Galton and the birth of differential psychology and eugenics: Social,political, and economic forces

The social, political, and economic forces operative in nineteenth century Britain are briefly described. This permits tracing the birth of both the scientific study of individual differences and the field of eugenics to the infrastructure of society at that time. The distinction is made between the normative doctrine of individualism and the factual study of individual differences. It is argued that democratic—liberal—capitalistic—individualism, in part, conditioned the beginning of differential psychology and eugenics. In this process, Galton's liberal views concerning individual freedom and opportunity for full development became transformed into their dialectic—totalitarian—collectivism—a vision of an ideal state which did not come into being. It is paradoxically concluded that those same social forces which helped bring about the birth of differential psychology and the entailing eugenics ideology prevented the latter from being accepted and implemented.     

Repetition, not number of sources, increases both susceptibility to misinformation and confidence in the accuracy of eyewitnesses

Are claims more credible when made by multiple sources, or is it the repetition of claims that matters? Some research suggests that claims have more credibility when independent sources make them. Yet, other research suggests that simply repeating information makes it more accessible and encourages reliance on automatic processes—factors known to change people's judgments. In Experiment 1, people took part in a “misinformation” study: people first watched a video of a crime and later read eyewitness reports attributed to one or three different eyewitnesses who made misleading claims in either one report or repeated the same misleading claims across all three reports. In Experiment 2, people who had not seen any videos read those same reports and indicated how confident they were that each claim happened in the original event. People were more misled by—and more confident about—claims that were repeated, regardless of how many eyewitnesses made them. We hypothesize that people interpreted the familiarity of repeated claims as markers of accuracy. These findings fit with research showing that repeating information makes it seem more true, and highlight the power of a single repeated voice.     

Better to Decide Together: Shared Consumer Decision Making,Perceived Power,and Relationship Satisfaction

Shared consumer decisions, particularly those made with a relationship partner, can be very different from decisions that are made alone. Across multiple studies, we investigate how shared consumer decision making affects perceptions of power and relationship satisfaction. We integrate two streams of research to create a novel theory about consumer decision making and perceived power. Specifically, we suggest that shared consumer decision making combines two necessary components of power—an individual's influence over and a partner's engagement in the decision—and that these combined components drive power perceptions. In other words, individuals who relinquish some control and make a decision with their partner, ironically, perceive having greater power than if they had made the decision alone. We further find that shared decision making and greater perceived power lead to greater satisfaction with the relationship in which the decisions are made. By focusing on consumer decision making within relationships, the current research contributes to the literatures on decision making, social influences in consumer behavior, close relationships, consumer well-being, and power.     

Anthropology,Ontology, and the Possibility of Post-Mortem Repentance

Abstract: This essay considers the question of conversion unto repentance, as an act of cognition and volition, by the separated soul in the post-mortem state. It primarily explicates and interrogates Thomas Aquinas's various attempts to rule out this possibility for the damned. Since Thomas's arguments for such impossibility feature his commitment to the radical immateriality of the human soul—and, like it, the angelic spirit—the essay highlights the ontological and moral tensions within that account. The case is thus made for the ontological, logical, and moral inconsistencies of his position, in pursuit of a more holistic anthropology across the soul's various states and a more rationally and coherent eschatology—namely, an affirmation of the irreducible mutability of the created soul on its way towards likeness to God, perhaps, if not certainly, towards universal salvation.     

Experts,amateurs, and real estate: An anchoring-and-adjustment perspective on property pricing decisions

The studies described in this paper investigated the use of a decisional heuristic—anchoring-and-adjustment—in an information-rich, real world setting. In order to assess the generalizability of laboratory research on this decision heuristic, students and real estate agents toured and made pricing decisions about real estate properties. It was hypothesized that manipulated listing prices would anchor values assigned to the properties. Results were consistent with the use of an anchoring-and-adjustment value estimation strategy in information-rich, real world settings. Implications for the understanding of judgmental expertise are discussed.     

Callous-Unemotional Traits,Relational and Social Aggression,and Interpersonal Maturity in a Sample of Behaviorally Disordered Adolescents

The authors examined the degree to which callous-unemotional traits and narcissism predict relational aggression, social aggression, and prosocial skills in a sample of 79 adolescent offenders (13–18 years old; 26% girls; 74% boys) attending a school for youth with behavior disorders in the Mid-Atlantic United States. Narcissism made a significant contribution to the prediction of both relational aggression and social aggression, accounting for most of the unique variance in the prediction of these indirect forms of aggression. Conversely, callous-unemotional traits—but not narcissism—made a significant contribution to the prediction of lower prosocial skills. Furthermore, in contrast to the large number of studies indicating gender differences in the expression of aggression, no significant gender differences in the present study were found.     

