On the Tedium of the Good

It seems to be a phenomenon of contemporary life that we consider goodness embarrassing and rather dull. In contrast, the activities and inner lives of villains are deemed more complex and fascinating than those of good people. This paper attempts to understand the conception of goodness that underlies this phenomenon, and I suggest that informing it is the combination of two ideas, in tension with each other: firstly, a distorted understanding of the ancient conception of full virtue as the absence of all inner conflict; and secondly, the intuition that real goodness is only apparent and generated in inner conflict. In response, I offer an alternative picture of goodness as an ongoing, active and progressive relation to value, and conclude that in order to render goodness attractive again we need more adequate portraits of goodness from both philosophy and art.     

Categorization and abstraction abilities in 3-year-old children: a comparison with monkey data

Three-year-old children were tested on three categorization tasks of increasing levels of abstraction (used with adult baboons in an earlier study): the first was a conceptual categorization task (food vs toys), the second a perceptual matching task (same vs different objects), and the third a relational matching task in which the children had to sort pairs according to whether or not the two items belonged to the same or different categories. The children were tested using two different procedures, the first a replication of the procedure used with the baboons (pulling one rope for a category or a relationship between two objects, and another rope for the other category or relationship), the second a task based upon childrens prior experiences with sorting objects (putting in the same box objects belonging to the same category or a pair of objects exemplifying the same relation). The children were able to solve the first task (conceptual categorization) when tested with the sorting into boxes procedure, and the second task (perceptual matching) when tested with both procedures. The children were able to master the third task (relational matching) only when the rules were clearly explained to them, but not when they could only watch sorting examples. In fact, the relational matching task without explanation requires analogy abilities that do not seem to be fully developed at 3 years of age. The discrepancies in performances between children tested with the two procedures, with the task explained or not, and the discrepancies observed between children and baboons are discussed in relation to differences between species and/or problem-solving strategies.     

Tool-use learning in Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana)

The transmission of tool use is a rare event in monkeys. Such an event arose in a group of semi-free-ranging Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana) in which leaning a pole against the parks fence (branch leaning) appeared and spread to several males. This prompted us to test individual and social learning of this behavior in seven young males. In the first experiment, three males learned individually to obtain a food reward using a wooden pole as a climbing tool. They began using the pole to retrieve the reward only when they could alternatively experience acting on the object and reaching the target. In a second experiment, we first tested whether four other subjects could learn branch leaning after having observed a group-mate performing the task. Despite repeated opportunities to observe the demonstrator, they did not learn to use the pole as a tool. Hence we exposed the latter subjects to individual learning trials and they succeeded in the task. Tool use was not transmitted in the experimental situation, which contrasts with observations in the park. We can conclude that the subjects were not able to recognize the target as such. It is possible that they recognized it and learned the task individually when we alternated the opportunity to act upon the object and to reach the reward. This suggests that these macaques could then have associated the action they exercised upon the pole and the use of the pole as a means to reach the reward.     

Measuring Impulsivity in School-Aged Boys and Examining Its Relationship with ADHD and ODD Ratings

Seven different laboratory measures of impulsivity were administered to a group of 165 school-aged boys. Parents' and teachers' ratings of Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder and Oppositional/Defiant Disorder were also obtained. Factor analyses of impulsivity measures revealed the existence of a strong Inhibitory Control Factor including measures derived from Stop Task, the Continuous Performance Test, the Matching Familiar Figures Test, and the Circle Tracing Task. Other forms of impulsivity like resistance to interference, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and efficiency in the DRL Task loaded on a second independent factor. The Inhibitory Control factor was correlated with ADHD ratings, whereas the second factor was slightly related to the presence of ODD symptoms. Discussion is focused on the relevance of inhibitory control in impulsivity and ADHD research.     

Directed forgetting in working memory: age-related differences

This study explored the effects of ageing on working memory by means of the directed forgetting procedure designed by Reed (1970). Memory for a letter trigram was compared in conditions where it was either presented alone (single-item), or followed by a second trigram to be recalled (interference), or followed by a second trigram to be forgotten (directed forgetting). The results clearly indicated that elderly participants inhibited the no-longer-relevant information less efficiently (recall in the single-item condition - recall in the directed forgetting condition), as predicted by the model of Hasher and Zacks (1988). However, the results also demonstrated that sensitivity to interference (recall in the single-item condition - recall in the interference condition) increased in the condition in which no inhibition was directly required.     

Pavlov in Spain

Reflexology has been present throughout Spanish science since the last third of the nineteenth century and its importance can be seen in the works of authors such as Martín Salazar, Ramón y Cajal, Gómez Oca?a, Simarro and Turró. The most important research in Reflexology in Spain takes place a) at the Schools of Neurophysiology and Psychology in Barcelona and Madrid, b) with a group of authors specializing in pathological medicine and c) in the Military's Health Department, Pavlov's work was received in Spain with special interest. Fernández-Espa?a, who could be considered the "first Spanish Pavlovian," emphasized Pavlov's work in a series dedicated to the study of objective psychology which was published between 1914 and 1924. Planelles was the first investigator to develop a program in pavlovian experimentation, presenting his results in 1935. The Civil War (1936-1939) ended these and many other Spanish projects in psychology. After the war, interest in Reflexology and Pavlov's theories slowly rose again, first through psychosomatic medicine and then in the 60's because of the works of such authors as Monserrat-Esteve, Rof Carballo and Colodrón. The progressive inclusion of psychology in the Schools of Philosophy and Arts after 1968 marked the beginning of a new era.     

Nyíri,J.C., Tradition and Individuality: Philosophical Essays, “Synthese Library”; Nyíri,Kristóf,A hagyomány filozófiája (The Philosophy of Tradition); Neumer,Katalin, Gondolkodás,beszéd, írás (Thought,Language, and Writing)

Studies in East European Thought -     

Social Capital and Individual Happiness in Europe

This paper explores the relationship between social capital and happiness both in Europe as a whole, as well as in its four main geographical macro-regions—North, South, East and West—separately. We test the hypothesis of whether social capital, in its three-fold definition established by Coleman (Am J Sociol 94:S95–S120 1988)—trust, social interaction, and norms and sanctions—influences individual happiness across European countries and regions. The concept of social capital is further enriched by incorporating Putnam (Making democracy work—civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1993) and Olson (The rise and decline of nations—economic growth, stagflation, and social rigidities. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1982) type variables on associational activity. Using ordinal logistic regression analysis on data for 48,583 individuals from 25 European countries, we reach three main findings. First, social capital matters for happiness across the three dimensions considered. Second, the main drivers of the effects of social capital on happiness appear to be informal social interaction and general social, as well as institutional trust. And third, there are significant differences in how social capital interacts with happiness across different areas of Europe, with the connection being at is weakest in the Nordic countries.