What is the Good/ Good of the FORM of the GOOD?

‘Good’ is nothing specific but is transcendentally or generally applied over specific, and specified, ‘categories’. These ‘categories’ may be seen—at least for the purposes of this note—as under Platonic Forms. The rule that instances under a category or form need a Form to be under is valid. It may be tautological: but this is OK for rules. Not being specific, however, ‘good’ neither needs nor can have a specifying Form. So, on these grounds, the Form of the Good is otious. Any rule of the kind, ‘Everything needs a Form, so good needs a Form of the Good’ is mistaken, in that good is not a kind, but a transcendental. To give a Form to the transcendental ‘good’ is a mistake: it is a Rylian category mistake. And the Form of the Good either does no work, or works unprofitably in any but an aesthetic sense.     

Conceptions of Relationships in Children with Depressive and Aggressive Symptoms: Social-Cognitive Distortion or Reality?

This research tested skill-deficit and cognitive-distortion models of depression and aggression in 615 fifth- and sixth-grade children. Children completed a measure of their generalized conceptions of relationships in the peer domain and their level of depressive symptoms. Teachers completed measures of social competence, social status, and aggression. As anticipated, children with higher levels of depressive symptoms, either alone or in combination with aggression, demonstrated more negative conceptions of both self and peers than did nonsymptomatic children. Conceptions of relationships did not differentiate between aggressive and nonsymptomatic children. Children with depressive symptoms and children with aggressive symptoms displayed unique profiles of social competence deficits and problematic status in the peer group. Analysis of the accuracy of children's conceptions of relationships revealed support for both skill-deficit and cognitive-distortion models. Consistent with a skill-deficit model, children with depressive and depressive-aggressive symptoms were sensitive to actual differences in their social status. In contrast, aggressive children showed an insensitivity to social cues. Consistent with a cognitive-distortion model, children with depressive and depressive-aggressive symptoms had more negative conceptions than would be expected given their social status, whereas aggressive-unpopular children demonstrated a self-enhancement bias. These findings indicate the importance of integrated cognitive-interpersonal models of depression and aggression that incorporate multiple pathways among social-cognitive, interpersonal, and emotional functioning.     

Fairness as “Appropriate Impartiality” and the Problem of the Self-Serving Bias

Garrett Cullity contends that fairness is appropriate impartiality (See Cullity (2004) Chapters 8 and 10 and Cullity (2008)). Cullity deploys his account of fairness as a means of limiting the extreme moral demand to make sacrifices in order to aid others that was posed by Peter Singer in his seminal article ‘Famine, Affluence and Morality’. My paper is founded upon the combination of (1) the observation that the idea that fairness consists in appropriate impartiality is very vague and (2) the fact that psychological studies show the self-serving bias is especially likely to infect one’s judgements when the ideas involved are vague. I argue that Cullity’s solution to extreme moral demandingness is threatened by these findings. I then comment on whether some other theories of fairness are vulnerable to the same objection.     

Good to Bad or Bad to Bad? What is the relationship between valence and the trait content of the Big Two?

In this article we directly assessed the relationship between valence and relevant traits of the Big Two dimensions (i.e., communion and agency). Drawing on previous research, we expected that the relationship with valence would be less monotonous and more variable in direction across agency-related traits, compared to communion-related traits. In three repeated measures studies we assessed the perceived valence of each trait dimension on a continuum of seven points. Studies 1 and 2 defined each continuum verbally. In Study 3 each continuum was defined by facial features. Results across these studies show that valence is linearly and more consistently related with communion-related traits than with agency-related traits. Within agency, however, competence established a positive linear relationship with valence, whereas dominance showed a target-sensitive relationship with valence: quadratic in evaluation of trait concepts, and negative and linear in face evaluation. We discuss the implications of these data for Big Two-related research.     

Differences between Art and Design Education—or Differences in Conceptions of Creativity?

The principles and techniques of design education have begun to influence art education in the United States, but their effect so far has been modest, primarily because of a gaping divide in beliefs about creativity and how to stimulate it. With K–12 art education on the chopping block of a culture awash with budget cuts and testing fever, this is a particularly a significant time to examine these disparate conceptions. The argument here is that the division that exists today between pre‐K–12 art education and design education in the United States is not justified and ignores historical perspective. After describing and comparing the two approaches, we examine how conceptions of creativity in the visual arts may have led to this artificial separation of similar disciplines. Because educators in many countries grapple with defining and implementing creative art education curricula, this article will consider international perspectives that offer insights for American art educators.     

Behavior modification and the principle of normalization: clash or synthesis?

The aim of this article is to analyze the relationship between the principle of normalization and behavior modification with reference to the use of moderate punishment. Applying the normalization ideology through non‐aversive strategies alone has resulted in poor outcomes. Research demonstrates that moderate punishment can be a useful aid towards the development of normative interventions. In this way the negative implications of the dogmatic equation of ‘normativeness’ with non‐aversiveness on the effectiveness of intervention are avoided. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lay Understanding of Happiness and the Experience of Well-Being: Are Some Conceptions of Happiness More Beneficial than Others?

The aim of the study was to understand aspects of life that men and women associate with happiness and to explore the connections between these associations and well-being (measured as positive affect, negative affect and life satisfaction) in different periods of life. Participants were 785 people who were asked to list associations that came to mind on hearing the word ‘happiness’. The moderating roles of gender and period of life (adolescence/adulthood, transition/no transition) were analysed. Participants associated happiness mostly with health and relationships. Other categories included knowledge, work, material goods and freedom. Those who associated happiness with work had higher levels of positive affect. Associating happiness with relationships predicted greater life satisfaction, whereas associating it with material goods predicted lower satisfaction. Gender moderated the relationship between associations and positive affect: associating happiness with material goods decreased positive affect among men but no such effect was observed among women; associating happiness with relationships was beneficial for women but unbeneficial for men. Additionally, associations with material goods predicted lower positive affect, especially in times of transition. Associating happiness with knowledge decreased positive affect in adolescents and increased it in adults. Some ways of understanding happiness improved life satisfaction but none were related to negative affect. The relationship between concepts of happiness and positive affect is complex; some concepts are unbeneficial only for some people and during certain periods of life.     

