Abandoning the Buck Passing Analysis of Final Value

In this paper it is argued that the buck-passing analysis (BPA) of final value is not a plausible analysis of value and should be abandoned. While considering the influential wrong kind of reason problem and other more recent technical objections, this paper contends that there are broader reasons for giving up on buck-passing. It is argued that the BPA, even if it can respond to the various technical objections, is not an attractive analysis of final value. It is not attractive for two reasons: the first being that the BPA lacks the features typical of successful conceptual analyses and the second being that it is unable to deliver on the advantages that its proponents claim for it. While not offering a knock-down technical refutation of the BPA, this paper aims to show that there is little reason to think that the BPA is correct, and that it should therefore be given up as an analysis of final value.

Correct Responses and the Priority of the Normative

The ‘Wrong Kind of Reason’ problem for buck-passing theories (theories which hold that the normative is explanatorily or conceptually prior to the evaluative) is to explain why the existence of pragmatic or strategic reasons for some response to an object does not suffice to ground evaluative claims about that object. The only workable reply seems to be to deny that there are reasons of the ‘wrong kind’ for responses, and to argue that these are really reasons for wanting, trying, or intending to have that response. In support of this, it is pointed out that awareness of pragmatic or strategic considerations, unlike awareness of reasons of the ‘right kind’, are never sufficient by themselves to produce the responses for which they are reasons. I argue that this phenomenon cannot be used as a criterion for distinguishing reasons-for-a-response from reasons-for-wanting-to-have-a-response. I subsequently investigate the possibility of basing this distinction on a claim that the responses in question (e.g. admiration or desire) are themselves inherently normative; I conclude that this approach is also unsuccessful. Hence, the ‘direct response’ phenomenon cannot be used to rule out the possibility of pragmatic or strategic reasons for responses; and the rejection of such reasons therefore cannot be used to circumvent the Wrong Kind of Reason Problem.

The possibility of pragmatic reasons for belief and the wrong kind of reasons problem

In this paper I argue against the stronger of the two views concerning the right and wrong kind of reasons for belief, i.e. the view that the only genuine normative reasons for belief are evidential. The project in this paper is primarily negative, but with an ultimately positive aim. That aim is to leave room for the possibility that there are genuine pragmatic reasons for belief. Work is required to make room for this view, because evidentialism of a strict variety remains the default view in much of the debate concerning normative reasons for belief. Strict versions of evidentialism are inconsistent with the view that there are genuine pragmatic reasons for belief.

Attitude and the perception of faces

To assess the effects of affective orientation on the judgment of facial attriutes, 165 subjects were asked to make judgments of the attributes of each of two faces. For each face, subjects were either given no information about the person in the photo, or were given biographical information connoting either a favorable or unfavorable personality. It was predicted that when subjects make judgments along dimensions that were evaluatively loaded (e.g., smilling vs frowning mouth), manipulated attitude would influence these judgments. For the seven dimensions rated by the subjects, four dimensions showed the predicted effect. The other three dimensions, which did not show the effect, were the only ones that showed a significant effect due to the face itself. It was concluded that for dimensions that are not highly structured by the characteristics of the face, attitude can significantly influence judgments of facial attributes.     

The influence of flavor preexposure and test interval on conditioned taste aversions in the rat

The effects of flavor preexposure and test interval on conditioned taste aversions were examined in four experiments. In the first three experiments, prior experience with a flavor different from that used as a conditioned-stimulus (CS) produced attenuated aversions when testing occurred after a 1-day interval but not after a 21-day interval. Preexposure to the same stimulus used as a CS produced attenuated aversions at both 1- and 21-day intervals. In Experiment 4, a delay interval between flavor preexposure and conditioning eliminated the attenuating effect of preexposure, but only when different stimuli were used for preexposure and conditioning. These data could not be easily accounted for by contemporary interpretations of preexposure as an event that interferes with subsequent acquisition of a conditioned aversion. An alternative retrieval interference hypothesis was outlined.     

