Pascal’s Wager: a Reason to Hesitate

Philosophia - One version of Pascal’s Wager says we should commit to, or cultivate belief in, whatever religion we think is most likely to bring us eternal joy. I pose a reductio for this...     

Group problem-solving among teachers: A case study of how to improve a colleague’s teaching

A case study of six teachers cooperating to improve a teacher’s teaching showed the dynamics of the group problem-solving process. An analysis of their verbal interactions showed the importance of shared understanding to successful group problem solving. The cooperative group structure helped members resolve cognitive conflicts and build group understanding. During this process, the members’ past teaching experiences and knowledge contributed to their conceptualization of the teacher’s teaching problems and their proposed solutions to improve the teacher’s teaching. Tsz Cheung Lam graduated from the Department of Educational Psychology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2004 and obtained his Master of Education degree. His research interests lie primarily on cooperative learning and problem solving. As a primary school teacher in practice, he is now studying part-time for another master degree in data science at the Department of Statistics of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.     

How to get radical creative ideas into a leader’s mind? Leader’s achievement goals and subordinates’ voice of creative ideas

In the present research we investigated when and why leaders tend to oppose or adopt radical creative ideas voiced by their subordinates. In a field study (Study 1, N = 127) we showed that leaders’ performance goals were positively related to their tendency to oppose radical creative ideas, whereas leaders’ mastery goals were positively related to their tendency to adopt them. We replicated these findings in an experimental study (Study 2, N = 90), in which we showed that performance goal leaders were more likely to oppose radical creative ideas voiced by their subordinates than mastery goal leaders, whereas mastery goal leaders were more likely to adopt those ideas than performance goal leaders. In Study 2, we further showed that the effects of leaders’ achievement goals on their oppose and adopt responses were mediated by the leaders’ interest in exploration. Finally, in Study 3 (N = 91), we experimentally demonstrated that oppose and adopt responses of performance goal leaders, rather than mastery goal leaders, were sensitive to the behavioural mode by which subordinates voiced their radical creative ideas. That is, performance goal leaders were less likely to oppose and more likely to adopt radical creative ideas when subordinates voiced them in a considerate mode rather than an aggressive mode.     

More on Putnam’s models: a reply to Belloti

In an earlier paper, I claimed that one version of Putnam's model-theoretic argument against realism turned on a subtle, but philosophically significant, mathematical mistake. Recently, Luca Bellotti has criticized my argument for this claim. This paper responds to Bellotti's criticisms.     

‘It’s not a diet,it’s a lifestyle’: a longitudinal,data-prompted interview study of weight loss maintenance

Objective: To advance understanding of the individual and environmental factors underpinning weight loss maintenance. Design: Semi-structured, data-prompted interviews were conducted with twelve overweight adult participants (three men, nine women) who had lost over 5% of their body weight in the year before baseline. Participants gathered daily data through wireless scales, activity monitors (Fitbit?), ecological momentary assessment and experience sampling (taking photographs, writing notes). They were interviewed at 3- and 6-months post baseline. Interview stimuli included personal data of weight and activity graphs, correlations of psychological factors, and self-generated notes and photographs. Interview data were analysed using the Framework Method, applying pre-specified maintenance-relevant theoretical themes. Results: The theoretical Framework provided a good fit for the narratives, with five main themes underpinning successful weight loss maintenance: sustained motivation, effective self-regulation, plentiful resources, habit formation and a supportive environment. Additionally, participants reported an identity shift from being a dieter to accepting a new healthy lifestyle. Goal prioritising and allowing for occasional controlled lapses enhanced weight loss maintenance. Conclusions: This study successfully used the novel method of data-prompted interviews to explore weight loss maintenance experiences with new explanations emerging from the data. Future research should further develop behaviour change maintenance theory and data-prompted interview method.     

Survivors’ Advice to Service Providers: How to Best Serve Survivors of Sexual Assault

Recognizing the relatively low rate at which sexual assault survivors seek services, researchers in the last decade have turned their attention to better understanding survivors’ experiences with victim services. Surprisingly, limited research has directly asked sexual assault survivors for recommendations on how to improve victim services, including both criminal justice and community-based services. The current study builds on the existing literature to gather input from women survivors that can translate into ways to improve victim services. As part of a larger longitudinal study, the current investigation asked 224 ethnically diverse adult (aged 18–62) women survivors of recent sexual assault to provide recommendations for how victim services can best serve survivors of sexual assault at multiple time points. Nearly all women in the study (91%) offered specific recommendations on how to improve victim services. Recommendations included ensuring availability of a female provider, improving communication with survivors as well as within and between service providers, helping survivors obtain resources, believing and not blaming survivors, demonstrating greater understanding of trauma-related responses and approaching survivors with greater compassion, and implementing better training on effectively working with survivors. Implications for victim service provision are discussed.     

Learning how to help others: Two-year-olds’ social learning of a prosocial act

Engaging in prosocial behaviors (acts that benefit others) is associated with many positive outcomes in children, including the development of positive peer relationships, academic achievement, and good psychological functioning. This study examined the social learning mechanisms toddlers use to acquire prosocial behaviors. This brief report presents a new experimental procedure in which 2-year-olds (28–32 months, N = 30) saw a video of an adult performing a novel prosocial behavior in response to another person’s distress. Children then had the opportunity to imitate and implement the behavior in response to their own parent’s physical distress. Children who saw the video were more likely to perform the novel action and to display non-demonstrated prosocial behaviors relative to (a) children who did not view the video but saw a parent in distress and (b) children who saw the video but witnessed their mother engage in a neutral activity. These results suggest that toddlers imitate and emulate prosocial behaviors for social interaction and that children can apply such behaviors in appropriate situations.     

