Personality psychology

Background. All life strives to be well, but not all life is well. This suggests that cognition aimed at improving and protecting well-being might share a common core across all life forms: core cognition

Objective. In this first of a two-part theoretical article, we systematically specify the evolutionary core cognition of well-being from the perspective of general living agents. In Part 2 we apply this to identity development and the theoretical approaches to well-being. This first part aims to identify the strategies and conditions for the creation and protection of generalized well-being and describes associated behavioral ontologies.

Results. We defined a set of key terms that, together, specify core cognition. This set comprises quite naturally concepts like agency, behavior, need satisfaction, intelligence, authority, power, and wisdom, which are all derived from the defining properties of life. We derived coping and co-creation as two essentially different, but complementary, behavioral ontologies. Coping is for survival and targeted problem solving and aims to end the need for its activation. Co-creation is for thriving and problem prevention and aims to perpetuate its activation. Co-creation can explain the growth of the biosphere. While both strategies are essential, the successful interplay of their strengths leads to the dominance of one of them: co-creation. Absence of success leads to a dominance of coping: a coping-trap and a strong urge to curtail behavioral diversity. We summarize the key terms of core cognition and the ontologies in two tables with defined terms.

Background. Free will belongs to the category of phenomena that are actively discussed in scientific discourse but are neither verified nor proven false. Free will is studied in philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology. We discuss this pluralism, multiplicity of perceptions, and the parties’ arguments in the theoretical part of this article. We approach the existing polemics from the point of view of a person who is in the moment of making a decision and taking responsibility for it. The usual paradoxes are mitigated if we consider free will through the concepts underlying everyday consciousness.

Objective. Our aim is to introduce into the discussion of free will an understanding of its nature as a construct of everyday consciousness, one which acts as a factor in increasing the personal maturity of vital decisions. We also discuss the arguments of the various meta-positions in the dispute about free will.

Design. Our empirical research was designed as a modification of the experiments on imposed attitudes. The sample consisted of 340 people ages 30–50 years.

Results. The level of maturity of actions by the subjects who received the set for determinism was lower than that of the subjects who received the set for free will (U 5133; p = 0.014).

Conclusion. Our study showed that the stronger a person’s belief in free will, the more personally mature that person’s choices – actions – are; and that the more active that belief in free will, the more effective are their efforts to overcome social pressure.