In search and proof of human beings, not machines

My intentions are twofold in this autobiographical account. On one hand, I hope to present empirical and theoretical evidence for a freely willing human being. On the other, I carefully record the developing stages I lived through to cement my confidence in the image of humanity I would like my readers to accept. I have, in my career development, worked hard to redefine psychological terminology, defend traditional scientific practices, and provide support for all those colleagues who can no longer stand the mechanistic characterization that so many psychology departments insist on. I have spent over 40 years pursuing such goals. It is not likely that I will ever give up my quest for what I take to be a genuine humanity.     

Redefining the psychological autopsy: A proposal for collaboration between forensic pathology and investigative psychology

Excepting psychiatry, psychology and medicine remain largely separate disciplines. In forensic inquiries, the psychologist assesses the mind, whereas the pathologist examines the body. Both fields, however, actively participate in the same investigations, albeit from different standpoints, contributing to explorations of crime scene dynamics, identification of offenders, and legal proceedings. In recent years, peer review has become a staple of research, because subjecting work to scrutiny by other experts promotes accuracy. Forensic pathologists would benefit from insights provided by investigative psychology, particularly if asked to apply psychology to their testimony, and integration with forensic pathology may increase the acceptance of empirical profiling evidence in the courtroom. Additionally, incorporation of medical findings—such as wound patterns, evidence of range of fire, and cause of death determinations—could add another level of detail to techniques like smallest space analysis. The following functions as a proposal for the incorporation of forensic pathological findings into investigative psychology research and the application of investigative psychology to forensic pathology practice. Cooperation has the potential to extend the scope of knowledge in both disciplines, to increase their applicability to and acceptance in legal contexts and to maximize the probative value of evidence provided in the court of law.     

The Real Foundation of Fictional Worlds

I argue that judgments of what is ‘true in a fiction’ presuppose the Reality Assumption: the assumption that everything that is (really) true is fictionally the case, unless excluded by the work. By contrast with the more familiar Reality Principle, the Reality Assumption is not a rule for inferring implied content from what is explicit. Instead, it provides an array of real-world truths that can be used in such inferences. I claim that the Reality Assumption is essential to our ability to understand stories, drawing on a range of empirical evidence that demonstrates our reliance on it in narrative comprehension. However, the Reality Assumption has several unintuitive consequences, not least that what is fictionally the case includes countless facts that neither authors nor readers could (or should) ever consider. I argue that such consequences provide no reason to reject the Reality Assumption. I conclude that we should take fictions, like non-fictions, to be about the real world.     

Core self‐evaluations: a review of the trait and its role in job satisfaction and job performance

Over the past five years there has been a growing body of literature that examines the relationships among some of psychology's most studied traits (Neuroticism, self‐esteem, and locus of control). Core self‐evaluation theory posits a conceptual and empirical relationship between these traits and job satisfaction. After briefly reviewing core self‐evaluation theory, we examine the empirical evidence documenting a relationship between these traits and the two central criteria of interest to I/O psychologists—job satisfaction and job performance. We then examine the relationship between core self‐evaluation traits and the Big Five personality traits. We conclude with a discussion of the contributions and limitations of core self‐evaluation research and opportunities for future research. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

In Search Of True Things Worth Knowing: Considerations For A New Article Prototype

Within social and personality psychology, the existing “old prototype” of a publishable article is at odds with new expectations for transparent reporting. If researchers anticipate having to report everything while continuing to aim for a research product that includes multiple studies, examining a novel effect, with only statistically significant results, this will have negative implications for initial decisions about what research to conduct. First, researchers will be discouraged from collecting additional data because this could potentially mar existing findings. Second, they will be discouraged from pursuing questions for which the answers are unknown, as this would be a waste if the results do not fit old‐prototype expectations. These practices undermine what seem to be two universal values within personality and social psychology: truth and interestingness. Suggestions for a “new prototype” that de‐emphasizes p‐value cutoffs, multiple studies, and novelty will be discussed with an eye toward encouraging research decisions that foster true and interesting findings.     

Aristotle on the Homonymy of Being

A number of philosophers endorse, without argument, the view that there's something it's like consciously to think that p , which is distinct from what it's like consciously to think that q . This thesis, if true, would have important consequences for philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In this paper I offer two arguments for it.
The first argument claims it would be impossible introspectively to distinguish conscious thoughts with respect to their content if there weren't something it's like to think them. This argument is defended against several objections.
The second argument uses what I call "minimal pair" experiences—sentences read without and with understanding—to induce in the reader an experience of the kind I claim exists. Further objections are considered and rebutted.     

