Selecting K of N alternatives

In some decision contexts (e.g. graduate admissions) the task to select a subset of k distinct alternatives from among the N > k > 1 options available. For moderate values of N and k, the number of possible subsets of size k becomes quite large. Assuming alternatives are evaluated using consistent, though not explicit weights, selecting k, rather than 1, empirically excludes a substantial proportion (more than 80%) of the subsets; unfortunately to the unaided decision maker it is not obvious which subsets should be excluded. The tendency of subjects to select excludable subsets can be called an ‘infeasibility’ bias. The experimental evidence surprisingly shows no ‘infeasibility’ bias, as subjects overwhelmingly chose non-excluded selections.     

Conscience in childhood: old questions, new answers

Although conscience has been the focus of reflection for centuries, fundamental questions regarding its organization have not been fully answered. To address those questions, the authors applied structural equation modeling techniques to longitudinal data comprising multiple behavioral measures of children's conscience, obtained in parallel fashion at 33 and 45 months. The measures encompassed moral emotion (guilt and empathic distress) and rule-compatible conduct (internalization of maternal prohibitions and requests and of another adult's rules). Confirmatory factor analyses supported a differentiated view of conscience with 2 latent factors at both ages: Moral Emotion and Rule-Compatible Conduct. The structure of conscience was remarkably stable over time. The coherence between Moral Emotion and Rule-Compatible Conduct factors increased as children grew older.     

马克思主义关于农业经济形态理论的新发展——读考茨基《土地问题》和列宁《土地问题笔记,1901-1915年》

在史学界对西方农业史的研究中,我国相当一部分学者仍然是按照马克思在19世纪中期前后从对英国农业分析中得出的某此结构去理解西方农业史的发展规律,这种规律以"两极分化"和"小农的消灭"为主要内容.     

Differential K theory and race differences in E and N

Differential K Theory was recently proposed relating personality to reproductive strategy (Rushton, 1985). The more K the person is (the symbol derives from population biology), the more he or she will delay reproductive effort, produce fewer children and more intensely care for them. Concomitant characteristics include intelligence, altruism, law-abidingness and behavioural restraint. Race differences are hypothesized such that, in terms of K, Mongoloids > Caucasoids > Negroids. Barratt and Eysenck (1984) recently published standardized Extraversion (E), Neuroticism (N), Psychoticism (P) and Social Desirability (L) scores for males and females from 25 different countries, but did not analyse the data in such a way that racial differences were found. In the current study Barratt and Eysenck's data are aggregated across sex and over countries to examine whether theoretical predictions regarding race differences in behavioural restraint do in fact occur. Behavioural restraint was indexed by low E and high N scores. The means for 8 Mongoloid samples (N = 4044) were contrasted with those of 38 Caucasoid (N = 19, 807) and 4 Negroid ones (N = 1906), and the resultant comparisons confirmed expectations. Mongoloids are lower on E and higher on N than Caucasoids, who in turn are lower in E and higher on N than Negroids.     

Mood in chronic disease: Questioning the answers

The main research questions concerning mood and chronic disease are about the extent, sources, and consequences of emotional distress. Answers to these questions are informative both to psychological theory and to the design of interventions aimed at improving outcomes for patients. However, as a result of practical and ethical limitations in research designs, the answers obtained are rarely definitive and typically need to be interpreted carefully. This article illustrates some of the problems using studies of patients with cancer, myocardial infarction, stroke, and other disabling conditions. The first group of studies illustrates problems in the timing of mood measurement including both timing within an interview, and issues concerned with identifying equivalent timing in the stages of disease and its treatment. The remaining studies are used to illustrate the limits of non-experimental longitudinal, and of experimental designs. It is concluded that research in this area requires the use of more than one research paradigm to achieve dependable answers.     

