Is Hume's shade of blue a red herring?

The existence of an idea of a missing shade of blue contradicts Hume's first principle that simple ideas all derive from corresponding simple impressions. Hume dismisses the ‘exception’ to his principle as unimportant. Why does he do so? His later account of distinctions of reason suggests a systematic way of dealing with simple ideas not derived from simple impressions. Why does he not return to the problem of the missing shade, having offered that account? Several suggestions as to Hume's solution of the problem of the missing shade (not all appealing to distinctions of reason) are explored with an eye both to their adequacy as Humean solutions and their value as clues to his dismissal of the problem. Hypotheses concerning the latter perplexity are formulated and discussed as well. Senses in which the missing shade of blue is or may be a red herring are identified. In course, this author names Hume's missing shade ‘marjorie grene’. Historians of philosophy will want to adopt this nomenclature.     

Population stratification in the candidate gene study: fatal threat or red herring?

Advances in molecular genetics have provided behavioral scientists with a means of investigating the influence of genetic factors on human behavior. Unfortunately, recent candidate gene studies have produced inconsistent results, and a frequent scapegoat for the lack of replication across studies is the threat of population stratification. This review of the literature on population stratification suggests that the threat may be a red herring. Reliable findings will require improved specification and measurement of the behavioral phenotypes in question, a renewed focus on internal validity, and the specification and testing of genetic factors in the context of longitudinal multivariate models. In this respect, behavioral scientists are well suited to investigating genetic factors that influence psychological mechanisms.     

Authenticity at Work: A Matter of Fit?

Authenticity at work refers to the extent to which a worker feels in touch with their true self while at work. At first sight this concept seems to overlap with the concept of person-environment (P-E) fit, that is, the degree to which an individual experiences good fit with their work environment. Drawing on a sample of 867 Dutch gifted workers, structural equation modeling was used to investigate (i) whether authenticity at work and P-E fit can be distinguished, and (ii) how authenticity at work and P-E fit were associated with employee well-being. As expected, confirmatory factor analysis revealed that authenticity at work and P-E fit were distinct from each other. Moreover, the mediated effect of authenticity at work was stronger for two negative forms of well-being (burnout and boredom) than for two positive forms of well-being (work engagement and job satisfaction). The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, especially focusing on the distinction between authenticity and P-E fit.     

Why does a red snake in the grass capture your attention?

It has been suggested that affective stimuli automatically capture attention; this preferential processing is thought to be related to the evolutionary significance of affective stimuli. However, recent evidence suggests that perceptual salience alone might explain why some affective stimuli are more likely to influence attentional processes in certain contexts. In this study, we manipulated affective and perceptual salience to better understand how affective information is processed and how it impacts attentional processes in different contexts. We used stimuli that are both affectively and perceptually salient, while varying the task requirement to encourage the processing of perceptually salient (Experiment 1) or affectively salient (Experiment 2) information. This design made it possible to observe independent and interdependent relationships between perceptual and affective salience. The results showed that when the task encouraged the processing of perceptually salient information, affective salience did not influence task performance. In contrast, when the task encouraged the processing of affectively salient information, affectively salient information impaired task performance. The findings suggest that the affective nature of the stimuli does not always influence attentional processes.     

Is there a spillover effect of a right turn on red permission for bicyclists?

A number of countries allow bicyclists to perform a right turn on red (RTOR) at some specific intersections to promote cycling by reducing the required physical effort and trip time. Implementation of a rule that allows a RTOR for bicyclists at some intersections could lead not only to local effects at those intersections where the rule actually applies, but also to supralocal effects. Using an experimental survey approach, this study explores whether a so-called ‘spillover effect’ of the rule can be expected. This effect would imply that allowing bicyclists to turn right on red at some intersections causes them to also turn right on red more often at intersections where RTOR for bicyclists is not allowed.The answers from 768 respondents indicate that respondents with a high awareness of the existence of a RTOR rule for bicyclists (experimental group) turn right on red significantly more often at intersections where RTOR for bicyclists is not permitted than respondents with a low awareness of the rule (control group). This indicates that implementation of the RTOR rule for bicyclists can indeed lead to an increase in red light running at other intersections. This might lead to safety issues at intersections where RTOR for bicyclists is not permitted, since road authorities could have decided not to allow RTOR for bicyclists at these intersections for safety reasons.The study also finds that men, young people and people who generally perform more risky cycling behaviours have a higher tendency to perform non-permitted RTOR. These findings are in line with existing literature.     

