master’s degree to be valuable for their career success.

This book identifies and names the phenomenon of metagnosis: the experience of newly learning in adulthood of a long-standing condition. It can occur when the condition has remained undetected (e.g., colorblindness) and/or when the diagnostic categories themselves have shifted (e.g., ADHD). More broadly, it can occur with unexpected revelations bearing upon selfhood, such as surprising genetic test results. This phenomenon has received relatively scant attention, yet learning of an unknown condition is frequently a significant and bewildering revelation, subverting narrative expectations and customary categories. In addressing the topic this book deploys an evolution of narrative medicine as a robust research methodology comprising interdisciplinarity, narrative attentiveness, and creating a writerly text. Beginning with the author’s own experience of metagnosis, it explores the issues it raises—from communicability to narrative intelligibility to different ways of seeing. Next, it traces the distinctive metagnostic narrative arc through the stages of recognition, subversion, and renegotiation, discussing this trajectory in light of a range of metagnostic experiences, from Blade Runner to real-world midlife diagnoses. Finally, it situates metagnosis in relation to genetic revelations and the broader discourses concerning identity. Proposing that the figure of blindsight—drawn from the author’s metagnostic experience—offers a productive model for negotiating such revelations, the book suggests that better understanding metagnosis will not simply aid those directly affected but will also serve as a bellwether for how we will all navigate advancing biomedical and genomic knowledge, and how we may fruitfully interrogate the very notion of identity.

Pure monsters do not exist. That is difficult for us to fathom. Terrorists and other serial killers massacre innocent people, yet are perfectly capable of loving their own parents, neighbors, and children. Hitler was a vegetarian. He sent millions to their death while contemptuous of meat eaters and a strong advocate of animal welfare. He loved his pets. High-ranking Nazis were often cultured and had strong moral views. How do we reconcile such moral ambiguities? Could it capture something deep about how we build values? As members of a uniquely symbolic and self-conscious species, aware of its own mortality, we develop uncanny abilities toward lying and self-deception. We harbor deeply categorical and compartmentalized views of the world. We live within multiple, interchangeable moral spheres. We overcome our blatant moral ambiguities by thinking the world in black and white, imagining essence where there is none. We juggle double standards and manage contradictory values, clustering our existence depending on context and situations, whether we deal in relation to close kin, colleagues, strangers, lovers, or enemies. This social-contextual determination of the moral domain is the source of moral ambiguities and blatant contradictions we all need to own up to.

This is a story of the decade-long collision of cultures as the American author teaches group therapy in China. The basic assumptions of the two cultures become visible when clashes in understanding human experience and human relationships become the focus of attention. The author learned about the need for cultural humility in trying to narrate both her own experience and the experiences of her students. The author examines deep psychological encounters between people with radically different worldviews. In China, many people thought of her as “a Good Witch” and a magical being because her approach to therapy was profoundly healing for many. Her efforts to teach her theories and techniques, not at all magical to her, revealed cultural differences both subtle and pervasive. The author discusses what it means to deeply encounter people of a different culture, what it taught her about herself and her Western mind—and also what is universally human. In closely observed, sometimes momentary, interpersonal exchanges, culture emerges from the shadows. Because psychotherapy is such an intricately relational process, it reveals taken-for-granted ways of being in the world. Only in narrative can these processes be illuminated, and this book details the micro-level of encounters with the “Other.” The author invites readers to learn from the challenges she experienced as people from different cultures try to make sense of one another. The author compares her experience with existing scholarship on East/West differences in cognition and social organization and argues that the hegemonic individualistic/collectivistic distinction is not useful.

This book explores an eminently human phenomenon: our capacity to engage with the possible, to go beyond what is present, visible, or given in our existence. Possibility studies are an emerging field of research including topics as diverse as creativity, imagination, innovation, anticipation, counterfactual thinking, wondering, serendipity, the future, social change, hope, agency, and utopia, among others. The present contribution to this wide field is represented by a sociocultural and pragmatist account of the possible grounded in the notions of difference, position, perspective, dialogue, action, and culture. Put simply, this theory proposes that our explorations of the possible are enabled by our human capacity to relate to the world from more than one position and perspective and to understand that any perspective we hold is, at all times, one among many. Such an account transcends the long-standing dichotomy between the possible and the real, a sterile separation that ends up portraying possibility as separate from and even opposed to reality. On the contrary, the theory of the possible advanced in this book goes back to this notion’s etymological roots (the Latin possibilis—“that can be done,” from posse—“to be able”) and considers it as both a precondition and outcome of human action and interaction. Exploring the possible doesn’t take place outside of or in addition to our experience of the world; rather, it infiltrates it from the start, infuses it with new meanings, and ends up transforming it altogether. This book aims to offer conceptual, methodological, and practical tools for all those interested in studying human possibility and cultivating it in education, the workplace, everyday life, and society.

