Do narcissists make better decisions? An investigation of narcissism and dynamic decision-making performance

We investigated whether narcissism affected dynamic decision-making performance in the presence and absence of misleading information. Performance was examined in a two-choice dynamic decision-making task where the optimal strategy was to forego an option providing larger immediate rewards in favor of an option that led to larger delayed rewards. Information regarding foregone rewards from the alternate option was presented or withheld to bias participants toward the sub-optimal choice. The results demonstrated that individuals high in narcissistic traits performed comparably to low narcissism individuals when foregone reward information was absent, but high narcissism individuals outperformed individuals low in narcissistic traits when misleading information was presented. The advantage for participants high in narcissistic traits was strongest within males, and, overall, males outperformed females when foregone rewards were present. While prior research emphasizes narcissists’ decision-making deficits, our findings provide evidence that individuals high in narcissistic traits excel at decision-making tasks that involve disregarding ambiguous information and focusing on the long-term utility of each option. Their superior ability at filtering out misleading information may reflect an effort to maintain their self-view or avoid ego threat.     

Auditory streaming and vertical localization: Interdependence of “what” and “where” decisions in audition

When a sequence of two tones is presented over headphones in an ascending or descending order of pitch, it is heard as correspondingly ascending or descending in space. The illusion of spatial change that accompanies pitch change can be induced onto a pair of noise bursts by presenting them in synchrony with the tones. When cues known to produce stream segregation are introduced, the perceived position of the noises is less influenced by the tones. Stream organization is seen to be implicated in the ability to separately localize concurrent sources of sound. This suggests that “what” and “where” decisions are highly interactive and that neurological evidence that suggests separate pathways for these decisions must be interpreted with caution.     

Does anticipation of penalty kicks in soccer transfer across similar and dissimilar sports?

Cognitive Processing - The aim of the present study was to examine whether anticipation skill associated with penalty-kick scenarios is sport-specific, or whether it transfers between sports that...     

Body,skill, and look: is bodybuilding a sport?

I argue that bodybuilding should not qualify as a sport, given that at the competition stage it lacks an essential feature of sports, namely, skillful activity. Based on the classic distinction between Leib (the lived body) and Körper (the objective body) in phenomenology, I argue that bodybuilding competition’s sole purpose is to present the Körper, whereas sports are about manifestations of Leib. I consider several objections to this analysis, after which I conclude that bodybuilding is an endeavor closer to both beauty competitions and classical sculpture rather than to any other known sports.     

Is remembering less specifically part of an avoidant coping style? Associations between memory specificity,avoidant coping,and stress

Individuals higher on avoidant coping may remember fewer specific autobiographical memories and more nonspecific memories on the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) in order to protect themselves from the painful emotions accompanying some specific memories. Habitually remembering this way (overgeneral memory) may be a risk factor for depression. In Studies 1 and 2 (nondepressed samples), avoidant coping was associated with more specific memories and fewer overgeneral memories, at odds with the functional avoidance view. In Study 3 (depressed sample), there were no significant relationships between AMT indices and avoidant coping. Results are discussed in light of ironic process theory.     

Children's judgment and recall of causal connectives: A developmental study of “because,” “so,” and “and”

The present study examined the acceptability judgments and recall performance of children aged 6,9, and 11 years with sentences expressing psychological cause-effect relations. Thirty-two sentences containing because medially, because initially, so, and and were generated from four clause pairs. Both probable and improbable event orders were used. The results indicated that children preferred because to so or and for statements of psychological causality. However, on both tasks, first and third graders frequently failed to attend to the temporal ordering specified by each sentence construction. The younger children also tended to judge all sentences acceptable, suggesting that they were concerned only with the probable association of event pairs, and not with the usual order of the events. Order of mention strategies did not occur in any group, suggesting that they arise only when children cannot make interpretations based on probable order of events. The data also indicated that the recall task is an unreliable index of rules for comprehension and production.This article is based on research conducted by the first author as partial fulfillment of the Ph.D. requirements for the Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin.     