Attitude accessibility,attitude-behavior consistency,and the strength of the object-evaluation association

Two experiments were conducted in order to examine the accessibility of attitudes from memory as a function of the manner of attitude formation. The findings of the first experiment indicated that subjects could respond more quickly in a response-time task to inquiries about their attitudes when the attitudes were based upon direct behavioral experience with the attitude objects than when they were based upon nonbehavioral experience. It was suggested that, relative to indirect experience, behavioral experience may facilitate the attitude formation process and increase attitude accessibility once the attitude is formed. A second experiment found support for both of these notions. Two additional experiments indicated that repeated association of the attitude object and the attitudinal evaluation enhanced both attitude accessibility and attitude-behavior consistency. It was suggested that the strength of the object-evaluation association is a critical determinant of accessibility, which, in turn, acts as a central factor in the process by which attitudes affect later behavior. It was further suggested that the manner of attitude formation affects attitude-behavior consistency because direct experience produces a stronger object-evaluation association and, hence, a more accessible attitude than does indirect experience.     

Feeling Our Way Forward: Continuity and Discontinuity Within the Cosmic Process

Though their philosophical systems differed in many respects, both Charles Sanders Peirce and Alfred North Whitehead were united in their opposition to what they saw as the materialistic presuppositions of modern science and both urged instead a new psycho-physical approach to reality with emphasis on subjectivity/contingency as well as objectivity/necessity within all natural processes. This article reviews both systems and indicates how, taken in conjunction rather than seen as rival cosmologies, they offer a strong argument for rethinking the way Nature works both within us and around us.     

麦金太尔解决休谟伦理难题的贡献与困惑

麦金太尔《德性之后》的一个重要意义,是试图解决休谟伦理难题,即“是”与“应该”的矛盾。本文对此作一个初步的分析,力图证明麦金尔在这个方面的贡献对及存在的不足。     

Memory for lists of spatial events in the rat

Three experiments are reported in which rats were presented with lists of spatial events or responses in distinct visual contexts, and retention subsequently was measured for the events occuring at each serial position. In Experiments 1 and 2, lists contained different numbers of forced choices on successively presented T-mazes, and memory for each serial position was tested on each trial. In Experiment 3, lists were made up of different numbers of forced entries into randomly ordered arms on the eight-arm radial maze, and memory for one serial position was probed on each trial. All three experiments yielded serial position curves which demonstrated recency effects but no primacy effects. Comparisons of retention for different list lengths within each experiment indicated that retention of shorter lists was equivalent to retention of the final items of longer lists and superior to retention of the initial items on longer lists. This pattern of results indicated that there was no evidence of proactive inhibition in the serial position curves. Analysis of input and output interference effects and the results of control tests suggested that both retroactive inhibition and time-based forgetting processes were responsible for recency effects.     

An exploratory investigation of the origin and maintenance of phobias

Phobies were asked to relate past events which they believed caused or contributed to their fear, and to describe cognitive events experienced while imagining phobic interactions. Approximately half the subjects were able to recall relevant learning experiences, with direct experiences far more common than vicarious experiences or learning based on verbal instruction. Almost all of the subjects reported self-verbalizations while imagining the phobic situation, in every case phobic relevant. However, in a minority of instances were the verbalizations ‘catastrophic’ in nature. In only about half the cases did the phobies report that, in vivo, thoughts preceeded fear in the phobic situation (in contrast to a comparison group of less fearful subjects for which thoughts did preceed fear to a significant degree). Results are discussed in terms of possible limitations of a cognitive interpretation of phobic behavior.     

Remembrance of places lasts: Proactive inhibition and patterns of choice in rat spatial memory