Slavery,Carbon, and Moral Progress

My goal in this paper is to shed light on how moral progress actually occurs. I begin by restating a conception of moral progress that I set out in previous work, the “Naïve Conception,” and explain how it comports with various normative and metaethical views. I go on to develop an index of moral progress and show how judgments about moral progress can be made. I then discuss an example of moral progress from the past—the British abolition of the Atlantic slave trade—with a view to what can be learned from this for a contemporary struggle for moral progress: the movement to decarbonize the global economy. I close with some thoughts about how moral progress actually occurs.     

The “Enemies of God” in Luther's Final Sermons: Jews,Papists, and the Problem of Blindness to Scripture

Martin Luther's attack on the supposed “enemies of God” in his final sermons was part of the reformer's concerted effort to announce his last will and testament for evangelical Christianity. Chiefly, the article defines what made Jews and “papists” distinct from other enemies in Luther's view. Jews and papists both had possessed Scripture since ancient times; yet they remained unreceptive—for reasons Luther struggled to explain—to the Word therein.     

Mood differences between the four Galen personality types: choleric,sanguine, phlegmatic,melancholic

Four personality types—Choleric, Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Melancholic—were selected using the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and tested on ten self-report mood scales. Four specific predictions as to the relations between the topology and mood scores were made and were generally confirmed. Choleric types showed greater anger, Sanguine types greater Optimism, Phlegmatics less State Anxiety and least Depression, and Melancholics were high on State Anxiety. Other findings were that Sanguine types showed both the greatest concentration and the highest potency (theseare Stable Extraverts) and were lowest in Scepticism whereas Melancholics were the most sceptical. The study is a test of Eysenck's operationalization of the Galen typology in relation to the matter of the relationship of state and trait. This issue is discussed and a measure for differentiating state and trait is reffered to.     

Attachment in donor‐conceived adults: Curiosity,search, and contact

Donor‐conceived (DC) people represent a unique population with atypical family structures. This study examined whether individual differences in attachment predict adults' self‐reported curiosity about their donor conception identity, as well as attempts to find the donor and establish contact. Data were collected from 488 DC people from the Donor Sibling Registry (DSR). People who were high in attachment‐related anxiety were more curious than others about their donor conception. Despite this curiosity, however, highly anxious people were more disengaged from donor conception and were not more likely than others to search for or have made contact with their donor. These findings suggest that insecure attachment—particularly attachment anxiety—may contribute to people's willingness to incorporate donor conception into their identities.     

Deviance,norms, and social reaction

The author suggests a scheme that attempts to resolve some of the conceptual problems and dilemmas that Meier argues persist in the sociology of deviant behavior. He proposes that a distinction be made not only between the normative and the reactive perspectives toward deviance, but also between “hard” and “soft” varieties of the reactive perspective. The normative perspective has limitations and drawbacks—as does a liberal (or “hard") reading of reactive theory. The “soft” variety of the reactive perspective attempts to surmount these limitations and drawbacks.     

Understanding another stigma: Comment on Elliott,Ziegler, Altman,and Scott

This paper examines Elliott, et al.’s article on dimensions of stigmata and their effects on social interaction. It is contended that the authors have overlooked an important type of stigma in their classification and definition of stigma — “the stigma of excellence”. The characteristics of this form of stigma are presented, and a call is made for the authors to rework their model so that it may apply to the stigma of excellence as it applies to negative stigmata.     

Anarchism,Schooling, and Democratic Sensibility

This paper seeks to address the question of schooling for democracy by, first, identifying at least one form of social character, dependent, after Marcuse, on the historical emergence of a “new sensibility.” It then explores one pedagogical thread related to the emergence of this form of subjectivity over the course of the last two centuries in the west, and traces its influence in the educational counter-tradition associated with philosophical anarchism, which is based on principles of dialogue and social reconstruction as opposed to monologue and reproduction. The idea of a dialogical school has been made possible by a historical shift in adult views of child as interlocutor rather than “othered” object of adult formation—a shift that can be observed in an historical process of “closer approaches” between adult and child and a recognition of childhood and adulthood as forms of subjectivity that lie on a synchronous rather than a diachronic lifespan continuum. Finally the author identifies an archetype of “school” understood as a specific type of intentional community—an experimental zone in which participants are allowed and encouraged, through explicitly dialogical practice, to develop the personal and relational habits that make authentic democracy possible—a communal form that gives practical meaning to Dewey’s notion of school as “embryonic society”: a utopian space where natality is recognized as a fundamental cultural force, and where the evolutionary possibilities inherent in neoteny are taken as normative.     

The Effects of Text Difficulty on Second Graders' Fluency Development

In this study, two groups of second graders participated in Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction (FORI) but their repeated reading experiences used different kinds of texts. One group—the Literature group—read texts from the district's literature-based, basal reading program. The second group—the Content group—read from a set of science and social studies texts that were written to have few rare, multisyllabic, single-appearing words. Control-group students read from the district's literature-based program. Both intervention groups made greater gains in reading rate than Control group students and Content students made greater gains in reading rate than Literature students. Content and Literature groups outperformed Control students on the comprehension measure but did not perform significantly differently from one another. The gains made by the Content classrooms were made in approximately half the amount of time allocated to reading instruction as by Literature classrooms.     

