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Awe is an emotional response to stimuli that are perceived to be vast (e. g., tall trees, sunsets) and that defy accommodation by existing mental structures. Curiously, awe has prosocial effects despite often being elicited by nonsocial stimuli. The prevailing explanation for why awe has prosocial effects is that awe reduces attention to self-oriented concerns (i. e., awe makes the self small), thereby making more attention available for other-oriented concerns. However, several questions remain unaddressed by the current formulation of this small-self hypothesis. How are awe researchers defining the self, and what implications might their theory of selfhood have for understanding the “smallness” of the self? Building on theories regarding psychological selfhood, we propose that awe may interact with the self not just in terms of attentional focus but rather at multiple layers of selfhood. We further reinterpret the small self using the notion of the quiet ego from personality psychology. Linking awe to an enriched model of the self provided by personality psychology may be fruitful for explaining a range of phenomena and motivating future research.

In stage models of personality development, advancing development is understood as an increased interaction with the surrounding world. In the aesthetics of structures that can be found in the surrounding world, for example, in architecture or landscape design, it is this interaction between humans and the environment that is crucial. In order to investigate the connection between personality development and the aesthetics of abstract structures, especially their characteristics in terms of size and order, and how they change over the course of development, the present study combined Loevinger’s Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT) with a task of laying aesthetically pleasing structures that were composed of individual building blocks. The results show that further development is linked to an increased preference for larger, ordered structures, and therefore suggest that development as a process of change in the relationship to the environment is also reflected in aesthetic production and appreciation.

The Enneagram and Narrative Therapy are two frameworks that have potential for unique integration to combine therapeutic effects for issues related to Adult Ego Development. The Enneagram offers a centuries-tested personality framework that has accumulated ancient wisdom from multiple spiritual traditions. Narrative Therapy offers postmodern insights into helping clients overcome their self-limiting narratives through creative interventions involving the medium of story. The nature of these two frameworks as well as their commonalities, complementary differences, and synergistic potential can help clients with Adult Ego Development issues. These issues will be explored along with an example of their integration.

(1) In an era where sustainable behavior is increasingly crucial, understanding the discrepancy between individuals' sustainability-oriented values and their actual behaviors, known as the inner-outer gap, is vital. This systematic literature review explores the potential of the Tripartite Structure of Sustainability (TSS) framework to address this gap within the context of sustainable education. By reviewing the literature from the APA, ERIC, and Web of Science databases, searched on 25 October 2020, the factors influencing sustainable actions were systematically examined. Articles had to be relevant to the topic (sustainability, morality in relation to sustainability, or morality in general) and report on empirically validated factors that have an impact on the inner-outer gap. (2) By employing a qualitative content analysis approach, 56 articles over a 15-year period were analyzed, identifying 83 factors that either bridged or reinforced the inner-outer gap. These factors were categorized within the TSS framework, which segments sustainability-oriented actions into individual, social, and self-transcendent domains, alongside their activation points: stable, situational, or automated. (3) The analysis revealed that self-focused factors often reinforce the gap, suggesting they are a hindrance to sustainable behavior. Conversely, self-transcendent factors consistently bridged the gap, promoting sustainability. Social factors showed variable impacts based on the ethical and sustainable context they were placed in, suggesting that the social environment's orientation significantly influences sustainable behavior. (4) This study concludes that the TSS framework offers a promising approach to advancing education for sustainable development (ESD) and contributes insights into how to promote the required paradigm shift towards holistic and interconnected perspectives.

The study of blindsight has revealed a seminal dissociation between conscious vision and visually guided behavior: some patients who are blind due to V1 lesions seem to be able to employ unconscious visual information in their behavior. The standard assumption is that these findings generalize to the neurologically healthy. We tested whether unconscious processing of motion is possible without the contribution of V1 in neurologically healthy participants by disturbing activity in V1 using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Unconscious processing was measured with redundant target effect (RTE), a phenomenon where participants respond faster to two stimuli than to one stimulus, when the task is just to respond as fast as possible when one stimulus or two simultaneous stimuli are presented. We measured the RTE caused by a motion stimulus. V1 activity was interfered with different stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) to test whether TMS delivered in a specific time window suppresses conscious perception (participant reports seeing only one of the two stimuli) but does not affect unconscious processing (RTE). We observed that at each SOA, when TMS suppressed conscious perception of the stimulus, the RTE was also eliminated. However, when visibility of the redundant target was suppressed with a visual mask, we found unconscious processing of motion. This suggests that unconscious processing of motion depends on V1 in neurologically healthy humans. We conclude that the neural mechanisms that enable motion processing in blindsight are modulated by neuroplastic changes in connectivity between subcortical areas and the visual cortex after the V1 lesion. Neurologically healthy observers cannot process motion unconsciously without functioning of V1. •Blindsight patients can unconsciously process motion despite a V1 lesion.•How well this generalizes to neurologically healthy humans remains open.•We manipulated stimulus visibility using V1 TMS or metacontrast masking.•Unconscious processing was only observed with metacontrast masking.•Unconscious processing of motion depends on V1 in neurologically healthy humans.

