What is a reason to act?

Argues for a conception of reasons as premises of practical reasoning. This conception is applied to questions about ignorance, advice, enabling conditions, “ought,” and evidence.     

How does it feel to act together?

This paper on the phenomenology of joint agency proposes a foray into a little explored territory at the intersection of two very active domains of research: joint action and sense of agency. I explore two ways in which our experience of joint agency may differ from our experience of individual agency. First, the mechanisms of action specification and control involved in joint action are typically more complex than those present in individual actions, since it is crucial for joint action that people coordinate their plans and actions. I discuss the implications that these coordination requirements might have for the strength of the sense of agency an agent may experience for a joint action. Second, engagement in joint action may involve a transformation of agentive identity and a partial or complete shift from a sense of self-agency to a sense of we-agency. I discuss several factors that may contribute to shaping our sense of agentive identity in joint action.     

Did Franz Boas witness an act of cannibalism?

Franz Boas has been used as an authority for the existence of cannibalism among the Kwakiutl of British Columbia, as cited in Patterns of Culture. There is reason to think, however, that all his evidence is hearsay, and that he himself never witnessed an act of cannibalism. One indication is that he eliminated all references to such acts in his final overview, published posthumously as Kwakiutl Ethnology.     

Toddlers’ social evaluations of agents who act on false beliefs

Mature social evaluations privilege agents’ intentions over the outcomes of their actions, but young children often privilege outcomes over intentions in verbal tasks probing their social evaluations. In three experiments (N = 118), we probed the development of intention-based social evaluation and mental state reasoning using nonverbal methods with 15-month-old toddlers. Toddlers viewed scenarios depicting a protagonist who sought to obtain one of two toys, each inside a different box, as two other agents observed. Then, the boxes’ contents were switched in the absence of the protagonist and either in the presence or the absence of the other agents. When the protagonist returned, one agent opened the box containing the protagonist's desired toy (a positive outcome), and the other opened the other box (a neutral outcome). When both agents had observed the toys move to their current locations, the toddlers preferred the agent who opened the box containing the desired toy. In contrast, when the agents had not seen the toys move and therefore should have expected the desired toy's location to be unchanged, the toddlers preferred the agent who opened the box that no longer contained the desired toy. Thus, the toddlers preferred the agent who intended to make the protagonist's desired toy accessible, even when its action, guided by a false belief concerning that toy's location, did not produce a positive outcome. Well before children connect beliefs to social behavior in verbal tasks, toddlers engage in intention-based evaluations of social agents with false beliefs.     

Rape: Sex crime,act of violence,or naturalistic adaptation?

Rape distorts one of the most intimate forms of human interaction. Those who rape do so for a number of reasons, but they basically involve the motives of anger, power, eroticized cruelty, and opportunistic mating. No single set of cognitive, psychodynamic, psychopathological, or neuropsychological factors has been identified in those who commit sexual assault, probably due to the heterogeneity of this offender group. It is thus important to understand the diversity of this crime category in order to devise more effective means of adjudicating, treating, and deterring it. As a reproductive strategy, rape has certain risks as well as benefits, which accounts for it persistence in human populations as a minority mating tactic. Although most women fear rape by strangers, they are far more likely to be sexually assaulted by someone they know, especially their own mate. Alcohol and substance use plays a large role in many rapes. Rape can take both a physical and psychological toll on its victims, and clinicians must continue to explore more effective ways to treat rape survivors and to develop proactive strategies to help women prevent initial victimization and revictimization.     

At what age do children learn to discriminate between act and actor?

Children's ability to make moral judgements about an act on the basis of aspects of the act rather than on liking and preconceived ideas about the actor was investigated. 85 children of 4 age groups (preschool, Grades 1, 2, and 3, age range 5-9 years) participated. Act/Actor discrimination was investigated with a test consisting of 8 cartoons. In 4, a rabbit was behaving aggressively against a wolf; the other 4 portrayed identical acts with the wolf as aggressor and the rabbit as victim. Participants made moral evaluations of each cartoon. IQ was measured with Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices, and the general level of moral development was measured in accord with Piaget's (1932) criteria. Age, IQ, and general moral development correlated with discriminative ability for Act and Actor. In Piagetian terms, children at the heteronomous level were not capable of such discrimination, while children at the autonomous level (above 7 years of age) in general were.     

