Politicians and Trustworthiness: Acting Contrary to Self-Interest Enhances Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness is an important characteristic for politicians to possess. However, politicians are perceived as manifestly untrustworthy. One way politicians might build trustworthiness is to behave in a manner that seems contrary to self-interest. Three studies examined whether acting contrary to self-interest can help build trustworthiness. In each study, participants reacted to political content in which a politician acted contrary to self-interest (praised an opponent) or acted in a more common and self-serving manner (e.g., attacked opponent or praised the self). Participants perceived the candidate who acted contrary to self-interest as more trustworthy than candidates who acted in a more self-serving manner. Participants were also more willing to consider voting for such a candidate. These results were not constrained by party affiliation.     

What is Sidgwick’s Dualism of Practical Reason?

Sidgwick's 'Dualism of Practical Reason' has attracted the attention of many interpreters, and the Dualism itself seems to be an historically important version of the view, recently defended by Thomas Nagel, Susan Wolf, and others, that there exists a fundamental fragmentation of value – that the 'cosmos of duty is reduced to chaos,' in Sidgwick's words. In this paper, I consider and reject the leading interpretations of Sidgwick's Dualism, and propose an alternative reading. I conclude by offering what I hope is a plausible but Sidgwickian way out of the Dualism.     

What is Working,What is Not,and What We Need to Know: a Meta-Analytic Review of Business Ethics Instruction

Requirements for business ethics education and organizational ethics trainings mark an important step in encouraging ethical behavior among business students and professionals. However, the lack of specificity in these guidelines as to how, what, and where business ethics should be taught has led to stark differences in approaches and content. The present effort uses meta-analytic procedures to examine the effectiveness of current approaches across organizational ethics trainings and business school courses. to provide practical suggestions for business ethics interventions and research. Thus, the primary questions driving this research are as follows: (1) what course characteristics moderate the effectiveness of ethics instruction?, and (2) have ethics education and training efforts improved? Findings suggest that professional, focused, and workshop-based training programs are especially effective for improving business ethics. However, results also reveal considerable problems with many of the criteria used to evaluate the effectiveness of business ethics interventions. Practical suggestions for course design and evaluation in business ethics efforts are discussed along with future research needs.     

What is to be done in the history of philosophy

Because the History of Philosophy is a branch of both History and Philosophy, it faces tasks which are Historical, tasks which are Philosophical, and tasks which overlap both. As Philosophy typically flourishes by incorporating and assimilating ideas and bodies of text which have either not previously been part of its stock in trade or have been forgotten, the main task facing the History of Philosophy today is that of developing serious scholarship in areas that have been largely neglected, such as Philosophy in Arabic and Persian as well as in Sanskrit and Chinese.     

Programmed instruction: What it is and how to do it

Five behaviorological features of programmed instruction are outlined: behavioral objectives, reinforcement, activity rate: high and relevant, successive approximation, and mastery progression. Each of these topics is explained, and examples are given to illustrate the differences between programmed instruction and the more common transmission model of teaching. A final section provides suggestions on specific techniques of successive approximation.     

伪科学以什么威胁科学和社会

2003年5月26日俄罗斯科学院主席团例会。会上全体委员听取了俄罗斯科学院反伪科学委员会和反科学造假主席、科学院院士Э·П·克鲁格利亚科夫所做的题为:“伪科学以什么威胁科学和社会”主题报告。以下是其报告的主要内容。他说,俄罗斯政府对科学的态度正在向好的方面转变,但社会上存在着有影响的故意降低科学作用的势力。比如国内一份发     

Unhindered Spatial Processing During Route Memorization is Required to Maximize Both Spatial and Verbal Route Knowledge

To successfully remember a route in a physical environment, individuals are believed to process and store both verbal and spatial information of that route. The present study tested whether both spatial and verbal contents are necessary to form an effective route memory. For that purpose, route learning was performed in three concurrent task conditions (spatial, verbal and control) and appraised at two moments in time, via three route memory tests (spatial, verbal and spatial–verbal). Results showed that route memory generally improved across time and that spatial information was remembered better than verbal information. The concurrent spatial condition resulted in lower retention scores of both spatial and verbal route knowledge. These results suggest that effective spatial processing forms a scaffold without which long‐term retention lacks detail of both spatial and verbal route knowledge. It is discussed how these findings add to understanding spatial memory of routes. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.