Mood in chronic disease: Questioning the answers

The main research questions concerning mood and chronic disease are about the extent, sources, and consequences of emotional distress. Answers to these questions are informative both to psychological theory and to the design of interventions aimed at improving outcomes for patients. However, as a result of practical and ethical limitations in research designs, the answers obtained are rarely definitive and typically need to be interpreted carefully. This article illustrates some of the problems using studies of patients with cancer, myocardial infarction, stroke, and other disabling conditions. The first group of studies illustrates problems in the timing of mood measurement including both timing within an interview, and issues concerned with identifying equivalent timing in the stages of disease and its treatment. The remaining studies are used to illustrate the limits of non-experimental longitudinal, and of experimental designs. It is concluded that research in this area requires the use of more than one research paradigm to achieve dependable answers.     

Binocular rivalry and semantic processing: out of sight, out of mind

Previous studies of binocular rivalry have shown that some aspects of a phenomenally suppressed stimulus remain available for visual analysis. The question remains, however, whether this analysis extends to the case of semantic information. This experiment examines that question using a semantic-priming paradigm in which prime words were briefly flashed to an eye during either dominance or suppression phases of binocular rivalry. Reaction times on a lexical-decision task were significantly shortened (the semantic-priming effect) only when prime words were presented to an eye during dominance; suppression acted to impair word recognition and to eliminate semantic priming. These results are inconsistent with certain cognitive models of binocular rivalry.     

A confirmatory factor analysis of the Bem Sex Role Inventory: Old questions,new answers

LISREL analyses of data from a sample of 671 adults (90% Caucasian, 10% Black) evaluated (a) item factor structure of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), (b) second-order factor model for the item factors, and (c) structural equation models estimating age and gender differences in these factors. Seven first-order item factors were extracted and found to have equivalent factor loadings for males and females. Item factors were related to two second-order factors: Masculinity and Femininity. There were relatively small age and gender differences in the first- and second-order factors. There was a differential relationship between self-rated masculinity and femininity and the first-order BSRI item factors for males and females. Results suggest that the BSRI best assesses gender-related personality traits and represents only one component of the complex multidimensional construct of gender roles.We thank Herbert W. Marsh and an anonymous reviewer for valuable comments on previous drafts of this article.     

Choice latency as a cue for children’s subjective confidence in the correctness of their answers

Research with adults indicates that confidence in the correctness of an answer decreases as a function of the amount of time it takes to reach that answer, suggesting that people use response latency as a mnemonic cue for subjective confidence. Experiment 1 extended investigation to 2nd, 3rd and 5th graders. When children chose the answer to general knowledge questions, their confidence in the answer was inversely related to choice latency. However, the strength of the relationship increased with grade, suggesting increased reliance with age on the feedback from task performance. The validity of latency as a cue for the accuracy of the answer also increased with age, possibly contributing to the observed age increase in the extent to which confidence judgment discriminated between correct and wrong answers. Whereas these results illustrate the dependence of metacognitive monitoring on the feedback from control operations, Experiments 2 and 3 examined the idea that control‐based monitoring affects subsequent control operations. When children were free to choose which answers to volunteer under a payoff schedule that emphasized accuracy, they tended to volunteer high‐confidence answers more than low‐confidence answers (Experiment 2) and more short‐latency answers than long‐latency answers (Experiment 3). The latter tendency was again stronger for older than for younger children. The results are discussed in terms of the intricate relationships between monitoring and control processes.     

Subjective confidence in one's answers: the consensuality principle

In answering general-information questions, a within-person confidence-accuracy (C-A) correlation is typically observed, suggesting that people can monitor the correctness of their knowledge. However, because the correct answer is generally the consensual answer--the one endorsed by most participants--confidence judgment may actually monitor the consensuality of the answer rather than its correctness. Indeed, the C-A correlation was positive for items with a consensually correct answer but negative for items with a consensually wrong answer. Results suggest that the consensuality-confidence correlation may be mediated by 2 internal mnemonic cues that are correlated with consensuality: Consensual answers are reached faster and are selected more consistently by the same person on different occasions than nonconsensual answers. The results argue against a direct-access view of confidence judgments and suggest that such judgments will be accurate only as long as people's responses are by and large correct across the sampled items, thus stressing the criticality of a representative design.     

