When Beliefs Lead to (Im)Moral Action: How Believing in Torture's Effectiveness Shapes the Endorsement of Its Use

Does believing in torture's effectiveness shape the endorsements of its use? Using a multimethod approach across six studies, we provide converging evidence that efficacy beliefs can help increase understanding of individual differences and situational influences on torture support. Studies 1a and 1b found that torture opinions contained more efficacy‐based language than other types of harm and that people relied more on torture efficacy than torture's inherent morality when conveying their views. Study 2 assessed predictors of torture favorability including effectiveness and other key covariates, revealing that efficacy beliefs strongly predicted torture favorability—an association that retained its predictive validity above and beyond individual differences known to influence torture support. Mediation analyses further showed that efficacy beliefs explained key associations with torture support. Studies 3 and 4 used moral dilemmas requiring decisions about torture versus other harm. Results showed that individuals who believed harm would be effective were more likely to endorse its use; this was especially evident for torture judgments. Study 5 replicated the torture‐efficacy effect while also revealing efficacy effects for other interrogation techniques, thus suggesting the effect is driven more by the instrumental objective of torture than harm or moral violations. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

How to Feel Good Without Feeling Good About Yourself (or The Art of Living)

In this article, I will discuss three realities of the activating event (A) and argue the importance of making staying in the moment a key concept of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. I will also discuss the unlikelihood of reaching personal happiness and inner peace with a concept of self-worth. I will then provide two equations for happiness that help us achieve the ultimate goal of inner peace and will virtually guarantee that we feel good without feeling good about ourselves.     

Locus of control and the ability to tolerate gratification delay: When it is better to be an external

An experiment was conducted to investigate the relationship between the locus of control orientation of fourth-grade children and delay frustration experienced in self-imposed and externally imposed delay situations. Time estimation was used as the index of delay frustration, with greater time estimates being interpreted as indicating greater frustration. In a self-imposed delay situation, external subjects estimated a 5-min delay to be longer than did internal subjects, while in an externally imposed delay situation, internal subjects estimated a 5-min delay to be longer than did external subjects. The implications of the findings for an understanding of both the locus of control dimension and delay behavior are discussed.     

Now you see it,now you don't--the confusing case of confusion as an emotion: commentary on Rozin and Cohen (2003)

P. Rozin and A. B. Cohen (2003) contend that confusion is an emotion because it is valenced, it has a distinct facial expression, and it has a distinct internal state. On the basis of these criteria, they call for further study of this unstudied stateand challenge emotion researchers to consider "confusion" to be an emotion. The author agrees with Rozin and Cohen (2003) that confusion is an affective state, is valenced, has an (internal) object, may be expressed facially, and that laypersons may, under certain circumstances, consider it an emotion. However, its expression is likely to be an expressive component of emotions for which goal obstruction is central. Further, confusion may also not be as commonly considered an emotion by laypersons, as Rozin and Cohen contend. Finally, confusion is not unstudied, only most of the time it is not emotion researchers who do the researching.     

强纲领的建构与解构(上)--兼论SSK研究纲领的转向

使爱丁堡学派著称于学术界的强纲领 ,是由其领袖人物布鲁尔 (D .Bloor)和巴恩斯(B .Barnes)提出的。布鲁尔在“维特根斯坦与曼海姆的数学社会学” ( 1973 )一文和《知识及社会意象》 ( 1976)一书中 ,巴恩斯在《科学知识和社会学理论》 ( 1974)一书中 ,先后阐述了强纲领的四条原则 ,即因果性 (causality)、公正性 (impartiality)、对称性 (symmetry)和反身性 (reflexivity)。强纲领的提出 ,标志着科学知识社会学 (sociologyofscientificKnowledge ,下简称SSK)的诞生。在强纲领的启蒙下 ,SSK迅速形成了科学争论研究、实验室研究和科学话…     

When to (or not to) trust intelligent machines: Insights from an evolutionary game theory analysis of trust in repeated games

The actions of intelligent agents, such as chatbots, recommender systems, and virtual assistants are typically not fully transparent to the user. Consequently, users take the risk that such agents act in ways opposed to the users’ preferences or goals. It is often argued that people use trust as a cognitive shortcut to reduce the complexity of such interactions. Here we formalise this by using the methods of evolutionary game theory to study the viability of trust-based strategies in repeated games. These are reciprocal strategies that cooperate as long as the other player is observed to be cooperating. Unlike classic reciprocal strategies, once mutual cooperation has been observed for a threshold number of rounds they stop checking their co-player’s behaviour every round, and instead only check it with some probability. By doing so, they reduce the opportunity cost of verifying whether the action of their co-player was actually cooperative. We demonstrate that these trust-based strategies can outcompete strategies that are always conditional, such as Tit-for-Tat, when the opportunity cost is non-negligible. We argue that this cost is likely to be greater when the interaction is between people and intelligent agents, because of the reduced transparency of the agent. Consequently, we expect people to use trust-based strategies more frequently in interactions with intelligent agents. Our results provide new, important insights into the design of mechanisms for facilitating interactions between humans and intelligent agents, where trust is an essential factor.     