Contextualism: Is the act in context the adequate metaphor for scientific psychology?

According to some, psychology as it has been practiced is based on a world view known as mechanism. Individuals from a number of different areas of psychology, most recently within the behavior-analytic community, have strongly argued that psychology should be based on a different world view, contextualism. They emphasize a variety of characteristics that, in their view, differentiate a contextualistically based psychology from one based on mechanism. We examine these characteristics and find them to be of dubious value for differentiating a contextualistic approach to psychology from others. One proposal of some advocates of contextualism is that contextualistic approaches should develop independently from most of the remainder of psychology, which they regard as mechanistic. This proposal is said to be derived from the metaphilosophy of Pepper (1942). We evaluate this proposal and reject it. We go on to suggest that the mechanis-tic/contextualistic dichotomy is too constraining to realistically describe various approaches to psychology.     

Learning how to help others: Two-year-olds’ social learning of a prosocial act

Engaging in prosocial behaviors (acts that benefit others) is associated with many positive outcomes in children, including the development of positive peer relationships, academic achievement, and good psychological functioning. This study examined the social learning mechanisms toddlers use to acquire prosocial behaviors. This brief report presents a new experimental procedure in which 2-year-olds (28–32 months, N = 30) saw a video of an adult performing a novel prosocial behavior in response to another person’s distress. Children then had the opportunity to imitate and implement the behavior in response to their own parent’s physical distress. Children who saw the video were more likely to perform the novel action and to display non-demonstrated prosocial behaviors relative to (a) children who did not view the video but saw a parent in distress and (b) children who saw the video but witnessed their mother engage in a neutral activity. These results suggest that toddlers imitate and emulate prosocial behaviors for social interaction and that children can apply such behaviors in appropriate situations.     

The rebalancing act: Injured varsity women athletes’ experiences of global and sport psychological well-being

ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to explore how seriously injured women athletes perceive and experience global and sport psychological well-being (PWB) during sport injury recovery.MethodAdopting an interpretivist constructionist approach, we conducted one semi-structured interview with twelve participants (12 interviews total), aged 18–23. All participants were currently seriously injured, with a range of six months out of sport. Through a reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2019) we analyzed patterns within the data related to how injured athletes perceived and experienced global and sport specific PWB during sport injury recovery.ResultsFour overarching themes were developed: (1) my life is chaos and out of control, (2) pressures shaping response to sport injury, (3) maybe I can: adaptation from the disruption of sport injury, and (4) sport injury growth (SIG). Participants experienced an initial disruption of sport PWB and global PWB, however once they were able to adapt, they could rebalance their PWBs. Once rebalanced, participants reappraised the injury experience to be an opportunity for psychological growth and development, leading to the possibility of SIG. Findings suggest that sport injury can initially hinder one’s PWB, however once one can rebalance their PWB sport injury is perceived as a positive event that can lead to SIG.ConclusionThese findings reveal that it is important to consider the role of PWB during sport injury, as it has been identified that there are disruptions to one’s PWB. These findings help further our understanding of injured athletes’ experiences of PWB during sport injury and how athletes could be better supported to protect their PWB and mental health during recovery.     

Clever homunculus: is there an endogenous act of control in the explicit task-cuing procedure?

Does the explicit task-cuing procedure require an endogenous a act of control? In 5 experiments, cues indicating which task to perform preceded targets by several stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). Two models were developed to account for changes in reaction time (RT) with SOA. Model 1 assumed an endogenous act of task switching for cue alterations but not for cue repetitions. Model 2 assumed no such act. In Experiments 1 and 2, the cue was masked or not masked. Masking interacted underadditively with repetition and alternation, consistent with Model 2 but not Model 1. In Experiments 3 and 4, 2 cues were used for each task. RT was slower for task repetition than for cue repetition and about the same as RT for task alternation, consistent with Model 2 but not Model 1. The results suggest that the explicit task-cuing procedure does not require an endogenous act of control.     