Does Klein’s infinitism offer a response to Agrippa’s trilemma?

The regress of reasons threatens an epistemic agent’s right to claim that any beliefs are justified. In response, Peter Klein’s infinitism argues that an infinite series of supporting reasons of the right type not only is not vicious but can make for epistemic justification. In order to resist the sceptic, infinitism needs to provide reason to think that there is at least one justified belief in the world. Under an infinitist conception this involves showing that at least one belief is supported by an infinite series of supporting reasons. This paper argues that showing this makes problems for the infinitist. The finite minds problem that prevents completion of an infinite series is well documented. This paper examines alternative attempts to provide evidence of infinity that the infinitist might take, whether by using a notion of justification without infinite reasons or by altering the notion of evidence. It concludes that both of these fail and consequently infinitism is unable to offer a solution to Agrippa’s trilemma.     

Tronick’s Valuable Contributions to a Developmentalist Perspective

In this article I appreciatively consider several of Tronick’s seminal contributions. I emphasize our shared developmental perspective and note where our contributions from differing sources coincide. I note how usefully Tronick’s developmental findings apply to clinical work in psychoanalysis.     

The Impact of a Leader Model on High Dominant Women’s Self-Selection for Leadership

The present study examined how the gender of a leader model affected high dominant women’s decisions to become leaders when instructed to complete a masculine-typed task and paired with a man. One hundred ninety undergraduates at a university in the southeastern United States were paired according to Dominance scores and shown the task, which required a leader and a follower. Pairs were presented with either a female or male leader model. Independent observers recorded who became the leader. Results suggest that when high dominant women are presented with a female leader model, they are more likely to take on the leadership role in the presence of a male partner than when they are presented with a male leader model.     

A threat to Canadian national security: a lesbian soldier’s story

Before 1992, lesbians and gay soldiers were purged and discharged from the Canadian military for “reasons of homosexuality.” Those caught or suspected of homosexuality were subject to lengthy, humiliating, and degrading interrogations. This short story sheds light on this painful past. It is based on findings of a nationally funded pan-Canadian longitudinal study examining how Canadian military policies and practices influenced the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender soldiers and their partners. In total, 126 people were interviewed. While in the military, countless soldiers were investigated, numerous interrogated, many lost their careers, some committed suicide and others survived. Personal details have been changed to ensure the anonymity of the people, but it is their voices that tell this story. An official state apology was delivered November 28, 2017. Due to an impending class action court case, an agreement for compensation was also reached. Compensation and memorials will be forthcoming to those who were affected by the LGBTQI2+ purge campaign. To this day, no evidence exits that these soldiers were “ever” a threat to national security.     

Cognitive,Affective, and Behavioral Responses to Ingroup’s Devalued Social Status: a Field Study at a Public University

In this study based on an actual event, we examined how group members cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally respond to devaluation of ingroup’s social status. Integrating predictions from Social Identity Theory (SIT; Tajfel and Turner 1986) and Intergroup Emotions Theory (IET; Smith et al. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(3), 431–446 (2007)), we explored how appraisals about ingroup’s perceived decrease in status (i.e., stability and legitimacy of status change and permeability of group boundaries) are associated with discrete group-level emotions (e.g., anger, shame), and how those emotions in turn predict different coping strategies Blanz et al. European Journal of Social Psychology, 28(5), 697–729 (1998). Analyses of the results showed that: First, preference for each coping strategy varied according to appraisals of ingroup status, and the patterns were largely consistent with what SIT predicts. Second, different group-level emotions were reported according to appraisals of ingroup status. Third, inclusion of group-level emotions as mediators of associations between ingroup status appraisals and coping strategies significantly increased the explanatory power of the path models. In sum, this study demonstrated how the two theories on intergroup relations can be used together to offer a more detailed account of group identity management. For future direction, experimental or longitudinal designs as well as cross-cultural comparisons were suggested.     

Introducing dental students to reflective practice: a dental educator’s reflections

There is growing consensus that being reflective and developing reflective practice is an important part of becoming a healthcare professional, adding to and enhancing our everyday professional values, knowledge and skills. For dentists, reflective practice is an essential part of dental training and professional development with dental undergraduate curricula creating and scaffolding opportunities for students to be reflective and develop reflective writing skills. This article describes the introduction of a reflective portfolio to the undergraduate Bachelor of Dental Science (BDS) programme at the University of Bristol. This will be followed by the author sharing some personal reflections, as the faculty member overseeing the assessment of these reflective portfolios, on the first year of this initiative. Lessons learned from the exercise as well as areas for future work and improvement will also be mentioned.     

The Meaning of Obesity in the Church: A Pastoral Leader’s Perspective

The purpose of this study is to highlight a unique case regarding obesity and weight loss in the Christian church that emerged when interviewing men who had experienced bariatric surgery. Thirty-four-year-old “Pastor Tom” was removed from his position in the church due to his obesity. Through critical reflection, utilizing an intrinsic case study methodology, the authors explore how this research participant constructed meaning around obesity and weight loss. In this study, two major themes emerged: (1) leading by example and (2) becoming a leader. The study includes a discussion of implications for the church as well as teaching, clinical, and research implications.