The dead donor rule: should we stretch it, bend it, or abandon it?

The dead donor rule--that persons must be dead before their organs are taken--is a central part of the moral framework underlying organ procurement. Efforts to increase the pool of transplantable organs have been forced either to redefine death (e.g., anencephaly) or take advantage of ambiguities in the current definition of death (e.g., the Pittsburgh protocol). Society's growing acceptance of circumstances in which health care professionals can hasten a patient's death also may weaken the symbolic importance of the dead donor rule. We consider the implications of these efforts to continually revise the line between life and death and ask whether it would be preferable to abandon the dead donor rule and rely entirely on informed consent as a safeguard against abuse.     

Perceptions of wisdom: What is it and who has it?

One hundred fifty-five men and 233 women, aged 20 to 79 years, were asked to name both the most wise and the most interpersonally wise persons they knew personally and to give the age and sex of each. Participants were also asked for the areas in which their nominees were particularly wise. Overall, men and women responded similarly. The subjects tended to nominate individuals who were older than they were; the difference between their own age and their nominees' age decreased with increasing age. Subjects nominated males more often than females as wise and this tendency increased with the subjects' age. With the exception of older women, participants nominated females more often than males as interpersonally wise. When asked to report the areas in which their wise nominees were particularly wise, subjects tended to mention specific skill areas (e.g., business or science) for male nominees and interpersonal skill areas for female nominees.Please note that Nancy W. Denney is deceased.     

Your Self: did you find it or did you make it?

Abstract: In this paper ¹ 1 This is a slightly edited version of a paper that was pre‐circulated to members of the Society of Analtyical Psychology for discussion at the monthly meeting of the ‘analytic group’ on 4^th November 1991. Sub‐headings and some references have been added by the Editor, Warren Colman.
, written in draft form in 1991 and now posthumously published, the late Louis Zinkin ² 2 The late Louis Zinkin was a practising analytical psychologist and group analyst, a training analyst of the S.A.P., honorary consultant psychotherapist and senior lecturer at St George's Hospital, London, and associate of the Group‐Analytic Practice, London. He died on 13^th March 1993.
presents a constructivist view of the self. He considers some of the paradoxes in Jungian definitions of the self and compares these to Winnicott's ‘forbidden question’ regarding the transitional object: ‘Did you find it or did you make it?’. He argues that, for the purposes of a coherent scientific theory, these apparent paradoxes need to be formulated in an internally consistent way. Bemused by the many contradictions in Jung's thinking, he proposes making a fresh start by thinking in terms of people in social interaction with each other rather than as solitary subjects, as Jung did. This leads him to the view that the self comes into existence through continuing interaction with other people. Drawing on the work of Harré and Vygotsky, he suggests that the public self is prior to the private self and that one becomes real through recognition by other people in and through language and culture. The paper was discussed at a meeting held at the Society of Analytical Psychology in November 1991 and an edited version of the taped discussion follows.     

Rebutting accusations: When does it work,when does it fail?

Three studies address the question of how observers react to rebuttal statements and which variables are crucial in determining observers' evaluations of the initiator of the rebuttal. The first study showed that devaluation of the initiator of the rebuttal was higher when observers were confronted with the isolated rebuttal than when observers first learned about an existing accusation and then about the corresponding rebuttal. The second study qualified this finding by revealing that the devaluating effect of an isolated rebuttal was especially pronounced if the event in question was of high impact for observers. The third study included an additional variable, namely, the credibility of the source of the accusation. The drop in devaluation from rebuttal-only to accusation + rebuttal conditions was obtained only for high impact observers when the accusation came from a noncredible source. The findings are explained within a framework of attributional and belief perseverance notions. Implications are discussed.     

The human motor control system's response to mechanical perturbation: should it, can it, and does it ensure stability?

From among the diverse meanings of stability, the one the author adopts here is that the effects of a perturbation are opposed, and therefore small effects remain small. Except in linear systems, however, instability need not lead to unbounded motion and may actually be desirable when maneuverability is important. Moreover, properties of nerves, muscles, and tendons present serious challenges to stabilization. A review of observations from the motor control literature reveals that responses to perturbations in many common situations assist rather than resist the perturbation and are therefore presumably destabilizing. The observations encompass situations of position maintenance as well as impending or ongoing movement. The author proposes that the motor control system responds to a sudden perturbation by a pattern of muscle activity that mimics an accustomed voluntary movement, oblivious of stability considerations. What prevents runaway motion in the face of short-term instability appears to be voluntary intervention.     

