Aid and bias

Over the last few decades, psychologists have amassed a great deal of evidence that our thinking is strongly influenced by a number of biases. This research appears to have important implications for moral methodology. It seems likely that these biases affect our thinking about moral issues, and a fuller awareness of them might help us to find ways to counteract their influence, and so to improve our moral thinking. And yet there is little or no reference to such biases in the philosophical literature on many pressing, substantive moral questions. In this paper, I make a start on repairing this omission in relation to one such question, the 'Aid Question', which concerns how much, if anything, we are morally required to give to aid agencies. I begin by sketching a number of biases that seem particularly likely to affect our thinking about that question. I then go on to review the psychological research on 'debiasing' - that is, on attempts to counteract the influence of such biases. And finally I discuss and illustrate certain strategies for counteracting the influence of the biases in question on our thinking about the Aid Question.     

Shaping and Discovering: Thoughts About Marc Rehm's Meditations

Marc Rehm invites us to muse about the theme of undue influence as it affects our relationships with our patients and children. Marc suggests that alongside our good intentions and loving vision of their future lie feelings of hate and destructiveness that complicate our efforts on their behalf. I address Marc's thesis, its Winnicottian roots, and then turn his question back on itself by musing about how his paper—which was born and nurtured in my writing group—might have itself been shaped (as much as discovered) by the group. I raise the question of undue influence as it affects the process of mentoring.     

The state of methods and tools for social systems change

The last decade or so has seen an increase in the rate of attention to systems change and the application of multiple theories to study and influence change in systems. This article considers how these theories, described in other articles in this issues, plus theories about complex adaptive systems open opportunities for us to continue to expand our repertoire of tools and methods to address systems change. These conceptual frameworks, tools, and methods are expected to help us increase our capacity to study and influence both planned and self-organizing systems change. New tools and methods have emerged and others are needed to help us continue to explore and influence the complex social systems within which we operate.     

On the experiential link between spatial and temporal language

How do we understand time and other entities we can neither touch nor see? One possibility is that we tap into our concrete, experiential knowledge, including our understanding of physical space and motion, to make sense of abstract domains such as time. To examine how pervasive an aspect of cognition this is, we investigated whether thought about a nonliteral type of motion called fictive motion (FM; as in The road runs along the coast) can influence thought about time. Our results suggest that FM uses the same structures evoked in understanding literal motion, and that these literal aspects of FM influence temporal reasoning.     

An Exploration of Some Antecedents and Consequences of Creative Self‐Efficacy among College Students

Two studies examined the role of task‐, self‐, and other‐approach achievement goals, trait curiosity, and enjoyment as antecedents of creative self‐efficacy and the influence of creative self‐efficacy on grade point average and perceived performance/effort exerted among college business students from Mexico. To test our research hypotheses, we used Structural Equation Modeling treating the variables as latent. Results from study 1 showed that task/self‐approach goal was a significant antecedent of creative self‐efficacy and enjoyment a marginally significant antecedent. Results from study 2 showed a positive, significant influence of trait curiosity on creative self‐efficacy. Similarly, creative self‐efficacy had a positive, direct influence on perceived performance/effort exerted and an indirect influence on students' grade point average. The implications of our results were discussed.     

Working with Norms in Social Work Practice: Introjection,Discipline, and Self-Determination

Since its beginnings, social work has emphasized the ways in which environmental factors and internal dynamics influence individuals. I propose that practitioners continue and strengthen this emphasis by exploring the role that norms play in conflicts and choices. Contemporary and longstanding concepts from sociology and psychoanalysis concerning norms can help us explore what we can change in ourselves, what norms might be outside our capacity to influence, and what change can be undertaken through advocacy or another method. In considering norms, I discuss the introjection process, research in sociology, and the role that discipline and self-determination (including external and internal freedom) play in our choices.     

Genetic Disorders of Intellectual Disability: Expanding our Concepts of Phenotypes and of Family Outcomes

Over the past two decades, great strides have been made in our understandings of how genetic conditions influence behavior and how such so-called “behavioral phenotypes” influence parent and family stress and coping. In this paper, we call for expansions in two directions. First, as a field we need to go beyond behavior in our concepts of phenotypes, to also include the many medical, physical, and other “non-behavioral” phenotypes that influence children’s everyday lives. Second, in examining how etiology-related phenotypes affect others, we need to go beyond the outcome of parental stress. In this regard, we focus on parental health, well-being, and various life choices, as well as how parenting children with specific genetic disorders can often lead to positive perceptions and outcomes. We end by discussing remaining research issues and how these two expansions relate to clinical practice.     