A series of experiments was carried out to evaluate the notion that rats given a sequence of massed daily trials on the radial maze reset working memory at the end of each trial by deleting its contents. Although curves presented by D. S. Olton [Scientific American, 1977, 236, 82–98; In S. H. Hulse, H. Fowler, & W. K. Honig (Eds.), Cognitive processes in animal behavior, Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1978] show that rats return to errorless performance at the beginning of each trial after the first, the fact that accuracy falls less rapidly over choices on Trial 1 than on subsequent trials suggests a proactive inhibition (PI) effect. In Experiment 1, Olton's findings were replicated, and a PI effect was observed on Days 1–2 of testing. On Days 3–5, overall accuracy improved significantly and was associated with the development of a strong tendency for rats to enter adjacent alleys, which became particularly marked on the final trials of a day's testing. In order to prevent rats from achieving accurate performance by using an adjacent alleys pattern, a procedure was used in Experiment 2 which involved initial forced random choices followed by a retention test consisting of free choices. Repeated daily trials with this procedure yielded a significant PI effect, which was more marked at a 60-sec delay than at a 0-sec delay. Experiments 3 and 4 showed this PI effect to be robust and resistant to manipulations designed to produce release from PI. Both the PI effect and a strong tendency found in Experiment 1 for animals to avoid on the initial choices of Trial n those alleys most recently entered on Trial n?1 argue that rats do not reset working memory between trials.     

Effects of UCS intensity and postpeak acquisition trials on classical conditioning of the SCR

The present study examined the effects of UCS intensity and number of postpeak acquisition trials on classical conditioning and extinction of the SCR. A 2 × 3 design was employed in which subjects received either a 1, 2, or 4 mA shock UCS and either two or 16 acquisition trials beyond the peak CR. While conditioning was demonstrated during acquisition, there was no relationship between strength of conditioning and intensity of UCS. The phenomenon of stronger resistance to extinction following fewer acquisition trials (e.g., two past the peak CR) than with many (e.g., 16 past the peak CR) was demonstrated only for the groups that were conditioned with the 4 mA UCS. Resistance to extinction varied positively with UCS intensity, but only for the subjects who received two postpeak acquisition trials. Sixteen trials beyond the peak CR resulted in the UCS intensity having little or no effect on resistance to extinction.     

Reaction times and speed-of-processing: Their relationship to timed and untimed measures of intelligence

Eighty-one university students were given a battery of reaction time tests, measuring the speed with which they performed various elementary cognitive processes, and a group test of intelligence which yielded timed and untimed scores. Multiple regression analyses indicated that speed of information-processing was an equally good predictor of timed and untimed intelligence test performance, and that various combinations of speed-of-processing variables accounted for as much as 48% of the variance in intelligence test scores. Different speed-of-processing variables varied relatively systematically in the extent to which they correlated with the individual subtests and scales of the intelligence test.     

The purposes of laboratory experimentation and the virtues of deliberate artificiality

Critics of the laboratory experiment have maintained that artificiality (the intrusion into the experiment of “unrealistic” conditions) vitiates any possibility of generalizability beyond the confines of the laboratory. It is argued here that such artificiality in laboratory experimentation is a defect or flaw only within the context of verification and may be a distinct virtue in the context of discovery. Indeed it is argued that social psychological experiments may not be artificial enough when contrasted with the most fruitful experiments in the natural sciences. One purpose of an experiment may be to maximize artificiality deliberately so as to discover regularities that do not presently obtain under the “real” conditions outside the laboratory but which are capable of existing. When such observed laboratory regularities produce potentially beneficial outcomes, an attempt may be made to create the specific artificial laboratory conditions outside the laboratory to benefit mankind. This logic, exceedingly common in the natural sciences, has been virtually ignored in social psychology, even in the laboratory experiment, in favor of “realistic” reproduction of existing or reasonably plausible situations. Theoretical benefits of this additional modality of experimentation are illustrated by two recent developments in psychology.     

A comparison of attentional and control shift models of the performance of concurrent tasks

A concurrent verbal task was superimposed upon the performance of a practiced bimanual motor skill by right-handed Ss. Addition of the verbal task did not increase the total number of errors; however, a significant interaction between hands and conditions was observed. The right hand made significantly more errors under the verbal condition, while the left hand made non-significantly fewer errors under that condition. These findings were interpreted as supporting an attentional model rather than a model which proposes that addition of the verbal task causes control of the right hand to shift to the non-verbal right hemisphere.     