What is the Good Life? Positive Psychology and the Renaissance of Humanistic Psychology

Positive and humanistic psychology overlap in thematic content and theoretical presuppositions, yet positive psychology explicitly distances itself as a new movement, despite the fact that its literature implicitly references its extensive historical grounding within humanistic psychology. Consequently, humanistic psychologists both celebrate diffusion of humanistic ideas furthered by positive psychology, and resent its disavowal of the humanistic tradition. The undeniably close alignment of these two schools of thought is demonstrated in the embracing of eudaimonic, in contrast to hedonic, conceptions of happiness by positive psychology. Eudaimonic happiness cannot be purely value-free, nor can it be completely studied without using both nomethetic and idiographic (i.e., quantitative and qualitative) methods in addressing problems of value, which identifies positive psychology clearly as a humanistic approach, despite its protestations.     

Is Satan a Lover of the Good?

There are, apparently, two inherited stories of intentional action. On the motivational story, intentional agents are pursuers of goals. On the evaluative story, intentional agents are pursuers of value. In a spirit of unification, we might try to supplement the motivational story with the evaluative one – or even collapse the former into the latter. The problem with such moves is that they cannot accomodate certain pathologies of agency. Thus, they convert apparently perverse agents – like Satan and self-haters – into closet lovers of the good. I argue that pathological agents like Satan and self-haters are not lovers of the good. They are just lovers of success in action. We can make sense of such agents as practical reasoners because the cares that constitute us as practical reasoners are plural.     

The Combined Effect of the Severity and the Certainty of Threatened Penalties: Additive or Interactive?

Research carried out to date has yielded inconsistent results regarding the manner in which the severity and certainty of threatened penalties combine to affect deterrence. While some studies presented evidence showing an interactive combination, others yielded an additive pattern. The present study tested and supported the proposition that the process whereby the two variables combine depends on the type of penalty with which a person is threatened. In the case of penalties the severity of which can be psychologically weighed in interval values, the combined effect is multiplicative or interactive. On the other hand, when the severity of a penalty can be expressed only ordinally, the combined effect is largely additive.     

Portrait of the self-enhancer: well adjusted and well liked or maladjusted and friendless?

Research has variously portrayed self-enhancement as an indicator of narcissistic defensiveness or as a concomitant of mental health. To address this controversy, the present study used multiple measures of self-enhancement along with multiple measures and judges of mental health, comprehensively assessing their relationship. The results indicated that self-enhancement is positively associated with multiple indicators of mental health and with a more favorable impact on others. Discussion centers on a reconciliation of discrepant portraits of the self-enhancer.     

Stereotype Directionality and Attractiveness Stereotyping: Is Beauty Good or is Ugly Bad?

Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972), in their seminal article, labeled the attribution of positive characteristics to attractive people the "beauty-is-good" stereotype. The stereotyping literature since then provides extensive evidence for the differential judgment and treatment of attractive versus unattractive people, but does not indicate whether it is an advantage to be attractive or a disadvantage to be unattractive. Two studies investigated the direction of attractiveness stereotyping by comparing judgments of positive and negative attributes for medium vs. low and medium vs. high attractive faces. Taken together, results for adults (Experiment 1) and children (Experiment 2) suggest that most often, unattractiveness is a disadvantage, consistent with negativity bias (e.g., Rozin & Royzman, 2001) but contrary to the "beauty-is-good" aphorism.     

Tonal centers and expectancy: facilitation or inhibition of chords at the top of the harmonic hierarchy?

Harmonic priming studies have shown that a musical context with its tonal center influences target chord processing. In comparison with targets following baseline contexts, which do not establish a specific tonal center, processing is facilitated for a strongly related target functioning as the tonic, but inhibited for unrelated (out-of-key) and less related (subdominant) targets. This study investigated cost and benefit patterns for the processing of the 3 most important chords of the harmonic hierarchy. Response time patterns reflected the chords' ranking: Processing was fastest for the tonic, followed by the dominant, and then the subdominant. The comparison with baseline contexts replicated the benefit of processing for tonic targets (Experiments 1 and 3) and the cost of processing for subdominant targets (Experiment 3), while dominant targets were situated at baseline level (Experiments 1 to 3). Findings indicate that listeners implicitly understand fine differences in tonal stabilities and confirm the special status of the tonic being the most expected and solely facilitated chord at the end of a tonal context. Findings are discussed with references to sensory and cognitive approaches of music perception.     

For the Good of the Group? Balancing Individual and Collective Risks and Benefits in Community Psychology Research

Balancing risks and benefits is a necessary ethical task for social science researchers. Community psychologists must often consider risks and benefits not just for individual participants, but also for the group, system, or society that those individuals inhabit. Little ethical guidance currently exists for how to navigate this ethical challenge across these multiple levels. In this article, we use a case example of social network research incorporating multiple levels of analysis to identify common risks and benefits and understand their relationship to each other. We conclude by discussing distinctive ethical considerations revealed by this case example.     

The Meaning of ‘Good’ and the Possibility of Value

Philosophical Studies - Moore held that to call something good is to ascribe a property to it. But he denied that the property could be expressed in non-evaluative terms. Can one accept this view...