Supporting the best charities is harder than it seems

Once upon a time, I attempted to create a web-based one-stop-shop for global poverty relief called the Maximin Project. Drawing on aspects of that experience, I show that although some existing ways of rating and recommending charities are significantly better than others, there remain certain challenges that need to be overcome. Specifically, I argue that the emerging Effective Altruism movement, with its emphasis on measurable effectiveness, runs the risk of neglecting a whole range of projects that are necessary for a well-rounded approach to human development. I briefly model an alternative virtue-based approach that calls on the personal insight of individual researchers and practitioners in addition to the more directly experimental approach of organizations like GiveWell.     

Good luck and bad luck: how to tell the difference

Good luck implies comparison with a worse counterfactual outcome, whereas bad luck implies upward comparisons. People will accordingly describe themselves as particularly lucky after recollecting situations where they avoided something negative, and as particularly unlucky after recollecting episodes in which they missed something positive (Study 1). Upward and downward comparisons can be created by the way a situation develops, and are accentuated by the way a story is told. Good luck stories typically change for the better only in the last stage, whereas bad luck stories show a more steady downward progression (Study 2). This is also reflected in phrases believed to be characteristic of good luck versus bad luck stories, with good luck stories involving surprise and reference to close counterfactuals, whereas bad luck stories focus on initial normal events (Study 3). Good and bad luck imply different orders of events (negative–positive versus positive–negative), so by rearranging the narrative sequence, the same set of outcomes can form the basis for a good luck story as well as a bad luck story (Study 4). The final experiment (Study 5) shows that negative outcome expectations are typical for chance‐determined and uncontrolled situations. Under such circumstances, factual outcomes do not have to be exceptionally good to be considered as lucky. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Children do not follow the rule "ignorance means getting it wrong"

Two experiments tested whether 4- and 5-year-olds follow the rule “ignorance means you get it wrong.” Following this rule should lead children to infer that a character who is ignorant about some situation will also have a false belief about it. This rule should sometimes lead children into error because ignorance does not imply false belief. In Experiment 1, children and adults were told about a girl who is looking for her dog but does not know which of two boxes it is under. Most children predicted that the girl would look in the box with the dog and not in the empty box; adults chose both boxes equally. Experiment 2 used a similar story but varied whether the girl wants to approach or avoid her dog. Again, most children predicted that the girl would succeed. These findings suggest that children do not follow the rule “ignorance means you get it wrong.”     

Getting it right by getting it wrong: When learners change languages

When natural language input contains grammatical forms that are used probabilistically and inconsistently, learners will sometimes reproduce the inconsistencies; but sometimes they will instead regularize the use of these forms, introducing consistency in the language that was not present in the input. In this paper we ask what produces such regularization. We conducted three artificial language experiments, varying the use of determiners in the types of inconsistency with which they are used, and also comparing adult and child learners. In Experiment 1 we presented adult learners with scattered inconsistency - the use of multiple determiners varying in frequency in the same context - and found that adults will reproduce these inconsistencies at low levels of scatter, but at very high levels of scatter will regularize the determiner system, producing the most frequent determiner form almost all the time. In Experiment 2 we showed that this is not merely the result of frequency: when determiners are used with low frequencies but in consistent contexts, adults will learn all of the determiners veridically. In Experiment 3 we compared adult and child learners, finding that children will almost always regularize inconsistent forms, whereas adult learners will only regularize the most complex inconsistencies. Taken together, these results suggest that regularization processes in natural language learning, such as those seen in the acquisition of language from non-native speakers or in the formation of young languages, may depend crucially on the nature of language learning by young children.     

Programmed instruction: What it is and how to do it

Five behaviorological features of programmed instruction are outlined: behavioral objectives, reinforcement, activity rate: high and relevant, successive approximation, and mastery progression. Each of these topics is explained, and examples are given to illustrate the differences between programmed instruction and the more common transmission model of teaching. A final section provides suggestions on specific techniques of successive approximation.     

On the difference it makes

Man's belief in God is often contrasted with man's disbelief, Atheism; but the nature of human belief is contrastable with the nature of the belief of demons. A point of contrast lies in the consequences of the different sort of reasons men and demons must be understood to have. One consequence has to do with the vision of the world, seeing the world as God's creation, which men are expected to achieve and demons are not. The logic of the ‘seeing as’ formula is explored and found wanting even though it seems inescapable in connection with human belief. In the end human belief appears more peculiar than demonic.     

The difference between t and z and the difference it makes

Tests of the null hypothesis for comparisons involving sample means use the t test when the conditions of the z test cannot be met. The 2 tests have different rationales and can lead to different conclusions regarding significance. In the present study, the authors compared the properties of t and z in simulation runs. The differences in the results are a result of fluctuations in the t test sample variances that do not exist in the z test, and those differences lead to differences in designating the significance of comparisons.     

“科学没有宗教是跛足的“什么意思?