Prima Donna: The Psychology of Maria Callas explores the psychological mechanisms behind the hypnotic power of Callas’s artistry and her tragic life story. Advances in developmental psychology and the concept of narcissism are used to shed light on Callas’s puzzling personal deterioration during the last nine years of her life. Although precipitated by the trauma and shame over being abandoned by Aristotle Onassis and the precipitous deterioration of her voice, Callas midlife disintegration reflects deeper psychological vulnerabilities. Throughout her life, Callas’s lingering view that her career had been imposed upon her and that her mother compelled her to sing professionally led to her ambivalent relationship with the world of opera. Callas’s sense of superiority, derived from being celebrated for her special talent, coincided with feelings of vulnerability and inferiority embedded in her realization that she was celebrated not for her intrinsic worth but for her exceptional talent. Lacking a cohesive and integrated sense of self, she sought affirmation and vitality from merger with adoring audiences and older men, including her husband Battista Meneghini and her long-term partner Onassis. The propensity to fuse her identity with stage roles contributed to her artistic greatness, but envy and the lack of an intrinsic sense of meaning and worth enhanced her vulnerability to life’s vagaries.

This book tells the story of how a cadre of dedicated, iconoclastic scientists raised the awareness of a long-recognized preference for publishing positive, eye-catching, but irreproducible results to the status of a genuine scientific crisis. Most famously encapsulated in 2005 by John Ioannidis’s iconic title, “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False,” awareness of the seriousness of the crisis itself was in full bloom sometime around 2011–2012, when a veritable flood of supporting empirical and methodological work began appearing in the scientific literature detailing both the extent of the crisis and how it could be ameliorated. Perhaps most importantly were a number of mass replications of large sets of published psychology experiments (100 in all) by the Open Science Collaboration, preclinical cancer experiments (53) that a large pharmaceutical company considered sufficiently promising to pursue if the original results were reproducible, and 67 similarly promising studies upon which an even larger pharmaceutical company decided to replicate prior to initiating the expense and time-consuming developmental process. Shockingly, less than 50% of these 220 study results could be replicated, thereby providing unwelcomed evidence that John Ioannidis’s projections (and others performed both earlier and later) that more than half of published scientific results were false and could not be reproduced by other scientists. Fortunately, a plethora of practical, procedural behaviors accompanied these demonstrations and projects that were quite capable of greatly reducing the prevalence of future irreproducible results. Therefore the primary purpose of this book is use these impressive labors of hundreds of methodologically oriented scientists to provide guidance to practicing and aspiring scientists regarding how (a) to change the way in which science has historically been both conducted and reported in order to avoid producing false-positive, irreproducible results in their own work and, (b) ultimately, to change those institutional practices (primarily but not exclusively involving the traditional journal publishing process and the academic reward system) that have unwittingly contributed to the present crisis. For what is actually needed is nothing less than a change in the scientific culture itself to one that will prioritize conducting research correctly in order to get things right rather than simply to get published. Hopefully this book can make a small contribution to that end.

What is a dream? It’s a complex, non-obvious pattern derived from your experience. But you haven’t actually experienced it. Strange. Revealing complex, hidden patterns makes dreams odd. Dreams associate elements of different experiences to make something new: a pattern you didn’t know was there until you dreamt it. Patterns are discernible forms in the way something happens or is done. Some patterns are easy to spot, being certain and obvious: night follows day. Patterns in human/animal experiences are less obvious because, first, the patterned elements appear at different times or places and, second, the pattern exhibits tendencies not certainties. Spotting such patterns depends on non-obvious associations. If prompted with ‘sea’, while awake, your logical brain makes obvious associations, ‘beach’ or ‘boat’, with a seaside pattern i.e. beach-boat-seaside. But after awakening from dreaming, when your brain is still tuned to non-obvious associations, ‘sick’ may come to mind. A less obvious element of sea experiences. You tend to seasickness when it’s rough. But you also get sick if you eat shellfish, have a migraine, or travel in cars—but only if you read. Sea–rough–car–read–shellfish–migraine. Visualizing these non-obvious associations between elements of different experiences becomes dream-like. Dreaming brains evolved to identify non-obvious associations. Across evolutionary time, you didn’t want to get sick. Survival depended on being well enough to anticipate the non-obvious patterns of predators and human competitors, while securing access to food and water. Making associations drives many, if not all, brain functions. Dream associations support memory, emotional stability, creativity, unconscious decision-making, and prediction, while also contributing to mental illness. This book explains how.

Working memory refers to how we keep track of what we are doing moment to moment throughout our waking lives. It allows us to remember what we have just done, focus on what we are doing now, to solve problems, be creative, think about what we will be doing in the next few seconds, and continually to update in our mind changes around us throughout the day. This book brings together in one volume, state-of-the-science chapters written by some of the most productive and well-known working memory researchers worldwide. Chapters cover leading-edge research on working memory, using behavioural experimental techniques, neuroimaging, computational modelling, development across the healthy human lifespan, and studies of neurodegenerative disease and focal brain damage. A unique feature of the book is that each chapter starts with answers to a set of common questions for all authors. This allows readers very rapidly to compare key differences in theoretical assumptions and approaches to working memory across chapters, and to understand the theoretical context before going on to read each chapter in detail. All authors also have been asked to consider evidence that is not consistent with their theoretical assumptions. It is very common for authors to ignore contradictory evidence. This approach has led to new interpretations and new hypotheses for future research to greatly enhance our understanding of this crucial human ability.