#cognitive theory

[omegaphilosophia]

Theories of Personality

Theories of personality aim to explain how and why individuals differ in their patterns of behavior, thinking, and emotions. There are several major theories that attempt to describe and categorize personality traits and development.

1. Psychoanalytic Theory (Sigmund Freud)

Core Idea: Freud’s theory of personality revolves around the interaction of the id (basic instincts), ego (rational thought), and superego (moral standards). He believed that personality develops through early childhood experiences and unconscious conflicts.

Structure of Personality: Freud proposed that the unconscious mind plays a key role in shaping behavior and personality, with unresolved internal conflicts influencing behavior.

Defense Mechanisms: Freud also suggested that individuals use defense mechanisms, such as repression or denial, to cope with anxiety and protect their self-image.

Stages of Development: The theory includes psychosexual stages (oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages), with conflicts at each stage influencing adult personality.

2. Humanistic Theory (Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow)

Core Idea: Humanistic theories emphasize personal growth, free will, and self-actualization. These theories view humans as inherently good, striving to reach their full potential.

Self-Actualization: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs posits that individuals move through a series of needs, from basic physiological needs to self-actualization, where they fulfill their potential and experience personal growth.

Carl Rogers’ Person-Centered Theory: Rogers introduced the concept of the self-concept, which is how people perceive themselves. He believed that for individuals to achieve their full potential, they need an environment that provides genuineness, acceptance, and empathy.

Unconditional Positive Regard: Rogers argued that receiving unconditional love and acceptance is key to developing a healthy personality and self-esteem.

3. Trait Theory (Gordon Allport, Raymond Cattell, Hans Eysenck)

Core Idea: Trait theories suggest that personality is made up of broad, enduring traits or characteristics that determine behavior.

Gordon Allport: He identified three types of traits: cardinal traits (dominant traits that define an individual), central traits (general traits that form the basic foundation of personality), and secondary traits (more specific traits that appear in certain situations).

Raymond Cattell: Cattell used factor analysis to identify 16 personality factors, suggesting that a combination of these factors defines a person’s unique personality.

Hans Eysenck: Eysenck's model focused on three dimensions of personality: extraversion-introversion, neuroticism-stability, and psychoticism (related to aggressiveness and antisocial tendencies).

4. The Big Five (Five-Factor Model)

Core Idea: The Big Five personality traits are the most widely accepted framework for understanding personality. These traits are thought to exist along a continuum, and people fall at different points within these five dimensions:

Openness to Experience: Creative, curious, open to new ideas vs. traditional, routine-oriented.

Conscientiousness: Organized, responsible, goal-oriented vs. careless, impulsive.

Extraversion: Sociable, outgoing vs. introverted, reserved.

Agreeableness: Cooperative, compassionate vs. antagonistic, competitive.

Neuroticism: Emotionally unstable, anxious vs. emotionally stable, calm.

This model is considered to capture the basic structure of personality across different cultures and contexts.

5. Social-Cognitive Theory (Albert Bandura)

Core Idea: Personality is shaped by the interaction between personal factors (cognitive abilities, beliefs, emotions), behavior, and environment. This is known as reciprocal determinism.

Self-Efficacy: Bandura introduced the concept of self-efficacy, which is the belief in one's ability to succeed in specific situations. High self-efficacy leads to more persistence and confidence in challenging tasks, while low self-efficacy can lead to avoidance of difficult situations.

Observational Learning: Bandura also emphasized the role of modeling and observational learning in personality development, arguing that people learn behaviors and emotional responses by observing others.

6. Behaviorist Theory (B.F. Skinner)

Core Idea: Behaviorists argue that personality is the result of learned behaviors, shaped by rewards and punishments in an individual's environment.

Operant Conditioning: Skinner focused on operant conditioning, where behavior is influenced by reinforcement (positive or negative) or punishment. Over time, individuals develop consistent behavioral patterns based on their experiences with rewards and consequences.

Environmental Determinism: Behaviorists view personality as a product of the external environment rather than internal traits or unconscious forces.

7. Biological and Evolutionary Theories (Hans Eysenck, David Buss)

Core Idea: Biological theories emphasize that personality traits have genetic underpinnings and that human behavior is influenced by evolutionary processes.

Eysenck’s Biological Basis of Personality: Eysenck proposed that personality traits like extraversion and neuroticism are linked to biological differences in brain arousal and functioning.

Evolutionary Psychology: David Buss and other evolutionary psychologists argue that personality traits evolved to solve problems related to survival and reproduction. For instance, traits like aggression or cooperation may have developed as adaptive strategies in human evolutionary history.

8. Cognitive-Behavioral Theory

Core Idea: This theory integrates elements from both cognitive and behavioral psychology. It suggests that cognitive processes (thought patterns, beliefs) play a crucial role in determining behavior and, therefore, personality.

Aaron Beck’s Cognitive Theory: Beck emphasized how automatic thoughts and cognitive distortions (like overgeneralization or catastrophic thinking) shape personality and emotional responses.

Cognitive Restructuring: In cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), individuals learn to identify and change negative thought patterns, which in turn influences their behavior and personality over time.

9. Narrative Identity Theory

Core Idea: Narrative identity theory suggests that individuals construct a life story or narrative to make sense of their experiences and define their identity. This narrative evolves over time, reflecting personal growth, values, and social influences.

