Doing what is humanly possible

The subtle docetism which pervades orthodox discussions of the person and work of Christ can serve to vitiate the hope contained in the New Testament message. A reprise of the themes underlying the Christological controversies and modern discussions of the humanity of Christ demonstrates these contain clear implications for the practice of pastoral counseling.     

Contra Tooley: divine foreknowledge is possible

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion - Michael Tooley’s latest argument against the possibility of divine foreknowledge trades on the idea that, whichever theory of time is true,...     

Research is possible: New answers to old objections

School psychologists find research difficult because they believe that direct experimental intervention, large populations, and advanced statistical knowledge are necessary to do it. Methods of utilizing the advantages of natural field settings, and theories and techniques of research which meet the school psychologist's objections are discussed.     

Location-specific attentional control is also possible in the Simon task

Goal-directed behavior usually requires mental control that directs attention to task-relevant information and ignores irrelevant information. For investigating how flexible this mechanism is, researchers have varied the proportion of congruent trials depending on some context, such as stimulus location. The corresponding studies revealed that attentional control indeed adapts to location-specific demands. However, until now, this flexibility has only been demonstrated for the Eriksen flanker task and for the Stroop task but not for the Simon task. Therefore, a Simon-task experiment was conducted in the present study, where the proportion of congruent trials differed for stimuli appearing above or below fixation, respectively. As a result, a reliable interaction between congruency and stimulus location was found. This demonstrates, for the first time, that location-specific control also is possible in the Simon task.     

Anything Goes by the Wayside: A Reply to Raskin and Debany

Raskin and Debany (this issue Raskin, J. D. (2001). On relativism in constructivist psychology. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 14, 285–313. doi:10.1080/10720530126044[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) profess my failure to appreciate how constructivism does not warrant an “anything-goes” relativism. In this reply, I explain how whether any postmodernist doctrine endorses an “anything-goes” epistemology (or a radical relativism) depends on the nature of the constraints that warrant its propositions. I revisit the three core postmodernist claims that I criticized in previous work, which criticism Raskin and Debany now in turn criticize. Emphasis is given to how an objectivist epistemology, contrary to postmodernist belief, does not entail certitude, and moreover incorporates (a) active and indirect knowing, (b) the situated origins of all empirical knowledge, and (c) a subject/object distinction for certain kinds of human/social kinds. I use the example of racist rhetoric to illustrate how discourse can and does affect extradiscursive realities, thereby implicating our moral obligation to seek objective truth as best we can.     

Everybody Talks About Organizational Justice, But Nobody Does Anything About It

Most organizational justice studies focus primarily on theoretical issues and identify implications for practice only in passing. I advocate moving to the next step by testing such implications in theory-based studies that implement and assess the impact of interventions designed to promote organizational justice. Research that promotes organizational justice promises to benefit both organizations and their employees, and may be considered morally appropriate. Although usually not considered in this connection, theory-based application studies also promise to shed light on the theories from which they are derived. Despite these benefits, there are several reasons why such investigations are conducted only rarely. First, because managers tend to be unaware of justice-related problems, they are unlikely to accede to researchers' requests to address them in research. Second, many researchers erroneously believe that studies assessing ways of improving conditions in organizations lack scientific objectivity. Third, scholarly values favor research that addresses theoretical issues and that eschew practical applications. Finally, the challenges of conducting intervention studies are inclined to be formidable, and these may deter researchers from undertaking such efforts.     

I Can Resist Anything But Temptation: Adolescent Expectations for Smoking Cigarettes1

Conformity to group pressure is widely considered a prime factor in experimentation with cigarettes. An alternative assumption is that the temptation to smoke arises out of the belief that cigarettes are instrumental in enhancing a sense of maturity, affiliation, and a reputation for autonomy. The present research assessed the relative saliency for both motive fulfillment and social pressure hypotheses in temptation dynamics and traced the causal influence of these factors on future expectations to smoke. Some 5,600 sixth, eighth and tenth graders rated the temptation value of four situations for smoking, varied along two dimensions: the composition of the group and the presence or absence of reasons that might minimize personal responsibility for smoking. Solitary smoking was a fifth situation. Between-group analyses confirmed that smoking history of the individual (e.g., nonsmokers), grade level, and type of tempting situation all exerted a significant impact on perceived peer pressure, on temptation level, and on behavioral expectancy to smoke. However, beliefs about the instrumentality of cigarettes for reducing tension and enhancing a reputation for maturity and autonomy overshadowed peer pressure as causal agents for both temptation level and expectations. Moreover, instrumental beliefs were differentially salient in this temptation/expectancy dynamic, depending on the individual's smoking history. Finally, the causal saliency of instrumental beliefs differed, depending on whether temptation arose in solitary or group situations. The implications of these findings for adolescent smoking prevention and cessation strategies were considered.     

If Anything Can Go Wrong It Will: Occupational Stress Among Inexperienced Teachers

The study examined the sources of stress encountered by inexperienced compared to experienced teachers. Sixty-nine female teachers in elementary schools and kindergartens in Israel participated in the study. A questionnaire was administered measuring job-related stress factors, emotional involvement in the job and active coping with stress factors. The results show that inexperienced compared to experienced teachers stated that they experience an overall higher level of stress. The major sources of stress for inexperienced teachers are interaction with pupils' parents and workload. Inexperienced teachers are less involved emotionally in their work, especially in regard to incidents of unsatisfactory performance. However, they are similar to experienced teachers in both their emotional reactions to successful performance and in their actions in stressful situations. Since the research design was quasi-experimental, the differences between experienced and inexperienced teachers might be due to other confounded factors such as general life experience. The results are discussed in regard to the adaptive functions of selective emotional involvement.     

Millennials at Work: What We Know and What We Need to Do (If Anything)

There are a lot of opinions about who Millennials are, what they think and value, and how they will behave as they grow older and gain more experience in the workforce. The relatively sparse empirical research published on Millennials is confusing at best and contradictory at worst. As noted in this article and others in this special issue, however, there are a few topics including work attitudes, long-term health outcomes, and personality factors on which we have reasonably solid data to inform us about current and likely future behavior of Millennials. We address the importance of context for understanding behavior of people in different generations, a subject often missing from the discussion of generational similarities and differences. There are implications for practitioners of what we know and for how context affects behavior. We make suggestions for how practitioners can use the data available to inform decisions they make about working with Millennials. Finally, we discuss the importance of new directions of research on generational differences to help both practitioners and the research community better understand the realities of generational similarities and differences and rely less on urban myths or stereotypes.     

The Problem of Simple Minds: Is There Anything It Is Like to Be a Honey Bee?

Philosophical Studies -