把某些科学家信仰宗教,当成科学可以容纳有神论而大加渲染,是现今推行鬼神论常用的一种伎俩. 　　爱因斯坦无疑是20世纪科学发展中的一座丰碑,将永远为人们所景仰;他同纳粹的斗争和推动反原子战争的和平运动,至今还有非常现实的意义.他得到崇高的荣誉和普遍的尊敬,是理所当然的.但也正因为如此,他也有了被鬼神论者随意涂抹的特别价值.近来,在宗教研究领域,通行的是引用他的这两句话:“科学没有宗教,是跛足的;宗教没有科学,则是盲目的.“……     

Sex and personality traits influence the difference between time taken to tell the truth or lie

A necessary component of lying is the withholding of a truthful response. Hence, lying may be conceptualised as involving the inhibition of an initial, automatic response (the truth) while an alternative response (the lie) is generated. We investigated response times to visually and auditorially presented questions probing recent episodic memory, when subjects answered questions truthfully or with lies. We also investigated whether the absolute response times or difference between time taken to tell the truth or lie was affected by participants' sex or correlated with personality scores on the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised-Short Scale. 61 subjects answered the same 36 questions five times. The first time involved answering all questions truthfully, which allowed post hoc analysis of whether subjects had been consistent in their lying and truth-telling on the following four occasions. These latter four occasions involved answering all questions (one each with 'truth' or 'lie') for both types of presentation. Regardless of type of presentation or subjects' sex, subjects took approximately 200 msec. longer to lie than to tell the truth in response to each question (p<.001). There were significant correlations between truthful response times to auditorially presented questions and Eysenck 'Neuroticism' scores. There was also a significant correlation for women between mean individual lie-minus-truth time to auditorially presented questions and Eysenck 'Lie' scores. These preliminary data suggest that response time is systematically longer when telling a lie and that personality variables may play a part in this process.     

Direct instruction: What it is and what it is becoming

This essay describes the principles of Direct Instruction design and delivery used to establish clear, unambiguous communication and maximize student responding. Direct Instruction research findings are summarized: achievement of low-income students in Follow Through, longitudinal results, and the effectiveness of Direct Instruction for students with handicaps. Finally, new directions for Direct Instruction, technological applications and instruction of higher-order skills, are discussed.     

元伦理学家认为不能从“是”推出“应该”吗

摩尔所谓"自然主义谬误"批判的是将"善"这种非自然的属性直接等同于快乐、进化以及实存等这些非价值属性的自然物,但他并不否认可以从这些具体的善事物或手段善中推导出善本身;斯蒂文森的温和情感主义虽然强调态度分歧对于信念分析的根本性和相对独立性,但并不否认部分态度分歧对于信念分歧的依赖性和共存性;黑尔作为元伦理学向规范伦理学复归的一个重要代表,更是有意弥合事实与价值的裂痕,强调道德语言的普遍规定性,强调作为社会事实的社会制度对价值评价的决定性和基础性作用。因此,通常所认为的元伦理学关于不能从"是"推出"应该"的结论,实际上是对元伦理学观点的误读,而这种误读也同样发生在休谟身上。     

Earliest memories in Israeli kibbutz upbringing: it is parental engagement that makes a difference

Culture and parenting shape the ability to recall early childhood experiences. This research focused on the unique context of upbringing in the Israeli kibbutz and examined how cultural orientation and experiences of parental engagement in Kibbutz and non-Kibbutz settings shaped adults’ earliest memories. Participants were 108 women (study 1) and 75 women and men (study 2) who were raised in traditional kibbutz upbringing or in a non-kibbutz family setting. In addition to reporting their earliest memory and age at earliest memory, participants estimated retrospectively the amount of daily time spent in interaction with parents, caregivers, and other children during the time of earliest memory. Overall, upbringing-related variations in cultural orientation were evident in the content of memories. A prediction of later age at earliest memory due to limited opportunities for parent–child interaction characteristic of traditional kibbutz upbringing was not supported. Rather, in both studies, age at earliest memory was linked to retrospective estimation of parental engagement, after controlling for childhood ecology. Study 2 revealed also a link of age at earliest memory to retrospective estimation of involvement with non-parental caregivers. These findings are congruent with the social-interaction model’s claims about the importance of interaction with caregiving adults to autobiographical memory’s development.     

Acquiring new word meaning: What does it tell us about development

R. J. Sternberg (1984, Developmental Review, 4, 113–138) offers a thoughtful and provocative essay on how individuals acquire meanings for novel or unfamiliar nouns. The Sternberg essay, however, is incomplete on a number of grounds. By stressing general processes and specific knowledge as critical components in the acquisition of verbal concepts, for example, it overlooks two logically complementary categories—specific processes and general knowledge—and the role these play in the acquisitions in question. A second concern is that the paper blurs distinctions among development, short-term learning, and the origin/acquisition of individual differences. Finally, Sternberg is encouraged to frame the specific phenomenon described here within the context of a larger theory of intellectual development and to indicate what else this specific model can be used to explain.     

Show or tell: Testimony is sufficient to induce the curse of knowledge in three- and four-year-olds

People often become slower in their performance after committing an error, which is usually explained by strategic control adjustments towards a more conservative response threshold. The present study tested an alternative hypothesis for explaining posterror slowing in terms of behavioural interferences resulting from error monitoring by manipulating stimulus contrast and categorization difficulty in a choice reaction time task. The response–stimulus interval (RSI) was either short or long, using a between-subject (Experiment 1) and a within-subject design (Experiment 2). Posterror slowing was larger and posterror accuracy lower in short than in long RSI situations. Effects of stimulus contrast disappeared in posterror trials when RSI was short. At long RSIs, stimulus contrast was additive with posterror slowing. The results support the idea that at least two mechanisms contribute to posterror slowing: a capacity-limited error-monitoring process with the strongest influence at short RSIs and a criterion adjustment mechanism at longer RSIs.