Informational intra‐group influence: the effects of time pressure and group size

The judgments of groups have immense impact on our daily lives. This paper theorizes that three families of intra‐group influence affect the collective estimation process. These different forms of influence map to different levels of task demonstrability, or the extent to which correct answers are transparent to problem‐solvers. When demonstrability is low, group estimates are disproportionately influenced by proposals closer to the intra‐group mean (centrality). When demonstrability is high and groups are small, group decisions are disproportionately influenced by proposals closer to the correct answer (accuracy). Finally, when demonstrability is high and groups are larger, group decisions are disproportionately influenced by proposals offered by generally more accurate individuals across a set of judgments (expertise). Three laboratory studies support our predictions with regard to informational influence in cooperative groups. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Genetics and human agency: comment on Dar-Nimrod and Heine (2011)

Dar-Nimrod and Heine (2011) decried genetic essentialism without denying the importance of genetics in the genesis of human behavior, and although I agree on both counts, a deeper issue remains unaddressed: how should we adjust our cognitions about our own behavior in light of genetic influence, or is it perhaps not necessary to take genetics into account at all? I suggest that the genetics of behavior does have important implications for how we understand ourselves, the differences among us, and the ethical implications of our actions, but that the usual metric for these considerations, the heritability coefficient, is not the correct one. I propose an alternative.     

Active desire

Desire is commonly understood as a mental state in relation to which we are passive. Since it seems to arise in us spontaneously, without antecedent deliberation, it also seems to constitute a paradigmatic type of mental state which is not up to us. In this paper, I will contest this idea. I will defend a view according to which we can actively shape our desires by controlling the way in which we imagine their contents. This view is supported both by behavioral and neural data which indicate that imagining can either strengthen or weaken our existing desires. Arguably, this influence is made possible by our capacity to imaginatively elaborate on the content of our desires. This gives a reason to think that what we desire is partially under our control. It is under our control only partially because we can influence our desires insofar as their content appears appealing to us in imagination.     

FREEDOM AND WEAKNESS OF WILL

Can absolute freedom of will be defended by arguing that apparent cases of diminished freedom when we act out of passion are cases of weakness of will? Rogers Albritton thought so. What is intriguing about Albritton's view is that he thought when we act from desire we are making choices, yet our desires are not functioning as reasons for those choices. So our desires must be influencing our choices in some other unspecified way that does not diminish our freedom. I challenge the coherence of this position. My strategy is to examine the views of leading theorists of the will – Descartes, Aquinas and Reid – to argue that the only clear way in which passions can influence our choices so that we can accurately be described as weak‐willed and yet nevertheless free is that our passions influence our choices by providing reasons for them.     

Failure, mistakes, regret and other subjugated stories in family therapy

This paper discusses the notions of failure and mistakes in family therapy, arguing that there are insufficient accounts in the literature which reflect the untidiness and disorder of everyday practice. The idea of dominant and subjugated stories is invoked to map the influence of notions of failure upon family therapy practice. It is argued that our practice would benefit if more accounts of our work routinely included stories of failure, mistakes and regret.     

Psychological and neurological disturbances and an increased accident rate among workers exposed to high manganese concentration

A few reports tell that toxic symptoms of manganese poisoning may appear as psychological disturbances, sometimes assuming a character of acute psychosis (Cotzias, 1958; Jonderko et al. , 1964).
We did not find any information dealing with maintenance of intellectual efficiency during the process of manganese poisoning in the available bibliography. We also found nothing about the influence of psychological and neurlogical disturbances on the accident rate among workers exposed to the toxic influence of manganese. Answering these questions was the aim of our work.     

Through the Looking Glass: No Wonderland Yet! (The Reciprocal Relationship between Methodology and Models of Reality)

This article discusses the relationship between conceptual frameworks and methodology in psychology. It is argued that our models of reality influence our research in terms of question selection, causal factors hypothesized, and interpretation of data. The position and role of women as objects and agents of research are considered in terms of a sociology of knowledge perspective. Suggestions are offered for a more reflexive psychology.     