Dan McAdams: McAdams proposed that personal identity is shaped by the stories we tell about ourselves. People seek coherence and meaning in their life stories, which reflect their personality traits, goals, and values.

This approach emphasizes that personality is not just a set of static traits but an evolving narrative shaped by personal choices and experiences.

10. Existential and Phenomenological Theories

Core Idea: These theories focus on individual experience, freedom, and the search for meaning. Existential psychologists like Rollo May and Viktor Frankl argue that personality is shaped by how individuals confront fundamental existential questions, such as the meaning of life, freedom, and death.

Frankl's Logotherapy: Viktor Frankl emphasized the importance of finding meaning in life, even in suffering, as the central drive in human behavior. He believed that the quest for meaning shapes personality and behavior.

Authenticity and Choice: Existential psychology stresses that individuals are responsible for their own choices, and living authentically means confronting existential realities and making choices in alignment with one’s values.

Theories of personality offer different perspectives on the factors that shape human behavior and individual differences. From Freud’s focus on unconscious drives to the modern trait theories like the Big Five, these approaches explore the intricate dynamics of behavior, thought, and emotion that constitute personality.

[screenspirit]

The Phenomenology and Cognitivism of Kon’s Perfect Blue

Introduction

Psychological thrillers are stylistically designed to create emotional responses such as suspense and unsettlement, using their portrayals of distorted mental perceptions and a dissolving sense of reality. This formula attracts interpretations under cognitive theory; an analytical toolset that concerns itself with the mental reactions that carry out during spectatorship, and Phenomenology: an assessment of how film creates sensations during the viewing experience. Satoshi Kon replicated the psychological thriller’s credentials in his 1997 animation Perfect Blue, a cult classic that follows the story of a pop idol who finds her sense of reality slipping as she is stalked by a possible murderer. Perfect Blue corresponds with both the psychological thriller and both phenomenology and cognitive film theory as a result of the thematic values lacing its story and visuals. Kon’s narrative consists of perception, identity, the distortion between reality and illusion, and finally psychological distress as its thematic values. These story elements being explored generate cognitive and emotional activity in spectators, ranging from character alignment to responses of fear and confusion.

Perfect Blue’s Cognitivism: Narrative and Visual Style

Furthermore, identity and perception are explored cognitively through the story element of Mima acting in her first TV performance in a psychological crime show; the genre echoing the tone of the film. Mima’s character in the show experiences a traumatic rape and as a coping mechanism, changes her identity by creating a new persona free from the trauma. This stylistically echoes what is happening to the real Actress Mima in real-life as she too is experiencing issues with establishing a set and true perception of her own identity. Mima’s character’s first line “Excuse me who are you?”, can serve as a demonstration of this because audiences can interpret this as her not only asking the other TV character but also herself as her two personas clash. As a result, this illustrates Kon’s psychological presentation of both identity and perception in Perfect Blue’s narrative; not only is the real Mima experiencing her identity conflicts but the character is she portraying in the aftermath of this identity split is as well, in turn elevating the theme and unsettling the audience. Kon combines identity and perception as cognitive elements with conventions of the psychological thriller in the narrative reveal of someone imitating Mima’s identity online. Mima is shocked to discover an imposter has taken her identity and is writing what they want Mima to write and doing what they want Mima to do, further creating a severance in her identity and perception as people take the imposter’s writing as veracity to who she is. This mysterious imposter is later revealed to be Mima’s psychologically disturbed stalker, this addition to the story signals its classification as a psychological thriller due to its unsettling nature. This creates an emotional response of fear for Mima’s safety as well as a disturbance in spectators, and as it is done as a straight narrative element rather than the use of visuals it provides support for Plantinga’s claim that “narrative scenarios are the most important structuring mechanisms in the movies” (2009).

Perfect Blue’s classification as a psychological thriller is further emphasised in the murders of people around Mima. The identity of the killer remains unknown for the majority of the film, creating a sense of mystery, however, an answer is suggested in that of Mima who we see murder a photographer for exploiting her body This leads to an implication that Mima is the one committing all the murders, as “the skilled filmmaker may provide intentionally ambiguous or contradicting affect cues, typically for specific effects such as the elicitation of suspense or curiosity” (Plantinga, 2009), meaning that spectators have been invited to pin the murders to Mima even though they only have the confirmation she has committed this one. During the brutal killing, Mima is juxtaposed against the pop idol version of herself who is projected behind her. This is effective as it demonstrates the two identities existing at the same time as a suggestion of what created such an inner turmoil and disturbance that caused her to allegedly commit these murders. This element of the visual style being used to solidify the themes can steer audiences to align these personas with the violent act as an understanding of who Mima is, even though this contrasts a great deal with how Mima was portrayed in the beginning. Mima begins to question herself as innocent of the other murders, further emphasising her inability to recognise who she is and her actions, in turn, leading spectators to struggle to rely on Mima to assist in them aligning herself and her actions.