A ratio principle for a red/green and a yellow/blue channel?

There is strong empirical evidence that, under adaptation to another achromatic color stimulus, the lightness of an achromatic color stimulus depends on the ratio of the luminances of the two stimuli. In the present study, the suitability of this ratio principle is tested for two chromatic postreceptoral opponent channels. A Hering red/green channel and a non-Hering yellow/blue channel are specified as chromatic channels. The yellow/blue channel is defined by extrapolating the plane corresponding to unique green-white linearly to the reddish part of color space, using the plane’s surface as the channel’s equilibria. The experiment was run on an isoluminant plane, measured individually for each observer. Moving along an observer’s measured opponent axes, eight adaptation stimuli were selected for each channel and spanned the whole range of the channel’s coordinates. Red/green equilibria or yellow/blue equilibria were measured as excursions along the adaptation axes. For both presumed channels, the ratios of the equilibrium coordinates of test and adaptation stimuli were essentially constant. This supports the principle’s suitability. However, small asymmetries were found with respect to each channel’s opponent hues. The status of the proposed yellow/blue channel is discussed, as are conditions that might have favored the present findings.     

Is “service with a smile” enough? Authenticity of positive displays during service encounters

Service providers use impression management strategies to engender satisfaction and repeat business in customers. Managing emotional expressions is one strategy to meet those goals. We extended research on the “Duchenne Smile” to see if authenticity of employee expressions influenced the impressions formed of the employee’s friendliness and the overall satisfaction with the encounter. Furthermore, we took two other factors into account—task performance and busyness—to examine the conditions under which authenticity would have the greatest impact. In Study 1, we obtained reactions to videotaped simulations that manipulated authenticity of positive displays and task performance during a hotel check-in encounter. ANCOVA results supported that authenticity of the service provider enhanced perceptions of friendliness, but only influenced customer satisfaction when tasks were performed well. In Study 2, hierarchical linear modeling with reactions from 255 customers of 64 restaurant servers showed that perceived display authenticity enhanced the perceived friendliness of the employee when the store was slow, but less so when it was busy. Display authenticity had a direct effect on customer satisfaction, regardless of task performance (which was generally high) and busyness. We conclude that display authenticity is an extra-role behavior for service encounters with an additive effect on encounter satisfaction only when other factors are at optimal levels. We suggest implications for display rule policies and service training.     

Anger as “seeing red”: Evidence for a perceptual association

Metaphor representation theory contends that people conceptualise their non-perceptual states (e.g., emotion concepts) in perceptual terms. The present research extends this theory to colour manipulations and discrete emotional representations. Two experiments (N=265) examined whether a red font colour would facilitate anger conceptions, consistent with metaphors referring to anger to “seeing red”. Evidence for an implicit anger-red association was robust and emotionally discrete in nature. Further, Experiment 2 examined the directionality of such associations and found that they were asymmetrical: Anger categorisations were faster when a red font colour was involved, but redness categorisations were not faster when an anger-related word was involved. Implications for multiple literatures are discussed.     

Self-analysis: a fool for a patient?

