“Heredity” and “environment” in biology and psychology

The Psychological Record - Hereditary theories are considered that purport to explain behavioral facts. The use of the term, heredity, is traced to its non-scientific, common sense derivation in...     

“Talk and social structure” and “studies of work”

This paper takes up the current discussion and disagreement among ethnomethodologists and conversation analysts concerning how conversation analysis should address questions of social structure. It also discusses the question of whether conversation analysis can address questions concerning the organisation of work as developed in the studies of work program of ethnomethodologists. Five different types of ethnomethodological and conversation analytic studies are delineated in order to show that, altough they differ in problem selection and formulation, methodological preference and foci, they are not incompatible but complementary.Presented at the meetings of the International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, Bentley College, August 1992.     

“Exclusive” and “Inclusive” Visions of Heroism and Democracy

Two contrasting visions of heroism and democracy have evolved side by side. An “exclusive” vision presents democracy as involving heroic leadership by exceptional individuals along with relatively limited volunteer participation by ordinary citizens. This “exclusive” vision has been supported by the personalization of politics, as well as the increased importance of elite leaders in an era of candidate-centered democracy. In contrast, an “inclusive” vision depicts heroism as integral to everyday life for ordinary people, and widespread volunteer participation in social life as normative in all democracies. In a study we conducted that involved a nationally representative sample of 4,000 adults in the United States, about a third reported considerable volunteering, and one out of five reported having carried out a heroic act. A detailed analysis of types of volunteering and heroism supports an inclusive vision of heroism and democracy. However, a number of trends associated with globalization and technology suggest increasing challenges to this inclusive vision.     

“Anxious” and “reckless” drivers

This paper presents personality profiles of two types of recidivist traffic offenders. One is the “anxious” traffic offender who imputes legitimacy to traffic norms, yet due to innate structural personality defects, he tends to enter into a state of anxiety, when confronted with risky traffic situations or a traffic jam. The other type is the “reckless” driver, who does not impute legitimacy to traffic norms nor to other legal norms. From this personality theory a number of hypotheses were derived and tested by means of multiple regression. Our ability to predict the number of traffic offenses suggests that similar tools may be used by the traffic authorities and traffic courts.     

Apache “Learners” and “Nonlearners”

While the Mescalero and Chiricahua Apaches of the Mescalero Indian Reservation aboriginally probably had very similar if not identical patterns of cognition and perception, present day aged members of those tribes have strikingly different patterns, demonstrable by clinical behavior and Rorschach responses. While in kindergarten, about half of the grandchildren and greatgrandchildren of those aged Mescaleros and Chiricahuas are unable to adjust themselves to the expectations of school teachers and are retained for a second year of kindergarten. Those children, here designated as nonlearners, are found to respond to Rorschach stimuli as do the aged Mescaleros with a high degree of statistical reliability.     

“Transferring” and transference

This paper is part of my research into psychotic transference and is also related to the psychotic aspect of any adult or infantile patient in analysis. In my research, I studied the origin of the concept of transference in Charcot's time before Freud, and the transformation of this concept in psychoanalysis. Freud thought that psychotic patients were not able to establish a transference relationship, but some of his early papers show the opposite. In fact, Freud himself and then several other analysts were able to develop a personal experience regarding the possibility of contact and transferring feelings and delusional experiences in a therapeutic context – individual, group, or institution. I provide some clinical examples in this paper, as well as some theoretical, personal views regarding intrapersonal and interpersonal transference. Like Freud and Melanie Klein, I believe that transference starts with life, but that in psychoanalysis it has a particular meaning.     

“Assertion” and intentionality

Robert Stalnaker argues that his causal-pragmatic account of the problem of intentionality commits him to a coarse-grained conception of the contents of mental states, where propositions are represented as sets of possible worlds. Stalnaker also accepts the “direct reference” theory of names, according to which co-referring names have the same content. Stalnaker’s view of content is thus threatened by Frege’s Puzzle. Stalnaker’s classic paper “Assertion” is intended to provide a response to this threat. In this paper, I evaluate Stalnaker’s claim that the causal-pragmatic account of intentionality commits one to a coarse-grained conception of the contents of mental states, and argue that the apparatus laid out in “Assertion” is not sufficiently comprehensive to account for all versions of Frege’s Puzzle.     

