Changing the affective valence of the stimulus items influences the IAT by re-defining the category labels

The Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) is a computer-based categorization task that measures concept association strengths. Greenwald et al. (1998) demonstrated that participants completed the categorizations more quickly when pleasant and flower shared a response key than when pleasant and insect shared a response key, and when pleasant and White shared a response key than when pleasant and Black shared a response key. In Study 1, we reversed the typical IAT effect for flowers and insects, and eliminated the typical IAT effect for White and Black, by changing the affective valence of the stimulus items. In Study 2, we replicated the reversibility effect for an animal and plant IAT, and supported a category re-definition hypothesis. Our results have implications for understanding the IAT, and suggest that the IAT not only measures stereotypic responses, but can also be influenced by individuating information of the stimulus items.     

Strategic Maneuvering with the Intention of the Legislator in the Justification of Judicial Decisions

The author gives an analysis of the strategic manoeuvring in the justification of legal decisions from a pragma-dialectical perspective by showing how a judge tries to reconcile dialectical and rhetorical aims. On the basis of an analysis and evaluation of the argumentation given by the US Supreme Court in the famous Holy Trinity case, it is shown how in a case in which the judge wants to make an exception to a legal rule for the concrete case tries to meet the dialectical reasonableness norm by seeing to it that his standpoint is sufficiently defended according to the requirements of the burden of proof of a judge in a rational critical discussion and how he tries at the same time to be rhetorically convincing for the legal audience by presenting the decision as a choice that is in line with the argumentation schemes and starting points that can be considered as accepted by the legal community in the US and by the US community as a whole.

Tyndale's Disagreement with Luther in the Prologue to the Epistle to the Romans

Abstract

Although it is generally assumed that Tyndale's Prologue to the Epistle to Romans (1526) is a translation of Luther's Preface (1522), this article examines those places where Tyndale deviated from a straight translation of Luther's text, and supports Thomas More's statement that Tyndale was a worse heretic than Luther. Tyndale's doctrine of God, the Father, Christ, and especially of the Holy Spirit, faith, righteousness, flesh and spirit, the state of fallen man and the temporal regiment show Tyndale was not doctrinally a Lutheran when he wrote his Prologue to Romans.     

Wittgenstein and the Dualism of the Inner and the Outer

A dualism characteristic of modern philosophy is the conception of the inner and the outer as two independently intelligible domains. Wittgenstein’s attack on this dualism contains deep insights. The main insight (excavated from §304 and §293 of the Philosophical Investigations) is this: our sensory consciousness is deeply shaped by language and this shaping plays a fundamental role in the etiology of the dualism. I locate this role in the learning of a sensation-language (as described in §244), by showing that this learning is, under another aspect, the incision of language, namely the infliction of cuts upon certain natural-primitive unities between the inner and the outer. These cuts, driven by powerful forces, eventually harden into an entrenched division between the inner and the outer, thereby providing a constant soil for the dualism. That this dualism is rooted in the very learning of a language is cause for ambivalence about language.     

On the examination of the role of the episcopalian priest in the pastoral ministry

The purpose of the research was to identify empirically and measurably those dimensions considered important by laity in evaluating their priest. The 83-item questionnaire was developed from existing instruments and from an interview survey carried out on laity from a national selection of Episcopal parishes. 221 parishes responded with complete data. A factor analysis was performed on the data yielding eight useable factors: (a) Pastoral sensitivity, (b) Administrative Skills, (c) Scholarship, (d) Personal Integrity, (e) Innovation, (f) Personal Spirituality, (g) Meaningfulness of Services, and (h) Laity Involvement. The results of the research were seen as a beginning insight into what the laity perceived as important aspects of their parish priest's role, and an instrument to measure these dimensions for further research was produced.     

On the nature of the conjunction fallacy

In a seminal work, Tversky and Kahneman showed that in some contexts people tend to believe that a conjunction of events (e.g., Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement) is more likely to occur than one of the conjuncts (e.g., Linda is a bank teller). This belief violates the conjunction rule in probability theory. Tversky and Kahneman called this phenomenon the “conjunction fallacy”. Since the discovery of the phenomenon in 1983, researchers in psychology and philosophy have engaged in important controversies around the conjunction fallacy. The goal of this paper is to explore the most important of these controversies, namely, the controversy about the nature of the conjunction fallacy. Is the conjunction fallacy mainly due to a misunderstanding of the problem by participants (misunderstanding hypothesis) or is it mainly due to a genuine reasoning bias (reasoning bias hypothesis)? A substantial portion of research on the topic has been directed to test the misunderstanding hypothesis. I review this literature and argue that a stronger case can be made against the misunderstanding hypothesis. Thus, I indirectly provide support for the reasoning bias hypothesis.     

