Where association ends. A review of associative learning in invertebrates, plants and protista, and a reflection on its limits.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the Minimal Cognition approach has emerged vigorously, focusing on the study of the adaptive behavior of the simplest organisms, including bacteria, assuming that they are sentient and information-processing entities. Although Minimal Cognition has occasionally used Pavlovian methods to try to demonstrate Associative Learning, neither the Psychology of Learning nor the Comparative Psychology traditions are prominent in the movement. However, the Psychology of Learning approach, with its highly sophisticated experimental designs, has done a great deal of research on Associative Learning in animals and carried out several studies on plants and unicellular organisms. The present work offers a comprehensive review of these experimental results, among invertebrates, plants and unicellular organisms (paramecia and the amoeba Physarum policephalum) showing that, while there are increasing instances of Associative Learning in many invertebrate phyla (and also many phyla with no data) there is no adequate evidence of it in unicellular protists (despite more than a century of experiments with paramecia and amoeba) or in plants (despite recent results that so claim). We then consider the alternative offered by Minimal Cognition and suggest some complementary ideas, from a Comparative Developmental Psychology approach, which we call "Minimal Development." (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Inverting the pyramid of needs: positive psychology's new order for labor success / Invirtiendo la pirámide de las necesidades: la psicología positiva y la nueva lógica del éxito laboral

ANTECEDENTS: Positive psychologists claim to have demonstrated a causal relationship between happiness and life success, with the former accounting for why people usually end up better off in life than others, especially at workplace. METHOD: In this paper we will analyse the role that happiness-based repertoires and techniques provided by positive psychologists are playing in the current labor sphere. RESULTS: Positive psychologists' repertoires and techniques do not only meet the emerging demands derived from the changes in the notions of «work» and «worker» in the last decades, but also introduce a whole new logic in the construction of professional workers' subjectivity, according to which happiness becomes a necessary psychological state that workers must first achieve and develop in order to attain job success at work. DISCUSSION: This emerging logic does not only circumscribe to the labor sphere, but also reflects a broader cultural and economic phenomenon

ANTECEDENTES: los psicólogos positivos defienden haber demostrado una relación causal entre la felicidad y el éxito en la vida, siendo la primera la razón de por qué hay gente a la que le va mejor que a otra, especialmente en el ámbito del trabajo. MÉTODO: analizamos el papel que juegan los repertorios y las técnicas de la felicidad de los psicólogos positivos en el ámbito laboral actual. RESULTADOS: los repertorios y técnicas de los psicólogos positivos no solamente satisfacen las nuevas demandas laborales surgidas en las últimas décadas a raíz de las transformaciones en las nociones de «trabajo» y «trabajador», sino que también introducen una lógica completamente nueva de la construcción de la subjetividad de los trabajadores, de acuerdo con la cual la felicidad deviene en un estado psicológico necesario que todo trabajador debe alcanzar y desarrollar con el fin de tener éxito. DISCUSIÓN: esta lógica emergente, sin embargo, no se circunscribe únicamente al mundo laboral, sino que es síntoma de un fenómeno económico y cultural más amplio

Inverting the pyramid of needs: Positive psychology's new order for labor success.

ANTECEDENTS: Positive psychologists claim to have demonstrated a causal relationship between happiness and life success, with the former accounting for why people usually end up better off in life than others, especially at workplace. METHOD: In this paper we will analyse the role that happiness-based repertoires and techniques provided by positive psychologists are playing in the current labor sphere. RESULTS: Positive psychologists’ repertoires and techniques do not only meet the emerging demands derived from the changes in the notions of “work” and “worker” in the last decades, but also introduce a whole new logic in the construction of professional workers’ subjectivity, according to which happiness becomes a necessary psychological state that workers must first achieve and develop in order to attain job success at work. DISCUSSION: This emerging logic does not only circumscribe to the labor sphere, but also reflects a broader cultural and economic phenomenon.

Las raíces de la psicología positiva / No disponible

La Psicología Positiva se apoya en un peculiar modelo de individuo desarrollado en la cultura popular estadounidense desde finales del s. XVIII. Este modelo, al que hemos llamado individualismo "positivo", arranca con el Trascendentalismo de Emerson y su defensa, contra el puritanismo, del individuo como una esencia capaz de autodeterminarse, autoconocerse y desarrollarse ilimitadamente, gracias a que forma parte de la Divinidad. A partir de aquí, nuevos movimientos más "prácticos", como el Nuevo Pensamiento, o el Pensamiento Positivo, enfatizaron, a través de cientos de manuales de autoayuda, el poder del pensamiento individual para imponerse a la materia y al mundo y curar directamente la enfermedad, atraer la riqueza y la salud y conseguir la felicidad. Enfoques alternativos, también genuinamente americanos, como el de John Dewey, criticaron en su momento ese modelo de individualidad y ofrecieron alternativas teóricas apoyadas en ciertos desarrollos del Funcionalismo y en una agenda política diferente. La Psicología Positiva hoy trata de distanciarse de los aspectos metafísicos más ostensibles del individualismo "positivo", pero mantiene aquella concepción a histórica, asocial y subjetivista del individuo (AU)

Positive Psychology is based on a particular model of the individual that was developed in the popular culture of the United States from the end of the eighteen century. This model, that we have called "positive" individualism, started with Emerson's Trascendentalism by defending, against puritanism, that the individual, as a part of Divinity, is an essence capable of self-command, self-exploration and endless self-development. On this basis, but in a more "practical" vein and supported by hundreds of self-help manuals, movements like the New Thought or the Positive Thought emphasized the power of individual's thinking over the matter and the world to mentally cure illness, to attract wealth and achievement, and to self-fulfill the promise of happiness. A critical examination and an alternative to this model of individuality was already offered by genuine american academic psychology, such as John Dewey's, based upon functionalist psychology and anti-essentialist principles and guided by an alternative political agenda. Current Positive Psychology moves away from the most striking metaphysics of "positive" individualism, but maintains its a historical, asocial and subjectivist conception of the individual (AU)