Kevin S. Reimer

Hermeneutics and Psychology : A Review and Dialectical Model

The authors encourage psychologists to transcend the simple but often made a contrast of quantitative and qualitative epistemologies by reissuing a call to consider a hermeneutical realist perspective. The authors recognize that such calls are not new and have largely gone unheeded in the past, perhaps because of how a more radical hermeneutical perspective has been conceptualized and communicated. Rooted in P. Ricoeurs (1981) philosophy of distanciation, the authors propose a dialectic of understanding and explanation that values both quantitative and qualitative methodologies by (a) tracing the philosophical development of hermeneutics as a paradigm for knowing, (b) demonstrating useful hermeneutical applications to psychology as a whole and to some specific subdisciplines, and (c) illustrating how a hermeneutic realist approach is beneficial to the multicultural study of virtue.

Moral Identity in Adolescence: Self and Other in Semantic Space

Through computational analysis of natural language responses, this exploratory study considered problems related to the assessment of adolescent moral identity. The matched sample was composed of 15 care exemplar and 15 comparison adolescents from ethnically and socioeconomically diverse urban neighborhoods. Participants were given a semi-structured interview based on a well-known study of adolescent moral identity (Hart & Fegley, 1995). Interview questions were designed to elicit representations of self and other. Participant responses were analyzed with the use of a computational language program. Findings indicated that care exemplar adolescents integrated parent and peer representations into actual selves, whereas comparison adolescents did not integrate other representations into actual selves. Contrary to expectations, care exemplar actual selves did not significantly incorporate the ideal self-representation. Implications for findings related to moral identity socialization and the efficacy of the computational methodology are discussed.

Committed to Caring: Transformation in Adolescent Moral Identity

This article considers emotion and social influence in the cognitive development of adolescent moral identity. Colby and Damons (1995) metaphor of moral transformation is revisited on the basis of new research that implicates cognitive representations of emotion in the identification of caring goals. Additionally, transformation is considered in light of social influences. Preliminary findings are presented from a study of urban care exemplar and comparison adolescents in a computational semantic space. Findings indicated that care exemplars integrated parent and peer representations into actual selves, whereas comparison adolescents did not. Goal categories found in narrative responses were generalized to the care exemplar group. The study implies new possibilities for developmental assessment of morally influential relationships in adolescence.

Developing conceptions of moral maturity: traits and identity in adolescent personality

Moral traits and identity were jointly considered toward a developmental understanding of adolescent maturity through volunteerism. In Study 1 (with 1550 urban high school students), moral traits were factor analyzed for developmental and cultural validity. Developmental maturation was implied with the finding that high school seniors scored higher than freshmen on four of five moral trait factors. Factors were regressed on volunteer indices. Adolescents reporting higher levels of moral traits were more involved in volunteer activities. Overall, caring-dependable and principled-idealistic moral trait factors were associated with volunteerism. In Study 2 (with 15 exemplar adolescents and 15 matched comparisons), caring-dependable and principled-idealistic moral trait factors were compared with self-understanding narratives in a computational knowledge model. This analysis produced self-understanding schemas by sample group. Exemplar adolescents associated action with personal goals in the self. Findings suggest that traits influence maturing adolescent identity through goal-oriented moral actions which promote purpose and meaning.

Maturity is explicit: Self-importance of traits in humanitarian moral identity

Development of humanitarian moral identity may correspond with the growing self-importance of moral traits. This study considered the extent to which moral traits become explicit in novice and expert humanitarian moral identity narratives. Eighty humanitarian caregivers from L’Arche communities were given self-understanding interview prompts to assess temporal (i.e., past, present, and future) and relational expectations. Humanitarian responses were compared to four paragraphs comprised of moral traits (i.e., just, brave, caring, and religious) using a computational knowledge representation model known as latent semantic analysis (Landauer, T., McNamara, D., Dennis, S., & Kintsch, W. (Eds.). (2007). Handbook of latent semantic analysis (University of Colorado Institute of Cognitive Science). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum). Consistent with predictions, humanitarian experts displayed more explicitly self-important moral traits than novices on future and romantic partner expectations. Findings suggest that humanitarian development is associated with simulation related to future goal achievement and moral action modeled by close intimates.