The state of the art and the fate of the earth

A recent review by Nevin of Jonathan Schell's The Fate of the Earth applies a “behavioral perspective” to the problem of species survival in a nuclear age. It is suggested that no perspective, in this context as in others where less is at stake, should dismiss prematurely some useful ideas from other perspectives. A sampling of “cognitive” concepts is offered to illustrate what actions, aimed at resisting species extinction, might follow from them—not instead of, but in addition to, the guidelines for action a behavioral perspective provides.     

The Point of Scientificity,the Fall of the Epistemological Dominos,and the End of the Field of Educational Administration

The point of scientificity, or pos,represents a place in history whereeducational administration was founded as ascience. A pos creates a field of memoryand a field of studies. A pos isepistemologically sustained in its claim forscientific status by a line of demarcation orlod. A lod is supported by truthclaims based on various forms ofcorrespondence. As these forms have beeninterrogated and abandoned, correspondence hasgiven way to coherentism and finally to testsof falsification. As falsification has shownto contain serious flaws when compared to theactual history of scientific discoveries, theentire project of a distinct and unitaryfield known as educational administration isseriously cast into doubt. Contemporaryexaminations in educational administrationdiscourse show that even when the lod hasbeen undermined by epistemological shifts, theinitial pos has remained to supportclaims regarding the project of a ``science ofleadership.' The analysis contained in thisarticle show, however, that when claims of thelod are demonstrably unsustainable, theinitial pos must be similarly abandoned. With that collapse the concept of a fieldis likewise effaced. The epistemologicalalternative is to envision fields ofstudy which do not require a lod, excepton a longitudinal basis to ascertain whether aresearch program shaped and sustained by it isprogressive or regressive. In short, there areno aprori meta-criteria to separate sciencefrom non-science in educationaladministration.     

Using the antisaccade task to investigate the relationship between the development of inhibition and the development of intelligence

A number of authors have proposed models of cognitive development that explain improvements in intelligence over the course of childhood via changes in the efficiency of inhibitory processes ( Anderson, 2001 ; Bjorklund & Harnishfeger, 1990 ; Dempster, 1991 , 1992 ; Dempster & Corkill, 1999a ; Harnishfeger, 1995 ; Harnishfeger & Bjorklund, 1993 ). A review of the literature reveals little empirical support for the thesis. This is largely due to a failure to distinguish between age‐related and non‐age‐related changes in both inhibitory ability and intelligence. Empirical evidence is presented from a developmental study employing the antisaccade task to provide support for the role of inhibitory processes in the development of intelligence. Additionally, a case is made for a functional difference underlying antisaccade errors that are subsequently corrected and those that remain uncorrected.     

Spare the rod: The figure of the dominatrix in the literary canon

The commonly cited maxim, “Spare the rod and spoil the child” is often traced incorrectly back to the biblical book of Proverbs when its point of origin lies instead first in Langland’s Piers Plowman and then, in the highly satirical and sexualized text of Samuel Butler’s Hudibras. Thus, from a religious origin, it has metamorphosed into a woman-man relationship. Indeed to follow the evolution of this phrase is to uncover the extent to which the disciplining impulses of religious rhetoric are eroticized in one Western European literary theme, that of feminine dominance, from the tenth century when the word Dominatrix appeared in the writings of Hroswitha of Gandersheim. The period leading up to the 1650s, when Butler turned the phrase into one line of a heroic iambic couplet in the middle of a stanza on an amorous jaileress, was also a time when medical research on human and animal anatomy and physiology had unravelled the pathways of libido-lifting buttock-beating. Far from demonizing woman the literary image of the whip-wielding mistress did not degrade the female sex but instead apotheosized the dominatrix as a major erotic image of the twentieth century.     

A Statistical Hypothesis Testing Method for the Rank Ordering of the Priorities of the Alternatives in the Analytic Hierarchy Process

In analytic hierarchy process (AHP), a ratio scale (π₁, π₂, ⋯, π_t) for the priorities of the alternatives {T₁, T₂, ⋯, T_t} is used for a decision problem in which π_i/π_j is used to quantify the ratio of the priority of T_i to that of T_j. In a group decision‐making setup, the subjective estimates of π_i/π_j are obtained as entries of a pairwise comparison matrix for each member of the group. On the basis of these pairwise comparison matrices, one of the topics of interest in some situation is the total rank ordering of the priorities of the alternatives. In this article, a statistical method is proposed for testing a specific total rank ordering of the priorities of the alternatives. The method developed is then illustrated using numerical examples. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A device for facilitating the computation of the first four moments about the mean

A mechanical device is described which materially reduces the time, labor, and probability of errors which are involved in the computation of certain moments about the mean. The use of the device is illustrated with the computation of the mean, standard deviation,g ₁ as a measure of skewness, andg ₂ as a measure of kurtosis of data from a given study.Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Holter Research Foundation of Helena, Montana for the grant-in-aid which made possible the development of this device.     