When consensus fails: an analysis of the schism within the Italian Communist Party (1991)

Schisms within groups are extremely widespread, yet the phenomenon has been virtually ignored within social psychology. Indeed prominent theories of group process virtually exclude the possibility of schism by presupposing the unitary nature of group identity. In this paper we offer a social psychological approach to the schismatic process based on the idea that, while group members may expect to achieve consensus, the issue of where that consensus should reside may be a matter of argument. When differing constructions cannot be reconciled such that what one faction considers to represent group identity is seen by the another to contradict group identity, then the basis for schism exists. This approach is illustrated using an analysis of the 1991 split of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) into two organizations, the PDS and RC. Interviews with 26 members of these two organizations show that they produce different arguments concerning the identity of the categories involved. However, all the arguments are structured so as to construe the ingroup faction as consonant with the true identity of the PCI and the outgroup faction as dissonant with that identity. The implication of this analysis both for a social psychology of schism and for the conceptualization of group consensus are discussed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of the Attitudes to Moral Decision-making in Youth Sport Questionnaire (AMDYSQ)

ObjectivesTo develop a questionnaire on attitudes to moral decision making in youth sport and describe the levels of ethical attitudes in young competitors.DesignOne qualitative and 4 quantitative studies.MethodFirst, 11 focus group interviews with 50 competitors, aged 11–17 years, identified their attitudes to moral issues. Subsequently, exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory (CFA) factor analyses with samples of 435 and 218 competitors eliminated unsuitable items, to improve conceptual clarity and factorial validity, and reduced a 56-item pilot questionnaire to a 3-factor 18-item instrument measuring Acceptance of Cheating, Acceptance of Gamesmanship, and Keeping Winning in Proportion. Then exploratory modifications were made in a restricted framework to develop a 9-item gender-invariant instrument using a sample of 1126 competitors. Finally, with 375 participants, the 3-factor model was cross-validated and concurrent validity was demonstrated by correlations with a similar instrument.ResultsAll psychometric criteria were met. Males, older and team sport athletes scored higher than females, younger and individual sport athletes on acceptance of cheating and gamesmanship. Acceptance of gamesmanship was also higher among athletes at higher competitive levels and keeping winning in proportion was higher in females.ConclusionWe present a sound psychometric instrument to assess 3 ethical attitudes in young competitors.     

Reciprocating (More) Specifically to You: The Role of Benefactor's Identifiability on Direct and Upstream Reciprocity

Research suggests that benefiting from someone's voluntary, intentional, costly effort encourages reciprocal prosocial behavior, as well as promoting upstream reciprocity, that is, increases reciprocal actions by the recipient for the benefit of an unrelated third party. The current study examines the role of the identifiability of the benefactor in determining the extent to which people engage in direct and upstream reciprocity. Results of three studies reveal that while an identified benefactor tends to engender greater direct reciprocal reactions than an unidentified one, this strong reaction toward the identified benefactor does not hold to the same extent when upstream reciprocity is considered (regardless of identification of the third party). On the other hand, when the benefactor is unidentified, levels of direct and upstream reciprocity remain similar. Moderated‐mediation analysis suggests that ethical commitment associated with the universal norm of reciprocity explains the decrease in prosociality between reactions toward the benefactor himself or herself and toward a third party under the identified condition. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

State-trace analysis can be an appropriate tool for assessing the number of cognitive systems: A reply to Ashby (2014)

Ashby (2014) has argued that state-trace analysis (STA) is not an appropriate tool for assessing the number of cognitive systems, because it fails in its primary goal of distinguishing single-parameter and multiple-parameter models. We show that this is based on a misunderstanding of the logic of STA, which depends solely on nearly universal assumptions about psychological measurement and clearly supersedes inferences based on functional dissociation and the analysis of interactions in analyses of variance. We demonstrate that STA can be used to draw inferences concerning the number of latent variables mediating the effects of a set of independent variables on a set of dependent variables. We suggest that STA is an appropriate tool to use when making arguments about the number of cognitive systems that must be posited to explain behavior. However, no statistical or inferential procedure is able to provide definitive answers to questions about the number of cognitive systems, simply because the concept of a “system” is not defined in an appropriate way.     