The Rationality of Ultimate Concern: Moral Exemplars, Theological Ethics, and the Science of Moral Cognition

Abstract This paper argues that consideration of moral exemplars may provide a means for integrating insights across philosophical ethics, theological ethics, and the scientific study of moral cognition. Key to this endeavor is an understanding of the relation of cognition and emotion in ethical decision-making, a relation that is usually understood to be oppositional but which in proper circumstances may be understood to be quite the opposite. Indeed, a distinctive feature of moral exemplarity may consist in the ability to properly integrate the emotions into the moral life, and reference to and imitation of exemplars may involve a referencing and imitating of the emotions of the exemplar.

Re-storying the Lives of At-Risk Youth: A Case Study Approach

Psychologists have long been interested in the self and its development . In more recent times, the study of self has taken a narrative turn. Works from McAdams , MacIntyre , and Chandler, Lalonde, Sokol, and Hallett have emphasized the importance of a narrative representation of the self and have linked specific features of the development and organization of these narratives to an assortment of psychological outcomes. Our interest in narratives began when we started listening to the life stories of moral exemplars . What became apparent was that moral exemplars’ narratives were not only filled with commendable good deeds, but that the stories were also highly integrated and coherent, thus impressing upon the reader a sense of self-unity.

Developing Spiritual Identity: Retrospective Accounts From Muslim, Jewish, and Christian Exemplars

This chapter considers developing spiritual identity in a sample of 45 Muslim, Jewish, and Christian individuals nominated by religious tradition for outstanding maturity. We suggest that developing spiritual identity is amenable to naturalistic study through a heuristic known as psychological realism. Study findings are presented from qualitative coding of retrospective exemplar interviews on identity precepts of redemption, agency, and communion. These findings are supplemented with grounded theory analysis to specify themes related to developmental process in spiritual identity. From this work, we propose that spiritual identity is developmentally understood as commitment consistent with a sense of self to interpersonal behaviors of transcendent, goal-corrected character emphasizing purpose, generativity, and social responsibility.

A Particular Peace: Psychometric Properties of the Just Peacemaking Inventory

Recognizing the moral efficacy of nonviolent exemplars such as Gandhi, recent peace scale development emphasizes particular spiritual or religious priorities in measurement. Following this lead, the present study considered the psychometric integrity of a peacemaking scale constructed from a paradigm of 10 practices emphasizing justice and religious virtue. Psychometrics of the Just Peacemaking Inventory (JPI) were evaluated with a sample of 289 undergraduate and graduate students from Protestant Christian universities. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated a five-factor model aligned with Just Peacemaking practices, including (a) Support for Nonviolent Action, (b) Responsibility and Forgiveness, (c) Sustainable Economic Development, (d) Cooperative Conflict Resolution, and (e) Initiative to Reduce Threats. These findings suggest that the JPI may prove useful in identifying moral domains for targeted peacemaking interventions with religious and secular populations. This research was supported by a grant ...

Natural character: psychological realism for the downwardly mobile

Nancey Murphy recently offered a proposal for altruistic self-renunciation as the core theory of a Christian research program in psychology. Her argument intersects with recent concerns in moral psychology that theory should be constrained by the lives of ordinary people, an idea known as psychological realism. This article considers limitations for altruistic self-renunciation through research with L’Arche assistants for the developmentally disabled. Incipient, “natural” character is evident through the ambivalence of these everyday altruists, creating a difficult methodological challenge for the psychological realist. Consequently, a novel approach for the mathematical analysis of subject narrative is explored with the use of a powerful computational linguistics program.