Deci and Ryan's cognitive evaluation theory of intrinsic motivation: A set of common sense theorems

Cognitive evaluation theory as put forward by Deci and Ryan (1985) is examined. The theory, which deals with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, has inspired considerable amount of empirical research in the last two decades. However, contrary to the mainstream view and that of its authors, it is argued here that the theory consists of necessary truths of common sense (folk) psychology, rather than contingent and empirically testable hypotheses. As such the theory spells out what must necessarily be the case in human motivation and the empirical evidence amassed to test its validity is irrelevant. Such testing should be abandoned if its purpose is to appraise the truth value of the theory's propositions. To empirically test necessary true propositions is not only redundant in such cases, but also a waste of time and resources.     

The Role of Evolutionary Hypotheses in Psychological Research: Instincts,Affordances, and Relic Sex Differences

Properly formed and properly used evolutionary hypotheses invalidate most common criticisms and must be judged, like other hypotheses in science, through their ability to be theoretically and empirically progressive. Well-formed hypotheses incorporate established evolutionary theory with evidence of actual historical conditions. A complex, multifaceted hypothesis can predict patterns of phenotypic variation that would make sense if the hypothesis is true, but be unlikely if it is false. This approach to evolutionarily guided research is illustrated via the sexual-dinichism hypothesis, which proposes historical niche divergence between the sexes during which females could still make adaptive use of trees, but larger males could not. This has led to the investigation of several traits in modern children, where evidence for predicted sex differences in behavior were discovered. We find the objections of critics (e.g., Burton, this issue) to be appropriate for criticizing post hoc evolutionary explanations and perhaps poorly developed hypotheses, but not well-formed and properly used theories. We hold that evolutionary theories are an essential part of psychology in general and ecological psychology in particular.     

FIVE REASONS WHY THE "BIG FIVE" ARTICLE HAS BEEN FREQUENTLY CITED

This study investigated the relation of the "Big Five" personality dimensions (Extraversion, Emotional Stability, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience) to three job performance criteria (job proficiency, training proficiency, and personnel data) for five occupational groups (professionals, police, managers, sales, and skill/semi-skilled). Results indicated that one dimension of personality, Conscientiousness, showed consistent relations with all job performance criteria for all occupational groups. For the remaining personality dimensions, the estimated true score correlations varied by occupational group and criterion type. Extraversion was a valid predictor for two occupations involving social interaction, managers and sales (across criterion types). Also, both Openness to Experience and Extraversion were valid predictors of the training proficiency criterion (across occupations). Other personality dimensions were also found to be valid predictors for some occupations and some criterion types, but the magnitude of the estimated true score correlations was small ( p <10). Overall, the results illustrate the benefits of using the 5-factor model of personality to accumulate and communicate empirical findings. The findings have numerous implications for research and practice in personnel psychology, especially in the subfields of personnel selection, training and development, and performance appraisal.     

THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS AND JOB PERFORMANCE: A META-ANALYSIS

This study investigated the relation of the "Big Five" personality dimensions (Extraversion, Emotional Stability, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience) to three job performance criteria (job proficiency, training proficiency, and personnel data) for five occupational groups (professionals, police, managers, sales, and skilled/semi-skilled). Results indicated that one dimension of personality, Conscientiousness, showed consistent relations with all job performance criteria for all occupational groups. For the remaining personality dimensions, the estimated true score correlations varied by occupational group and criterion type. Extraversion was a valid predictor for two occupations involving social interaction, managers and sales (across criterion types). Also, both Openness to Experience and Extraversion were valid predictors of the training proficiency criterion (across occupations). Other personality dimensions were also found to be valid predictors for some occupations and some criterion types, but the magnitude of the estimated true score correlations was small (ρ < .10). Overall, the results illustrate the benefits of using the 5-factor model of personality to accumulate and communicate empirical findings. The findings have numerous implications for research and practice in personnel psychology , especially in the subfields of personnel selection, training and development, and performance appraisal.     

