When Is More Better?

Abstract— We examine three determinants of the relationship between the magnitude of a stimulus and a person's subjective "value" of that stimulus: the process by which value is assessed (either by feeling or by calculation), the evaluability of the relevant magnitude variable (whether the desirability of a given level of that variable can be evaluated independently), and the mode of evaluation (whether stimuli are encountered and evaluated jointly or separately). Reliance on feeling, lack of evaluability, and separate evaluation lead to insensitivity to magnitude. An analysis invoking these factors provides a novel account for why people typically become less sensitive to changes in the magnitude of a stimulus as magnitude increases.     

Do Maximizers Predict Better than Satisficers?

We examine the relationship between maximizing (i.e., seeking the best) versus satisficing (i.e., seeking the good enough) tendencies and forecasting ability in a real‐world prediction task: forecasting the outcomes of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. In Studies 1 and 2, participants gave probabilistic forecasts for the outcomes of the tournament and completed a measure of maximizing tendencies. We found that although maximizers expected themselves to outperform others much more than satisficers, they actually forecasted more poorly. Hence, on net, they were more overconfident about their relative performance. Decompositional analyses of overall accuracy revealed that differences in forecasting abilities were primarily driven by maximizers' tendency to give more noisy estimates. In Study 3, participants played a betting task where they could choose between safe and uncertain gambles linked to World Cup outcomes. Again, maximizers did more poorly and earned less, because of greater noise in their choice‐based responses. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Doing Ethics or Changing for the Better?

In this paper, classical pragmatism is used as a method, not as a substantial ethical theory, to develop “moral pragmatics.” Moral pragmatics offers a constructive approach for making progress where traditional ethical theories converge, and it innovates ethical deliberation. Assuming widespread agreement that real moral problems need practical solutions, the paper addresses two related problems: the missing link between ethical theories and moral practice, and the question of who is in charge of finding such solutions. It argues that “conscience” can create a link between ethical knowledge and moral practice, and that this partly discharges “the ethicist” from the task of solving problems that are not really, or not only, hers. Two specific methodological innovations are suggested that go beyond admonitions to render ethics sensitive to context. Instead, a reevaluation of “casuistry” and a sensitivity for “finding the right words” give an idea of how to achieve this goal.     

Which Is Better: Simultaneous or Sequential Choice?

The term "diversification bias" refers to the tendency for people to take more variety when choosing several items simultaneously than when choosing them sequentially. In this article, we investigate whether this really is a bias by measuring evaluations of sets chosen simultaneously or sequentially. In Experiment 1 participants made two choices between audio tracks for consecutive consumption. Participants liked low-variety sets most and were more likely to choose high-variety sets in simultaneous choice. In Experiment 2 participants chose between three gambles which varied in the probability of winning and their expected value. Again, simultaneous choices seemed worse than sequential ones: The simultaneous-choice groups took far more low expected value gambles than did sequential-choice subjects and rated their enjoyment as lower. We conclude that simultaneous choice often leads to outcomes that are worse than sequential choice and discuss the circumstances when this is likely to be true.     

Kant’s Better Man and the Confucian Junzi

This essay attempts to compare Kant’s better man and the Confucian junzi in the Zhongyong, and argues that Kant’s idea of the better man, which expresses human self-improvement in ultimate freedom, is in fact a conception very similar to that of the Confucian junzi, which denotes an ideal human being in cheng. Kant attributes the lack of emphasis on self-improvement in Western culture to the Christian conception of grace, and demonstrates the possibility of self-improvement on the ground of ultimate freedom. We may call this treatment “the Confucian solution” in Kant’s thought. My intention is to explicate the conceptual commonality between the better man and the junzi and demonstrate the Confucian element in Kant’s religious thought.     

Are Smart Communicators Better? Soldier Aptitude and Team Performance

This article describes research conducted to provide empirically based, quantitative estimates of the relation between soldier aptitude and team performance. This study examines teams of Signal personnel, who operate communications systems allowing command and control among Army units on the battlefield. Soldiers are assigned at random into teams varying in aptitude, and performance is tested and measured in a controlled setting. The study finds that the team members' scores on the Armed Forces Qualification Test predict their ability to install and operate communications networks. Moreover, the aptitudes of all team members contribute to the probability of a successful outcome. The study concludes that lowering accession standards could degrade team performance among Signal operators who must interact with each other to provide usable battlefield communications systems.     

