The earth is the Lord's: the biblical view of the environment

The Church needs a characteristically Christian voice in environment discourse. The Bible offers this in the form of symbols and stories. Familiar terms such as righteousness, covenant and atonement originated in the biblical teaching about creation, and the liturgy of the Temple was to maintain the creation. Angels and their music described the powers of creation and cosmic harmony, and Adam lost all this when he chose secular knowledge rather than Wisdom from the Tree of Life.     

When learning order affects sensitivity to base rates: challenges for theories of causal learning

In three experiments we investigated whether two procedures of acquiring knowledge about the same causal structure, predictive learning (from causes to effects) versus diagnostic learning (from effects to causes), would lead to different base-rate use in diagnostic judgments. Results showed that learners are capable of incorporating base-rate information in their judgments regardless of the direction in which the causal structure is learned. However, this only holds true for relatively simple scenarios. When complexity was increased, base rates were only used after diagnostic learning, but were largely neglected after predictive learning. It could be shown that this asymmetry is not due to a failure of encoding base rates in predictive learning because participants in all conditions were fairly good at reporting them. The findings present challenges for all theories of causal learning.     

Bias in the use of base rates: Racial prejudice in decision-making

Two studies investigated biases in the use of base rate information when assessing the probability of a witness' accurate identification of a white or West Indian as a burglar. An adapted version of the Kahneman-Tversky cab problem was used, to provide a social decision in which biases could be measured against some normative standard. Ethnicity of youth (white/West Indian) and nature of base rate (incidental/causal) were manipulated in a 2 × 2 between-subjects design. A significant interaction effect revealed that subjects took no account of the base rate for a West Indian subject, but used the base rate only when it was causal and the youth was white. This ‘prejudice effect’ against a West Indian youth and ‘exoneration effect’ for a white youth were replicated in a second study, using a microcomputer and chronometric analyses. Results are discussed in terms of heuristic decision-making, social schemata, and the cognitive versus motivational bases of bias in the use of base rates.     

A differential paradox: the controversy surrounding the Scottish mental surveys of intelligence and family size

In 1947, the Scottish Council for Research in Education and the Population Investigation Committee conducted a survey of Scottish schoolchildren, exploring the relations between tested intelligence and fertility. The survey was not only significant for its size, measuring the IQ of all 11-year-olds at school on the day of testing, some 80,805 children, but also because it was a repeat survey. Its purpose was to establish whether the intelligence of the population had declined because of the negative correlation between IQ and family size. The paper will explore how the impetus for the 1947 survey came from attempts to revive the fortunes of the eugenics movement, based upon the interdisciplinary study of population. While most expected the study to provide evidence of a decline in intelligence, it revealed an increase. This was in spite of a continuing process of differential fertility. This paper will explore the influence of these results, described as a "paradox," upon the future development of the eugenics movement and the sciences of population. While for many, the results were seen to have completely, and thankfully, undermined eugenic fears of degeneration, the supposed "resolution" of the paradox in 1962 provided the basis of a meritocratic and optimistic "new eugenics" that sought to reunite social and biological scientists concerned with human betterment in Britain and the United States.     

Multivariate base rates for the assessment of executive functioning among children and adolescents

This study provides observed base rates of low executive functioning test scores among healthy children and adolescents, stratifies those base rates by narrow intellectual functioning and age groupings, and provides normative classification ranges to aid the interpretation of performances on the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) in clinical practice and research. Participants included 875 children and adolescents between 8 and 19 years old from the D-KEFS normative sample (48% male; 52% female). Among these participants, 838 had complete data and were included in the current study. The racial/ethnic composition of the sample was: White (73.7%), African American (12.4%), Hispanic (11.1%), and other racial/ethnic backgrounds (2.7%). The Overall Test Battery Mean (OTBM) and the prevalence of low scores at various clinical cut-offs were calculated for the 13 primary scores from the D-KEFS Trail Making Test, Verbal Fluency Test, and Color-Word Interference Test. The OTBM and base rates were also calculated separately for those scores reflecting executive functioning (n = 7) and processing speed (n = 6). Healthy children and adolescents commonly obtained low scores on the D-KEFS tests considered here. Younger age, lower estimated full-scale intelligence quotient, and more test scores interpreted were associated with a greater frequency of low scores. Clinicians and researchers are encouraged to consider these multivariate base rates when assessing and attempting to identify executive functioning impairment among children and adolescents with the D-KEFS.     

MCMI-II diagnosis of borderline personality disorder: base rates versus prototypic items.

The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II (MCMI-II) profiles of 26 psychiatric inpatients diagnosed as having borderline personality disorders were compared with profiles of 42 patients with no personality disorders. The borderline group scored significantly higher on the following scales: Disclosure (X), Debasement (Z), Passive-Aggressive (8A), Self-Defeating (8B), Borderline (C), and Major Depression (CC). Differences approaching significance were also found on substance abuse measures: the Alcohol Dependence (B) scale and Drug Dependence (T) scale. These findings are consistent with criteria established in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., rev. [DSM-III-R]; American Psychiatric Association, 1987) and the results of other studies utilizing the MCMI-II. In addition, diagnostic efficiency of Scale C was assessed at various cutoff points defined by either base rate (BR) scores or the number of prototypic items endorsed. The greatest efficiency was found when a cutoff of seven or more prototypic items was utilized, with nearly 80% of the patients correctly classified. Results are discussed in terms of their relevance for further research.     