On the Existence of Duties to the Self (and Their Significance for Moral Philosophy)

Contemporary philosophers generally ignore the topic of duties to the self. I contend that they are mistaken to do so. The question of whether there are such duties, I argue, is of genuine significance when constructing theories of practical reasoning and moral psychology. In this essay, I show that much of the potential importance of duties to the self stems from what has been called the “second‐personal” character of moral duties—the fact that the performance of a duty is “owed to” someone. But this is problematic, as there is reason to doubt whether a person can genuinely owe to herself the performance of an action. Responding to this worry, I show that temporal divisions within an agent's life enable her to relate to herself second‐personally, in the way required by morality. The upshots, I argue, are that we need an intra‐personal theory of justice that specifies the extent of a person's authority over herself, and that we need to rethink our theories of moral emotions in order to specify how an individual ought to respond to attacks on her interests and autonomy that she herself perpetrates.     

有关道德地位的五种理论——基于《生命医学伦理原则（第八版）》

生命医学伦理学中有关道德地位的五种理论都是基于特殊规定的,包括人类物种属性、认知属性、道德主体性、感受能力和关系等。在这些道德地位理论所建构的连续的道德地位等级序列中,并不是所有具有道德地位的个体都有明确的、无限制的、完整的道德地位,因此,道德地位的标准经常冲突,或因过于狭隘而无法成为道德地位的一般理论。通过道德规范的细化和限制权衡,从这些理论中提取精华并融合为一种多元的和连贯的道德地位标准,将规范付诸实践后可以塑造日益实用的道德地位准则。

     

国内语用逻辑研究回顾与展望(上)

20世纪后半叶兴起的语用逻辑 ,产生于人们分析人类言语行为的语用学以及现代形式逻辑的综合与互动 ,尤其是语用学、行为科学、人工智能、计算机科学的发展也刺激和促进了以人工语言为研究手段的语用逻辑的兴起。而国内语用逻辑的兴起则不仅与西方人文社会科学的语用学转向以及形式化的语用逻辑的兴起密切相关 ,而且也还与中国传统文化的“大传统”密切相关 ,因为中国传统文化是高语境的汉字文化 ,它具有鲜明的语用学和语用逻辑的特征。自 80年代起 ,在中国兴起的自然语言的语用逻辑研究 ,也可以说是在相当程度上 ,发自于对传统逻辑和现代纯…     

When Self-Blame Is Rational and Appropriate: The Limited Utility of Socratic Questioning in the Context of Moral Injury: Commentary on Wachen et al. (2016)

In this commentary, we argue that a generally sound therapeutic technique—Socratic questioning—is ill-suited to address a common variant of combat-related emotional and psychological distress. Specifically, moral injury is a term used to describe a syndrome of shame, self-handicapping, anger, and demoralization that occurs when deeply held beliefs and expectations about moral and ethical conduct are transgressed. Importantly, moral injury can and often does result from instances of intentional perpetration. We contend that challenging the accuracy of self-blame in such cases is conceptually problematic and potentially harmful. Such an approach is based on a questionable premise—i.e., that self-blame and resulting guilt are inherently illogical or inaccurate. Though this is often the case, it is not invariably so. We briefly describe an alternate approach—Adaptive Disclosure—that allows for accurate and legitimate self-blame when warranted but also promotes the possibilities of self-forgiveness, compassion, and moral reparation.     

逻辑哲学研究述评(上)

在英文中 ,与逻辑哲学相关的表达一般有三个 :哲学逻辑 (philosophicallogic)、逻辑哲学 (philosophyoflogic)和逻辑的哲学 (logicalphilosophy)。从文献来看 ,使用较多的是前两个。关于这两个表达 ,人们的看法是不一样的。而且 ,即使是关于其中的某一个表达 ,看法也不一样。这些看法不仅表现出人们对逻辑哲学的不同理解 ,而且也反映出在以逻辑哲学为名的东西上存在的问题。一般认为 ,罗素最早使用了“哲学逻辑”这个概念。但是 ,这个词以及与它相近的词“逻辑哲学”的频繁出现却是在进入 2 0世纪 6 0年代以后。在过去几十年的时间里 ,不仅…