What People Want From Their Professionals: Attitudes Toward Decision‐making Strategies

Attitudes toward four types of decision‐making strategies—clinical/fully rational, clinical/heuristic, actuarial/fully rational, and actuarial/heuristic—were examined across three studies. In Study 1, undergraduate students were split randomly between legal and medical decision‐making scenarios and asked to rate each strategy in terms of the following: (i) preference; (ii) accuracy; (iii) fairness; (iv) ethicalness; and (v) its perceived similarity to the strategies used by actual legal and medical professionals to make decisions. Studies 2 and 3 extended Study 1 by using a more relevant scenario and a community sample, respectively. Across the three studies, the clinical/fully rational strategy tended to be rated the highest across all attitudinal judgments, whereas the actuarial/heuristic strategy tended to receive the lowest ratings. Considering the two strategy‐differentiating factors separately, clinically based strategies tended to be rated higher than actuarially based strategies, and fully rational strategies were always rated higher than heuristic‐based strategies. The potential implications of the results for professionals' and those affected by their decisions are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On a Neg‐Raising Fallacy in Determining Enthymematicity: If She Did not Believe or Want …

Many arguments that show p to be enthymematic (in an argument for q) rely on claims like “if one did not believe that p, one would not have a reason for believing that q.” Such arguments are susceptible to the neg‐raising fallacy. We tend to interpret claims like “X does not believe that p” as statements of disbelief (X's belief that not‐p) rather than as statements of withholding the belief that p. This article argues that there is a tendency to equivocate in arguments for the enthymematicity of arguments (e.g., Lewis Carroll's paradox, Hume's problem) as well as in arguments for the enthymematicity of action explanations (e.g., arguments for psychologism and for explanatory individualism). The article concludes with a warning, because the equivocation is often helpful in teaching and because neg‐raising verbs include philosophically vital verbs: desire, want, intend, think, suppose, imagine, expect, feel, seem, appear.     

What Women Want

ABSTRACT Even in the absence of overt discrimination, women are often channelled into different directions from their male counterparts by the network of incentives and disincentives which constitute what has been called a 'discriminatory environment'. On the account of freedom and coercion developed in this essay, the incentives and disincentives which typically figure in discriminatory environments are not coercive. Nevertheless such environments, it is argued, are morally objectionable on independent grounds.     

Good or Bad,We Want it Now: Fixed‐cost Present Bias for Gains and Losses Explains Magnitude Asymmetries in Intertemporal Choice

Intertemporal tradeoffs are ubiquitous in decision making, yet preferences for current versus future losses are rarely explored in empirical research. Whereas rational‐economic theory posits that neither outcome sign (gains vs. losses) nor outcome magnitude (small vs. large) should affect delay discount rates, both do, and moreover, they interact: in three studies, we show that whereas large gains are discounted less than small gains, large losses are discounted more than small losses. This interaction can be understood through a reconceptualization of fixed‐cost present bias, which has traditionally described a psychological preference for immediate rewards. First, our results establish present bias for losses—a psychological preference to have losses over with now. Present bias thus predicts increased discounting of future gains but decreased (or even negative) discounting of future losses. Second, because present bias preferences do not scale with the magnitude of possible gains or losses, they play a larger role, relative to other motivations for discounting, for small magnitude intertemporal decisions than for large magnitude intertemporal decisions. Present bias thus predicts less discounting of large gains than small gains but more discounting of large losses than small losses. The present research is the first to demonstrate that the effect of outcome magnitude on discount rates may be opposite for gains and losses and also the first to offer a theory (an extension of present bias) and process data to explain this interaction. The results suggest that policy efforts to encourage future‐oriented choices should frame outcomes as large gains or small losses. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Counseling Women Who Want Both a Profession and a Family

Research has shown that many women who seek to combine a demanding career and a family encounter a variety of problems and conflicts. This article reviews the special problems of this group of women as well as research findings on effective coping strategies. The implications of these findings for developing appropriate counseling interventions are discussed.     

“No More” leads to “Want More,” but “No Less” leads to “Want Less”: Consumers' counterfactual thinking when faced with quantity restriction discounts

The current research examines the impact of point‐of‐purchase (POP) discounts on consumers' counterfactual thinking (CFT). Study 1 reveals that consumers tend to engage in upward CFT (what might have been better) rather than downward CFT (what might have been worse) in response to POP discounts. Study 2 shows that upward CFT depends on how the discount information is framed. A discount with a lower‐quantity restriction (e.g., “X % off if you buy at least Y items”) leads consumers to counterfactually wish to buy more, but a discount with an upper‐quantity restriction (“X % off – limit Y items per customer”) leads consumers to wish to buy less. Study participants in both conditions report they would buy the same POP‐suggested amount, but for completely opposite reasons. In Study 3, this convergence effect in purchase quantity disappears when the maximum and minimum restrictions are lifted, suggesting that quantity restrictions in POP discounts guide quantity decisions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self‐Compassion,Self‐Esteem,and Well‐Being