Narrative identity refers to the internal, dynamic life story that an individual constructs to make sense of his or her life. We argue that narrative identity is closely tied to the subjective interpretation of oneself as happy. We present a view of eudaimonic well-being that extends beyond the sense of having pleasure and meaning in one’s life (measured as self-report well-being) to include higher degrees of psychosocial integration in that meaning (measured as ego development). This combination of qualities is characteristic of the good life, or eudaimonia , in a tradition dating to Aristotle. We then describe research showing how several patterns of narrative identity correspond to this extended notion of eudaimonic well-being. First, people at high levels of eudaimonic well-being tend to emphasize personal growth in their life stories, with different kinds of personal growth corresponding to different facets of eudaimonic well-being. Second, these people also tend to frame difficult life experiences as transformative experiences wherein they suffered deep pain but gained new insights about the self. Third, charting the move from suffering to an enhanced status or state, their stories often follow a culturally-shaped script of redemption, which in American society is often conceived as upward social mobility, liberation, recovery, atonement, or the full actualization of the inner self.

Contemporary models of psychosocial development include domains of development for interpersonal relations and cognitive complexity. Integrating these two domains to conceptualize interpersonal complexity is a useful construct for research purposes. Furthermore, the analysis of interpersonal complexity can benefit from approaching it from both rational and non-rational dimensions. The former can be done through Jane Loevinger’s conceptualization of adult ego development while the latter can be done through Gilbert Durand’s conceptualization of the Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary. Furthermore, the Washington University Sentence Completion Test is an empirically sound instrument to test the rational aspects of interpersonal complexity while the Archetypal Test of Nine Elements is an empirically sound instrument to test the non-rational elements of it. This article will conclude with research implications and applications of approaching interpersonal complexity from both the rational and non-rational dimensions.

OrientationTransformational leadership styles, characterised by vision, ethical behaviour and self-awareness are crucial for institutional change and combating political corruption; yet, the current knowledge on their relationships is limited.Research purposeThe study investigates the influence of political and institutional context, personality traits and leadership behaviours on President Mwanawasa’s anti-corruption campaign in Zambia.Motivation for the studyThere is a scarcity of academic research on the complex connections between political leadership, personal characteristics, political institutions and political corruption.Research approach/design and methodThis qualitative study utilised purposive sampling; semi-structured interviews with five key informants; and secondary data that were gathered through literature study and documentation analysis. Wilber’s four-quadrant model was used for thematic data analysis.Main findingsThe study highlights the importance of transformational leadership, particularly visionary and ethical leadership, in combating political corruption. It emphasises the relationship between values, emotional intelligence and leadership transition, and describes the shift from transactional to transformational leadership by advancing through stages of ego development.Practical/managerial implicationsThe study emphasises the importance of considering contextual factors when addressing corruption and its implications for political leadership, institutional norms, governance and leadership transitions in public policy and practice.Contribution/value-addThe study enhances understanding of political corruption by utilising a multidimensional analytical approach that considers individual and institutional consciousness domains. It also enhances comprehension of leadership behaviours and personal growth by examining ego development stages and leadership transition.

A rapidly growing number of working professionals, academic communities, and businesses have applied the Enneagram personality system of nine types to enhance psychological growth in their personal and professional lives. However, there are no existing studies that measure the effects of the application of Enneagram training programs to promote ego development. This study examined if ego development took place among individuals enrolled in Enneagram training programs in the Narrative Tradition. Two groups of participants ( N  = 122) were assessed using the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT) at baseline (pretest) before the training began and then again 18 months later (posttest); one of the groups participated in Enneagram Intensive training programs ( n  = 73) and the other group participated in introductory Enneagram trainings ( n  = 49). Data revealed an advancement in ego development among some of the participants who received at least 40–50 h of training. The findings suggest that Enneagram Intensive trainings may be beneficial for promoting psychological growth and ego development. Clinical applications and future research directions are discussed.

Life history strategy represents individual variation in the degree to which bioenergetic resources are allocated toward growth, maintenance, and reproduction. Individual differences in life history strategies are thought to underlie many of the individual differences studied in Psychology. It was hypothesized that responses on the Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development are partially reflective of an individual’s life history strategy. This hypothesis was tested in three studies, each representing a different level of analysis. The results of Study 1 suggest near unity between ego-level and life history strategy at the conceptual level. In Study 2 a moderate association between rated ego-level and rated life history strategy was found. Additional analyses showed that this association remained when controlling for verbal IQ and that developmental change in each construct was correlated. In Study 3, it was found that responses to the sentence stems could be used directly to assess life history strategy. Combined, the results add to the evidence that responses on projective tests using a sentence stem format are associated with life history strategy. Future research could focus on identifying and constructing sentence stems that provide the maximum information about an individual’s life history strategy.