小概率事件对因果关系认知的影响

1　引言　　心理学对因果关系的认知和迷信行为有过不少研究。人类的天性之一 ,就是当一件事情发生以后 ,都会有意无意的去寻找导致事情发生的原因 ,即归因。心理学一般将归因看成是一种决策过程 ;而对一种结果 ,往往有多种可能的候选因素存在 ,到底哪一种因素是造成该结果的原因 ,这就需要通过比较、推断 ,最后做出决策。归因出错就是产生了错误的因果关系认知。迷信就是因果关系的错误认知的一个典型例证 ,它在结果与原因之间建立了错误的关联 ,形成了错误的因果认知。在心理学历史上对于错误的因果认知以及迷信的一个经典的研究就是行为…     

A Fuzzy Measure for Explanatory Coherence

In a series of articles, Paul Thagard has developed a connectionist's modelfor the evaluation of explanatory coherence for competing systems ofhypotheses. He has successfully applied it to various examples from thehistory of science and common language reasoning. However, I will argue thathis formalism does not adequately represent explanatory relations betweenmore than two propositions.In this paper, I develop a generalization of Thagard's approach. It is notsubject to the connectionist paradigm of neural nets, but is based on fuzzylogic: Explanatory coherence increases with the fuzzy truth value of theconjunction of explanans and explanandum and decreases with the value of theconjunction of explanans and the negation of the explanandum.     

Confidence Intervals for the Probability of Superiority Effect Size Measure and the Area Under a Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve

It is good scientific practice to the report an appropriate estimate of effect size and a confidence interval (CI) to indicate the precision with which a population effect was estimated. For comparisons of 2 independent groups, a probability-based effect size estimator (A) that is equal to the area under a receiver operating characteristic curve and closely related to the popular Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney nonparametric statistical tests has many appealing properties (e.g., easy to understand, robust to violations of parametric assumptions, insensitive to outliers). We performed a simulation study to compare 9 analytic and 3 empirical (bootstrap) methods for constructing a CI for A that can yield very different CIs for the same data. The experimental design crossed 6 factors to yield a total of 324 cells representing challenging but realistic data conditions. Results were examined using several criteria, with emphasis placed on the extent to which observed CI coverage probabilities approximated nominal levels. Based on the simulation study results, the bias-corrected and accelerated bootstrap method is recommended for constructing a CI for the A statistic; bootstrap methods also provided the least biased and most accurate standard error of A. An empirical illustration examining score differences on a citation-based index of scholarly impact across faculty at low-ranked versus high-ranked research universities underscores the importance of choosing an appropriate CI method.     

A Note on Comparative Probability

A possible event always seems to be more probable than an impossible event. Although this constraint, usually alluded to as regularity, is prima facie very attractive, it cannot hold for standard probabilities. Moreover, in a recent paper Timothy Williamson has challenged even the idea that regularity can be integrated into a comparative conception of probability by showing that the standard comparative axioms conflict with certain cases if regularity is assumed. In this note, we suggest that there is a natural weakening of the standard comparative axioms. It is shown that these axioms are consistent both with the regularity condition and with the essential feature of Williamson’s example.     

A Short Measure of the Need for Affect

Summary

Widespread divergencies of opinion exist over the usefulness, the nature, the purpose, and the scientific status of clinical psychological testing. This paper seeks to order these problems in historical and philosophical perspective. Largely different values and orientations have been contributed by traditional American academic psychology, by clinical psychology, and by psychiatry. Academic psychologists advocate a rigorous scientific basis (logical positivism) for testing, which the clinician tends to find overly confining and antagonistic to his humanistic, individual centered, service orientation; while psychiatrists tend to differ greatly among themselves in their understanding of psychological testing and hence exert no uniform influence on the practice. The current trend emphasizes greater sophistication in the academic approach to testing, with advances in empiricism and computer-aided manipulation of data, while the more clinically oriented psychologists seek to strengthen their theoretical position and to demonstrate the effectiveness of their methods through studies of clinical judgment. At the same time basic methodological research to support the “clinical position” is yet too sparse. It is proposed that both academic and clinical approaches have a significant contribution to make to clinical psychological testing. Ultimately the design of psychological tests and the evaluation of their usefulness rests upon what we conceive psychological science to be, and we need to remind ourselves, in this regard, that the conception of science is subject to change.     

A Set Theory with Support for Partial Functions

Partial functions can be easily represented in set theory as certain sets of ordered pairs. However, classical set theory provides no special machinery for reasoning about partial functions. For instance, there is no direct way of handling the application of a function to an argument outside its domain as in partial logic. There is also no utilization of lambda-notation and sorts or types as in type theory. This paper introduces a version of von-Neumann-Bernays-Gödel set theory for reasoning about sets, proper classes, and partial functions represented as classes of ordered pairs. The underlying logic of the system is a partial first-order logic, so class-valued terms may be nondenoting. Functions can be specified using lambda-notation, and reasoning about the application of functions to arguments is facilitated using sorts similar to those employed in the logic of the IMPS Interactive Mathematical Proof System. The set theory is intended to serve as a foundation for mechanized mathematics systems.     

Probability: A new logico-semantical approach

This approach does not define a probability measure by syntactical structures. It reveals a link between modal logic and mathematical probability theory. This is shown (1) by adding an operator (and two further connectives and constants) to a system of lower predicate calculus and (2) regarding the models of that extended system. These models are models of the modal systemS ₅ (without the Barcan formula), where a usual probability measure is defined on their set of possible worlds. Mathematical probability models can be seen as models ofS ₅.     