In this paper I first reviewed the scanty publications on the subject of self-analysis. Although it was recommended by Freud as early as 1910 for every analyst, self-analysis turns out to have many pitfalls and to be quite a complicated and controversial procedure. There is no agreement on the proper technique of self-analysis in the literature, nor is there any discussion of the determinants of the particular choice of technique of self-analysis that is employed, nor even of the reasons why some analysts do not engage in it at all. Using clinical data gathered from written material of many years of self-analysis following the termination of a successful training psychoanalysis, I have attempted to elucidate some of the problems posed by this procedure. These problems are in some ways similar to formal psychoanalysis, but are in some ways contingent on the fact that it is basically a different technique. It is a solitary occupation and therefore suffers from the dangers of disintegration into autism, narcissism, and obsessional rumination. There is no living presence of an analyst to serve either as a transference figure or to make interpretations and stimulate the production of material. The identification with the analyst's analyzing function is far from simple in self-analysis because of the complex nature of the various internalizations of the analyst that take place over years of a formal training analysis. Thus, Ticho (1967) is correct when she claimed that self-analysis is a skill that the analysand has to acquire by himself or herself. An important phase of the beginning of self-analysis involves the working through of the separation from the psychoanalyst and the re-evaluation of the analyst and the analytic process. This results in a heightened sense of independence and autonomy, increased cohesion of the self, and maturation--which is manifested by greater autonomous ego functioning, a more mature sense of identity, and continued transformations of narcissism which highly valuable goals, on the basis of the data I have presented, can be approached through the process of self-analysis. Above all this stands the most important goal of self-analysis, the understanding of one's countertransference reactions. This is especially important in the treatment of seriously disturbed patients who become disruptive, and thus get labeled borderline, often as a response to unconscious countertransference manifestations from the analyst which are then experienced in the self-object transference as failures in empathy.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

Psychoanalysis: a dysfunctional family?

The discussion opens with an account of the author's mother's bizarre family in which a strong, charismatic grandmother maintained absolute control over her large family by encouraging a neurotic dependence in them through daily reports of their complaints.
Getting interested in psychoanalysis in an effort to understand the dynamics of this dysfunctional family, the author, a biographer, turned to the study of Melanie Klein, becoming entranced by her ideas. Her research also revealed how Klein had discouraged her followers from developing ideas that diverged in any way from her own. Her portrait of the pioneer analyst provoked intense indignation. A similar pattern of absolute loyalty to his person and theories was to be found in Freud's Secret Committee, formed primarily as a means of getting rid of Jung who had been showing disturbing signs of independence. When Ferenczi and Rank began to pursue independent lines of enquiry in their work, they too were thought to be undermining the foundations of classical psychoanalysis.
Finally, the author concludes that though there have been sorry incidents in psychoanalysis, we should be mature enough to accept both the contributions of the early pioneers and the realizations that new ideas must be permitted to evolve.     

Refuting Polonius: Sincerity,Authenticity, and ‘Shtick’

Abstract

Mark Johnston argues that the identity between water and H₂O generates a puzzle: Ice is related to H₂O just as water is related to H₂O. If water is identical to H₂O, so is ice, and we end up with an absurdity: water is ice. This paper suggests a way to preserve the identity between water and H₂O without this absurd result.     

Angels: a bridge to a spiritual pedagogy?

This article is the result of an Early Childhood Care and Education undergraduate pilot project through a university on the West Coast of Canada. It weaves together poststructural interpretations and a hermeneutic phenomenological recounting of an experience of inquiring about angels with young children. The angel inquiry became a point of entry into a holistic spiritual pedagogy that attends to the whole of a matter, while also paying attention to the significance of each part. Contributing to the interpretations made in this study is Ted Aoki’s philosophy of the space between where the planned curriculum and the lived curriculum (or lived experiences) meet in a third and overlapping tensional space; Max van Manen’s emphasis on lived experiences as ‘breathing meaning’ also contribute to the choices and interpretations made. Blended through the study are the understandings of Tobin Hart and Kate Adams from their investigations of children’s lived experiences with mystical unseen worlds. The area of invisible mystery proves to be more delicate to negotiate than the world of physical embodiments and the world of complete fantasy of the mind; this is the area of the spiritual – the meeting of body and mind with a third and overlapping space. This space goes by many names and many definitions, but ultimately remains indefinable and intangible. But during the pilot project, meaning did come through the inquiring and through the themes that emerged of ‘who we are’ in relation to angels; race, gender and the role of nurturer; and familial angel ownership. Children yearn for allowing spaces to safely express these ideas about, and experiences with, mystery worlds. It is the connection with the inner life through small moments and engagements with the big life questions that the entangling of the physical, the mental and the spiritual creates the intuitive, integrated heart space of a holistic spiritual pedagogy.     

