Facial expressions of emotion have important communicative functions. It is likely that mask-wearing during pandemics disrupts these functions, especially for expressions defined by activity in the lower half of the face. We tested this by asking participants to rate both Duchenne smiles (DSs; defined by the mouth and eyes) and non-Duchenne or “social” smiles (SSs; defined by the mouth alone), within masked and unmasked target faces. As hypothesized, masked SSs were rated much lower in “a pleasant social smile” and much higher in “a merely neutral expression,” compared with unmasked SSs. Essentially, masked SSs became nonsmiles. Masked DSs were still rated as very happy and pleasant, although significantly less so than unmasked DSs. Masked DSs and SSs were both rated as displaying more disgust than the unmasked versions.
Richard Ryan and team (Ryan et et al., 2021) have done a valiant job of condensing self-determination theory (SDT) into a short article, although they had to omit far too much for the novice reader to get a complete view. We also resonated with their "Copernican turn" to personhood as the unifying theme for the article, because ultimately, that is what SDT is about. It was also valuable to discover what new findings these authors think are most noteworthy.SDT research clearly shows that feeling self-determined in one's behavior, rather than feeling controlled or coerced, makes a large difference for mental health. Nevertheless, at least one threat remains to SDT's account of veridical personal causation. Hardline determinism says that feelings of personal causation are mere delusions, self-serving biases, or misattributions, belonging in the same category as beliefs in crystal healing, tarot card readings, and telekinesis. If this were true, SDT would be irrelevant in the world of science, although maybe not in the world of people.But this seems highly unlikely, given SDT's stature and impressive research base. Instead, it seems possible that free will is real (philosopher Christian List's, 2019 book). List argued that free will merely requires the ability to generate alternatives, to select one alternative, and then to enact it as a goal. If this is true, then free will is objectively available to anyone, whether they know it or not. SDT goes further, adding the feeling of freedom into the account, and showing that this variable makes a large difference in how well people enact their goals and intentions. SDT shows that if people feel free, they are-at least in the very important sense that their behavior is more likely to obtain the goals of that behavior-more likely to bring satisfaction to both self and others, and more likely to spark creativity and personal growth. What else would you want free will to do for you?Still, SDT could take the quest to understand personhood even further. SDT started out as a social psychological theory, with its
Self-concordance research has come a long way since the turn of the millennium. This chapter revisits the original thinking and data regarding the model, selectively reviews more recent research on the model, and outlines some interesting new theoretical developments and research possibilities. Self-concordance research addresses a complex combination of factors: self-as-agent versus self-as-story, system 1 versus system 2 processes, implicit versus explicit processes, “I” versus “me” processes, defensive versus growth processes, deliberative versus implemental processes, and more. This chapter also connects self-concordance to the free will versus determinism debate and shows how the process of becoming more self-concordant can be conceptualized in terms of Wallas’s (1926) four stage model of the creative process.
Humans live with the knowledge that one day they will die. This understanding, at various levels of conscious awareness, induces a variety of reactive cognitive processes which may lead individuals to choose more meaningful and personally valued goals to pursue. The purpose of this thesis research was to discover whether a mortality salience (MS) induction leads participants to strive for goals that are more self-concordant across three experimental conditions (MS, MS with delay, or control group). In addition, the contents of those goals were analyzed so that both the "what" (goal contents) and the "why" (motivations) of personal goals could be compared across conditions. It was found that the extent to which participants chose self-concordant goals differed by gender such that females chose self-concordant goals regardless of condition while males in the mortality salience with delay condition selected more self-concordant goals to pursue than the other two conditions. Controlling for these gender differences yielded a significant effect of condition such that those in the mortality salience with delay group scored higher on the self-concordance of their goals than both of the other groups. In terms of goal contents, marginally significant differences were found between conditions such that participants in the mortality salience with no delay group reported goals with higher relative intrinsic content, on average than the other two conditions. Further analyses and explorations of these constructs are discussed in the context of relevant theories.
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