The Justice and Responsibility League

What makes for an upstanding citizen?

by Key Sun, Ph.D.

Euro-American Cartographers: Tibet was a Part of China Pre-1949

How the media covers or misinforms international issues is an important theme in media psychology. If you rely on the news media as the only source of information, you may have heard that "China invaded Tibet in 1950." This belief, even though deeply entrenched in some people mind, is false, according to both American and European world atlas (pre-1949). Read More

A Simple Meditation Technique for Mental Tranquility and Clarity

People can practice a simple meditation technique known as the wisdom-lotus Qigong method to reach mental tranquility and clarity. I have practiced it for 15 years since I learned it from a Buddhist monk. Derived from a branch of Chinese Buddhism, it is a relaxation and visualization technique that shares a similar principle with traditional Chinese medicine about healing. Read More

How Stanley Coren Dupes the Public and Slanders Chinese Culture

Stanley Coren's post "Dog-eating carnival in China banned by Government" distorts the fact regarding dog issues in China by using fabrications, twisted information and false reasoning. Consequently, his inaccurate definition and explanation of the problem have duped the public and slandered Chinese culture. His post has at least the following four problems: Read More

If Restorative Justice Was Used to Handle Casey Anthony, the Outcome Would Be Different

The public's reactions to the verdict of Casey Anthony trial indicate that people have the strong need for healing and closure in addition to rage, and want to understand why she did what she did (regardless of the alleged murder or concealing Caylee's death) and the role the dysfunctional family dynamics played in the crime. Read More

Distorted cognition and Hollywood's indoctrination

Ms Alexandra Wallace's rant posted on YouTube has generated outrage from many viewers and her words were regarded as "racist." I perceive the issue differently. I think that what she said can be best described as manifesting distorted cognitions. In terms of stereotyping Asians/Asian Americans, Hollywood certainly has a much worse record. Read More

Lang lang, the lyrics of "my motherland," and cross-cultural communication

After Lang Lang's piano performance of the melody "My Motherland" at the White House in front of President Obama and Chinese President Hu last week, some politicians, reporters and opportunists have accused him of playing an "anti-American" music piece, because the song first appeared in a 1956 Chinese movie about the Korean war and the lyrics are politically incorrect (even though he only play Read More

The period of the brain pretending to be the mind

The mind is different from the brain, just as psychology is different from biology. Although mental processes are associated with some biochemical/neurological operations, some researchers and the popular media have misrepresented the association between the two systems as the causal relation (biochemical changes cause psychological experiences) or simply seen the two as the same. Read More

How managerial psychopaths use emotions to manipulate others

A persistent myth about psychopaths involves the belief that they are callous, emotional void criminals (particularly serial killers). The mass media (e.g., television shows, films, and books) often reinforces this inaccurate image. Read More

Understanding Depression from A Different Cognitive Perspective

I disagree with the assertion that the self concept serves both as a main source of and as the solution to depression (as suggested by the self-focused cognitive therapy). Read More

Why Online Dating Is a Poor Way to Find Love

Some people believe that recent research on online dating/matching sheds a new light on understanding attraction, love, and romantic relationships. I argue that, however, although the internet has helped few find romantic relationships and marriages, the research has overlooked various defects and problems associated with this type of "contact." I will examine a couple of them. Read More

How the Use of "White Vs. Nonwhite" Contaminates (Not Merely) Criminological Research

At the recent annual meeting of ASC (American Society of Criminology) in Philadelphia, I noticed that a sizable number of presentations involved examining how the "Whites" vs. "Nonwhites" as their major research variable impacted involvements in crimes. Read More

How Perceived Invalidation and Tao Defines Social Cognition

This is a continuation of my early post "How to use the Tao in human interaction to understand conflict and peace (2)." Read More

How to Use the Tao in Human Interaction to Understand Conflict and Peace (2)