The effects of value confrontation and reinforcement counseling on the career planning attitudes and behavior of adolescent males

An experiment was conducted to compare the relative effectiveness of a value confrontation procedure and a procedure based on verbal operant conditioning in enhancing career development attitudes and increasing the frequency of information-seeking behavior in rural adolescent males. Ninety subjects were identified as internally controlled or externally controlled based on their locus of control scores and then randomly assigned to one of the two experimental treatment groups or a control group. The value confrontation procedure involved developing an awareness of self-dissatisfaction about one's career planning and relating this self-dissatisfaction to the importance one gave to the values logical and responsible. These values had been identified empirically in this study as having a relationship to career planning. The reinforcement counseling treatment involved the interpretation of individual career maturity data followed by the verbal operant conditioning of responses indicative of career maturity. Post tests administered 7 weeks after the treatments showed that the value confrontation procedure resulted in significantly greater frequency of information seeking for internally controlled subjects when compared to the reinforcement counseling and control procedures. No treatment was significant in increasing the maturity level of career development attitudes.     

The statistical interaction of cerebral specialization and integration in the interpretation of dynamic brain images

Two constructs of brain function, namely cerebral specialization and integration, have been examined in the analysis of blood flow and metabolic function resulting from dynamic imaging procedures. The purpose of the current paper is to illustrate the interaction of these two constructs at the statistical level. Because of the statistical interaction, it is argued that the currently accepted statistical evidence for cerebral specialization is, in fact, partially a function of the degree of regional cerebral integration. Therefore, found asymmetries of flow or rate may be solely a function of cerebral integration. These points are discussed with respect to developing a better understanding of stimulus/brain/behavior relations.     

Effects of schedule and magnitude of reinforcement under conditions of thirst motivation

In contrast to a recent finding (Macdonald, G. E., & De Toledo, L. Learning and Motivation, 1974, 5, 288–298.) the results of three experiments investigating various partial reinforcement (PRF) manipulations under conditions of thirst motivation demonstrated strong similarity to analogous manipulations involving food reward. Specifically, for animals receiving water reinforcement, PRF was shown to generate greater resistance to extinction than continuous reinforcement (Expt 1 & 3), the schedule of reinforcement was shown to interact with level of acquisition (Expt 1 and 2), and the magnitude of the partial reinforcement extinction effect was shown to be a function of reward magnitude (Expt 3). These results provide strong evidence that mechanisms which operate in partial reinforcement situations are highly similar, regardless of the type of appetitive reinforcement.     

The validity of formal and informal personality assessments

Two recent articles by M. Burisch (1984, American Psychologist, 37, 214–227; 1984, Journal of Research in Personality, 18, 81–98) have presented data bearing on the traditional methods by which personality is assessed. Based on a review of selected empirical studies and analyses of new data, Burisch has concluded that (a) single-item global self-ratings generally yield greater coefficients of criterion validity than questionnaire measures of the same traits, and (b) most existing personality questionnaires can be shortened considerably without any consequent loss in validity. These conclusions stand in direct contrast to previous appeals by Epstein and others for the use of extensive aggregate measures of personality derived according to the axioms of psychometric theory. In response to Burisch, we describe measurement artifacts and strategies of test item selection that account for some of his conclusions and we reiterate the need for the application of conventional construct-based questionnaires in the assessment of personality.     

Optimizing the validity of personality assessments: The importance of aggregation and item content

The predictive validity of a psychological measure can be improved by minimizing measurement errors through increases in the length of the assessment (aggregation) and, for an assessment of finite length, by making use of objective strategies for choosing from all available component measures. Two prominent considerations in selecting individual measures to be aggregated involve standards of (a) item content (construct approach) and (b) item/criterion association (empirical approach). Personality trait scales of different lengths were assembled for this study in order to represent features of the construct and empirical methods of selection. It was observed that (a) although reliability and validity generally increased with test length, aggregation beyond a certain point can fail to be expedient; and (b) although the prediction performance of empirically derived measures initially surpassed that of construct based assessments, the superiority of the empirical scales did not generalize to trait criteria that were not used as a basis for item selection. The data are interpreted as providing support for a theory-based program of test development where substantive considerations involving item content play a major role. The findings are also viewed as encouragement for conventional conceptualizations about organized dimensions of behavior.