Think Leader, Think Male and Female: Sex vs. Seating Arrangement as Leadership Cues

This investigation challenged the long-accepted male-oriented ideology of “think male, think leader” by using social and gender identity theoretical frameworks to examine same-gender biases and the situational leadership cue of the end-of-the-table position. In an experiment consisting of 241 undergraduates enrolled in a large southwestern university in the U.S. (105 men, 135 women, and 1 sex unreported), participants viewed diagrams of male and female figures, in either same-sex or mixed-sex groups, and selected a leader. The end-of-the-table cue held, but the 120 participants (74 women, 46 men) shown mixed-sex groups with a man and a woman shown at both ends of a table chose same-gender leaders significantly more than opposite-gender leaders. Whereas the results suggest that the “think leader, think male” ideology still holds among young men, findings also demonstrated a shift away from this ideology among young women.     

I Think,Therefore I Persist

Suppose that you're lying in bed. You just woke up. But you're alert. Your mind is clear and you have no distractions. As you lie there, you think to yourself, ‘2?+?2 = 4.’ The thought just pops into your head. But, wanting to be sure of your mathematical insight, you once again think ‘2?+?2 = 4’, this time really meditating on your thought. Now suppose that you're sitting in an empty movie theatre. The lighting is normal and the screen in front of you is blank. Then at some point an image of a peach is flashed on the screen. The image isn't up there for long. In fact, it's only on the screen for what seems like an instant—just long enough for you to see it. These two scenarios are a bit mundane. But, as I will show, reflection on them can yield significant results concerning the nature of persons and their persistence through time. First I will show that thought and perception have temporal constraints whereby your thinking or perceiving in the above scenarios implies that you exist through a temporally extended interval. Then I will argue that this allows us to rule out several prominent theories of personal identity.     

Just Think About It: Mindfulness, Sexism, and Prejudice Toward Feminists

This study examined the relation between mindfulness, sexist motivations and beliefs, and prejudice toward women who violate traditional gender roles—namely feminists. In a preliminary study, 672 (251 men, 421 women) undergraduates from a United States Midwestern university completed a measure of mindfulness and warmth toward feminists and consistent with hypotheses, more mindfulness was associated with more warmth toward feminists. Extending this initial finding to the main study, 653 (273 men, 380 women) undergraduates from a U.S. Midwestern university completed measures of mindfulness, motivation to respond without sexism, ambivalent sexism, and warmth toward feminists. Consistent with hypotheses, compared to women participants, men participants were lower on internal motivation to respond without sexism, higher on hostile and benevolent sexism and less warm toward feminists. Also consistent with hypotheses, for men participants, more mindfulness was associated with higher internal motivation to respond without sexism, less benevolent sexism, and more warmth toward feminists. In contrast, for women participants, more mindfulness was only associated with less hostile sexism. Finally, a path analysis revealed that the positive relation between mindfulness and warmth toward feminists for men participants was partially mediated by more internal motivation to respond without sexism (i.e., a significant indirect effect), but not by less sexist beliefs. Implications for mindfulness, sexism, and prejudice more generally are discussed.     

Helping Students Think

This article outlines a conceptual framework describing predictable differences in the intellectual development of college students and suggests applications leading to sound counseling and educational intervention.     

Think Women, Think Warm: Stereotype Content Activation in Women with a Salient Gender Identity, Using a Modified Stroop Task

We examined whether a salient gender identity activates gender stereotypes along the dimensions of sociability and ability (Fiske et al. 2002). A sample of US undergraduates (40 men, 38 women) instructed to think about women subsequently took longer to name the colors of words associated with sociability than ability on a modified Stroop task. Solo women in another sample of US undergraduates (45 women) showed the same response pattern. Women in a third sample of US adults (20 men, 16 women) showed a similar pattern. Meta-analysis of the three samples suggests women with a salient gender identity experience relative activation of only the positive dimension of a stereotype (e.g. “woman” equals warm).     

面对公共危机,伦理学该如何思考和表达

面对公共危机,伦理学应着力于两个根本问题的思考。第一,这个危机是否因人的行动而成,这直接决定着责任归属问题。如果是可证明其因果关系的,行动者必是责任者;若不能证明其因果关系,也要延迟或事后确定和确证责任归属。第二,公共危机管理中的责任归属问题,在责任判断的类型上,可把相关行为分为出于责任、合乎责任和反乎责任的行为三种。由这样两个根本问题所决定,伦理学的表达方式就应该是理性的,对任何一种与道德责任有关的行为进行判断和推理时,必须给出正当性基础的论证,做到客观因果性和意义妥当性的统一。更为重要的是,在公共危机及危机管理中表现出来的道德人格与稳定状态下的道德人格会有很大不同,要保持道德人格的同一性,就必须有稳定的、经得起正当性基础证明的观念体系、制度结构和伦理环境。公共危机具有两面性,它会把人性中的"向善"和"趋恶"的倾向集中表达出来,这就为后危机状态下的"扬善抑恶"创造了条件。     

Think of the Children

Often, the deepest disagreements are about starting points, and which considerations are relevant.     

How to Think About Virtue and Right

Abstract

Robert Johnson argues that virtue ethical accounts of right action fail because they cannot take account of the fact that there are things we ought to do precisely because we do not possess virtuous character traits. Self-improving actions are his paradigm case and it would indeed be a problem if virtue ethics could not make sense of the propriety of self-improvement. To solve this serious problem, I propose that virtue ethics ought to define right action in terms of the virtuous agent's reasons for action instead of defining right action in terms of the actions that the virtuous agent performs. I argue that this revised definition of right action makes sense of the Tightness of self-improving actions and that it can be given a genuinely virtue ethical interpretation.     

“鬼妻”事件引起的思考

最近,时见报端及因特网有关娶"鬼妻"或配阴婚(所谓娶"鬼妻"或配阴婚,就是为死亡的单身男子配一个女人,双方以夫妻名义合葬)在一些农村地区盛行的报道,让人感到不安。     

How to Think about Fallibilism

Almost every contemporary theory of knowledge is a version of fallibilism, yet an adequate statement of fallibilism has not yet been provided. Standard definitions cannot account for fallibilistic knowledge of necessary truths. I consider and reject several attempts to resolve this difficulty before arguing that a belief is an instance of fallibilistic knowledge when it could have failed to be knowledge. This is a fully general account of fallibilism that applies to knowledge of necessary truths. Moreover, it reveals, not only the connection between fallibility and error, but the connection between fallibility and accidental truth as well.