A vicious or auspicious cycle: The reciprocal relation between harsh parental discipline and children’s self-regulation

Children’s ability to exercise self-regulation is a key predictor of academic, behavioural, and life outcomes, but the developmental dynamics of children’s self-regulation are not adequately understood. We investigated how children’s self-regulation skills and harsh parental discipline reciprocally predict each other across 12,474 children at ages three, five, and seven in the U.K. (Millennium Cohort Study). Cross-lagged structural equation models indicated that high initial levels of harsh parental discipline predicted lower subsequent self-regulation, which then reciprocally predicted higher levels of harsh parental discipline. Conversely, high initial levels of child self-regulation predicted lower subsequent harsh parental discipline. Implications for policy and interventions are discussed.     

Paradoxical choice and the reinforcing value of information

Animal Cognition - Signals that reduce uncertainty can be valuable because well-informed decision-makers can better align their preferences to opportunities. However, some birds and mammals display...     

Revisiting Milgram’s Cyranoid Method: Experimenting With Hybrid Human Agents

In two studies based on Stanley Milgram’s original pilots, we present the first systematic examination of cyranoids as social psychological research tools. A cyranoid is created by cooperatively joining in real-time the body of one person with speech generated by another via covert speech shadowing. The resulting hybrid persona can subsequently interact with third parties face-to-face. We show that naïve interlocutors perceive a cyranoid to be a unified, autonomously communicating person, evidence for a phenomenon Milgram termed the “cyranic illusion.” We also show that creating cyranoids composed of contrasting identities (a child speaking adult-generated words and vice versa) can be used to study how stereotyping and person perception are mediated by inner (dispositional) vs. outer (physical) identity. Our results establish the cyranoid method as a unique means of obtaining experimental control over inner and outer identities within social interactions rich in mundane realism.     

Nietzschean Constructivism: Ethics and Metaethics for All and None

Abstract

This paper develops an interpretation of Nietzsche’s ethics and metaethics that reconciles his apparent antirealism with his engagement in normative discourse. Interpreting Nietzsche as a metaethical constructivist—as holding, to a first approximation, that evaluative facts are grounded purely in facts about the evaluative attitudes of the creatures to whom they apply—reconciles his vehement declarations that nothing is valuable in itself with his passionate expressions of a particular evaluative perspective and injunctions for the free spirits to create new values. Drawing on Nietzsche’s broader epistemological and psychological views, I develop a distinctive, and genuinely Nietzschean, version of constructivism. On this account, evaluative properties are grounded in affective valuations of the new philosophers. The proposed interpretation synthesizes a variety of disparate features of Nietzsche’s writings and improves on existing interpretations in the literature. The resulting version of constructivism is also worthy of attention in contemporary theorizing. The fruits of understanding the distinctive form of Nietzsche’s ethical theory are an illuminating example of how metanormative inquiry can undergird normative evaluation in practice.     

Manipulating Morality: Third‐Party Intentions Alter Moral Judgments by Changing Causal Reasoning

The present studies investigate how the intentions of third parties influence judgments of moral responsibility for other agents who commit immoral acts. Using cases in which an agent acts under some situational constraint brought about by a third party, we ask whether the agent is blamed less for the immoral act when the third party intended for that act to occur. Study 1 demonstrates that third‐party intentions do influence judgments of blame. Study 2 finds that third‐party intentions only influence moral judgments when the agent's actions precisely match the third party's intention. Study 3 shows that this effect arises from changes in participants' causal perception that the third party was controlling the agent. Studies 4 and 5, respectively, show that the effect cannot be explained by changes in the distribution of blame or perceived differences in situational constraint faced by the agent.