On the logic of testing the independence assumption in the process-dissociation procedure

Theprocess-dissociation procedure is designed to provide quantitative estimates of the influence of explicit and implicit memory in a variety of tasks. The procedure relies on the assumption that these two forms of memory produce independent influences on performance. Prior investigators have attempted to test this assumption by determining whether the parameter representing the influence of implicit memory (denotedA) is constant across experimental conditions. I argue that the constancy of A cannot provide an appropriate test of the independence assumption, because (1) the prediction of constancy can be generated without the assumption of independence, obviating the need to posit independence; and (2) the constancy ofA does not necessarily imply independence, even if one assumes that a dependency hypothesis, supplemented by ancillary assumptions (Curran & Hintzman, 1995), predicts differences inA. I close by emphasizing that we can test the independence assumption by using standard procedures that compare the fit of a model that assumes independence with the fit of a model that assumes dependence.     

Wittgensteinian Pedagogics: Cavell on the Figure of the Child in the Investigations

This paper discusses Stanley Cavell's approach to the Investigations,focusing upon his essay – `Notes and Afterthoughts on the Opening ofWittgenstein's Investigations'. First, the paper investigates the waysin which Cavell makes central the figure and `voice' of the child to hisreading of the opening of the Investigations. Second, it argues thatCavell's Notes provides a basis for a Wittgensteinian pedagogics,for not only does it hold up the figure of the child as central to the Investigations but it does so in a philosophical style that, thoughdistinctively Cavell's own, comes closest to the spirit of philosophizing inWittgenstein's sense. Third, the paper concludes by discussing the complexvocal and figural structure of the Investigations which serves tohighlight different aspects of the figure of the child and the child's `voice'.     

On the Dao in the Commentary of the Book of Change

The existence of the Dao 道 (the Way), according to the Yizhuan 易传 (the Commentary), is something intangible. The connotation of the Dao is the law of change caused by the interaction between yin and yang. The main functions of the Dao are “to change” and “to generate”. The intangible refers to the law of change caused by the interaction between yin and yang, and the law is expressed by the divinatory symbolic system (卦爻符号, the trigrams or hexagrams). It is through the unique permutation of yin and yang lines of a trigram or hexagram that the law of change is explained as a universal model uniting celestial, terrestrial and human laws. The symbolic system is used to express the universal nature of continual generation of life. __________ Translated from Zhongguo Zhexue Shi 中国哲学史 (History of Chinese Philosophy), 2005(4) by Yun Yufen     

《恒先》宇宙观及人间观的构造

A thorough interpretation of the ideological structure of the recently unearthed Daoist text Hengxian 恒先 has not yet been achieved, and a few doubtful and difficult points still remain to be discussed. Based on the concepts of “hengxian”, “Qi”, “the Field”, “beginning”, “movement”, “spontaneity”, and “name”, this paper comprehensively discusses the text of Hengxian with respect to the primordial state of the cosmos, the evolution of the cosmos, the production and existence of Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things, and the measure of human behaviors in a society. It further addresses why the word “Dao” does not appear in Hengxian, why it contains a theory of production instead of an ontology, and what is meant by a series of special concepts including “the Field” and “wuxian 物先 (the state before the myriad things)”.     

Theology and narrative: the self,the novel,the Bible

This paper critically evaluates the work of Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre by comparing their understanding of the narrative structure of selfhood with paradigms derived from three other sources: Heidegger’s conception of human being as Dasein; Rowan Williams’ interpretation of Dostoevsky’s theology of narrative; and Kierkegaard’s project of reading the Old Testament narrative of Abraham and Isaac as part of the Christian God’s autobiography. These comparisons suggest that Taylor and MacIntyre’s own narratives of Western culture lack a certain, theologically required openness to a variety of specific ways in which both individuality and history resist understanding in narrative terms as much as they demand it.     

Neurodualism: People Assume that the Brain Affects the Mind more than the Mind Affects the Brain

People commonly think of the mind and the brain as distinct entities that interact, a view known as dualism. At the same time, the public widely acknowledges that science attributes all mental phenomena to the workings of a material brain, a view at odds with dualism. How do people reconcile these conflicting perspectives? We propose that people distort claims about the brain from the wider culture to fit their dualist belief that minds and brains are distinct, interacting entities: Exposure to cultural discourse about the brain as the physical basis for the mind prompts people to posit that mind–brain interactions are asymmetric, such that the brain is able to affect the mind more than vice versa. We term this hybrid intuitive theory neurodualism. Five studies involving both thought experiments and naturalistic scenarios provided evidence of neurodualism among laypeople and, to some extent, even practicing psychotherapists. For example, lay participants reported that “a change in a person's brain” is accompanied by “a change in the person's mind” more often than vice versa. Similarly, when asked to imagine that “future scientists were able to alter exactly 25% of a person's brain,” participants reported larger corresponding changes in the person's mind than in the opposite direction. Participants also showed a similarly asymmetric pattern favoring the brain over the mind in naturalistic scenarios. By uncovering people's intuitive theories of the mind–brain relation, the results provide insights into societal phenomena such as the allure of neuroscience and common misperceptions of mental health treatments.