•  239
    A Psycho-ontological Analysis of Genesis 2-6
    Archive for the Psychology of Religion 29 (1): 87-125. 2007.
    Individuals operating within the scientific paradigm presume that the world is made of matter. Although the perspective engendered by this presupposition is very powerful, it excludes value and subjective experience from its fundamental ontology. In addition, it provides very little guidance with regards to the fundamentals of ethical action. Individuals within the religious paradigm, by contrast, presume that the world is made out of what matters. From such a perspective, the phenomenon of mean…Read more
  •  4
    12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
    Random House Canada. 2018.
    What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson's answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research. Humorous, surprising and informative, Dr. Peterson tells us why skateboarding boys and girls must be left alone, what terrible fate awaits those who criticize too easily, and why you should always pet a cat when you meet one on the str…Read more
  •  40
    An orderly personality partially explains the link between trait disgust and political conservatism
    with Xiaowen Xu, Annika K. Karinen, Hanah A. Chapman, and Jason E. Plaks
    Cognition and Emotion 34 (2): 302-315. 2019.
    Individuals who are more easily disgusted tend to be more politically conservative. Individuals who have a preference for order also tend to be more politically conservative. In the present researc...
  •  21
    Confounding valence and arousal: What really underlies political orientation?
    with Shona M. Tritt and Michael Inzlicht
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 37 (3): 330-331. 2014.
  •  94
    Exploring the link between reading fiction and empathy: Ruling out individual differences and examining outcomes
    with Keith Oatley and Raymond A. Mar
    Communications 34 (4): 407-428. 2009.
    Readers of fiction tend to have better abilities of empathy and theory of mind. We present a study designed to replicate this finding, rule out one possible explanation, and extend the assessment of social outcomes. In order to rule out the role of personality, we first identified Openness as the most consistent correlate. This trait was then statistically controlled for, along with two other important individual differences: the tendency to be drawn into stories and gender. Even after accountin…Read more
  •  61
    Psychological entropy: A framework for understanding uncertainty-related anxiety
    with Jacob B. Hirsh and Raymond A. Mar
    Psychological Review 119 (2): 304-320. 2012.
  •  52
    Metaphoric threat is more real than real threat
    with Colin G. DeYoung
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23 (6): 992-993. 2000.
    Dreams represent threat, but appear to do so metaphorically more often than realistically. The metaphoric representation of threat allows it to be conceptualized in a manner that is constant across situations (as what is common to all threats begins to be understood and portrayed). This also means that response to threat can come to be represented in some way that works across situations. Conscious access to dream imagery, and subsequent social communication of that imagery, can facilitate this …Read more
  •  61
    Personal narratives as the highest level of cognitive integration
    with Jacob B. Hirsh and Raymond A. Mar
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36 (3): 216-217. 2013.
    We suggest that the hierarchical predictive processing account detailed by Clark can be usefully integrated with narrative psychology by situating personal narratives at the top of an individual's knowledge hierarchy. Narrative representations function as high-level generative models that direct our attention and structure our expectations about unfolding events. Implications for integrating scientific and humanistic views of human experience are discussed.
  •  44
    Persons and the problem of interaction
    Modern Schoolman 62 (January): 131-38. 1985.
  •  46
    Awareness may be existence as well as (higher-order) thought
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23 (2): 214-215. 2000.
    Rolls attributes to consciousness the functions of reflection, planning, and error-correction. Neuropsychologically grounded cybernetic theory provides an analogous, broader conceptualization: consciousness constructs goals (and plans), alters the valence of goal-related phenomena, registers error-signals, and explores unexpected circumstances (reconfiguring goals and plans as necessary). Consciousness plays a fundamental unrecognized ontological role, as well, conferring the status of “discrimi…Read more
  •  209
    Religion, sovereignty, natural rights, and the constituent elements of experience
    Archive for the Psychology of Religion / Archiv für Religionspychologie 28 (1): 135-180. 2006.
    It is commonly held that the idea of natural rights originated with the ancient Greeks, and was given full form by more modern philosophers such as John Locke, who believed that natural rights were apprehensible primarily to reason. The problem with this broad position is three-fold: first, it is predicated on the presumption that the idea of rights is modern, biologically speaking ; second, it makes it appear that reason and rights are integrally, even causally, linked; finally, it legitimizes …Read more