K ⊈ E

In a series of very influential works, Tim Williamson has advanced and defended a much discussed theory of evidence containing, among other claims, the thesis that, if one knows P, P is part of one's evidence (K ? E). I argue that K ? E is false, and indeed that it is so for a reason that Williamson himself essentially provides in arguing against the thesis that, if one has a justified true belief in P, P is part of one's evidence: together with a very plausible principle governing the acquisition of knowledge by non‐deductive inference based on evidence, K ? E leads, in a sorites‐like fashion, to what would seem a series of unacceptably bootstrapping expansions of one's evidence. I then develop some considerations about the functions of and conditions for evidence which are suggested by the argument against K ? E. I close by discussing the relationship of the argument with anti‐closure arguments of the style exemplified by the preface paradox: I contend that, if closure is assumed, it is extremely plausible to expect that the diagnosis of what goes wrong in the preface‐paradox‐style argument cannot be used to block my own argument.     

The knower,inside and out

Adherents of the epistemological position called internalism typically believe that the view they oppose, called externalism, is such a new and radical departure from the established way of seeing knowledge that its implications are uninteresting. Perhaps itis relatively novel, but the approach to knowledge with the greatest antiquity is the one that equates it withcertainty, and while this conception is amenable to the demands of the internalist, it is also a non-starter in the opinion of almost all contemporary epistemologists since obviously it directly implies that we know nothing about the world. Perhaps skepticism is correct, but there are conceptions of knowledge at least as plausible as the certainty equation that do not obviously land us there. It is its promise along these lines that makes the so-called traditional conception of knowledge initially interesting. But contrary to popular belief, the traditional conception cannot be claimed by internalists if it is to have any chance at all in avoiding skepticism; to avoid skepticism, I shall argue, it has to have an externalist element.Moreover, each of the departures from the traditional view that appears in the Gettier literature is externalist as well, or at least all of the ones of which I am aware. The only genuine forms of internalism are those held by philosophers who draw a fairly sharp line between knowledge and justified belief, ignore the former, then offer an internalist account of the latter. This approach is very common and very plausible. But it is not as useful as is often thought; in particular, I shall suggest, it must succumb to a form of skepticism.     

Cultural difference,inside and out

Cultural psychologists study the extent to which human psychological experience is shaped by our participation in sociocultural practices, meanings, and products. Cultural psychologists document cultural differences both inside the head (in the form of emotions, cognitions, or motivations) and outside the head (in the form of public behaviors, cultural products, or institutions). Because cultural psychologists argue that culture and psyche “make each other up,” it is appropriate to study cultural difference at many loci—not just the traditional psychological areas in which many of us were trained. In this article, I describe cultural psychological evidence based on its social visibility and tangible nature. One category is collected on private, intangible, inside‐the‐head activities such as emotions, values, or motives. Another category, social interactions and behavioral performances, is intangible, public, and outside the head and includes how people talk to each other and how they walk, drive, or dress. A third category contains cultural products, which are tangible, public, and outside the head; it includes texts, websites, advertising, art, and architecture. These varying loci of cultural psychology allow us to appropriately document cultural differences and also allow us to study how humans are shaped by, and participate in recreating, their cultural contexts.     

You can take the eyes out of the doll, but...

The perceived animacy of a face is well-predicted by the perceived animacy of the eyes presented in isolation. This is not true for other facial features (eg having a highly life-like nose does not appear to be crucial), suggesting that the eyes are a critical feature for perceiving life in a face. Here, we asked whether it was therefore possible to 'transplant' animacy into a face by transplanting the eyes into a face image. We conducted digital eye surgery on a series of morphed human/doll faces and found that while doll eyes make a morphed face look less alive, human eyes do not make you look more so. Thus, we cannot so easily transplant animacy into a face, but we can take it away.