Reasons to act and believe: naturalism and rational justification in Hume’s philosophical project

Is Hume a naturalist? Does he regard all or nearly all beliefs and actions as rationally unjustified? In order to settle these questions, it is necessary to examine their key terms (‘naturalism’ and ‘rational justification’) and to understand the character—especially the normative character—of Hume’s philosophical project. This paper argues (i) that Hume is a naturalist—and, in particular, both a moral and an epistemic naturalist—in quite robust ways; and (ii) that Hume can properly regard many actions and beliefs as “rationally justified” in several different senses of that term.     

Can we explain why some people do and some people do not act on their intentions?

Behavioural theorists have identified attitudes, perceived norms and self-efficacy as the important determinants of people's intentions to engage in a given behaviour. Because intentions predict behaviour, these same variables also account for a considerable amount of the variation in behaviour. Nevertheless, there is often a substantial proportion of the population who do not act on their intentions. While a recently proposed integrative theory of behaviour suggests that these 'failures' are due either to a lack of skills and/or to the presence of environmental constraints, it has also been argued that the determinants of intention may have a direct, as well as in indirect, effect on behaviour. This paper uses data from a longitudinal study (Project RESPECT) to explore the extent to which attitudes, perceived norms and self-efficacy explain why some people do and others do not act on their intentions to engage in a health protective behaviour. Although the data provide further evidence that these three variables account for a significant proportion of the variance in intentions (and behaviour), they perform poorly when predicting behaviour for persons with pre-existing high intentions. It may be reasonable to ask whether a 'new' theory is needed to explain why some people do, and some people do not, act on their intentions.     

“We believe,we feel,we act”: Testing the BIAS Map predictions during adolescence

The present study examined the relation between adolescents’ beliefs, emotions, and intentional behaviors toward two immigrant groups from the Spanish context: Moroccans and Ecuadorians. For this purpose, we tested the SCM/BIAS Map predictions considering the three-dimensional perspective of stereotype content, which distinguishes between morality, sociability, and competence. Spanish adolescents (N = 231, M_age = 15.39, SD = 1.09) evaluated either Moroccans (n = 114, 55.3% girls) or Ecuadorians (n = 117, 59% girls) on the SCM/BIAS Map variables. Our results confirmed, for both groups, the validity of the three-dimensional model of stereotype content and showed that adolescents differentiate between the two subdimensions of warmth and treat them as independent in intergroup evaluations. Furthermore, the mediating role of emotions in the stereotype content-behavior link was also confirmed but only for the univalent emotions in both groups. Finally, only morality acted as a consistent predictor of adolescents active behavioral intentions. The higher perceived morality of the immigrants increased adolescents’ admiration toward them, which in turn led adolescents to manifest more active facilitation intentions. Likewise, the perceived morality of the immigrants negatively affected adolescents’ contempt toward them, which in turn decreased adolescent's active harm intentions toward Ecuadorians and Moroccans. These findings indicate that the perceived morality of the outgroup is the key aspect in order to simultaneously promote helping behavior and decrease harmful one toward immigrant groups during adolescence.     

What is the moral basis of the authority of family members to act as surrogates for incompetent patients?

...The authority of family members should be understood as presumptive; that is, there is a moral presumption that a close family member should serve as surrogate for an incompetent patient. That presumption can be overcome or rebutted in a particular case, either when there is sufficient evidence that the usual reasons supporting this presumption do not hold or when the surrogate's decision exceeds appropriate limits of surrogates' decision-making discretion. In order to clarify these hard cases and appropriate public policy, we need a much deeper and more complex analysis than either the conventional view, or the alternative account that Pearlman and colleagues provide. I have sought here only to point toward some of the other grounds that a full account of family members' authority as surrogates would have to develop and explore in much more detail....