The main purpose of the present study was to investigate self-criticism as a potential mediating factor in the link between mother-adolescent relationships with aggression and perceptions of social competence. The sample consisted of 888 older (M = 14.3 years) and younger (M = 11.6 years) adolescent children from the same family. Maternal self-criticism strongly corresponded to the quality of r...

other approaches. The first of these is `material thinking' (das materielles Denken): `a contingent consciousness that is absorbed only in material stuff', a form of thought which is rooted in existing conditions and cannot see beyond them. At the `opposite extreme' is the transcendent critical method of `argumentation' (das Räsonieren), which involves `freedom from all content and a sense of v...

For pragmatists, the inability to stand outside of the contingencies of human practice does not impede social criticism. However, several pragmatists have argued that Richard Rorty’s position unnecessarily and undesirably circumscribes the scope of social criticism, allowing for nothing more than an appeal to current practices, with no way to challenge or revise them. This article argues agains...

This study examined significant others' expressed emotion (EE) and a closely related construct, perceived criticism, as predictors of cognitive-behavioral therapy outcome in a sample of 40 patients with social phobia (social anxiety disorder). Patients enrolled in group therapy for social phobia completed pre- and post-treatment questionnaire measures of perceived criticism and anxious and depr...

Excessive self-criticism is a putative psychological vulnerability for depression, and recent findings suggest it may be important in social phobia as well. The present study investigated the role of self-criticism in predicting outcome to cognitivebehavior therapy for generalized social phobia. Eighty-four patients were assessed before and after treatment using a latent social phobia factor ba...

By definition, criticism involves the application of principles or values in order to make judgments for the purpose of bringing about positive change. Understandably, criticism comes in a variety of forms. For example, rhetorical criticism carefully examines and judges the quality of discourse. Our subject here is critical social science, which critiques basic social structure (Littlejohn, 199...