Kon combines his thematic values of identity and perception with that of the distortion between reality and illusion, as Mima’s loss of identity elevates the loss of reality and immersion into the illusion. As previously mentioned, Perfect Blue’s narrative involves a TV show, called Double Bind, being shot within the film with Mima having a minor role. This creates a sense of reality and illusion being blurred because spectators have to focus and cognitively align what is Perfect Blue’s story and what is Double Bind’s, something that poses as challenging as scenes that appear to take place in Perfect Blue’s story are later revealed to be the shooting of scenes from Double Bind, with no sharp and separating editing from real life to the film being shot. The story world of Double Bind shares themes with Perfect Blue which steers this confusion in alignment, one notable scene that exemplifies this is the one in which a private investigator claims that one fixed persona is an illusion and that illusions cannot come to reality, fitting with what Mima is struggling within her loss of identity and so audiences can interpret this as reality, however, it is immediately revealed to be a scene from the film and so illusion. This narrative element, as conveyed through the visual style confuses the audience who can struggle to align Mima’s reality with the illusion of the fictional world she is acting in.

Overall, a cognitive inspection of Kon’s Perfect Blue as supported by Plantinga’s interpretations and criticisms pioneers a landscape of thematic evaluation, genre, narrative and visual style as a means to identify and understand how spectators are mentally engaged to create alignment. Plantinga’s emphasis on a film’s narrative is the key source of cognitive activity applied to Perfect Blue as a result of its thematic values deriving its meaning, despite being communicated stylistically through its visuals for audiences to use.

Perfect Blue’s Phenomenology: Narrative and Visual Style

Kon’s Perfect Blue can be interpreted not only using cognitivism and its mental activity but also phenomenology’s emphasis on sensory qualities during viewership. Sobchack expresses how “contemporary film theory” has been neglectful of “cinema’s sensual address and the viewer’s corporeal material being” (2004), severing the mind and body in the process. Whilst Plantinga would observe Perfect Blue using associations of mental engagement as proposed by the narrative and visual style, Sobchack would describe the sensations of both the film and its effect on audiences as a “phenomenon”, meaning it is an experience. When phenomenology is applied to film, it concerns itself with the worldliness of a film and how spectators are steered to perceive this world the director has created, as when spectators watch a film they engage with the film world as if it were their primary environment. Perfect Blue’s world is kept in the spaces of the TV studio, the subway, Mima’s room and occasionally the pop stage; spectators become immersed in Mima’s situation as carried through the spaces she occupies and is consistently reacting to what is going on. Kon has assigned these areas as the key spaces the audiences’ perceptional field is held to, thus, their understanding of the film world is constructed by the frequent presence of these significant spaces. The order of presentation of Perfect Blue’s film world is dependent upon its narrative and this as an overall and cohesive playing out of events is what engages spectators with a bodily experience. This is supported by phenomenology’s key claim that we perceive experiences as wholes as opposed to parts, therefore, when spectators are perceiving and experiencing a film they do so through a consistent story made up of a cause and effect chain of events. Sobchack speaks to this in her writing, outlining how “the sensuous is located in the events of the narrative” (2004) and signalling phenomenology’s emphasis on a compilation of parts to create an overall experience. In this, Sobchack echoes Plantinga’s interpretation of narrative serving as the key provider of perception and understanding for spectators, however, her interpretation relies upon an engagement with a primary engagement of feeling in experiencing film using senses whereas Plantinga advocates for narrative as endorsed by secondary cognition.

Phenomenology as a lens for watching Perfect Blue would invite spectators to shift focus on which senses are being engaged as the driving force of the film experience, this shift being sight to touch and more bodily sensory reactions. Sobchack comments on this engagement of these two senses in the film viewing experience, “our vision and hearing are informed and given meaning” (2004), illustrating how the perception and understanding of a film are tied to sight and sound as vital tools. This would be exemplified in Kon’s use of visuals, most notably the symbolism of Pop Idol Mima’s reflection creating contrast against Actress Mima which, as previously analysed, is important in spectator understanding of the film. This use of visuals taps into spectators’ senses of viewing to make sense of Perfect Blue’s narrative, this is also paired with hearing as a sense when spectators listen to the dialogue of “I’m the real Mima”. Essentially, spectators are invited to use their bodily senses of sight and hearing as tools for perceiving Mima and what she is experiencing; steered by Kon’s objectives in storytelling. One could propose that Kon’s visuals are phenomenological descriptions used to create meaning, ones that his spectators are trusted to perceive and interpret using their own sensuous understanding as a way to experience his story in an ideal manner. Cognitivism is the methodology that would highlight the significance of Perfect Blue’s visual symbolism, as it generates stimulation for alignment and identification, however, Sobchack encourages perception and engagement that transcends this, as “we do not see any movie only through our eyes”, but rather “feel films with our whole bodily being” (2004). Phenomenology calls for an emphasis on the body and the sensations carried through it, thus, when one is watching Perfect Blue as a phenomenon they would do so without reliance on sight alone.

Kon steers his spectators to engage with their sensuous being to rather extreme levels, notably due to Perfect Blue’s status as a psychological thriller which serves as the core for its choice of meaning, therefore spectators will have their senses combined with some rather unsettling experiences. A significant example of this is the scene where a psychologically distressed Mima cuts her hands using glass to make them bleed; an image that is effective due to its connection to the senses. This is due to how the visuals of sharp glass penetrating Mima’s skin and drawing blood call to the spectators’ senses to live the painful experience themselves, an objective shot of cut skin and bloody hands causes spectators to understand the feeling of this sensation on their own skin. Sobchack speaks to this by stating “our lived bodies sensually relate to things that matter onscreen”, demonstrating explanations for how the film experience of watching Mima’s skin as it is cut open has a visceral effect on the spectator’s body. She progresses with this proposal by arguing how “we see and comprehend and feel films with our entire bodily being, informed by the full history and knowledge of our sensorium” (2004), meaning spectators perceive and respond to films with a sensuous landscape that transcends just sight as exemplified by responses to this unsettling scene.

To conclude, Phenomenology provides an understanding of spectators’ bodies and senses during the experience of watching Perfect Blue. One can use this methodology to interact with the sensory realm of film spectatorship, free from claims of a mind and body separation and instead can combine the two. Perfect Blue, likewise to cognition, relies on its narrative and visuals to engage with spectators’ senses. Mima’s experience as communicated through the story and its visuals are where bodily reactions derive from and is supported by its genre of a psychological thriller which influences how it is perceived by consisting of intense and complex subject matter.

Bibliography

Plantinga, Carl R. Moving Viewers: American Film and the Spectator’s Experience. E-book, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009

Sobchack, Vivian Carol.. Carnal thoughts: embodiment and moving image culture. Berkeley : University of California Press, c2004.

[dannysciencefix]

Cognitive Theory and Primary Science Teaching

Cognitive science is gaining increasing influence in education and many existing and developing educational approaches are described as ‘inspired by cognitive science’. Many of these approaches have been long practiced or described as effective pedagogy without any reference to cognitive science – for example, quizzing pupils on topics has been common even without this being thought of as a form…

[bitchesgetriches]

✨NEW POST!✨

Anti-Goblin Mode: The Game I Play Every Day to Reprogram My Disorganized Brain 

It’s finally time to talk about Anti-Goblin Mode: my secret holy grail technique for conquering executive dysfunction in my home, my work, and my life in general.

I’ve never written about it before. It seemed too personal and too silly to share. But since I discovered it, I’ve used it nearly every day of my life—and the transformation has been permanent and incredible. And as our patrons demanded an article on becoming organized, its time has come!

One of the best pieces of general life advice I’ve ever received is this: never ask a natural talent to be your teacher. If they came out of the womb composing piano sonatas, don’t ask them to teach you piano! They literally don’t understand the experience of not knowing what they know! This holds true in organization, too. I find that most “organizational systems” were written by people with a natural talent for organization. Y’know—monsters who can keep a white rug clean. Their advice shouldn’t be trusted. Instead, the best teachers are people who struggled and persevered in the face of mediocrity.

On this point, I’m happy to attest that neither nature nor nurture set me up to be an organized person. I grew up the undiagnosed ADHD child of an undiagnosed ADHD parent who was also a hoarder! That means I’ve earned my organized life valiantly, on the battlefield.

So how? How did I become an organized person? I’m happy to tell you it’s not rigid, or complicated, or super philosophical, or time-consuming. I developed a game to help me do it. It’s very simple, but it’s transformed my life for the better. And I hope it might help you too.

KEEP READING.

Did we just help you out? Say thanks on Patreon!

[funeral]

Bernard J. Baars, A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness

[intervex]

What Pride Flags Mean, Part 1: Gender and Attraction

Welcome to the latest installment of my autistic hyperfixation on flags! I wanted to figure out a common language of Colour X means Thing Y. Like how pink is consistently used for feminine.

Having a common language for flag meanings matters because it improves cognitive accessibility of flags. ♿️💙

But I didn't want to be prescriptive about what colours should mean what. Just because I think Thing X should go with Colour Y doesn't mean everybody else would.

So this turned into a descriptive, empirical project. I gathered a data set of 2060 pride flag colour choices to figure out what are the most common colour-meaning combinations. Some of the results:

And here are the abstract modifiers: these are modifiers that were generally shared between the genders and the attractions. For example, black is used to indicate having no gender as well as having no attraction.

Click here for tables with okLCH values, hex values, definitions, and notes - I've put a more detailed write-up on my Wikimedia Commons userpage. (Mediawiki supports sortable tables and Tumblr does not.)

METHODS-AT-A-GLANCE

To make the figures above, I assembled a data set of pride flag colours. It contains 2060 colour choices from 624 pride flags, representing 1587 unique colours. Click here for a detailed description of how I gathered and tagged the pride flag colours and tagged them.

For each tag, I converted every colour to okLCH colour space and computed a median colour. OkLCH colour space is an alternative to RGB/hex and HSL/HSV. Unlike RGB/hex and HSL/HSV, okLCH is a perceptual colour space, meaning that it is actually based on human colour perception. 🌈

In okLCH space, a colour has three values:

- Lightness (0-100%): how light the colour is. 100% is pure white.

- Chroma (0-0.37+): how vibrant the colour is. 0 is monochromatic. 0.37 is currently the most vibrant things can get with current computer monitor technologies. But as computer monitor technologies improve to allow for even more vibrant colours, higher chroma values will be unlocked.

- Hue (0-360°): where on the colour wheel the colour goes - 0° is pink and 180° is teal, and colours are actually 180° opposite from their perceptual complements.

The important thing to know is that okLCH Hue is not the same Hue from HSV/HSL - the values are different! (HSL and HSV are a hot mess and do not align with human colour perception!)

You can learn more about okLCH through my little write up, which was heavily influenced by these helpful articles by Geoff Graham, Lea Verou, and Keith J Grant.

You can play with an okLCH colour picker and converter at oklch.com

🌈

MORE RESULTS: COLOUR DISTRIBUTIONS

Back when I started tagging my data, I divided my data into five main chunks: Gender qualities (e.g. masculine, androgynous), Attraction (e.g. platonic, sexual), Values (e.g. community, joy), Disability (e.g. Deaf, blind), and Other.

I'll talk about Disability and Values in future posts! But for an alternate view of the data, here are the full distributions of the colours that were placed in each tag.

They come in three parts: tags I created for Gender, tags for Attraction, and tags from Other. The abstract modifiers are spread between the first two, though their contents transcend Gender and Attraction.

Some distributions have a lot more variance within them than others. Generally speaking, major attraction types tended to have the least variance: sensual attraction is really consistently orange, platonic is really consistently yellow, etc.

Variance and size do not correlate. Many of the smaller tags are quite internally consistent. I don't have a ton of tags in "current gender" but they're all the same dark purple. Xenine/xenogender has a whole bunch of entries, and there's a really big spread from blue to yellow.

Some tags, like intersex as well as kink/fetish show there are a small number of different colours that are very consistently used. Whereas other tags like masculine show a very smooth range - in this case from cyan to purple.

Overall I'm pretty satisfied with how things wound up! 🥳 It makes sense to me that an umbrella term like xenogender would have a lot of variance. What honestly makes me happiest is just how many tags wound up 180 or 90 degrees from their opposites/complements. 🤩

Not everything lined up nicely (the opposite of drag is .... neuroqueer? awkward.) 🤨 Some things lined up in hilarious ways, like how initially I had the opposite of kink/fetish being Christian (amazing.)

But as a whole, there's a lot of structure and logic to where things landed! I hope this makes sense for other people and can help inform both flag making as well as flag interpreting (e.g. writing alt-text for existing flags). 🌈

I'm hoping to post the Disability and Values analyses in the coming days! If you want to learn more, my detailed notes along with tables etc are over on my Wikimedia Commons userspace. 💜

Everything here is Creative Commons Sharealike 4.0, which means you're free to reuse and build on my visualizations, tables, etc. Enjoy!

[spoonie-girl-next-door]

[gingerswagfreckles]

Well they caught him. If he wasn't the exact kind of person tumblr loves, the conspiracy theories about this being a random person being framed would have continued to spread. But he's an attractive 26 year old white man who was caught carrying a manifesto about corporate America and has an internet history that matches up with tumblr's general politics. So everyone is going to get excited about how he's a martyr and go back to acknowledging reality in that there isn't a conspiracy to frame the wrong guy.

The discussions over whether or not this man should be lionized as a hero are honestly not as relevant as the comfort with which people are going to drop the conspiracy theory they would have been fully committed to if this man's politics turned out to be nuts. The ease with which the userbase of this website switches between realities based on whether or not they confirm their biases is really alarming. I just hope people understand how weird it is to claim a random person is 100% going to be framed by the FBI on one day, and then drop that by the next day when it becomes clear that the person being "framed" is the exact kind of communist you had hoped.

[chynglvies]

what Ni is NOT

a lot of people in the community get Ni wrong. and i totally get that because Ni is often talked about in a super vague, weirdly prophetic light. which it is NOT.

Ni does NOT mean you can’t make connections between ideas

Ni does NOT mean you only see one truth

Ni is NOT a predictive function

all Ni is, is intuition as it makes sense to you personally. Ne, looks at the outside data and expands on that, Ni looks at the outside data and puts it in their internal framework. that’s the only difference. that Ni is personal and Ne is less personal when dealing with the abstract.

the combination of Se and Ni can come across as Ne because the user takes the tangible details and then subconsciously adds them to their mental framework. the way i personally decide between Ne and Ni is often based on this, idea. that Ni tends to be a more subconscious process, often with the user struggling to explain where the conclusion came from. Ne tends to be an obvious process. i have never once had to question where an Ne user got their idea from, because they often talk through their process unknowingly.

but just because you can’t fully understand it does NOT make Ni a sort of prophetic function. never was and never will be. it’s just the process of boiling physical things into concepts and adding said concepts to a mental framework that only makes sense to that specific person.

[crinj-central]

Eliiii, with all this Elbafian theorizing we doing, I must know what your thoughts on everyone's favorite gilf-chasing sword pincushion Jarul are?

If Harald has a lot of complications to him, it's possible Jarul could be the same. With how old school Jarul is and how he was only grudgingly accepting of Mother Carmel's "trade over plunder" rhetoric that Harold inherited, I think it's safe to say Jarul might have been the elder Harold butted heads with the most. And at the same time, he's the one most open-minded about Loki, being the only giant who's even willing to speculate potential reasons for Loki's behavior in a non-judgemental fashion.

Also the fact that Harold's sword is sticking in his head hints to their last confrontation potentially getting a touch heated. Maybe Loki and Jarul were the ones who teamed up to put an end to Harold's dealing with the government and then things snowballed into the Aust Castle battle. Loki was ultimately the one who killed Harold, but he took on all the blame so that Jarul wouldn't be seen as an accomplice. He is one of Elbaf's national heroes after all. And of course Jarul wouldn't be in any position to deny that given the massive sword in his brain scrambling his recollection of events. But he still has this subconscious feeling that Loki isn't necessarily the monster everyone thinks he is.

Caaaaassss!!!! My favourite Elbaph cook!!

I've been wondering if Jarul has been in his position as an elder even before Harald was born or when he was still super young and has therefore known him all his life. And if that could've been a factor too in why he couldn't take Harald seriously either. Something about him going "I've been an elder before you were born, what do YOU know??" as another layer of conservatism.

I also believe that he's had a soft spot for Loki since he was a child, because Loki represents the perfect Elbaph warrior from ye olden days: he's bigger, stronger and acts more ruthless than anyone else (at least he did as a child). My theory is that Loki always fed him information about the current happenings in the castle, so Jarul could always interject at every single turn. I kinda doubt that Harald was that confrontational to be doing the "first move" of actively opposing someone, so to speak.

Jarul also didn't say anything about Loki being an arsonist either, which also begs the question of why? Especially after the Linlin incident, where she caused a fire, chaos, and ultimately Jorul's death. So why was he so lenient with Loki? If my theory is correct, then it's because Loki set those fires strategically only whenever the WG and/or Sommers were visiting Elbaph in order to cause inconvenient chaos for them, but most importantly to demonstrate that they're NOT welcome and that he doesn't accept them as an heir. Jarul might've been the only person who deduced that (if Loki never told anyone).

I also think that Loki teamed up with Jarul in order to take down his father; but I now also believe that Harald essentially asked him to get killed in this grand and convincing fashion so the WG would lose their important asset by tragedy and never attempt to contact Elbaph again, since the last sovereign got slayed by the next important representatives. The last thing Harald would've wanted was to risk a Buster Call if he were to pull out of joining the WG at the last minute. So he also put up a convincing fight, maybe it was his final time to really air out those frustrations with Jarul he's felt over the years LOL

I'm a bit fuzzy (heh) on why Harald put his sword through Jarul's head and whether or not that was an accident or strategic. Personally I'm leaning towards the latter option, because that is a VERY precise pierce. It wasn't vital, hell it didn't even cause severe amnesia the way a lesion to the hippocampus would've, the sword is most likely acting as a lesion by separating the brain hemispheres without hitting any of the important parts of the brain. If the hippocampus was affected, then Jarul wouldn't have been able to retain ANY new information since that day (so he wouldn't know about the Strawhats or that his great-great-....-daughter is going to the school). Usopp has even joked about removing that sword, so I'm also leaning towards non-lethal either (for giant standards haha). Wouldn't it be fitting for Harald's character to "show" a final act of resistance that wasn't actually close to the definition of the word by choosing to cause reversible damage that looks much worse than it actually ever was?

Who knows, maybe Harald even had a bit of foresight that the Holy Knights could return someday and pull out his sword from Jarul's head in an attempt to kill him. Only for Jarul to be completely fine and even restoring his memories, making him essentially a ticking time bomb ready to blow up at whoever pulled out that sword (would be funny if it somehow was Sommers lmao). He may be old, but he's still a force to be reckoned with as Elbaph's most experienced warrior. If nothing else, he'd at least clear Loki's name once and for all.

[prettyshon10]

Spoilers for TOWL episode 4.

Hot off the episode and I’m just blabbing thoughts, so don’t mind me, but those moments of Rick freezing up? Almost like he was having some sort of panic attack or traumatic episode? I’m kind of reading into it like it’s cognitive dissonance somatized.

Like, he’s terrified of what could happen to Michonne—to their family—if he tests the CRM and their restrictions (basically, if he leaves), and has convinced himself that the only way to protect them is to not return to them. However, this episode provides us two moments where Rick is stuck and hyperventilating. These moments are when he chooses to go after Michonne and when they make love later (for the first time in years). He’s deviating from the mentality he’s set for himself and following his heart.

The confliction: staying with her endangers her/he can’t let her go. And the struggle has manifested itself physically.

Again, don’t mind me, just rambling…

[all-our-turf]

(🌀)- Honestly for any of the warriors you would like. I’m just interested if you have any thoughts for this headcanon question.

[ 🌀 ]ㅤ.ㅤdo they have a recurring dream or nightmare ?

i think all the warriors definitely get nightmares after the events of canon, especially surrounding fox's death for those that were there.

swan gets them the most frequently just because she feels so much guilt and blame for that night and refuses to talk about it, so it comes out in her nightmares.

cleon wasn't with them so she gets nightmares about finding out her warriors didn't make it home. i think cleon was also the most affected by watching cyrus get shot and the immediate chaos in van cortland park.

once ajax gets home she has nightmares about prison and the park.

as funny as the "he bit me" lines are, i think cowgirl has nightmares about the others getting hurt at the bizzie's loft because she blames herself for putting them in that situation.

this one is in general and not tied to that night, but i think rembrandt spends so much time climbing and high up that she frequently gets dreams of missing a step or falling - you know like the ones that jerk you awake?

send me a character + hc prompt from this list

[bitchesgetriches]

Anti-Goblin Mode: The Game I Play Every Day to Reprogram My Disorganized Brain

NEW POST + VIDEO! Anti-Goblin Mode: The Game I Play Every Day to Reprogram My Disorganized Brain.

It’s finally time to talk about Anti-Goblin Mode: my secret holy grail technique for conquering executive dysfunction in my home, my work, and my life in general. I’ve never written about it before. It seemed too personal and too silly to share. But since I discovered it, I’ve used it nearly every day of my life—and the transformation has been permanent and incredible. And as our patrons…

[omegaphilosophia]

The Ethics of Rationality

The ethics of rationality explores the moral dimensions of reasoning—how we ought to think, why we are obligated to be rational, and what responsibilities come with our reasoning abilities. It bridges epistemology, moral philosophy, and cognitive science by asking not just what is rational, but what is right about being rational.

1. Is Rationality a Moral Obligation?

One central question is whether individuals have a duty to be rational:

Epistemic responsibility suggests that we are morally accountable for our beliefs, especially when those beliefs affect others.

Believing things without evidence, or engaging in self-deception, can be viewed not just as cognitive failures, but as ethical wrongs—especially in areas like science, politics, and public discourse.

2. Rationality and Integrity

To act rationally often means to act consistently with one's beliefs, values, and reasons. This consistency is tied to:

Moral integrity: Acting out of principle and not merely impulse.

Autonomy: Respecting oneself as a reasoning agent. Failing to be rational can thus be seen as a betrayal of one’s moral character—like abandoning truth for convenience.

3. Rationality and Others

The ethics of rationality is not just personal—it’s relational:

Deliberative ethics: In discourse or argument, we owe others clear reasoning and intellectual honesty.

Cognitive empathy: Understanding others’ perspectives fairly is a rational and ethical act. This is why fallacies, propaganda, and manipulation are not just illogical—they're unethical because they degrade trust and shared understanding.

4. Instrumental vs. Moral Rationality

Instrumental rationality: Reasoning efficiently toward goals (e.g., maximizing profit or survival).

Moral rationality: Asking whether the goals themselves are justifiable. Someone may be "perfectly rational" in a narrow, utilitarian sense but still act immorally if their aims are unjust. Ethical rationality calls for reflecting on our ends, not just our means.

5. Bias, Ignorance, and Willful Irrationality

Modern ethics must deal with cognitive biases and motivated reasoning—tendencies to think in self-serving or tribal ways. The ethics of rationality thus includes:

Critical thinking education: A moral good in society.

Intellectual humility: Recognizing limits in our knowledge.

Moral courage: Willingness to question one's own deeply held beliefs.

Summary

The ethics of rationality challenges us to treat thinking itself as a moral act. It asks:

Are we reasoning in good faith?

Are we being intellectually honest?

Are we using our minds to uphold truth, justice, and shared understanding?

Being rational is not just about making "smart" choices—it’s about honoring the deeper responsibility of being a moral agent in a complex world.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Steve Stewart-Williams

Published: Apr 9, 2025

It’s a truth rarely acknowledged that the political spectrum doesn’t always resemble a straight line. Sometimes it curls back in on itself like a horseshoe, with the hard left and hard right ending up closer to each other than to the moderates in their midst.

This idea has always had a whiff of pub logic about it. It turns out, however, that psychological science backs it up.

A recent paper by Jan-Willem van Prooijen and André Krouwel explores the psychology of political extremists on both ends of the spectrum. It identifies four key traits that both tend to have in common, and which distinguish them from moderates:

Psychological distress

Cognitive simplicity

Overconfidence

Intolerance

So while the radical left and radical right might disagree on just about everything - immigration, inequality, pineapple on pizza - they still resemble each other in some deep and rather unflattering ways.

Let’s take a tour.

1. Psychological Distress

First up: psychological distress - a gnawing sense of meaninglessness born of anxious uncertainty.

The idea here is that when people feel lost, small, or insignificant, they often go searching for something that will make them feel found, big, and important. Enter ideology - and the more extreme, the better. Extremist ideologies turn a complicated, chaotic world into a battle between good and evil, right and wrong, us and them.

Recent research supports this proposal: People experiencing psychological distress are more likely to gravitate toward radical ideologies, whether on the left or on the right. This clashes with traditional thinking in social psychology, according to which distress, uncertainty, and threat tend only to push people rightward. Apparently, any port will do in a psychological storm, as long as it offers a sense of purpose and clarity.

2. Cognitive Simplicity

Next, we have cognitive simplicity: the tendency to view the world in stark black-and-white terms.

Life is complex. Immigration policy is complex. Climate change is complex. Even choosing what to watch on Netflix is complex if you think too hard about it. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, nuance starts to feel less like insight and more like a burden. That’s where extremist ideologies come in. They offer a comforting alternative: simple answers to the complex questions of life.

In one study, both far-left and far-right respondents believed that the EU refugee crisis had a simple solution - they just disagreed on what it was. Moderates, in contrast, were more likely to recognize that the issue was, in fact, horrendously complicated.

The quest for cognitive simplicity can also be seen in conspiracy thinking. Whether it’s chemtrails or the Koch brothers, the far-left and far-right are both prone to conspiracy theories. The theories each side holds differ wildly, but the appeal is the same: a straightforward (if sinister) explanation for a messy world.