Mental imagery: in search of a theory

It is generally accepted that there is something special about reasoning by using mental images. The question of how it is special, however, has never been satisfactorily spelled out, despite more than thirty years of research in the post-behaviorist tradition. This article considers some of the general motivation for the assumption that entertaining mental images involves inspecting a picture-like object. It sets out a distinction between phenomena attributable to the nature of mind to what is called the cognitive architecture, and ones that are attributable to tacit knowledge used to simulate what would happen in a visual situation. With this distinction in mind, the paper then considers in detail the widely held assumption that in some important sense images are spatially displayed or are depictive, and that examining images uses the same mechanisms that are deployed in visual perception. I argue that the assumption of the spatial or depictive nature of images is only explanatory if taken literally, as a claim about how images are physically instantiated in the brain, and that the literal view fails for a number of empirical reasons--for example, because of the cognitive penetrability of the phenomena cited in its favor. Similarly, while it is arguably the case that imagery and vision involve some of the same mechanisms, this tells us very little about the nature of mental imagery and does not support claims about the pictorial nature of mental images. Finally, I consider whether recent neuroscience evidence clarifies the debate over the nature of mental images. I claim that when such questions as whether images are depictive or spatial are formulated more clearly, the evidence does not provide support for the picture-theory over a symbol-structure theory of mental imagery. Even if all the empirical claims were true, they do not warrant the conclusion that many people have drawn from them: that mental images are depictive or are displayed in some (possibly cortical) space. Such a conclusion is incompatible with what is known about how images function in thought. We are then left with the provisional counterintuitive conclusion that the available evidence does not support rejection of what I call the "null hypothesis"; namely, that reasoning with mental images involves the same form of representation and the same processes as that of reasoning in general, except that the content or subject matter of thoughts experienced as images includes information about how things would look.     

On the function of weak phantasmata in perception: Phenomenological,psychological and neurological clues for the transcendental function of imagination in perception

Weak phantasmata have a decisive and specifically transcendental function in our everyday perception. This paper provides several different arguments for this claim based on evidence from both empirical psychology and phenomenology.I would like to express my gratitude to Bill McKenna for his help with the English text and his critical remarks. This paper was presented in the Cork Roundtable for Philosophy in March 2003, at University College, Cork, and I would like to thank Julia Jansen, Tony O’Connor and the other participants for their constructive critique.     

The effect of time constraints and personality facets on general cognitive ability (GCA) assessment

General cognitive ability (GCA) is a recognized construct for predicting job performance and capacity to learn. However, it has recently been argued that the time constraints under which GCA is assessed might provoke test anxiety, which negatively biases GCA scores. This can then lead to erroneous rejection of qualified candidates in personnel hiring contexts. This paper aimed to investigate: (1) to what extent candidates’ GCA scores increase when tested without time constraints and the ability of this GCA score to predict job performance; and (2) the personality characteristics that hinder GCA test performance under time constraints. Results from two field studies conducted in an actual personnel selection context partially confirmed the hypotheses. They revealed that, aside from the improvement of all candidates’ GCA scores when time constraint was removed, only GCA assessed without time constraints predicts job performance. Furthermore, while all candidates’ scores were influenced by the time constraint condition, individuals who are anxious, low-impulse, low value-questioning and deliberating are more penalized by the time constraint condition of such testing and, thus, are more likely to be erroneously eliminated in a selection process.     

Commentary: Why Do Research on Spirituality and Health, and What Do the Results Mean?

I address two related questions in this article. First, why conduct research on religion/spirituality (R/S) and health? Second, what are the dangers of misinterpreting or misapplying the results from such research? If relationships are found, so what? What is the practical value or clinical relevance of such information? Why should investigators spend time and scarce financial resources to explore such connections? What might health care professionals do differently as a result? How would people live their lives differently in light of such information? Questions like these need solid answers for the field to continue to move forward. Related to the "So what?" question is the issue of how results from research in this area are translated into popular understanding and application. After discussing why conducting research on religion and health is important, I identify a recently published research report that focuses on the relationship between R/S and self-control, an article that received considerable media press coverage. I present the results reported by the authors of this study and then examine a column written about the study that appeared in the New York Times. Finally, I explore what the findings mean, how the media portrayed the findings, and problems that might result depending on how people applied those findings.     