Locke and “ad”

In IV, xvii, 19–22 of his Essay, Locke employs Latin labels for four kinds of argument, of which one (ad hominem) was already in circulation and one (ad judicium) has never had much currency. The present proposal seeks to locate and clarify what Locke was aiming to describe, and to contrast what he says with some subsequent uses that have been made of these labels as if they named fallacies. Though three of the four kinds of argument that Locke picks out are often less than decisive, he casts no aspersion on the legitimacy of their use in debate.

     

“Outside thinking” and “Horizontal logic”

Metaphysics is a repeated act by way of “representation”; the instantaneous judgment is solidified, the inevitable conclusion is made, and at the same time other possibilities are excluded. “Outside thinking” is a blow to the spiritual tradition of metaphysics, which holds that “representation” will lead to a differential activity concerning the relationship between stranger things. Such relationship follows a kind of “horizontal logic,” the latter discards the presupposition on the “origin” of things, that is, it no longer presumes that this point or that point has greater privilege than “other points.” Things do not develop from a central point. Rather, things are the result of innumerable “points” in cooperative relationships between strangers. These cooperative relationships are arbitrary. In “horizontal logic,” many “starting points” or “spiritual T-points” are used as substitutes for a unique “origin.”     

“Approach” and “avoidance” coping and PTSD symptoms in innercity youth

This study examined the function of approach and avoidant coping on the relations between exposure to violence and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. The sample included seventy African-American, inner-city children (ages eleven to fourteen). Tests of moderating effects investigated the mechanism of two avoidant coping strategies, cognitive distraction and behavioral avoidance. Cognitive distraction was found to moderate the level of violence exposure such that, as violence increased, the use of cognitive distraction was related to an increased frequency of cognitive arousal. Behavioral avoidance moderated violence such that, under higher exposure to violence, the lowered use of behavioral avoidance was related to an increased frequency of behavioral arousal. Tests of moderating effects examined the function of two approach strategies, problem-solving and social support. Neither strategy showed significant effects. This study provided a first-step in the examination of coping within inner-city children. Portions of this research were supported by a grant from the U. S. Department of Portions of this research were supported by a grant from the U. S. Department of Portions of this research were supported by a grant from the U. S. Department of     

Auditory processing and perceptual abilities of “organic” and “functional” stutterers

The present investigation was undertaken to determine whether significant differences in auditory processing and perceptual abilities exist between (1) stutterers as a supposedly homogeneous group when compared with controls, (2) two differentiated subgroups of stutterers, and (3) either of the stuttering subgroups when separately compared with controls. Dichotic listening and masking level difference (MLD) tasks were administered to the two groups of school-age stutterers and an age-matched nonstuttering control group. Stuttering subjects were differentiated into “organic” and “functional” subgroups on the basis of neuropsychological test performances. Organic stutterers performed significantly poorer than did controls on one MLD experimental condition. Functional stutterers performed more like control subjects than like organic stutterers.     

The dream between “here‐and‐now” and “there‐and‐then”

The analysand recounts his/her dream now, and here, in the setting. Though a dream may be recounted repeatedly, the human situation in which the recounting takes place is unrepeatable. Each moment of the analytic relationship is unique, and the recounting is essentially relational. Even if the dreamer were to read from a written text, his/her voice and non‐verbal aspects would render the communication unique. Not only the recounting but also the content recounted may present relational aspects, manifest or latent, but of a relational nature different from that of the session “here‐ and‐now”. The dream dreamt belongs to the “there‐and‐then”, and its analysis, like every analysis, implies an objectification. The analyst reacts to the recounted dream, trying to objectify it in its “there‐and‐then” and also inviting the dreamer to a common task. Working on the manifest content, free associations and interpretations of symbols, they voyage through the time and space of the analysand's life. The recounted dream involves the “here‐and‐now” of the session and asks to be meaningful as a cue in the analytic dialogue (what is the meaning of recounting this dream at this moment). At the same time it refers back to the dream dreamt, to a “there‐and‐then” which, if it is not to remain “an unopened letter”, must be received as an enigmatic challenge and a window on the unconscious, open and ready to close. Thinking of an opening of the dreamer's unconscious the analyst may find himself/herself faced with an opening of his/her own unconscious.     

