I refuse to identify fun with pleasure, excitement with joy, busyness with happiness, or the faceless, buck-passing organization

man with an independent individual. herein, herebode,hereby... First of all, there is a danger inherent in the teaching of man's "nothingbutness," the theory that man is nothing but the result of biological, psychological and sociological conditions, or the product of heredity and environment. Such a view of man makes a neurotic believe what he is prone to believe anyway, namely, that he is the pawn and victim of outer influences or inner circumstances. This neurotic fatalism is fostered and strengthened by a psychotherapy which denies that man is free. anticipatory anxiety The fear of sleeplessness is, in the majority of cases, due to the patient's ignorance of the fact that the organism provides itself by itself with the minimum amount of sleep really needed. "American Journal of Psychotherapy, 10(1956), p. 134. The Individual and His Religion: "The neurotic who learns to laugh at himself may be on the way to self-management, perhaps to cure." In this context, one might amend the saying "The wish is father to the thought" to "The fear is mother of the event." It is, therefore, up to the patient to decide whether he should interpret his life task as being responsible to society or to his own conscience. There are people, however, who do not interpret their own lives merely in terms of a task assigned to them but also in terms of the taskmaster who has assigned it to them. "Tell me, Master, what is the best move in the world?" There simply is no such thing as the best or even a good move apart from a particular situation in a game and the particular personality of one's opponent. The same holds for human existence. One should not search for an abstract meaning of life. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone's task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it. As each situation in life represents a challenge to man and presents a problem for him to solve, the question of the meaning of life may actually be reversed. Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned

by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible. Thus, logotherapy sees in responsibleness the very essence of human existence. "Sunday neurosis," The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom. Now we can understand Schopenhauer when he said that mankind was apparently doomed to vacillate eternally between the two extremes of distress and boredom. Such security, like Paradise, is closed to man forever; man has to make choices. In addition to this, however, man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism). Logotherapy regards its assignment as that of assisting the patient to find meaning in his life. Inasmuch as logotherapy makes him aware of the hidden logos of his existence, it is an analytical process. To this extent, logotherapy resembles psychoanalysis. However, in logotherapy's attempt to make something conscious again it does not restrict its activity to instinctual facts within the individual's unconscious but also cares for existential realities, such as the potential meaning of his existence to be fulfilled as well as his will to meaning. Logotherapy deviates from psychoanalysis insofar as it considers man a being whose main concern consists in fulfilling a meaning, rather than in the mere gratification and satisfaction of drives and instincts, or in merely reconciling the conflicting claims of id, ego and superego, or in the mere adaptation and adjustment to society and environment.

Of course, there may be some cases in which an individual's concern with values is really a camouflage of hidden inner conflicts; but, if so, they represent the exceptions from the rule rather than the rule itself. In these cases we have actually to deal with pseudovalues, and as such they have to be unmasked. Unmasking, however, should stop as soon as one is confronted with what is authentic and genuine in man, e.g., man's desire for a life that is as meaningful as possible. If it does not stop then, the only thing that the "unmasking psychologist" really unmasks is his own "hidden motive"

- namely, his unconscious need to debase and depreciate what is genuine, what is genuinely human, in man. Rilke to write, "Wie viel ist aufzuleiden!" (How much suffering there is to get through!) Rilke spoke of "getting through suffering" as others would talk of "getting through work." "Was Du erlebst, kann keine Macht der Welt Dir rauben." (What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.) What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. The latin word finis has two meanings: the end or the finish, and a goal to reach. A man who could not see the end of his "provisional existence" was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life. He ceased living for the future, in contrast to a man in normal life. Therefore the whole structure of his inner life changed; signs of decay set in which we know from other areas of life. The unemployed worker, for example, is in a similar position. His existence has become provisional and in a certain sense he cannot live for the future or aim at a goal. Research work done on unemployed miners has shown that they suffer from a peculiar sort of deformed time - inner time - which is a result of their unemployed state. Prisoners, too, suffered from this strange "time-experience." In camp, a small time unit, 91 MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING a day, for example, filled with hourly tortures and fatigue, appeared endless. A larger time unit, perhaps a week, seemed to pass very quickly. My comrades agreed when I said that in camp a day lasted longer than a week. How paradoxical was our time-experience! In this connection we are reminded of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, which contains some very pointed psychological remarks. Mann studies the spiritual development of people who are in an analogous psychological position, i.e., tuberculosis patients

