Believing In Twin Earth: New Evidence for the Normativity of Belief

According to many philosophers, the notion of belief is constitutively normative (Boghossian ( 2003 , 2005 ); Shah ( 2003 , 2006 ); Shah and Velleman ( 2005 ); Gibbard ( 2005 ); Wedgwood ( 2002 , 2007 )). In a series of widely discussed papers ( 1990 , 1992a , 1992b ), Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons have developed an ingenious ‘Moral Twin Earth’ argument against ‘Cornell Realist’ metaethical views which hold that moral terms have synthetic natural definitions in the manner of natural kind terms. In this paper we shall suggest that an adaptation of the Moral Twin Earth argument to the doxastic case – Doxastic Twin Earth – provides new evidence for the normativity of belief.     

The role of dual categorization and relative ingroup prototypicality in reparations to a minority group: An examination of empathy and collective guilt as mediators

In the current study, we investigate factors that facilitate or otherwise obstruct reparations of a perpetrating group (i.e. Muslims) to a victim group (i.e. Christians). The study (N = 200) reveals that among Muslim participants, the role of dual Abrahamic categorization in positively predicting reparation attitude towards Christians was mediated by the first group's prosocial emotions of empathy and collective guilt towards the latter group. In addition, relative Muslim prototypicality negatively predicted dual Abrahamic categorization and each of the two prosocial emotions. Empathy and collective guilt in turn mediated the role of relative ingroup prototypicality in negatively predicting reparation attitude. Moreover, as hypothesized, we found that the roles of empathy and collective guilt in predicting reparation intention, as manifested in participants' willingness to engage in collective action on behalf of the victim group, were not significant on their own, but were mediated by reparation attitude. These findings shed light on the importance of the relationship between the perpetrating group's shared identity with the victim group, reduced ingroup focus and its support for making reparations to the victim group. Theoretical implications, study limitations and practical strategies highlighting how to decrease relative Muslim prototypicality are discussed.     

The theory of multiple stupidities: education,technology and organisation in Arabia

Traditional perspectives have envisaged intelligence as one entity dominated by a single set of abilities (i.e. cognitive abilities), whereas modern perspectives have defined intelligence in various shapes (e.g. linguistic, musical and interpersonal intelligences). By the same token, traditional perspectives have examined stupidity as one set of inabilities (i.e. cognitive inabilities). However, it is not clear whether modern perspectives have discussed whether stupidity exists in various forms—in the same way as they have envisaged intelligence. To address this limitation, 257 university members were asked to share what they perceived as being stupid educational and technological practices in their institutions. Analysis of the data suggested three concepts were important to the members: moral, spatial and administrative stupidities. That is, stupidity is perceived to come in the form of failing to meet certain moral, spatial and administrative values. This implies that modern perspectives may conceptualise stupidity differently from traditional perspectives, seeing it as going beyond cognitive inabilities and viewing it as existing in various forms (e.g. moral, spatial and administrative stupidities). Thus, there are multiple stupidities as there are multiple forms of intelligence. A strength of this research is that it views stupidity through an organisational and qualitative lens, although some may traditionally expect such a topic to be examined quantitatively through psychometric and biological approaches.     

Against Functional Reductionism in Cognitive Science

Functional reductionism concerning mental properties has recently been advocated by Jaegwon Kim in order to solve the problem of the ‘causal exclusion’ of the mental. Adopting a reductionist strategy first proposed by David Lewis, he regards psychological properties as being ‘higher‐order’ properties functionally defined over ‘lower‐order’ properties, which are causally efficacious. Though functional reductionism is compatible with the multiple realizability of psychological properties, it is blocked if psychological properties are subdivided or crosscut by neurophysiological properties. I argue that there is recent evidence from cognitive neuroscience that shows that this is the case for the psychological property of fear. Though this may suggest that some psychological properties should be revised in order to conform to those of neurophysiology, the history of science demonstrates that this is not always the outcome, particularly with properties that play an important role in our folk theories and are central to human concerns.     

Pro- and antisaccades: dissociating stimulus and response influences the online control of saccade trajectories

The authors examined whether the diminished online control of antisaccades is related to a trade-off between movement planning and control or the remapping of target properties to a mirror-symmetrical location (i.e., vector inversion). Pro- and antisaccades were examined in a standard no-delay schedule wherein target onset served as the movement imperative and a delay cuing schedule wherein responses were initiated 2,000 ms following target onset. Importantly, the delay cuing schedule was employed to equate pro- and antisaccade reaction times. Online control was evaluated by indexing the strength of trajectory amendments at normalized increments of movement time. Antisaccades exhibited fewer online corrections than prosaccades, and this result was consistent across cuing schedules. Thus, the diminished online control of antisaccades cannot be tied to a trade-off between movement planning and control. Rather, the authors propose that the intentional nature of dissociating stimulus and response (i.e., vector inversion) engenders a slow mode of cognitive control that is not optimized for fast oculomotor corrections.     