“in”, “on”, and “under” revisited

The present study presents evidence that young children's comprehension of the locatives ‘in’, ‘on’, and ‘under’ is, at least in part, contextually determined. Children aged 1;6–3;0 were given tasks with verbal instructions which were either contextually congruent or incongruent. The results were interpreted in terms of the non-linguistic as well as linguistic strategies apparently used to interpret speech. The results and interpretation are in contrast to those of earlier research.     

Bennett and “proxy actualism”

Karen Bennett has recently argued that the views articulated by Linsky and Zalta (Philos Perspect 8:431–458, 1994) and (Philos Stud 84:283–294, 1996) and Plantinga (The nature of necessity, 1974) are not consistent with the thesis of actualism, according to which everything is actual. We present and critique her arguments. We first investigate the conceptual framework she develops to interpret the target theories. As part of this effort, we question her definition of ‘proxy actualism’. We then discuss her main arguments that the theories carry a commitment to actual entities that do not exist. We end by considering and addressing a worry that might have been the driving force behind Bennett’s claim that Linsky and Zalta’s view is not fully actualistic.

Retention by “fast” and “slow” learners

Four experiments were conducted to replicate and extend the findings by Shuell and Keppel (1970) as well as others, that when properly equated for original learning, “fast” and “slow” learners have parallel forgetting curves. In Experiments I and II, the Shuell-Keppel findings, originally demonstrated on American students learning lists of words, were replicated on samples of Nigerian students. In Experiments III and IV, Nigerian and American students, respectively, learned poems to a criterion of 75–90% correct and were tested for retention. In all studies, “fast” and “slow” learners were brought to a similar learning criterion, with the result that their forgetting curves were parallel.     

The Logic of “Most” and “Mostly”

The paper suggests a modal predicate logic that deals with classical quantification and modalities as well as intermediate operators, like “most” and “mostly”. Following up the theory of generalized quantifiers, we will understand them as two-placed operators and call them determiners. Quantifiers as well as modal operators will be constructed from them. Besides the classical deduction, we discuss a weaker probabilistic inference “therefore, probably” defined by symmetrical probability measures in Carnap’s style. The given probabilistic inference relates intermediate quantification to singular statements: “Most S are P” does not logically entail that a particular individual S is also P, but it follows that this is probably the case, where the probability is not ascribed to the propositions but to the inference. We show how this system deals with single case expectations while predictions of statistical statements remain generally problematic.     

Semantic and pragmatic factors in the representation of “near” and “far”

The processing of two spatial terms which refer to proximity and distance, near and far, was investigated in a word-picture comparison task. Two alternative hypotheses were tested, one based on the notion of linguistic markedness and supporting the positive status of far, and the other based on semantic-pragmatic factors and proposing that near is the positive member of the pair. An analysis of the true-false decision latencies indicated that near was generally verified faster than far in judgments in which the terms were used to describe both ego-to-object and object-to-object distance. A third experiment addressed the question of whether the advantage obtained in the verification of near may be accounted for in terms of the priority of the interpersonal dimension of representation relative to the objective one. The results are discussed with regard to the semantic representation of the two words.     

Children's judgment and recall of causal connectives: A developmental study of “because,” “so,” and “and”

The present study examined the acceptability judgments and recall performance of children aged 6,9, and 11 years with sentences expressing psychological cause-effect relations. Thirty-two sentences containing because medially, because initially, so, and and were generated from four clause pairs. Both probable and improbable event orders were used. The results indicated that children preferred because to so or and for statements of psychological causality. However, on both tasks, first and third graders frequently failed to attend to the temporal ordering specified by each sentence construction. The younger children also tended to judge all sentences acceptable, suggesting that they were concerned only with the probable association of event pairs, and not with the usual order of the events. Order of mention strategies did not occur in any group, suggesting that they arise only when children cannot make interpretations based on probable order of events. The data also indicated that the recall task is an unreliable index of rules for comprehension and production.This article is based on research conducted by the first author as partial fulfillment of the Ph.D. requirements for the Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin.