Disagreement and Intellectual Scepticism

Several philosophers have recently argued that disagreement with others undermines or precludes epistemic justification for our opinions about controversial issues (e.g. political, religious, and philosophical issues). This amounts to a fascinating and disturbing kind of intellectual scepticism. A crucial piece of the sceptical argument, however, is that our opponents on such topics are epistemic peers. In this paper, I examine the reasons for why we might think that our opponents really are such peers, and I argue that those reasons are either (a) too weak or (b) too strong, implying absurd conclusions. Thus, there is not a compelling case for disagreement-based intellectual scepticism.     

Failures of cognitive control or attention? The case of stop-signal deficits in schizophrenia

We used Bayesian cognitive modelling to identify the underlying causes of apparent inhibitory deficits in the stop-signal paradigm. The analysis was applied to stop-signal data reported by Badcock et al. (Psychological Medicine 32: 87-297, 2002) and Hughes et al. (Biological Psychology 89: 220-231, 2012), where schizophrenia patients and control participants made rapid choice responses, but on some trials were signalled to stop their ongoing response. Previous research has assumed an inhibitory deficit in schizophrenia, because estimates of the mean time taken to react to the stop signal are longer in patients than controls. We showed that these longer estimates are partly due to failing to react to the stop signal (“trigger failures”) and partly due to a slower initiation of inhibition, implicating a failure of attention rather than a deficit in the inhibitory process itself. Correlations between the probability of trigger failures and event-related potentials reported by Hughes et al. are interpreted as supporting the attentional account of inhibitory deficits. Our results, and those of Matzke et al. (2016), who report that controls also display a substantial although lower trigger-failure rate, indicate that attentional factors need to be taken into account when interpreting results from the stop-signal paradigm.     

Collective rationality in interactive decisions: evidence for team reasoning

Decision theory and game theory rest on a fundamental assumption that players seek to maximize their individual utilities, but in some interactive decisions it seems intuitively reasonable to aim to maximize the utility of the group of players as a whole. Such team reasoning requires collective preferences and a distinctive mode of reasoning from preferences to decisions. Findings from two experiments provide evidence for collective preferences and team reasoning. In lifelike vignettes (Experiment 1) and abstract games (Experiment 2) with certain structural properties, most players preferred team-reasoning strategies to strategies supporting unique Nash equilibria, although individually rational players should choose equilibrium strategies. These findings suggest that team reasoning predicts strategy choices more powerfully than orthodox game theory in some games.     

Borderline personality as a self-other representational disturbance

A great deal has been written about the nature of borderline personality. We maintain that borderline psychopathology emanates from particular disturbances in mental representations-impairment in the ability to maintain and use benign and integrated internal images of self and others-and that these troubled ways of thinking drive the troubled interpersonal relations, affective instability, and impulsivity associated with borderline. Aspects of borderline self-other representational disturbances are present across a wide theoretical spectrum, and a number of research methodologies already exist to assess the phenomena. We conclude that borderline attributes exist on continua, and summarize important features as: (1) unstable mental images of self and others, often marked by self-loathing and attributions of malevolence to others; (2) interactions with others organized around a fundamental need for care that is felt to be necessary for basic functioning; (3) fear of others based on expectations of being mistreated and disappointed and/or terror of having one's identity subsumed by another person; (4) difficulty considering multiple and/or conflicting perspectives, with a tendency toward concrete, all-or-none, or black-and-white, thinking and distortion of reality; and (5) sadomasochistic interpersonal interactions in which a person alternatively inflicts suffering on others and suffers at the hands of others.     

Using the self to change implicit attitudes

Implicit attitudes are automatic evaluations that occur upon encountering an object. Pairing a particular object with one's self should lead to a positive implicit evaluation of that object as, on the whole, people evaluate themselves positively. Study 1 (N = 83) demonstrated that asking participants to associate themselves with a particular drink (A) and others with an alternative drink (B) was enough to enhance implicit preference for drink A over drink B indexed by scores on the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Two further studies were conducted to rule out the possibility that the effects of the manipulation were restricted to the procedure and measures adopted in Study 1. Study 2 (N = 81) tested the mechanism underlying the effects of the manipulation. The results suggested that the change in implicit attitudes towards the drinks varied as a function of the level of one's self‐esteem. Specifically, associating one's self with drink A led to more favourable implicit attitudes towards drink A particularly when one's self was evaluated more positively. In the third study (N = 44), the basic effect of the manipulation was replicated in an alternative measure of implicit attitudes (the Affect Misattribution Procedure). In all three studies, the effects were unique to implicit measures and did not generalize to explicit measures. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Clergy Motivation and Occupational Well-being: Exploring a Quadripolar Model and Its Role in Predicting Burnout and Engagement

Clergy represent a salient group in Western communities, providing a variety of services aimed at supporting diverse members of those communities. Significantly, rates of attrition among clergy are high, suggesting the need to better understand their occupational well-being and factors relevant to it. The present study draws on the quadripolar need achievement framework to hypothesize motivational profiles among clergy and the extent to which these profiles predict occupational well-being, as indicated by low burnout and high engagement. K-means cluster analysis with 200 clergy confirmed a quadripolar motivational profile (success-oriented, overstriving, self-protecting, failure accepting). Using these group profiles as predictors, structural equation modeling identified significant effects on all burnout and engagement factors, with success-oriented, overstriving, self-protecting, and failure accepting groups each reflecting differential occupational well-being profiles. Substantive and applied implications of these findings are discussed.     

Deflationism and the Dependence of Truth on Reality

A common objection against deflationism is that it cannot account for the fact that truth depends on reality. Consider the question ‘On what does the truth of the proposition that snow is white depend?’ An obvious answer is that it depends on whether snow is white. Now, consider what answer, if any, a deflationist can offer. The problem is as follows. A typical deflationary analysis of truth consists of biconditionals of the form ‘The proposition that p is true iff p’. Such biconditionals tell us nothing about what the truth of the proposition that p might depend on. Therefore, it seems that a typical deflationist cannot give an answer. Since we know that an answer is available, this throws doubt over the adequacy of deflationism as an account of truth. Articulated here is a defence of deflationism against this objection. It is argued that although biconditionals of the sort mentioned do not explicitly state a dependency between truth and reality, they nevertheless convey one. The reason is that, given the context in which a deflationist invokes the biconditionals, such a dependency is implicated. A potential problem with this defence is that it leaves the deflationist still unable to give an account of what it is for truth to depend on reality. One might think that a deflationist can offer such an account by appealing to truthmaker theory but, it is argued below, truthmaker theory is unavailable to a deflationist. Instead, the deflationist should question the assumption that an account is available.     

Peer victimization in adolescence has different effects on the sexual behavior of male and female college students

We studied levels of peer victimization from an evolutionary perspective by investigating self-reported victimization during adolescence in relation to sexual behavior in college students. One-hundred and twelve (47 female) undergraduates completed self-report measures of victimization during middle and high school, onset of sexual activity, and number of sexual partners. Nearly 85% of victimization during adolescence was perpetrated by members of the same sex. Furthermore, results show that this intrasexual victimization (particularly indirect forms) was negatively correlated with reproductive opportunities in males, but positively correlated in females. Males who were frequently victimized had fewer total sexual partners and partners per year on average, while females who were often victims of aggression reported having more sexual partners and an earlier onset of sexual activity. Regression analysis revealed that demeaning, diminishing and embarrassing was the most significant predictor of the rate of sexual activity in both sexes (although this relationship was inverted between them), while teasing was the best predictor of total sexual partners in females. This evidence is consistent with evolutionary interpretations regarding human aggression and competition, as well as with recent findings suggesting that indirect victimization during adolescence is a form of intrasexual competition associated with reproductive opportunities.