3. Overconfidence

This one follows logically from the last: If you see the world in simple terms, you're more likely to think that you’re right about it. This opens the door to an unwelcome guest: overconfidence.

Political extremists - whether waving red flags or wearing red caps - tend to think their views are not just correct, but obviously correct. They’re also more prone to “belief superiority”: the conviction that their views aren’t just true, but also morally and intellectually superior to everyone else’s.

Unfortunately for the extremists, belief superiority isn’t a great predictor of actual knowledge. In fact, one study spanning 45 nations and more than 63,000 participants, found that political extremists are less knowledgeable than moderates - particularly the slightly left and slightly right. In short, those who shout the loudest may understand the least.

4. Intolerance

Finally, we come to intolerance - perhaps the most obvious and most worrying of all four traits.

Extremists on both sides tend to view people with opposing views not just as wrong, but as morally deficient. And when you believe you’re defending the one true path to salvation - whether that’s socialism or nationalism - it becomes easier to justify shutting out, shouting down, or even punishing those who disagree.

Traditionally, intolerance was seen as a uniquely right-wing pathology. And true enough, conservatives are more likely to be biased against certain groups. But leftists aren’t immune to bias. They have their own collection of prejudices, often aimed at groups they associate with right-wing thinking - Christians, businesspeople, and the like.

The main takeaway? Political orientation is a fuzzy predictor of intolerance. Political extremism, on the other hand, is a much stronger one.

Final Thoughts: Horseshoe Theory, Revisited

What does it all mean?

It means that although left-wing and right-wing extremists might seem like polar opposites, they’re more like estranged siblings. They’re shaped by similar psychological forces, just channeled in different ideological directions.

None of this is to say that all radicals are bad, or all moderates wise. History is full of moderate cowards and radical heroes. But if you’re ever tempted to paint your political opponents as uniquely irrational, intolerant, or deluded… well, take a look in the horseshoe-shaped mirror first.

-

Abstract

In this article, we examine psychological features of extreme political ideologies. In what ways are political left- and right-wing extremists similar to one another and different from moderates? We propose and review four interrelated propositions that explain adherence to extreme political ideologies from a psychological perspective. We argue that (a) psychological distress stimulates adopting an extreme ideological outlook; (b) extreme ideologies are characterized by a relatively simplistic, black-and-white perception of the social world; (c) because of such mental simplicity, political extremists are overconfident in their judgments; and (d) political extremists are less tolerant of different groups and opinions than political moderates. In closing, we discuss how these psychological features of political extremists increase the likelihood of conflict among groups in society.

[..]

Discussion

The four psychological features discussed here suggest that political extremism is fueled by feelings of distress and is reflected in cognitive simplicity, overconfidence, and intolerance. These insights are important to understanding how political polarization increases political instability and the likelihood of conflict between groups in society. Excessive confidence in the moral superiority of one’s own ideological beliefs impedes meaningful interaction and cooperation with different ideological groups and structures political decision making as a zero-sum game with winners and losers. Strong moral convictions consistently decrease people’s ability to compromise and even increase a willingness to use violence to reach ideological goals (Skitka, 2010). These processes are exacerbated by people’s tendency to selectively expose themselves to people and ideas that validate their own convictions. For instance, both information and misinformation selectively spread in online echo chambers of like-minded people (Del Vicario et al., 2016).

This article extends current insights in at least three ways. First, the features proposed here help to explain why throughout the past century not only extreme-right but also extreme-left movements (e.g., socialism, communism) have thrived in times of crisis (Midlarsky, 2011). Second, understanding the mind-set of extremists in all corners of the political spectrum is important in times of polarization and populist rhetoric. The current propositions provide insights into why traditionally moderate parties in the EU have suffered substantial electoral losses. In particular, the support for well-established parties on the moderate left (e.g., social democrats) and moderate right (e.g., Christian democrats) has dropped in recent years, whereas the support for left- and right-wing populist parties has increased (Krouwel, 2012). Third, the present arguments are based on evidence from multiple countries with different political systems (van Prooijen & Krouwel, 2017), which suggests that they apply to both two-party systems (e.g., the United States) and multiparty systems (e.g., many European countries).

Of importance, the features presented here can have both negative and positive societal implications. Many movements that were once considered radical have been responsible for important social change (e.g., human-rights movements). For instance, in the study by Tetlock and colleagues (1994), not only extreme slavery advocates but also extreme abolitionists showed decreased integrative complexity compared with people considered moderate at the time; however, few people nowadays would dispute that the abolitionists were morally right (it indeed requires little cognitive complexity to conclude that slavery is wrong). People can endorse both harmful oversimplifications and simple moral truths with high confidence; moreover, intolerance of hate-driven ideological movements (e.g., White supremacism) can be compatible with moral progress.

To conclude, although there are important psychological differences between people with left-wing and people with right-wing ideologies, there are also substantial similarities between left- and right-wing extremists that differentiate them from political moderates. The features presented here provide a psychological perspective on political extremism and contribute to a more complete understanding of how political ideology predicts human cognition, emotion, and behavior.

[spoonie-girl-next-door]

You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice. -Bob Marley