Björn Paulini

This article develops a three-dimensional model of Stoic attitude as a psychological resource. Stoic attitude is neither emotional numbness nor moral indifference - it is the interaction of Stoic cognition (rational appraisal, clarity of control, deliberate orientation of thought), Stoic emotion (integrating affect without being dominated by it), and Stoic action (value-oriented, reason-guided behaviour in concrete situations). Building on research on emotion regulation, cognitive appraisal, resilience, and moral psychology, the model connects ancient sources with modern empirical theory. A measurement approach and testable hypotheses follow. The article integrates Stoic cognition, emotion, and action into a unified, operationalisable frame.

Entrepreneurial leadership unfolds under uncertainty, time pressure, and personal attribution of responsibility. Business ethics research intensively examines normative models of responsible leadership and the mechanisms of moral failure; it leaves open which inner structures stabilise moral judgment under real high-pressure conditions. Stress and behavioural-ethics research show in parallel that cognitive processing can narrow under load and that moral aspects can recede in economically framed decisions. What is missing is not another normative appeal to integrity but a structural account of how integrity is produced and maintained when conditions make it costly. This article develops the model Clarity Under Pressure: moral stability as the result of an integrated decision architecture. Three interdependent levels form its scaffold - cognitive clarity as the precondition of reflective information processing, Stoic control orientation as normative self-structuring that decouples integrity from outcome, and meaning orientation as an existential framing that limits how much a single outcome weighs for the decision-maker's identity. The two outcome-related levels are separated by function and by time: the normative level fixes what is evaluated and acts in the acute moment; the existential level fixes what an evaluation means and gains weight the longer uncertainty persists. The article situates each level in its respective research tradition, derives nine testable hypotheses, among them a crossover prediction that separates the two moderators empirically, and proposes a two-stage empirical design combining a cross-sectional survey with a factorial scenario experiment, including a six-item draft scale for Stoic control orientation (SCOS-6). By connecting stress research, virtue ethics, and meaning-in-life research, the model shifts the discussion from normative demands on leadership toward a structural analysis of moral decision stability under uncertainty. The article closes by specifying the theoretical contribution of the architecture relative to resilience and Authentic Leadership research, its practical implications for executive development, and the limits of the proposed design.

Leadership in contemporary organisations is marked by volatility, moral complexity, and the erosion of stable value frames. This article develops an integrated theoretical model that connects Christian virtue ethics and Stoic philosophy, Virtue-Centered Inner Governance. Both traditions converge in the core mechanisms of meaning-making, moral responsibility, emotion regulation, and self-discipline. Leadership is conceived as a character-based process resting on transcendent meaning orientation and rational emotion regulation. Four competencies follow from the synthesis: meaning competence, control competence, ethical competence, emotional competence.

This paper investigates the function of Christian faith as a stabilising factor during personal crisis. It identifies three mechanisms through which faith stabilises the subject under acute pressure: it provides a continuous frame of meaning that survives the collapse of immediate plans, it locates the self within a relation that is not contingent on success or capacity, and it offers a temporal horizon that extends beyond the crisis itself. The paper distinguishes adaptive religious coping from rigid or defensive religious responses and identifies the structural features that determine which form emerges under pressure. The argument draws on the psychology of religion, existential analysis, and contemporary work on resilience, and is framed for readers who are neither apologists nor critics of religion but interested in the actual psychological work that faith performs in crisis.

This paper analyses Christian faith as a psychological resource for self-regulation, meaning-making, and resilience under sustained pressure. Without arguing for or against the truth of religious propositions, it asks what psychological work faith does for the believing subject: how it organises attention, stabilises identity across crisis, and provides a frame for the integration of suffering. The analysis distinguishes faith from belief, from religious affiliation, and from coping strategies in the narrow sense, and identifies the structural features that make it function as a load-bearing inner orientation rather than as a comforting illusion. The paper draws on the psychology of religion, existential psychology, and Stoic-influenced contemporary self-leadership research, and outlines conditions under which faith can be a stabilising rather than a destabilising factor.