Better Never to Have Been?: The Unseen Implications

This paper will directly tackle the question of Benatar’s asymmetry at the heart of his book Better Never to have Been and provide a critique based on some of the logical consequences that result from the proposition that every potential life can only be understood in terms of the pain that person would experience if she or he was born. The decision only to evaluate future pain avoided and not pleasure denied for potential people means that we should view each birth as an unmitigated tragedy. The result is that someone who seeks to maximize utility could easily justify immense suffering for current people in order to prevent the births of potential people. This paper offers an alternative framework for evaluating the creation of people that addresses Benatar’s asymmetry without overvaluing the potential suffering of potential people.     

Better brains, better selves? The ethics of neuroenhancements

The idea of enhancing our mental functions through medical means makes many people uncomfortable. People have a vague feeling that altering our brains tinkers with the core of our personalities and the core of ourselves. It changes who we are, and doing so seems wrong, even if the exact reasons for the unease are difficult to define. Many of the standard arguments against neuroenhancements--that they are unsafe, that they violate the distinction between therapy and enhancements, that they undermine equality, and that they will be used coercively--fail to show why the use of any such technologies is wrong in principle. Two other objections--the arguments that such changes undermine our integrity and that they prevent us from living authentic lives--will condemn only a few of the uses that are proposed. The result is that very few uses of these drugs are morally suspect and that most uses are morally permissible.     

Better moods for better eating?: How mood influences food choice

How do moods influence one's preference for foods? By introducing the role of enjoyment- versus health-oriented benefits of foods in the mood and food consumption relationship, this research informs both temporal construal theory and mood management framework by positing that mood influences the choice between healthy versus indulgent foods through its impact on temporal construal, which alters the weights people put on long-term health benefits versus short-term mood management benefits when making choices. The results from four experiments show that a positive mood cues distal, abstract construal and increases the salience of long-term goals such as health, leading to greater preference for healthy foods over indulgent foods. The results also show that a negative mood cues proximal construal and increases the salience of immediate, concrete goals such as mood management, leading to greater preference for indulgent foods over healthy foods.     

The Hippocampus and Delayed Recall: Bigger is not Necessarily Better?

Healthy young female participants were tested on a measure of delayed verbal recall and then received volumetric Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans. The analysis of the MRI scans focused on the volume of the hippocampus. Left hippocampal volume was negatively associated with the level of delayed verbal recall performance. This relationship was confirmed in further testing. This finding is consistent with a previous report of a similar relationship in healthy elderly individuals, but not in patients with Alzheimer's disease, in whom the opposite relationship was observed. An explanation of these findings in terms of impaired neural pruning of the hippocampus is advanced, whereby insufficient pruning of the hippocampus during childhood and adolescence (following adequate growth) may lead to reduced mnemonic efficiency.     

Would You Be Happier If You Looked Better? A Focusing Illusion

Some people might believe that individuals who are more satisfied with their body are also happier. However, people tend to overrate the influence of some factors (e.g. money or health) on their happiness; a phenomenon termed the focusing illusion. Our aim was to examine the focusing illusion in relation to body satisfaction. We experimentally manipulated body satisfaction and life satisfaction focus by varying the order of relevant measurement scales. Volunteers (N = 97) completed two questionnaires placed in separate envelopes to control the order of scales administration. Participants either completed the Body Satisfaction Scale followed by the Satisfaction with Life Scale or vice versa. In line with the focusing illusion the association between body satisfaction and life satisfaction was significantly stronger when participants were asked about their body satisfaction first. Body satisfaction as a focusing illusion may need to be considered by scientist as well as lay people who try to look better and be happier.     

Let’s Make Things Better: A Reply to My Readers

This article is a reply to the three reviews of my book What Things Do: Philosophical Reflections on Technology, Agency, and Design (Verbeek 2005) in this symposium. It discusses the remarks made by the reviewers along five lines. The first is methodological and concerns the question of how to develop a philosophical approach to technology. The second line discusses the philosophical orientation of the book, and the relations between analytic and continental approaches. Third, I will discuss the metaphysical aspects of the book, in particular the nature and value of the non-modernist approach it aims to set out. Fourth, I will discuss the social and political relevance of the book. Fifth, this will bring me to some concluding remarks about how the postphenomenological perspective developed in the book relates to liberalism, focusing on its suggestions to deliberately design our material environment in terms of mediation.