Peacocke on red and red′

How are we to define ‘red’? We seem to face a dilemma. For it seems that we must define ‘red’ in terms of ‘looks red’. But ‘looks red’ is semantically complex. We must therefore define ‘looks red’ in terms of ‘red’. Can we avoid this dilemma? Christopher Peacocke thinks we can. He claims that we can define the concept of being red in terms of the concept of being red′; the concept of a sensational property of visual experience. Peacocke agrees that his definition of red makes use of a concept that those who possess the concept of being red need not possess; namely, red′. But he thinks that this does not matter. For, he says, the definition is justified provided we can specify what it is to possess the concept of being red in terms of the concept of being red′. What he tries to show is that this might be so even if no-one could possess the concept of being red′ unless he possessed the concept of being red. Peacocke has two attempts at showing this. However, both these attempts fail. What Peacocke does show is something weaker. He shows that, using red′, we can construct a concept that gives what he calls the ‘constitutive role’ of the concept of being red; but, importantly, that it gives the constitutive role of red does not suffice for what Peacocke says is required for giving a definition. Thus, if we accept Peacocke's standard for definition, it follows that he gives us no way of avoiding the original dilemma. If this is right then perhaps we should join with those like Colin McGinn who think that we should give up our attempts to define our secondary quality concepts.     

The Relevance of Big Five Trait Content in Behavior to Subjective Authenticity: Do High Levels of Within‐Person Behavioral Variability Undermine or Enable Authenticity Achievement?

ABSTRACT Individuals vary their behavior from moment to moment a great deal, often acting “out of character” for their traits. This article investigates the consequences for authenticity. We compared 2 hypotheses—trait consistency, that individuals feel most authentic when acting in a way consistent with their traits; and state‐content significance, that some ways of acting feel more authentic because of their content and consequences, regardless of the actor's corresponding traits. Three studies using experience‐sampling methodology in laboratory and natural settings, with participants ages 18–51, strongly supported the state‐content significance hypothesis and did not support the trait‐consistency hypothesis. Authenticity was consistently associated with acting highly extraverted, agreeable, conscientious, emotionally stable, and intellectual, regardless of the actor's traits. Discussion focuses on possible implications for within‐person variability in behavior and for the nature of the self‐concept.     

Toward an objective phenomenological vocabulary: how seeing a scarlet red is like hearing a trumpet’s blare

Nagel’s challenge is to devise an objective phenomenological vocabulary that can describe the objective structural similarities between aural and visual perception. My contention is that Charles Sanders Peirce’s little studied and less understood phenomenological vocabulary makes a significant contribution to meeting this challenge. I employ Peirce’s phenomenology to identify the structural isomorphism between seeing a scarlet red and hearing a trumpet’s blare. I begin by distinguishing between the vividness of an experience and the intensity of a quality. I proceed to identify further points of structural isomorphism (a) between the experience of seeing a scarlet red and of hearing a trumpet blare and (b) between the qualities of those experiences. Lastly, I gesture towards how these distinctions can be an aid in describing what it is like to be a bat.     

The Authenticity of Conflict Resolutions Among Adult Couples: Does Women's Other-Oriented Behavior Reflect Their True Selves?

In this study we examined how men and women typically resolve conflicts with relationship partners (by meeting the self's need, the other's need, or through compromise) and the authenticity of resolutions and their relation to psychological health. Data were collected using a questionnaire given to 251 men and 251 women (aged 18–75 yrs) who were in heterosexual relationships. Results showed that most women (but not men) who resolved conflicts by meeting their partners' needs rather than their own thought that this was inauthentic behavior that they adopted to avoid negative repercussions from their partners. For all participants, inauthenticity and a lack of partner validation was linked to poorer psychological health. Results suggest that women's other-oriented relationship behavior does not necessarily stem from the authentic self.     

Erratum: Comment: What's in a name?

Erratum . New Blackfriars Volume 86, Number 1004
In this article by Fergus Kerr in Volume 86, Number 1004, July 2005: - p. 360, line 5 of text: 'He reaffirms his predecessor's condemnation of "Modernism" (he is said to have found a document delating himself in the papal in-tray); but, by these "new terms"' should read: 'He reaffirms his predecessor's condemnation of "Modernism" (he is said to have found a document delating himself in the papal in-tray); but, by these "new terms", he means the categorization of Catholics as "modernists" and "integrists".'