This article reconstructs Stoic ethics as a coherent system of practical reason resting on three functionally connected elements: the distinction between what is subject to human control and what is not; the central role of judgment as the ethical hinge; the concept of inner freedom as the aim of Stoic practice. The starting point is an observation: the contemporary popularisation of Stoic motifs regularly comes with conceptual reduction. Stoicism appears as motivational rhetoric, emotional self-control, or psychotechnical resilience. Yet Stoic teaching aims neither at behavioural control nor at emotional suppression. It aims at the clarification of inner judgments. Affects appear as the consequence of mistaken judgments, not as the primary causes of human suffering. Ethical responsibility is strictly bounded by the realm of judgment. Inner freedom arises from the decoupling of moral worth from external circumstance and outcome. Through the systematic linking of control, judgment, and freedom, Stoicism emerges as a normative model of inner sovereignty that stands apart from modern self-optimisation and motivational frameworks. Its connectability to psychological and leadership discourses exists, but it requires that the ethical core not be functionalised.

The end of a year is commonly framed as a moment of renewal, projection, and self-optimisation. From a Stoic perspective, temporal thresholds invite something different: ethical clarity rather than expectation. This article develops a Stoic account of responsibility under conditions of finitude, using the notion of the "last day" as a philosophical lens rather than as a literal prediction. Drawing on classical Stoic sources and contemporary psychological theory, it argues that Stoic ethics orients action not toward future achievement but toward present coherence between judgment, intention, and conduct. Time is treated not as a resource to be optimised but as a moral condition that renders responsibility unavoidable. The analysis contrasts Stoic responsibility with modern performance-oriented self-management and outlines implications for self-leadership, decision-making, and psychological stability.

This paper explores the psychological and spiritual foundations of inner strength as a resource for resilient living under conditions of uncertainty. Drawing on Stoic philosophy, cognitive psychology, and contemplative traditions, it analyses how stable self-regulation, value-based orientation, and acceptance of what cannot be controlled enable a coherent inner stance even under sustained external pressure. The text differentiates inner strength from resignation, suppression, or performative resilience and identifies practical structures by which it can be cultivated. The aim is a model of self-leadership that holds in the face of unpredictability without collapsing into either denial or despair.

This article systematically compares Stoic philosophy and Christian thought, identifying their commonalities and differences across ethics, anthropology, and the conception of the human telos. Both traditions develop comprehensive responses to suffering, moral responsibility, and inner stability, yet they rest on different metaphysical foundations. Stoic ethics emerges from the rational order of cosmos and the dichotomy of control; Christian ethics from a personal relation to God, grace, and the doctrine of redemption. The article distinguishes structural parallels (the role of virtue, inner orientation, attentiveness, the relativisation of external goods) from substantive divergences (the source of normativity, the role of hope and grace, the conception of the self). It rejects facile syntheses that flatten these differences and develops a differentiated account of where convergence is possible and where it must yield to systematic difference.

This article examines possible relations between Stoic philosophy and modern psychological concepts in the context of depressive burden. Central Stoic principles — the distinction between controllable and uncontrollable factors, reflection on one's appraisals, and orientation toward inner posture — show structural overlap with contemporary work on emotion regulation, resilience, and cognitive behavioural therapy. The focus is the question to what extent Stoic thinking can support psychological regulation processes relevant to dealing with depressive symptoms. Stoic principles are read here not as philosophical ideals of abstract self-control but as a form of reflective self-regulation under conditions of uncertainty, burden, and emotional pressure. The article develops the concept of Stoic self-regulation — the capacity to stabilise emotional burden through deliberate cognitive contextualisation, acceptance of limited control, and value-oriented action, without denying emotional reality or idealising distress. Limits are also marked. Stoicism does not replace psychotherapeutic or medical treatment. Modern misreadings that equate emotional hardness or suppression with inner strength are rejected.

Christian faith is increasingly examined in psychology as a resource that strengthens cognitive appraisal, emotion regulation, and coping. This article analyses it as a multidimensional system that shapes perception, motivation, and resilience. Building on research into religious coping, meaning-making, and self-transcendence, it asks how Christian beliefs support psychological stability. The Paulini Stoic stress model is integrated theoretically to expose the interfaces between religious meaning-making and philosophical emotion regulation.