Emotional intelligence: what is it,and do Anglican clergy have it?

The development of the term “emotional intelligence” (EI), its conceptualisation and three attempts to measure it are outlined. The Assessing Emotions Scale is used as part of a longitudinal study with Anglican clergy in England and Wales in their 14th year in ordained ministry. Clergy by their role are expected to be pastors, counsellors and visitors. Contrary to expectations, the clergy scored lower on EI than any other group reported by the authors of the Assessing Emotions Scale.     

Is it life or is it Memorex? Video as a representation of reality

This paper offers an overview of research on infants’ early behavior toward televised images, followed by an account of the development of representational competence with video. Several aspects of representation are involved in young children’s understanding and use of video. From a very young age, children form mental representations of the contents of video, making sense of realistic images of familiar things. Children also notice and represent information regarding video itself (e.g., its 2-dimensionality). An important development occurs when children represent the relation between video and reality: at first, toddlers appear to categorize video as separate from reality, but eventually children recognize realistic video images as physical representations (symbols) of events they have not directly perceived. A mature representation of video takes into account genre (e.g., news, drama) and reality status based on recognition that video can (but does not always) represent real events.     

Conspicuous consumption in a recession: Toning it down or turning it up?

The 2008 recession reportedly led to the demise of conspicuous consumption with wealthy consumers abandoning luxury goods that prominently display their brands for more subdued designs. Utilizing data collected before and in the midst of the recession from designer handbag manufacturers, Louis Vuitton and Gucci, we find products introduced during the recession actually display the brand far more prominently than those products withdrawn. Data from Hermès and luxury ads in Vogue magazine also indicate manufacturers did not tone things down. Our results suggest conspicuous consumption endures in recessions; consumers who do not exit the luxury goods market are still interested in logo‐laden products.     

The cocktail party problem: what is it? How can it be solved? And why should animal behaviorists study it?

Animals often use acoustic signals to communicate in groups or social aggregations in which multiple individuals signal within a receiver's hearing range. Consequently, receivers face challenges related to acoustic interference and auditory masking that are not unlike the human cocktail party problem, which refers to the problem of perceiving speech in noisy social settings. Understanding the sensory solutions to the cocktail party problem has been a goal of research on human hearing and speech communication for several decades. Despite a general interest in acoustic signaling in groups, animal behaviorists have devoted comparatively less attention toward understanding how animals solve problems equivalent to the human cocktail party problem. After illustrating how humans and nonhuman animals experience and overcome similar perceptual challenges in cocktail-party-like social environments, this article reviews previous psychophysical and physiological studies of humans and nonhuman animals to describe how the cocktail party problem can be solved. This review also outlines several basic and applied benefits that could result from studies of the cocktail party problem in the context of animal acoustic communication.     

Is it Safe to Disagree?

This paper offers a new account of the epistemic significance of disagreement which is grounded in two assumptions; (i) that knowledge is the norm of belief and, (ii) that the safety condition is a necessary condition for knowledge. These assumptions motivate a modal definition of epistemic peerhood, which is much easier to operate on than the more traditional definitions of epistemic peerhood. The modal account of the epistemic significance of disagreement yields plausible results regarding cases of disagreement. Furthermore, it is able to tap into the intuitions that have motivated the conformist and the nonconformist positions and it locates a fruitful middle‐ground between these two conflicting positions. It will be shown that the conformist is correct in that cases of real peer disagreement force us to suspend our judgment. The reason for this is that in cases of real peer disagreement our beliefs fail to be safe. The nonconformist, on the other hand, is right in that disagreement in itself does not have any epistemic power. It is only by the grace of nature that we gain knowledge. The fact that someone disagrees with you does not mean that you do not have knowledge.     

Women and men in love: who really feels it and says it first?