This article focuses on the construct of self‐compassion and how it differs from self‐esteem. First, it discusses the fact that while self‐esteem is related to psychological well‐being, the pursuit of high self‐esteem can be problematic. Next it presents another way to feel good about oneself: self‐compassion. Self‐compassion entails treating oneself with kindness, recognizing one’s shared humanity, and being mindful when considering negative aspects of oneself. Finally, this article suggests that self‐compassion may offer similar mental health benefits as self‐esteem, but with fewer downsides. Research is presented which shows that self‐compassion provides greater emotional resilience and stability than self‐esteem, but involves less self‐evaluation, ego‐defensiveness, and self‐enhancement than self‐esteem. Whereas self‐esteem entails evaluating oneself positively and often involves the need to be special and above average, self‐compassion does not entail self‐evaluation or comparisons with others. Rather, it is a kind, connected, and clear‐sighted way of relating to ourselves even in instances of failure, perceived inadequacy, and imperfection.     

Self‐awareness and self‐understanding

In this paper, I critically examine Dan Zahavi's multidimensional account of the self and show how the distinction he makes among “pre‐reflective minimal,” “interpersonal,” and “normative” dimensions of selfhood needs to be refined in order to accommodate what I call “pre‐reflective self‐understanding.” The latter is a normative dimension of selfhood manifest not in reflection and deliberation, but in the habits and style of a person's pre‐reflective absorption in the world. After reviewing Zahavi's multidimensional account and revealing this gap in his explanatory taxonomy, I draw upon Heidegger, Merleau‐Ponty, and Frankfurt in order to sketch an account of pre‐reflective self‐understanding. I end by raising an objection to Zahavi's claim for the primitive and foundational status of pre‐reflective self‐awareness. To carve off self‐awareness from the self's practical immersion in a situation where things and possibilities already matter and draw one to act is to distort the phenomena. A more careful phenomenology of pre‐reflective action shows that pre‐reflective self‐awareness and pre‐reflective self‐understanding are co‐constitutive, both mutually for each other and jointly for everyday experience.     

Vocational Services for Older Adults or “I Want to Work,But …”

The need for counseling and guidance services for the older job seeker has been stated and described in employment and counseling literature. This article describes one program designed to meet that need through 12-hour job readiness workshops, mini-workshops, and an employment information showcase.     

Children's meta‐perceptions and meta‐accuracy of acceptance and rejection by same‐sex and other‐sex peers

The goals of this study were to examine children's meta‐perceptions and meta‐accuracy of acceptance and rejection in the peer group, the degree to which these perceptions vary by perceiver sex and sex of the reference group, and the association between these perceptions and children's actual functioning in the peer group. Participants were 644 fourth‐grade children. Meta‐perceptions and meta‐accuracy were derived from sociometric nominations of actual and perceived acceptance and rejection. Children more accurately perceived how they were seen by same‐sex peers than how they were seen by other‐sex peers. They also perceived more rejection than acceptance from other‐sex peers. Meta‐accuracy for rejection was low regardless of the sex of the reference group. Sex of the reference group significantly moderated the association between meta‐perceptions and meta‐accuracy of acceptance and rejection and children's actual peer relationships. These findings indicate the importance of examining these relatively understudied social cognitions in research with children and the importance of taking the sex of the reference group into account in future peer relations studies using peer nomination methods.     

Learning from Instructor‐managed and Self‐managed Split‐attention Materials

Instructor‐managed physical integration of mutually dependent, but spatially separated materials, is an effective way to overcome negative effects of split‐attention on learning. This study examined whether teaching students to self‐manage split‐attention materials would be effective for learning. Seventy‐eight primary‐school students learned about the water cycle, either by studying split‐attention examples, integrated examples or self‐managed split‐attention examples. It was hypothesised that students who study instructor‐integrated materials and students who study self‐integrated materials would outperform students who study split‐attention materials. The results showed that students learned more from instructor‐integrated materials than from split‐attention materials, thereby confirming the split‐attention effect. The implications for future research on self‐management are discussed.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Feeling and thinking: An affect‐as‐cognitive‐feedback account

Despite the abundance of evidence demonstrating a dedicated link between positive and negative affect and specific ways of thinking, not all findings are consistent with this view. New research suggests that the relationship between affect and thinking can be altered and often reversed, by varying the mental context in which affect is experienced. The affect‐as‐cognitive‐feedback account can explain a wide range of phenomena, including both prior findings and this more recent research, and generate new predictions. According to this account, affective reactions confer value on accessible information processing strategies (e.g., global vs. local processing) and other mental content that happens to be accessible at the time. This view underscores that the relationship between affect and cognition is not fixed but instead is highly malleable. We present evidence that supports this account, along with new findings that suggest a malleable influence of specific affective states on cognition.