On the labile memory buffer in the attentional blink: masking the T2 representation by onset transients mediates the AB

Report of a second target (T2) is impaired when presented within 500 ms of the first (T1). This attentional blink (AB) is known to cause a delay in T2 processing during which T2 must be stored in a labile memory buffer. We explored the buffer's characteristics using different types of masks after T2. These characteristics were inferred by determining what attributes of T2 are hindered by a given form of masking. In Experiments 1-3, trailing metacontrast and four-dot masks produced ABs of equal magnitudes, implicating the onset-transient triggered by the mask as the mechanism underlying the AB and strongly suggesting a locus in early vision. In Experiment 4, metacontrast and four-dot masks were presented in a common-onset masking (COM) paradigm in which a brief, combined display of T2 and the mask was followed by a longer display of the mask alone. COM is thought to occur late in the sequence of processing events. No AB occurred with COM, confirming the critical role of the mask's onset transients and ruling out a high-level locus for the labile memory buffer.     

A simple derivation of Prelec's probability weighting function

Since Kahneman and Tversky [(1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47, 263-291], it has been generally recognized that decision makers overweight low probabilities. Of the several weighting functions that have been proposed, that of Prelec [(1998). The probability weighting function. Econometrica, 60, 497-528] has the attractions that it is parsimonious, consistent with much of the available empirical evidence and has an axiomatic foundation. Luce [(2001). Reduction invariance and Prelec's weighting functions. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 45, 167-179] provided a simpler derivation based on reduction invariance, rather than compound invariance of Prelec [(1998). The probability weighting function. Econometrica, 60, 497-528]. This note introduces a behavioral assumption that we call power invariance and provides a simple derivation of Prelec's function. Thus, we have three a priori different behavioral assumptions all leading to Prelec's function.     

Estimation of careless error and lucky guess probabilities for dichotomous test items: A psychometric application of a biometric latent class model with random effects

Medical research has extensively dealt with the estimation of the accuracy (sensitivity and specificity) of a diagnostic test for screening individuals. In this paper we apply the biometric latent class model with random effects by Qu, Tan, and Kutner [(1996). Random effects models in latent class analysis for evaluating accuracy of diagnostic tests. Biometrics, 52, 797-810] to estimate the response error (careless error and lucky guess) probabilities for dichotomous test items in the psychometric theory of knowledge spaces. The approach is illustrated with simulated data. In particular, we extend this approach to give a generalization of the basic local independence model in knowledge space theory. This allows for local dependence among the indicators given the knowledge state of an examinee and/or for the incorporation of covariates.     

Adaptation of a Muslim Spiritual Attachment Scale (God attachment) for Turkish Muslims: a validity and reliability study

ABSTRACT

Despite the importance of a believer’s attachment relationship with God for mental health, there are few measures relevant to Muslims, and little work on cross-cultural validation of such measures. The objective of the present study was to examine the validity and reliability of the Muslim Spiritual Attachment Scale (M-SAS) in Turkish Muslim samples. In analyzing the data, three different samples of college students (N?=?525, N?=?341, and N?=?47 respectively) were used. The validity and reliability of M-SAS were examined through exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, the internal consistency coefficient and the split-half reliability coefficient. Results supported a three-factor model of M-SAS with good reliability for the factors, and convergence with an alternative God Attachment measure. As a result, it may be concluded that M-SAS can be used as a valid and reliable measurement instrument in Turkish Muslim samples. The results are discussed in the light of the relevant literature.     

Examining the impact of social commerce dimensions on customers' value cocreation: The mediating effect of social trust

One of the main aspects of the Web 2.0 revolution has been social commerce that has resulted in many people across the world increasingly engaging with commercial activities over social media platforms. However, the academic and research interest in social commerce is still low, and more studies are required to accelerate awareness of the most important issues relating to social commerce, in particular, social trust and value cocreation. Thus, the present study aims to propose a conceptual model that is intended to enable greater understanding of the causal interactions between social commerce constructs, social trust, and customer value cocreation. We collected data using a sample of 300 followers and fans of online Facebook communities, and we analysed them by using a structural equation model. The results show that social commerce constructs positively impact on social trust. Furthermore, we found that social trust positively impacts on the three dimensions of customer value cocreation. We found that social trust mediates the relationship between the social commerce and customer value cocreation dimensions. The paper presents a considerable theoretical contribution for being the first study that links social commerce constructs with social trust. The linkage between social commerce constructs, social trust, and customer value cocreation dimensions will also be beneficial for social media marketing strategists and managers.