Is the Bifactor Model a Better Model or Is It Just Better at Modeling Implausible Responses? Application of Iteratively Reweighted Least Squares to the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale

Although the structure of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) has been exhaustively evaluated, questions regarding dimensionality and direction of wording effects continue to be debated. To shed new light on these issues, we ask (a) for what percentage of individuals is a unidimensional model adequate, (b) what additional percentage of individuals can be modeled with multidimensional specifications, and (c) what percentage of individuals respond so inconsistently that they cannot be well modeled? To estimate these percentages, we applied iteratively reweighted least squares (IRLS) to examine the structure of the RSES in a large, publicly available data set. A distance measure, d_s, reflecting a distance between a response pattern and an estimated model, was used for case weighting. We found that a bifactor model provided the best overall model fit, with one general factor and two wording-related group factors. However, on the basis of d_r?values, a distance measure based on individual residuals, we concluded that approximately 86% of cases were adequately modeled through a unidimensional structure, and only an additional 3% required a bifactor model. Roughly 11% of cases were judged as “unmodelable” due to their significant residuals in all models considered. Finally, analysis of d_s revealed that some, but not all, of the superior fit of the bifactor model is owed to that model's ability to better accommodate implausible and possibly invalid response patterns, and not necessarily because it better accounts for the effects of direction of wording.     

Is Gender or Gender-Role Orientation a Better Predictor of Empathy in Adolescence?

To assess the relative contribution of genderand gender-role orientation to empathy and itsdevelopment, 8th and 11th grade Israeli adolescentscompleted Davis' empathy scale and Bem's gender-roleorientation inventory, which yields a femininity score anda masculinity score for each participant. Withmasculinity and femininity treated as a within subjectsvariable, masculinity/femininity interacted with grade, such that whereas masculinity in both boys andgirls increased with grade, femininity decreased ingirls and increased in boys. Empathy was unrelated tograde or to masculinity but was related to gender and to femininity. When the contribution ofmasculinity/femininity was covaried, empathy was foundto be unrelated to gender. This pattern was found forthree of the empathy subscales: Perspective Taking, Empathic Concern, and Personal Distress, whichwere positively correlated. On the basis of a mediansplit, participants were then classified as Masculine,Feminine, Undifferentiated, or Androgynous. Androgynous individuals did not differ from Feminineindividuals on any of the empathy subscales. Thefindings were discussed in terms of the socialization ofemotions and gender-role orientation.     

Better Days – A randomized controlled trial of an internet-based positive psychology intervention

The internet seems promising for delivering interventions to enhance well-being in a normal population. The aim of this study was to test the effects of an internet-based positive psychology intervention targeting gratitude, pleasant activities, strengths, mastery, acts of kindness, optimism, flow, attributions, and mindfulness. One-hundred and twelve participants were randomized to the intervention and 94 to the control group, and data were collected at baseline, one, two, and six months after intervention onset. The balance of positive to negative affect increased over time among participants in the intervention group (unstandardized beta coefficient [B]?=?0.07, p?<?0.01), as compared to the controls (B?=?0.02, p?=?010). The intervention worked equally well regardless of participants’ gender, age, or education. However, optimism did not mediate the effect of the intervention on affect balance. In conclusion, the intervention had a small, but significant effect on affect balance among healthy adults.     

Staff and Resident Involvement in a Therapeutic Community: For Better or Worse?

Therapeutic communities are a commonly used context for counseling persons with drug problems or emotional problems and for other populations of clients. The group dynamics of therapeutic communities are very complex. When the staff members of a therapeutic community develop communication problems with one another or when these staff members become overly involved with residents, staff problems almost always have a negative impact on the program of the therapeutic community. This article describes how staff problems can negatively affect the program of a therapeutic community and also relates the kinds of problems encountered in a therapeutic community to the problems encountered in rehabilitation programs in other settings.