A widely held belief exists that women are more romantic and tend to fall in love faster than men. Responses from 172 college students indicated that although both men and women believe that women will fall in love and say "I love you" first in a relationship, men reported falling in love earlier and expressing it earlier than women reported. Analyses also showed no sex differences in attitudinal responses to items about love and romance. These results indicate that women may not be the greater "fools for love" that society assumes and are consistent with the notion that a pragmatic and cautious view of love has adaptive significance for women.     

The folk strike back; or,why you didn’t do it intentionally,though it was bad and you knew it

Recent and puzzling experimental results suggest that people’s judgments as to whether or not an action was performed intentionally are sensitive to moral considerations. In this paper, we outline these results and evaluate two accounts which purport to explain them. We then describe a recent experiment that allegedly vindicates one of these accounts and present our own findings to show that it fails to do so. Finally, we present additional data suggesting no such vindication could be in the offing and that, in fact, both accounts fail to explain the initial, puzzling results they were purported to explain.

Epistemic closure under deductive inference: what is it and can we afford it?

The idea that knowledge can be extended by inference from what is known seems highly plausible. Yet, as shown by familiar preface paradox and lottery-type cases, the possibility of aggregating uncertainty casts doubt on its tenability. We show that these considerations go much further than previously recognized and significantly restrict the kinds of closure ordinary theories of knowledge can endorse. Meeting the challenge of uncertainty aggregation requires either the restriction of knowledge-extending inferences to single premises, or eliminating epistemic uncertainty in known premises. The first strategy, while effective, retains little of the original idea—conclusions even of modus ponens inferences from known premises are not always known. We then look at the second strategy, inspecting the most elaborate and promising attempt to secure the epistemic role of basic inferences, namely Timothy Williamson’s safety theory of knowledge. We argue that while it indeed has the merit of allowing basic inferences such as modus ponens to extend knowledge, Williamson’s theory faces formidable difficulties. These difficulties, moreover, arise from the very feature responsible for its virtue- the infallibilism of knowledge.     

But is it evolution…?

We applaud Müller & Schumann (M&S) for bringing needed attention to the problem of motivation for common non-addictive drug use, as opposed to the usual focus on exotic drugs and addiction. Unfortunately, their target article has many underdeveloped and sometimes contradictory ideas. Here, we will focus on three key issues.     

The capacity for music: what is it, and what's special about it?

We explore the capacity for music in terms of five questions: (1) What cognitive structures are invoked by music? (2) What are the principles that create these structures? (3) How do listeners acquire these principles? (4) What pre-existing resources make such acquisition possible? (5) Which aspects of these resources are specific to music, and which are more general? We examine these issues by looking at the major components of musical organization: rhythm (an interaction of grouping and meter), tonal organization (the structure of melody and harmony), and affect (the interaction of music with emotion). Each domain reveals a combination of cognitively general phenomena, such as gestalt grouping principles, harmonic roughness, and stream segregation, with phenomena that appear special to music and language, such as metrical organization. These are subtly interwoven with a residue of components that are devoted specifically to music, such as the structure of tonal systems and the contours of melodic tension and relaxation that depend on tonality. In the domain of affect, these components are especially tangled, involving the interaction of such varied factors as general-purpose aesthetic framing, communication of affect by tone of voice, and the musically specific way that tonal pitch contours evoke patterns of posture and gesture.     

Three-year-olds' difficulty with the appearance--reality distinction: is it real or is it apparent?

Four experiments investigated 3-year-olds' understanding of the appearance-reality distinction using both J. Flavell, F. Green, and J. Flavell's (1986) typical verbal response paradigm and a new, nonverbal response paradigm. Both paradigms require verbal questioning, but the former involves a verbal response and the latter a nonverbal one. In the nonverbal paradigm, children were shown a deceptive object and asked to respond, nonverbally, to 2 different functional requests, 1 concerning the object's apparent property and 1 its real property. In the verbal paradigm, children were asked to state what the object looked like and what it really was. In the verbal paradigm, children were about 30% correct (a rate matching that in the literature), whereas over 90% of the same children were correct in the nonverbal paradigm. Participating in the verbal paradigm first had a detrimental effect on the children's performance in the nonverbal paradigm, but the reverse order had no effect. These results suggest that 3-year-olds can represent two conflicting properties of a deceptive object and thus understand the appearance-reality distinction in the nonverbal domain.