Why it doesn’t matter whether the virtues are truth-conducive

A potential explanation of a fact is a hypothesis such that, if it were true, it would explain the fact in question. Let’s suppose that we become aware of a fact and some potential explanations thereof. Let’s also suppose that we would like to believe the truth. Given this aim, we can ask two questions. First, is it likely that one of these hypotheses is true? Second, given an affirmative answer to the first question, which one is it likely to be? Inference to the best explanation (IBE) offers answers to both questions. To the first, it says ‘Yes’—assuming that at least one of the hypotheses would, if true, provide a satisfactory explanation of the fact under consideration. To the second, it says that the hypothesis most likely to be true is the one that scores best on the explanatory virtues: conservatism, modesty, simplicity, generality, and predictive power. Many philosophers have argued against IBE’s answer to the first question. I am interested in an objection to its answer to the second. Many philosophers seem to think that it is unsustainable: they seem to think that even if we assume that one of the competing hypotheses is true, we should not think that IBE will help us to identify it. Or, more carefully, if these philosophers are doing what they appear to be doing—namely, offering critiques of IBE that don’t depend on assumptions about the field of competing hypotheses—then their claim is that IBE will not help us to identify the truth. I believe that this is mistaken: the argument for believing it assumes a model of IBE that we have no reason to accept.     

Do framing effects make moral intuitions unreliable?

I address Sinnott-Armstrong's argument that evidence of framing effects in moral psychology shows that moral intuitions are unreliable and therefore not noninferentially justified. I begin by discussing what it is to be epistemically unreliable and clarify how framing effects render moral intuitions unreliable. This analysis calls for a modification of Sinnott-Armstrong's argument if it is to remain valid. In particular, he must claim that framing is sufficiently likely to determine the content of moral intuitions. I then re-examine the evidence which is supposed to support this claim. In doing so, I provide a novel suggestion for how to analyze the reliability of intuitions in empirical studies. Analysis of the evidence suggests that moral intuitions subject to framing effects are in fact much more reliable than perhaps was thought, and that Sinnott-Armstrong has not succeeded in showing that noninferential justification has been defeated.     

THE CHARACTER OF VIRTUE: ANSWERING THE SITUATIONIST CHALLENGE TO VIRTUE ETHICS

Neo‐Aristotelian virtue ethics makes essential reference to the notion of a stable, robust character‐trait. It also claims to be constrained by at least a minimal degree of psychological realism. Recent developments in empirical psychology have drawn into question the evidence for the existence of such robust traits, arguing that it rests on what has been called a ‘fundamental attribution error’. Virtue ethics has thus seemingly been made vulnerable to criticisms that it is essentially dependent on an erroneous, folk‐psychological, notion of character and, so, must either abandon their characteristic notion of virtue or forego any pretensions to psychological realism. I develop a two‐pronged response to this objection. First, I argue that there is reason to question much of the empirical evidence and that such evidence as does exist can easily be accommodated by virtue ethics. Next, I argue that even if we allow that neo‐Aristotelian virtue ethical theories does sometimes presuppose a stronger conception of character‐traits than is warranted by the evidence, this does not significantly undermine the virtue ethicist's project.     

Operationism in psychology: what the debate is about, what the debate should be about

I offer an analysis of operationism in psychology, which is rooted in an historical study of the investigative practices of two of its early proponents (S. S. Stevens and E. C. Tolman). According to this analysis, early psychological operationists emphasized the importance of experimental operations and called for scientists to specify what kinds of operations were to count as empirical indicators for the referents of their concepts. While such specifications were referred to as "definitions," I show that such definitions were not taken to constitute a priori knowledge or be analytically true. Rather, they served the pragmatic function of enabling scientists to do research on a purported phenomenon. I argue that historical and philosophical discussions of problems with operationism have conflated it, both conceptually and historically, with positivism, and I raise the question of what are the "real" issues behind the debate about operationism.     

The Content Validity of Cognitively Oriented Tests: Commentary on Schmidt ()

Schmidt (International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 20, 1–13 (2012)) argues that it is possible for scores based on measures of general cognitive ability (GCA) to have content validity evidence. This commentary examines this argument further. I first decompose the various lines of validity evidence that may exist for GCA scores. Next, I consider whether GCA scores can have content validity evidence and whether they cannot. I conclude with several observations about the meaning of content validity within GCA research and practice. The bottom line is that although I agree with Schmidt that GCA scores can have content validity evidence, I am not sure such evidence tells us much about the overall validity of GCA.