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A substantial minority of patients with terminal illness hold unrealistically hopeful beliefs about the severity of their disease or the nature of its treatment, considering therapy as curative rather than palliative. We propose that this attitude may be understood as self-deception, following the current psychological theories about this topic. In this article we suggest that the reason these patients deceive themselves is to preserve their belief systems. According to some philosophical accounts, the human belief system (HBS) is constituted as a web with a few stable central nodes – deep-seated beliefs – intimately related with the self. We hypothesize that the mind may possess defensive mechanisms, mostly non-conscious, that reject certain sensory inputs (e.g., a fatal diagnosis) that may undermine deep-seated beliefs. This interpretation is in line with the theory of cognitive dissonance. Following this reasoning, we also propose that HBS-related self-deception would entail a lower cognitive load than that associated with confronting the truth: whereas the latter would engage a myriad of high cognitive functions to re-configure crucial aspects of the self, including the setting of plans, goals, or even a behavioral output, the former would be mostly non-conscious. Overall, we believe that our research supports the hypothesis that in cases of terminal illness, (self-)deceiving requires less effort than accepting the truth.
In this article we introduce the hypothesis that neuropsychological adolescent maturation, and in particular emotional management, may have opposing explanations depending on the interpretation of the assumed brain architecture, that is, whether a componential computational account (CCA) or a dynamic systems perspective (DSP) is used. According to CCA, cognitive functions are associated with the action of restricted brain regions, and this association is temporally stable; by contrast, DSP argues that cognitive functions are better explained by interactions between several brain areas, whose engagement in specific functions is temporal and context-dependent and based on neural reuse. We outline the main neurobiological facts about adolescent maturation, focusing on the neuroanatomical and neurofunctional processes associated with adolescence. We then explain the importance of emotional management in adolescent maturation. We explain the interplay between emotion and cognition under the scope of CCA and DSP, both at neural and behavioral levels. Finally, we justify why, according to CCA, emotional management is understood as regulation, specifically because the cognitive aspects of the brain are in charge of regulating emotion-related modules. However, the key word in DSP is integration, since neural information from different brain areas is integrated from the beginning of the process. Consequently, although the terms should not be conceptually confused, there is no cognition without emotion, and vice versa. Thus, emotional integration is not an independent process that just happens to the subject, but a crucial part of personal growth. Considering the importance of neuropsychological research in the development of educational and legal policies concerning adolescents, we intend to expose that the holistic view of adolescents is dependent on whether one holds the implicit or explicit interpretation of brain functioning.
Social innovation aims for creating social value primarily while it recognizes that not all technology-based progress amounts to social progress. We think that this calls for a paradigm shift in how we understand education. No one doubts that education requires intense cognitive effort, but educational proposals certainly vary depending on how cognition is understood. In this article, we suggest that different ways of understanding human development are related to different ways of understanding cognition. Thus, these different conceptions of human development affect their resulting educational proposal. While not an exhaustive account, we sketch out three models of human development, the so-called autonomous self (AS), processual self (PS), and inter-processual self (IPS). Each has different implications for education depending on their particular understanding of cognition. The AS and PS models understand cognition as a primarily rational mastery exercise, with the difference that PS uses relationships and diverse psychological faculties for the subject's cognitive development, whereas AS relies more on the subject's rational agency. On the other hand, IPS understands cognition as a relational act that, when it arises from interiority, affects all dimensions of the person. In the present article, we explore the educational consequences of these different ways of understanding cognition with the assistance of interdisciplinary dialogue from philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, and their repercussion on social innovation with the intention of opening up reflection in the field of education and of inspiring its practitioners to rethink the model they assume. We will conclude with reflections informing educational implications for the design of programs and teacher training itself.
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