in a sanatorium who also know no date for their release. They experience a similar existence - without a future and without a goal. An active life serves the purpose of giving man the opportunity to realize value s in creative work, while a passive life of enjoyment affords him the opportunity to obtain fulfillment in experiencing beauty, art, or nature. But there is also purpose in that life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man's attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces. A creative life and a life of enjoyment are banned to him. But not only creativeness and enjoyment are meaningful. If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete. 87 MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING In psychiatry there is a certain condition known as "delusion of reprieve." The condemned man, immediately before his execution, gets the illusion that he might be reprieved at the very last minute.

"High self-esteem leads to better performance in school and to healthier lifesty les. " Answer: FALSE (11.8% of people got this question correct) In the United States, to increase self-esteem was long thought to be positive fo r academic performance. California even created a task force to raise self-estee m amongst children. Findings show however that high self-esteem does not predict higher performance in school. In fact, some findings might even suggest that artificially boosting self-esteem decreases subsequent academic performance. Moreover, contrary to popular though t, bullies, those who experiment with illicit drugs, and those who become sexual ly active at an early age do not typically suffer from low self-esteem. "We do not just hate others, we also tend to dislike those of our own group that talk to these hated others." Answer: TRUE (90.2% of people got this question correct) The stigma effect causes us to dislike others purely because they spend time wit h some disliked other. This is partly the reason that people who are hated are i gnored by others: because by acknowledging them it might affect one's own reputa tion. "If you are having a hard time controlling your thoughts, feelings, or behaviors , it may be because you just made a lot of decisions."

Answer: TRUE (63.9% of people got this question correct) Decision-making affects self-regulation; that is, the ability to control our tho ughts, emotions, and behaviors. Self-control and decision-making use the same ps ychological resource. When a person makes many decisions, the resource may get d epleted and consequently the ability for self-control fails. "We are less willing to accept the help of people who are like us. " Answer: TRUE (57.8% of people got this question correct) Research has demonstrated that we are less willing to ask for help from others w ho have traits with us in common. This may be because asking for help from a sim ilar person could act like a blow to your self-esteem. You seem the less compete nt of two otherwise similar people. And that always hurts. "People that fold their arms while doing a mental task will persist for longer ( compared to people with their hands on their thighs)" Answer: TRUE (69.4% of people got this question correct) Participants were given an impossible anagram to solve. While attempting to solv e the anagram, one half of them were told to put their hands on their thighs, an d the other half were instructed to cross their arms. The thigh group persisted for 30 seconds on average, whereas the arms crossed gr oup persisted for 55 seconds! The researchers believe that over many years, the act of crossing our arms comes to be implicitly associated with perseverance, so that adopting that position a ctivates a nonconscious desire to succeed. "Who doesn't know the pictures on European cigarette packets? The pictures of ba dly damaged lungs will definitely make people stop smoking!" Answer: FALSE (88.1% of people got this question correct) Fear often warns us from harmful influences, but not always. Besides being a war ning sign, it also leads to active attempts to deal with the source of fear. However, only the source of fear combined with the feeling that people can preve nt the damaged lungs from happening to them will lead to an attempt to stop. Sim ple exposure to terrible pictures does not lead to dealing with the source of fe ar. Instead, the negative pictures will make people feel afraid, possibly making the m lose self-control and actually smoke more. Taken from: Rogers, R. W. & Prentice-Dunn, S. (1997). Protection Motivation Theo ry. In D. S. Gochman (Ed.), Handbook of Health Behavior Research I: Personal and Social Determinants (Vol. 1, pp. 113-132). New York: Plenum.