Predictive and postdictive mechanisms jointly contribute to visual awareness

One of the fundamental issues in visual awareness is how we are able to perceive the scene in front of our eyes on time despite the delay in processing visual information. The prediction theory postulates that our visual system predicts the future to compensate for such delays. On the other hand, the postdiction theory postulates that our visual awareness is inevitably a delayed product. In the present study we used flash-lag paradigms in motion and color domains and examined how the perception of visual information at the time of flash is influenced by prior and subsequent visual events. We found that both types of event additively influence the perception of the present visual image, suggesting that our visual awareness results from joint contribution of predictive and postdictive mechanisms.     

Sales profession and professionals in the age of digitization and artificial intelligence technologies: concepts,priorities, and questions

Recognizing the rapid advances in sales digitization and artificial intelligence technologies, we develop concepts, priorities, and questions to help guide future research and practice in the field of personal selling and sales management. Our analysis reveals that the influence of sales digitalization technologies, which include digitization and artificial intelligence, is likely to be more significant and more far reaching than previous sales technologies. To organize our analysis of this influence, we discuss the opportunities and threats that sales digitalization technologies pose for (a) the sales profession in terms of its contribution to creating value for customers, organizations, and society and (b) sales professionals, in terms of both employees in organizations and individuals as self, seeking growth, fulfillment, and status in the functions they serve and roles they live. We summarize our discussion by detailing specific research priorities and questions that warrant further study and development by researchers and practitioners alike.     

Contingency Anxiety and the Epistemology of Disagreement

Upon discovering that certain beliefs we hold are contingent on arbitrary features of our background, we often feel uneasy. I defend the proposal that if such cases of contingency anxiety involve defeaters, this is because of the epistemic significance of disagreement. I note two hurdles to our accepting this Disagreement Hypothesis. Firstly, some cases of contingency anxiety apparently involve no disagreement. Secondly, the proposal may seem to make our awareness of the influence of arbitrary background factors irrelevant in determining whether to revise our beliefs. I show that each of these problems can be successfully accommodated by the Disagreement Hypothesis.     

When and how aesthetics influences financial decisions

We observe the influence of aesthetic design on consumer behavior involving financial products—an area where financial decision-makers say they do not take aesthetics into account. In a series of three studies we find that the look of a document in hypothetical investment decisions impacts stock valuation and behavior in some but not all situations. Specifically, our results show that calling attention to the influence of design on behavior moderates the effect, including the paradoxical finding that the effect of design is attenuated when investments involve entities for which aesthetics is of intrinsic value.     

Situationism,Manipulation, and Objective Self-Awareness

Among those taking the implications of situationism seriously, some have suggested exploiting our tendency to be shaped by our environments toward desirable ends. The key insight here is that if experimental studies produce reliable, probabilistic predictions about the effects of situational variables on behavior—for example, how people react to the presence or absence of various sounds, objects, and their placement—then we should deploy those variables that promote prosocial behavior, while avoiding or limiting those that tend toward antisocial behavior. Put another way, some have suggested that we tweak situations to nudge or influence others toward good behavior. A question arises: Isn’t this manipulative? In this paper, I describe some existing proposals in the literature and consider the manipulation worry. Drawing on classical Confucian ethics, I argue that, when all is considered, it is chimerical to think we can refrain from influencing or manipulating others. We must rather accept that influence (whether intended or not) is part of social existence. Once we accept this, the only remaining question is how to influence others. I suggest that this should make us conceive ourselves in an objective fashion.     

Affective judgment in spatial context: Orienting within physical spaces containing people and things

This article reviews our experimental work about affective judgment in spatial context. This type of judgment serves to regulate one's distance toward people and things in physical space. The main idea is that orienting within physical space requires not only knowing where places are but also how places feel. This, in turn, depends on the influence of people and things contained in space on one's affective appraisal of the surroundings. Based on fundamental principles of social cognition, affective judgment in spatial context combines people's beliefs about how influence unfolds into the surroundings with comparison, categorization and information integration processes. Out comes a subjective affective representation of physical space that is cognitively coherent within a given spatial frame of reference. I review our work according to main topics and discuss four possible directions for future research.