A Categorical Approach to Probability Theory

First, we discuss basic probability notions from the viewpoint of category theory. Our approach is based on the following four “sine quibus non” conditions: 1. (elementary) category theory is efficient (and suffices); 2. random variables, observables, probability measures, and states are morphisms; 3. classical probability theory and fuzzy probability theory in the sense of S. Gudder and S. Bugajski are special cases of a more general model; 4. a good model allows natural modifications. Second, we show that the category ID of D-posets of fuzzy sets and sequentially continuous D-homomorphisms allows to characterize the passage from classical to fuzzy events as the minimal generalization having nontrivial quantum character: a degenerated state can be transported to a nondegenerated one. Third, we describe a general model of probability theory based on the category ID so that the classical and fuzzy probability theories become special cases and the model allows natural modifications. Finally, we present a modification in which the closed unit interval [0,1] as the domain of traditional states is replaced by a suitable simplex.     

Probability Semantics for Quantifier Logic

By supplying propositional calculus with a probability semantics we showed, in our 1996, that finite stochastic problems can be treated by logic-theoretic means equally as well as by the usual set-theoretic ones. In the present paper we continue the investigation to further the use of logical notions in probability theory. It is shown that quantifier logic, when supplied with a probability semantics, is capable of treating stochastic problems involving countably many trials.     

Probability Theory and Probability Semantics

Book Information Probability Theory and Probability Semantics. By P. Roeper and H. Leblanc. University of Toronto Press. Toronto. 1999. Pp. xii + 240. Hardback, US$65.00.     

A New Measure of Introversion-Extroversion

Five groups of grade school children (N = 237) were selected and administered the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. The five groups included urban-middle income children (N = 47), urban-lower income children (N = 49), rural children (N = 72), Indian-lower income children (N = 54), and Indian-impoverished children (N = 15). Significant differences were found on all three measures of verbal creativity, with the verbal flexibility and verbal originality measures significant at the .001 level, and the verbal fluency measure significant at the .005 level. On all three measures, the groups scored from high to low in the following order: rural, urban-middle income, urban-lower income, Indian-lower income, and Indian-impoverished. None of the four measures of figural creativity showed significant differences.     

条件推理的条件概率模型述评

该文从理论模型和实验范式两个方面对Oaksford等人提出的条件推理概率模型作了综合评述,并充分肯定该模型将演绎推理与归纳推理结合起来进行研究对推理心理学的发展所作出的重要贡献。     

A Rasch Measure of Fostering Creativity

A general creativity questionnaire of 21 stem-items was designed and based on 7 teaching aspects of fostering creativity in higher education students: (a) teaching the skills and attitudes of creativity; (b) teaching the creative methods of the disciplines; (c) developing a problem-friendly classroom; (d) using prior knowledge; (e) using different types of problems; (f) using multi-disciplinary hands-on projects; and (g) using appropriate lesson plans. Stem-items (21) based on these were conceptualized from easy to hard—3 stem-items for each of the 7 aspects—and answered in 2 perspectives: (a) an attitude self-view (ideally this is what I think I should do) and (b) a behavior self-view (this is what I actually do)—using 3 ordered response categories: none or some of the time (score 1), most of the time (score 2), and all of the time (score 3). This meant that the effective item sample was 42. The general questionnaire was applied to a lecturer sample from a higher institution, N = 124. Data were analyzed with a Rasch measurement model computer program. The item-trait interaction chi-square was not statistically significant (χ² = 87.6, df = 84, p = 0.37), meaning that a unidimensional trait (called fostering creativity) was measured in which the 42 items each fitted the measurement model with p > 0.02. The Person Separation Index was 0.78 and the Cronbach Alpha was 0.79 showing that the measures were well-separated along the scale in comparison to the errors.     

A Framework and Measure for Examining Risk Climate in Financial Institutions

Purpose

The risk environment within organizations and business groups has been identified as a key factor in preventing scandal, unexpected losses, and even insolvency in financial institutions. The objective of this paper is to propose a multilevel framework for investigating risk climate (the shared perceptions among employees of the relative priority given to risk management, including perceptions of the risk-related practices and behaviors that are expected, valued and supported), together with its outcomes and antecedents, and validate a new measure.

Design/Methodology/Approach

A bottom-up phenomenon-driven process was used in scale development. We drew on published case studies, the industry literature, and interviews with subject matter experts. We performed three studies across a total of 10,544 employees in three different banks based in different countries. An online survey methodology was used to first explore and then confirm the factor structure, fit and invariance of our risk climate measure at the individual level of analysis, before progressing to examine fit and invariance across both the individual and business unit level simultaneously.

Findings

We found evidence for four unique factors of risk climate that were invariant across three organizations, two countries, and two levels of analysis (individual and business unit).

Implications

The risk climate scale presented in this paper provides a means by which senior leaders of financial institutions may better understand risk climate and how it varies at the business unit level. This information is relevant both to meet regulatory requirements and as a guide for potential intervention to strengthen or change risk climate.

Originality/Value

This paper provides the first academic study of a new strategic-focused climate construct based on the relative priority given to risk management.

     

A Balanced Measure Of Attributional Style

A New measure of attributional style, the Balanced Attributional Style Questionnaire (BASQ), is described in which the positive and negative items are matched for content. The BASQ requires subjects to write down the major cause for each of eight good events and eight bad events, equally divided into achievement and affiliation situations. Subscale scores can be obtained for the rated internality, stability, and globality of the reported causes and for the importance of the situations, and composite measures of attributional style can also be derived. These scores are shown to have respectable psychometric properties (inter-item reliability, test-reliability, validity) encouraging further use and development of the BASQ in a variety of settings.