Optimismo y Felicidad

Influences of optimism-pessimism and positive orientations on the sense of happines (Masuo Koyasu Kyoto University, Japan)

In this paper I will first provide an outline of our Global COE (Centre of Excellence) Programme which has been established in Kyoto University through dynamic collaboration between researchers in psychology and educational studies. I will talk about three components of happiness; a sense of competence, a vital sense of life, and a sense of accomplishment. Then I will describe one of my research studies. It is generally believed that people’s positive orientations to their life are good for their health and happiness, especially in cases when they are facing stressful events. The optimism/pessimism dimension is also related to people’s health and happiness. We conducted a study in which relationships among optimism/pessimism, positive orientations, and feelings of happiness were explored by using a questionnaire method. Three hundred and thirty-seven students from three universities in Japan participated in the study. From the results of structural equation modelling, optimism had a positive effect on upward orientation and, in turn, then upward orientation had a weak positive effect on happiness, though there was a direct strong positive correlation between optimism and happiness. The roles of pessimism were not as clearer as we had expected, especially the finding of a positive correlation between pessimism and happiness.

Conferencia profesor Koyasu

A unified theory of understanding the mind in young children: Perspective-taking abilities, theory of mind, and the display rules.
The professor will talk on a unified theory of understanding the mind in young children including perspective-taking abilities, theory of mind, and the display rules. Research on young children’s perspective-taking abilities began with Piaget's "three mountains task." Though this method has a productive power, I have pointed out that there is a serious limitation in the paradigm. In the "three mountains task," even if children cannot directly guess the viewpoint of a person in another position, they can solve the problem by conducting mental simulation or mental rotation. The false belief task by Wimmer & Perner (1983) gave us a more valid measure of understanding others mind. It has been pointed out that there are at least three types of perspective-taking abilities; to infer what other people see (perceptual), to infer what other people feel (affective), and to infer what other people think (cognitive). These three types of perspective-taking abilities should be integrated into a unified theory of the mind. To achieve this goal, it is essential to use three tasks which include misrepresentation of the protagonist; a false perception task, a false cognition task, and a false affection task. Here I will talk about a study of the third type.

Exámenes otra vez

Debo pedir escusas por no haber subido ayer ninguna entrada. Los amigos y las amigas se quejan de esta pereza que me ha abrazado en el 2010, pero estoy leyendo un libro excelente de la colección [re]pensar la educación del profesor Lledó del que quería incluir sus consideraciones sobre la Universidad, la educación, los exámenes, los profesores, los maestros, las asignaturas, la metodología, las tecnologías. Y son escritos de hace 20 años que no han perdido su actualidad.

Hay muchas referencias a los exámenes, a ese instrumento que sirve para que la Universidad obsoleta, provinciana, se mantenga en su posición de privilegio.
Todos estamos inmersos en este discurso mezquino del examen, la calificación, la apariencia del saber.

Por eso, a la espera de poner una colección de entradas de los temas tratados por el profesor, por el maestro Lledó, en su libro "Ser quien eres"; aporto la primera de las citas referidas al tema:

"Los exámenes no se preparan. Lo que se prepara o se debiera preparar es el conocimiento de una materia, de un saber, de un territorio de conocimientos"

A ver si con estas frases, levantáis la vista de la topera de los apuntes y encontráis la luz para resolver vuestros exámenes en el horizonte de los blogs.