Examining the self-enhancement bias: professional truck drivers’ perceptions of speed,safety, skill and consideration

A sample of 1006 professional truck drivers were surveyed on their perceptions of self and average other speeds, consideration, relative safety, and relative skill. A disproportionate frequency of responses is found in the measures of speed, safety, and consideration, but not skill. In the measures of speed and consideration this bias is found to operate in a negative direction. Truck drivers are found to evaluate other road users negatively, they do not demonstrate ‘self-enhancement’ indicative of driver overconfidence. Drivers responsible for the biases are isolated from the sample using a method of triangulation. Background factors relating to driver characteristics and employment conditions are examined. Characteristics of the drivers’ employment indicate the perceptions are related to factors external to the drivers’ self-conceptions. These contrasts provide further support for the contention that the ‘self-enhancement bias’, as it appears in this sample, operates as a negative-other rationalisation.     

The “beam of darkness”: Spreading of the attentional blink within and between objects

When two targets (T1 and T2) are inserted into a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream of nontargets, observers are impaired at identifying T2 when it is presented within half a second after T1. This transient drop in performance, or attentional blink (AB), has been attributed to a temporary unavailability of task-critical processing resources. In the present study, we investigated how object-based attention modulates the AB, by presenting four synchronized RSVP streams in the corners of two rectangular bars (e.g., one above and one below fixation). The results from four experiments revealed that the AB increased within short temporal lags (of up to ～400 msec) when T2 was presented on the same, rather than a different, bar as T1 (with T1–T2 spatial distance controlled for). Thus, the AB is seen to spread across entire object groupings, suggesting that the spatiotemporal resolution of attention is modulated by global-object information.     

Self-control and cooperation: different concepts, similar decisions? A question of the right perspective

Conflicts between an individual's long-term and short-term goals (i.e., self-control conflicts) and conflicts between individual and collective interests (mixed-motive situations) share some interesting features. In this article both types of conflicts are approached from a perspective hypothesis. The hypothesis holds that a decision maker's perspective on his or her decision determines whether either the long-term goals (the collective interests) or the short-term goals (the individual interests) will guide behavior. The hypothesis also implies that factors known to enhance cooperative choices in mixed-motive situations should also facilitate self-control. Three such factors are evaluated: group identification, self-efficacy, and mutual trust. We conclude that the perspective in which choice is considered part of an identifiable series of behaviors is most likely to result in cooperation or self-control.     

On Defining “Reliance” and “Trust”: Purposes,Conditions of Adequacy,and New Definitions

Philosophia - Trust is often perceived as having great value. For example, there is a strong belief that trust will bring different sorts of public goods and help us preserve common resources. A...     

A comparison of “traditional” and “atypical” workers: Demographic,behavioral, and attitudinal differences

Differences among full-time (n=1066), part-time (n=132), and moonlighting employees (n=153) in a variety of occupations were examined. Moonlighters as compared to full-timers were younger, more frequently male, perceived less educational fit with their main jobs, and were primary wage earners. Full-timers as compared to part-timers were more frequently male, married, and primary wage earners. Part-timers had the greatest turnover, but no differences were detected for other withdrawal behaviors. Part-timers were more satisified with working conditions but were less satisfied with extrinsic rewards and life in general. Moonlighters expressed a stronger work ethic and placed less importance on working conditions.A version of this paper was presented at the 1991 Meetings of the Southwest Division of the Academy of Management in Houston, TX.     

“Benevolent Patriarchy”: Palestinian Women between “Ideal” and “Reality”

In this article polygyny is used to illustrate how the ideal of benevolent patriarchy and the “good” Muslim man as the benevolent patriarch tends to create a discrepancy between the legal and the moral in Islamic legislation as well as in Islamic discourse. The study is based on fieldwork in the West Bank in 2011 when 49 Islamist and Islamic-oriented women were interviewed. The main finding of this study is that Islamist women tend to accept the Islamic gender system as the divine will, and they also accept its legal expression, Personal Status Law. However, there is a little awareness of the lack of legal consequences for men who do not behave according to the moral code, which is not explicitly but only implicitly assumed in the law.     