"Women are more likely to fall in love than men." Answer: FALSE (46.3% of people got this question correct) Actually, men are more likely to fall in love than women. They are also less lik ely to break off a pre-marital relationship and have stronger romantic viewpoint s on love than their female partners.

"Our memory functions better in good weather." Answer: FALSE (29.2% of people got this question correct) Our memory is more likely to function better in bad than good weather. People ty pically are in a sadder mood on bad weather days, and ample previous research sh ows that negative mood is associated with better memory. In a study Australian researchers exposed randomly selected shoppers to 10 unusu al objects in the check-out area of a suburban shop (e.g., a toy canon, a pink s avings pig) on bright, sunny days or on cloudy, rainy days. The recall of the sh oppers for these objects was tested after they left the shop. As expected, those who were in a bad weather-induced negative mood had the best recall memory for the items. By the way, the researchers note that people didn't spend more time i n the shop on rainy days, if you think this is why they remembered more. "When performing a difficult task, women might say they were in a tough situatio n that handicapped their performance, such as having a bad day. Men even go so f ar as to actively handicap themselves before performing the difficult task, by g etting drunk for example." Answer: TRUE (79.5% of people got this question correct) People often affect their performance before performing a difficult task through so-called self-handicapping. Why? It avoids embarrassment of failure while giving your maximum. To save face, we mention that we cannot actually give our best because of external circumstan ces. This comes in two ways: You can either say you slept badly (the situation w as tough), or drink away your sorrows the night prior to your important task (ac tively handcaping yourself). Both men and women are equally likely to report a handicap. However, men are mor e likely to handicap themselves actively. "Pulling on the underside of a tabletop will make you feel more positive. " Answer: TRUE (44.1% of people got this question correct) This might sound really weird, but experimental research has in fact shown this to be true. Researchers showed that people felt more positive about new or unknown objects w hen their arm flexors contracted as compared to when their arm extensors were co

ntracted. Contracting arm flexors, according to the researchers, is associated w ith pulling things towards you while contracting arm extensors is associated wit h pushing things away from you. This might be a learned effect, where bodily fee dback is associated with positive and negative emotions. For an example, think of food. People pull good food towards them, but push unwa nted food away. So pulling on the underside of a table makes people feel good, b ecause they're expecting some kind of reward. "Children are more likely to enjoy a task if they are offered a reward for it." Answer: FALSE (17.7% of people got this question correct) Contrary to predictions derived from operant conditioning (that rewards will mot ivate behavior), offering an explicit reward for participating in an enjoyable a ctivity actually decreases children's intrinsic enjoyment of that activity. This was demonstrated empirically when researchers offered a "good player" award to a group of children who enjoyed drawing for participating in a drawing activity. Another group of children (who similarly enjoyed drawing) participated in the s ame activity without being offered the reward. When these children were brought back several days later, the children who had r eceived the reward were no longer interested in drawing while the children who w ere not offered the reward still preferred to draw over other activities. This was explained by the overjustification hypothesis. The children "overjustif ied" the reason they participated in the drawing task as a desire for the reward thus, the next time they were offered a drawing activity without the reward the y perceived themselves as not having a good reason to do the activity. They were n't going to get the reward so they were no longer interested in drawing. This could be considered similar to the received wisdom that as soon as one make s a hobby a job, the hobby will no longer be enjoyable. "High self-esteem leads to better performance in school and to healthier lifesty les. " Answer: FALSE (11.8% of people got this question correct) In the United States, to increase self-esteem was long thought to be positive fo r academic performance. California even created a task force to raise self-estee m amongst children. Findings show however that high self-esteem does not predict higher performance in school. In fact, some findings might even suggest that artificially boosting self-esteem decreases subsequent academic performance. Moreover, contrary to popular though t, bullies, those who experiment with illicit drugs, and those who become sexual ly active at an early age do not typically suffer from low self-esteem.