An empirical approach to determining employee deviance base rates

A four-stage survey mailing process was used to determine the incidence, amount, and types of employee deviance occurring within the fast food restaurants and supermarket stores. Employees from 341 fast food restaurants and from 234 supermarkets completed and returned anonymous questionnaires which asked them to indicate the types of on-the-job theft and counterproductive behaviors in which they have engaged. The results showed that many employees from both industries admitted to costly theft and other counterproductive work practices. The most common types of employee deviance were practices related to the theft of company cash and property, time theft, and general counterproductivity. Specifically, for fast food units, 62 percent of respondents admitted to some type of cash or property theft; for supermarket stores, 43 percent admitted to some type of cash or property theft. Implications of these findings to the measurement of base rates of employee deviance are discussed.Presented at the 97th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association at New Orleans, August 1989.Gratitude is extended to Dr. William Terris for his helpful contributions, and to Michael Boye, M.A. for his assistance in the data analyses and report preparations. The assistance of Dr. Jane Halpert and the DePaul University Center for Industrial and Organizational Psychology is gratefully acknowledged.     

Collateral responding during differential reinforcement of low rates

Two pigeons were trained to peck either of two response keys for food, under two different variable-interval schedules. When responding stabilized, the schedule on the left key (reinforcement-key) was changed to a differential-reinforcement-of-low-rates schedule, and responses on the right key (extinction-key) were no longer reinforced. The mean interresponse time of responses on the reinforcement-key approximated the temporal requirement of the reinforcement schedule on that key. Collateral responding on the extinction-key was maintained by one of the birds. A “run” of these collateral responses was defined as a sequence of responses on the extinction-key occurring between two responses on the reinforcement-key. For this one bird, collateral behavior, measured by mean time per run and mean number of responses per run, was an increasing function of the temporal requirements of the reinforcement schedule on the reinforcement key, and it was strongly positively correlated with the mean interresponse time of responses on the reinforcement-key. However, from an analysis of the results, the collateral behavior did not appear to have mediated the temporal spacing of responses on the reinforcement-key.     

A paradox for significant freedom

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

A probability-based measure of effect size: robustness to base rates and other factors

Calculating and reporting appropriate measures of effect size are becoming standard practice in psychological research. One of the most common scenarios encountered involves the comparison of 2 groups, which includes research designs that are experimental (e.g., random assignment to treatment vs. placebo conditions) and nonexperimental (e.g., testing for gender differences). Familiar measures such as the standardized mean difference (d) or the point-biserial correlation (rpb) characterize the magnitude of the difference between groups, but these effect size measures are sensitive to a number of additional influences. For example, R. E. McGrath and G. J. Meyer (2006) showed that rpb is sensitive to sample base rates, and extending their analysis to situations of unequal variances reveals that d is, too. The probability-based measure A, the nonparametric generalization of what K. O. McGraw and S. P. Wong (1992) called the common language effect size statistic, is insensitive to base rates and more robust to several other factors (e.g., extreme scores, nonlinear transformations). In addition to its excellent generalizability across contexts, A is easy to understand and can be obtained from standard computer output or through simple hand calculations.     

The effect of emotion on statistical reasoning: Findings from a base rates task

In this paper we explore the effect of emotion on statistical reasoning. We employed a base rates task to examine reliance on statistical information in the presence of congruent or incongruent anecdotal information. The impact of emotional content on statistical reasoning was investigated in controls and victims of sexual abuse. Two types of emotional contents were used, one generally emotional, and one related to sexual abuse. The latter category was included to investigate the effect of semantically identical stimuli that could potentially produce different levels of emotion in the victim and control groups. For control participants, emotional contents were associated with decreased use of statistical information and increased use of anecdotal information compared to neutral contents. Results from the victims group showed this effect to be increased for contents related to sexual abuse, suggesting that the effect is linked to the emotional connotation rather than semantic content. Victims perceived contents relating to their experience as more emotional and this was associated with specific reasoning impairments for these topics.     

Paradoxical effects of base rates and representation in category learning

The inverse base rate effect (IBRE) continues to be a puzzling case of decision making on the basis of conflicting information in human category learning. After being trained via feedback over trials to assign combinations of cues to high- and low-frequency categories, participants tend to respond with the low-frequency category to an otherwise perfectly conflicting pair of test cues, contrary to the category base rates. Our Experiment 1 demonstrated that decision making on the basis of an explicit summary of the cue-outcome and outcome base rate information from the standard learning task does not result in the effect. The remaining experimental conditions evaluated the necessary and sufficient conditions for the effect by systematically exploring experimental deviations between the standard learning task and the pure decision-making task. In partial disagreement with both recent theoretical accounts of the effect, these experiments indicate that asymmetric outcome representation and profound base rate neglect are individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. Broader theoretical implications are discussed.     

A paradox for supertask decision makers

I consider two puzzles in which an agent undergoes a sequence of decision problems. In both cases it is possible to respond rationally to any given problem yet it is impossible to respond rationally to every problem in the sequence, even though the choices are independent. In particular, although it might be a requirement of rationality that one must respond in a certain way at each point in the sequence, it seems it cannot be a requirement to respond as such at every point for that would be to require the impossible.