Before examining how the notion of oneness of yin and yang characterizes our cognition in detail, however, it is helpful to delineate three issues: a) differences between Taoist philosophy and religion, b) divergences between Taoist philosophy and Confucianism, and c) the impact of Taoist philosophy on Zen Buddhism. Read More

How to Use the Tao in Human Interaction to Understand Conflict and Peace (1)

I intend to use several posts to share with others the main ideas in my recent article on a Taoism-based cognitive model and its implications. I believe that the research provides a new perspective on understanding the issues of peace and conflict in both the mental and interpersonal domains. Read More

Racial Profiling and a Misunderstanding of Probability

Racial profiling can be broadly defined as a practice in law enforcement based on the belief that a person's category membership (e.g., ethnicity, national origin) functions as an indicator of criminal propensity. In my previous posts on the topic, "why moral education has not reduced racial profiling (1) & (2)," I examined some cognitive root of the biased practice. Read More

An Overlooked Problem with The New Hate Crimes Bill

If someone says that a woman or a child is raped because the victim is a woman or a child, does it sound absurd? It sounds ridiculous because the person explains the crime incidence as caused by the distinctiveness of the victim, but does not blame the offender for the offense. By analogy, a similar problem is associated with the legal definition of hate crime. Read More

Why Some Psychopaths Are in Leadership Positions

It is well observed that psychopaths (a.k.a. sociopaths) are found both in prison and in managerial positions. In "The Sociopath Next Door," Martha Stout analyzed many individuals with psychopathy and most of them were not part of the offender population. Read More

My Impression of Philip Zimbardo at 2009 WPA Convention

I just returned from the 2009 WPA (Western Psychological Association) Convention in Portland, Oregon, with a plethora of materials to ruminate on. A conference of this magnitude always provides me with a spectrum of lectures, programs, workshops and posters that are so enthralling as to compete for my time, and with an outlet to share my research with colleagues and students. Read More

Four Drawbacks of Cognitive Therapy

Cognitive therapy is a generic term that refers to diverse cognitive approaches to modifying human experiences and activities. This critique focuses on cognitive therapy that focuses on altering negative self concepts. This approach is based on the theories developed by A. Beck and A. Ellis. Read More

A Different Formula for Creating Happiness

In Carlin Flora's "Get Happy" survey last month, the interviewees provided their diverse insightful advices. However, I have a different formula for creating happiness (I hope it is not too late for this year): Doing art works (e.g., paintings, drawing) regularly for self expression, communicating/releasing positive and negative emotions, and/or inspiriting others. Read More

Why Moral Education Has Not Reduced Racial Profiling? (2)

In the post "Why moral education...(1)," I argued that we needed to view prejudiced practices (e.g., racial profiling) not as an issue of immorality but as a product and manifestation of cognitive distortions. In general, people's learning experiences are responsible for their cognitive distortions of social reality, which regulate their prejudiced practices. Read More

Notes from The Underground: An inmate’s effort to learn Taoist Wisdom

A week before the Thanksgiving, a letter reached my office from an inmate serving time in a midwest state prison. It has been some time since I did counseling and interventions with correctional offenders, no wonder I was surprised. The inmate is not one of my previous clients. I only knew from the letter that he was an offender with a Hispanic family name. Read More

Why Has Moral Education Not Reduced Racial Profiling? Part 1

According to a recent news article in USA Today, racial profiling and other biased practices by law enforcement agencies are alive and well. For example, in the past year alone, Border Patrol agents have questioned Silvio Torres-Saillant three times in the Greyhound station in Syracuse, N.Y., about his immigration status and citizenship as he purchased tickets or waited in the terminal. Read More

Can Race Take the Responsibility for Racially-Motivated Crime?

People's social cognitions and perceptions about real events are more complicated than their performances in controlled laboratory settings. How people (particularly the news media) describe and explain bias-motivated crime appears to deviate from, and challenge the findings in the attribution literature of social psychology. Read More