Social Responsibility Ethics: Doing Right,doing Good,doing Well

The ethics of social responsibility is discussed in reference to six case vignettes drawn from forensic psychology. A definitional model of social responsibility is proposed, and two unequal components of the concept—respect for the individual and concern for social welfare—are identified. The sources of ethical conflict in regard to social responsibility are enumerated. Scholarly criticism of the value orientation of forensic psychology is reviewed, and forensic psychology is contrasted with social policy advocacy efforts made by organized psychology. The social responsibility obligations of psychologists in the microethical sphere, where their actions affect individuals, are diffentiated from the obligations psychology has when operating in the macroethical sphere of social policy. The ethical problems inherent in policy advocacy brought about by individual psychologists working with individuals are underscored: the inevitable element of deception, the violation of role integrity, and the circumvention of social structures and institutions that safeguard the rights of individuals.     

Aging,Encoding Fluency,and Metacognitive Monitoring

ABSTRACT

Encoding fluency (how rapidly one generates a mediator for a new association) may be a cue used to judge one's own learning. To evaluate age differences in utilization of this cue, older and younger adults were instructed to use interactive imagery to study paired associates, pressing a button to indicate when an image had been formed for a given pair. A judgment of learning (JOL) was also made immediately after each pair had been studied. Hence, at least two cues pertaining to encoding fluency—whether an image had been formed (a diagnostic cue) and the latency of formation (a nondiagnostic one)—were available when making JOLs. Age equivalence was found in JOL accuracy, and JOLs for both age groups were positively related to imagery formation and were negatively related to the latency of image formation. Moreover, subjectively judged latency correlated higher with JOLs than actual (objective) latency, supporting the hypothesis that perceived fluency is a cue used in constructing JOLs.     

Social Comparison,the Threat of AIDS,and Adolescent Condom Use1

This study tested hypotheses from social comparison theory about adolescent condom use. Questionnaires were administered to 457 twelfth-grade students (284 sexually active). Three different operationalizations of social comparison were used—comparative ratings, affiliative preferences, and derogation; each produced different results. Low condom users who felt threatened by AIDS made more downward comparative ratings regarding condom use than did unthreatened low users. In contrast, low users preferred upward affiliations with high users. Adolescents with higher self-esteem derogated adolescents with AIDS less as threat increased. Adolescents with lower self-esteem who made downward comparative ratings were more satisfied with their own past condom use. Satisfied low condom users were less likely to intend condom use in the future. The results provide evidence that downward comparison may act indirectly to deter behavioral change.     

Popular culture fandoms,the boundaries of religious studies,and the project of the self

The starting point of this paper will be studies that view popular culture as religion. First, I examine a selection of recent works that argue certain popular culture communities—namely, music subcultures, sports, and television and celebrity fandoms—look like, act like, and indeed are religions for participants. Methodologically, the studies under examination proceed by starting with a definition of religion and then looking for parallels between the pop culture fandom and the definition. I suggest that popular culture as religion scholarship is at best creative, always problematic, and tends toward what Samuel calls ‘parallelomania’. In the second part of the paper, I use the studies under examination, as well as original research, to argue that contemporary fandoms are better understood as late modern ‘projects of the self’, affiliational choices that act to establish self-identity and community in a time period when these things are not given, but reflexively made and remade.     

Look there! The effect of perspective,attention, and instructions on how people understand recorded police encounters

Now more than ever, body cameras, surveillance footage, dash‐cam footage, and bystanders with phones enable people to see for themselves officer and civilian behavior and determine the justifiability of officers' actions. This paper examines whether the camera perspective from which people watch police encounters influences the conclusions that people draw. Consistent with recent findings showing that body camera footage leads people to perceive officers' actions as less intentional (Turner, Caruso, Dilich, & Roese, 2019), our first study demonstrates that participants who watched body‐camera footage, compared with people who watched surveillance footage of the same encounter, perceived the officer's behavior as being more justified and made more lenient punishment decisions. In our second study, only one of the four police encounters that participants watched led participants to perceive the officer more favorably when they watched body‐camera footage compared with bystander footage. Our results demonstrate that some body‐camera footage—specifically videos that capture an officer using his or her body to apprehend a civilian—can lead to biased perceptions of police encounters that benefit the officer. Our findings suggest that this occurs because: (i) in body‐camera footage, the civilian is the more easily visible figure, thus making less salient the officer's role in the encounter; and (ii) the body camera—attached to an officer's uniform—is unable to adequately capture certain use of force movements that are important in determining an officer's intent.