Caring is all around us and is manifested in diverse settings such as parenting, friendships, volunteering, altruism, mentoring, teaching, pet adoption, and gardening. The study of caring, the giving end of our relations, has been dispersed among a large variety of research paradigms (e.g., evolution, brain research, attachment theory, feminism, altruism, volunteering, parenting, social support, prosocial development, organizational citizenship behavior and sustainability) and this has impeded our understanding of caring. The Caring Motivation is a pioneering attempt to bring the diverse research on caring together and to examine caring as a motivation from a broad perspective that relies on these very diverse literatures. Author Ofra Mayseless underscores that we as a species have an innate, biologically driven and evolutionarily chosen, yet contextually sensitive, general motivation to care, tend, empower, and nurture. Several intriguing insights emerge, and a conceptual model of caring as a fundamental and encompassing human motivation is presented. This is the first time that such a model is discussed in detail and its presentation helps us understand core common processes of caring across diverse targets as well as unique adaptations. The model presents for the first time a comprehensive view on how caring is psychologically activated and sustained and underscores the importance of life meaning and purpose in its enactment. The book also introduces a preliminary and innovative model of the universal developmental course of the caring motivational system from infancy to adulthood. This novel and pioneering view opens up exciting new arenas for research and for applications in psychotherapy, education, human growth, spirituality and religions, leadership and organizational behavior, and human sciences in general and highlights the pivotal place of care in our lives.

The study of parents from their own perspective not just as socializing agents of their children has been long neglected. This book summarizes and presents the new and surging literature on parenting representations namely parents' views, emotions and internal world regarding their parenting. Within this area, several prominent researchers typically coming from the attachment tradition suggested various ways of assessing parenting representations, mostly by way of semi-structured interviews. This book presents their conceptualizations and includes detailed descriptions of their interviews and their coding schemes. In addition, a review and summary of the growing number of findings in this domain and an integrated conceptualization that serves a theoretical base for future research are presented. Finally, the clinical implications of the study of parenting representations are discussed at large. Clinical notions and conceptualizations regarding parenting representations are presented and thoroughly discussed including detailed case studies that demonstrate among other things intergenerational transmission of representations.

From its trendy urban centers to its ancient deserts, Israel's history is based on the rich heritage of traditions and contradictions. It is known as a start-up nation, with hospitable and warm interpersonal relationships, and a steady high-ranked happiness level. Yet, its deep political disparities and past traumas ripple beneath the surface of its culture, with unyielding existential threats looming from its neighbors and from within its borders. The turbulent Israeli setting-characterized by salient existential threats, issues of identity and dialectic world views-serve as a magnifying glass for unravelling a variety of significant ways through which the human fundamental motivation to find meaning in life is manifested. Finding Meaning incorporates a conceptual framework for examining the post-modern, sociocultural Israeli scene that facilitates and triggers the search for meaning among its citizens. Combining theory, data, and illustrative case studies, this book unravels a variety of significant and fundamental manifestations of a quest for meaning under existentialist duress, carefully navigating the cultural context of post-modernist Israel. Written by experts in these areas, this book offers new insights into this quest by suggesting a new construct that weaves together the personal and cultural environment, highlights several key processes and dimensions that appear to characterize this search, and offers broad perspectives that contribute to the research at these intersections. Finding Meaning is a pioneering book with an insightful, innovative, and hopeful lens for academic, scholarly, and some lay readers interested in meaning and contemporary Israeli society.