“On That Day,His Feet Will Stand on the Mount of Olives”: The Mount of Olives and Its Hero between Jews,Christians, and Muslims

This article examines the changing Jewish attitudes toward the Mount of Olives, and toward the identification of its “hero” to come in the last days, in relation to the mount’s changing jurisdiction under Roman, Byzantine, and Muslim authority. It illustrates how the Christian appropriation of biblical ideas about the mountain—transforming the ascent and future descent of the Shekhinah into the ascent and future descent of Jesus—led the Jews to abandon those notions, and how the Muslim conquest then brought about a reinvigoration and expansion of the mountain’s original associations among Jews by relocating the appearance of the Messiah as well as apocalyptic scenes on the mount. In the first of these developments, the Byzantine prohibition against Jews approaching Jerusalem led to a distancing of the Jewish people from the biblical and postbiblical traditions that had been connected with the Mount of Olives and its environs during the Second Temple period. Subsequently, the Muslim occupation of the area neutralized that tension, allowing Jews to return to the mountain and restoring the traditions associated with it to the Jewish consciousness. The reaffirmation of the Jewish connection with the Mount of Olives and its ancient association with the future hero may be seen in two developments that took place under Muslim rule: its choice as the location for a yearly Hoshana Rabbah ceremony and its renewed identification as the site for the resurrection of the dead at the End of Days.     

The “concept of time” and the “being of the clock”: Bergson, Einstein, Heidegger, and the interrogation of the temporality of modernism

The topic to be addressed in this paper, that is, the distinction between the “concept” of time and the being of the clock, divides into two parts: first, in the debate between Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson, one discovers the ground for the diverging concepts of time characterized by physics in its opposing itself to philosophy. Bergson’s durée or “duration” in opposition to Einstein’s ‘physicist’s time’ as ‘public time,’ one can argue, sets the terms for Martin Heidegger’s extending, his ontological analysis of Da-sein, as human being-in-the-world. Second, in this the ‘concept of time’ gives way to the analysis of the ‘being of the clock.’ What is this being of the clock that makes evident the fundamental temporality of Da-sein? This question is rehearsed in Division Two of Being and Time. My claim is that the fundamental insight into the nature of time revealed by the encounter between Bergson and Einstein is that time extemporizes itself. Temporality “is” not a being but a process that temporalizes itself, precisely because it “is not.”     

Orientation specificity in chromatic adaptation of human “edge-detectors”

The McCollough effect, a pattern-specific complementary hue aftereffect, has usually been demonstrated with horizontal and vertical adapting and test patterns. The present study measured the strength of the effect produced by adapting patterns of various angular separations. The effect decreased with decreasing angular separations until it was minimal at 11 deg of separation. The results are considered to be consistent with an edge-detector interpretation of this aftereffect. With vertical and horizontal adapting patterns, the reddish aftereffect was 17% and the greenish aftereffect 9%of colorimetric purity.     

Challenges,Dilemmas and Factors Involved in PGD Decision-Making: Providers’ and Patients’ Views,Experiences and Decisions

Providers and patients are considering and pursuing PGD for ever-more conditions, but questions arise concerning how they make, view and experience these decisions, and what challenges they may face. Thirty-seven in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted (with 27 IVF providers and 10 patients). Patients and providers struggled with challenges and dilemmas about whether to pursue PGD in specific cases, and how to decide. Respondents varied in how they viewed, experienced and made these choices, and for which conditions to pursue PGD (from lethal, childhood-onset conditions to milder, treatable, or adult-onset disorders). Several factors were involved, including differences in gene penetrance, predictability, and phenotypic expression, and disease severity, age of onset, treatability, stigma and degree of disability. Providers and patients face questions regarding possibilities of screening for more than one condition in one set of embryos, and limitations of PGD (e.g., inaccurate results). Characteristics of providers (e.g., amount of PGD experience, understandings of genetics, and use of genetic counselors), and of patients (e.g., related to broader moral and social attitudes) can also affect these decisions. These data, the first to examine several key questions concerning PGD, suggest that providers and patients confront several dilemmas. These findings have critical implications for future practice, guidelines, education and research.     

Philosophy,psychology and the moral crisis: Reflections on compassion “between tradition and another beginning”

Abstract

The author presents, and his thinking passes through, the work of Werner Marx who seeks a non‐metaphysical ethical mooring via compassion, grounded in emotional dimensions of existential‐phenomenology. Through Marx's re‐centered compassion the author inquires if reason and faith cannot be resurrected in intrinsic and holistic form. Marx's ethics is introduced as one of the directions humanistic thinking is taking, suggesting this latter's considerable prospective role as a human vision in the ethical debate in transition between failed modern and ethically vulnerable postmodern paradigms.