Birthday and birthmate problems: misconceptions of probability among psychology undergraduates and casino visitors and personnel

Subjective estimates and associated confidence ratings for the solutions of some classic occupancy problems were studied in samples of 721 psychology undergraduates, 39 casino visitors, and 34 casino employees. On tasks varying the classic birthday problem, i.e., the probability P for any coincidence among N individuals sharing the same birthday, clear majorities of respondents markedly overestimated N, given P, and markedly underestimated P, given N. Respondents did notedly better on tasks varying the birthmate problem, i.e., P for the specific coincidence among N individuals of having a birthday today. Psychology students and women did better on both task types, but were less confident about their estimates than casino visitors or per sonnel and men. Several further person variables, such as indicators of topical knowledge and familiarity, were associated with better and more confident performance on birthday problems, but not on birthmate problems. Likewise, higher confidence ratings were related to subjective estimates that were closer to the solutions of birthday problems, but not of birthmate problems. Implications of and possible explanations for these findings, study limitations, directions for further inquiry, and the real-world relevance of ameliorating misconceptions of probability are discussed.     

The Disjunction Effect: Does It Exist for Two-Step Gambles?

One of the basic axioms of the rational theory of decision under uncertainty is Savage's (1954) Sure Thing Principle. It states that if Prospect x is preferred to Prospect y knowing that Event A occurred, and if x is preferred to y knowing that A did not occur, then x should also be preferred to y when it is not known whether A occurred. Tversky and Shafir (1992) claim to have demonstrated a violation of this principle in two-step gambles, which is termed a disjunction effect. The present article evaluates the replicability of the disjunction effect for two-step gambles. The findings show that people do not violate the sure thing principle in repeated gambles. The validity of alleged violations in other paradigms is discussed.     

The influence of perceived suffering and vulnerability on the experience of pity

Pity is viewed as a function of two classes of perceived stimulus features and their interaction: the extent to which a person (when still healthy and nonsuffering) is perceived as vulnerable to physical harm, and the perceived intensity of his or her current suffering. Consistent with this view, Experiment 1 (N = 141) showed that participants' pity reactions to photographs of persons expressing pain were influenced by age‐related, sex‐related, and postural vulnerability cues. Experiment 2 (N = 258) manipulated both target's vulnerability by varying the muscularity of the same adult male stimulus and the intensity of suffering. As predicted, an interaction of vulnerability and suffering was found. Implications for the study of helping behavior are discussed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inducing Thought Processes: Bringing Process Measures and Cognitive Processes Closer Together

The challenge in inferring cognitive processes from observational data is to correctly align overt behavior with its covert cognitive process. To improve our understanding of this overt–covert mapping in the domain of decision making, we collected eye‐movement data during decisions between gamble‐problems. Participants were either free to choose or instructed to use a specific choice strategy (maximizing expected value or a choice heuristic). We found large differences in looking patterns between free and instructed choices. Looking patterns provided no support for the common assumption that attention is equally distributed between outcomes and probabilities, even when participants were instructed to maximize expected value. Eye‐movement data are to some extent ambiguous with respect to underlying cognitive processes. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Schelling on understanding organisms

In this paper, I attempt to reconstruct Schelling’s theory of organism, primarily as it is elaborated in the First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature and the Introduction to the Outline. First, I discuss the challenge that the properties of organisms presented to the dominant scientific viewpoint by the end of the eighteenth century. I present different responses to this challenge, including reductive materialism, metaphysical and heuristic vitalism, and the Kantian response, and I situate Schelling’s account of organism with respect to these responses. I argue that while Schelling agrees with vitalism in that he wants to preserve the specificity of organic phenomena, he rejects principles such as vital forces or the formative drive postulated by vitalism, even for purely heuristic purposes. I argue that Schelling understands organisms fundamentally in terms of the coordinated functioning of their organs. I further clarify Schelling’s account of problematic organic phenomena by focusing on his treatment of the relation between organic activity and organic receptivity. For Schelling, organic activity and organic receptivity mutually condition each other. I provide a detailed account of how this is supposed to work.     

The use of person-organization fit in employment decision making: an assessment of its criterion-related validity

Because measures of person-organization (P-O) fit are accountable to the same psychometric and legal standards used for other employment tests when they are used for personnel decision making, the authors assessed the criterion-related validity of P-O fit as a predictor of job performance and turnover. Meta-analyses resulted in estimated true criterion-related validities of .15 (k = 36, N = 5,377) for P-O fit as a predictor of job performance and .24 (k = 8, N = 2,476) as a predictor of turnover, compared with a stronger effect of .31 (k = 109, N = 108,328) for the more commonly studied relation between P-O fit and work attitudes. In contrast to the relations between P-O fit and work attitudes, the lower 95% credibility values for the job performance and turnover relations included zero. In addition, P-O fit's relations with job performance and turnover were partially mediated by work attitudes. Potential concerns pertaining to the use of P-O fit in employment decision making are discussed in light of these results.     

Comparison of several shortened versions of the EMBU: exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses

The aim of the present study was to analyze the psychometric properties of different versions of the EMBU (Egna Minnen av Barndoms Uppfostran – My memories of upbringing) in a non-clinical sample of adolescents. The factor structure of the questionnaire was studied by means of more adequate exploratory and confirmatory factor procedures in order to ascertain which version achieves a better fit to data. The 64-item version of the EMBU was administered to a non-clinical sample of 832 adolescents. Exploratory and Confirmatory factor analyses were carried out for successive versions of 64, 37, 24 and 23 items. The theoretical four-factor structure of the 64-item version is not replicated in a factor analysis through principal axis extraction with direct oblimin rotation. The "Favoring Subject" factor was not found. 37 items present loadings equal to or larger than 0.30 for the "Rejection", "Emotional Warmth" and "Overprotection" factors. A re-analysis of these items shows a clear three-factor structure. When Arrindell et al .'s (1999 ) 23-item version was analysed, the three expected factors were also found. Confirmatory factor analyses allow us to reduce the 36-item version to a shorter one of 24 items. This last version achieves the best fit to data, including the 23-item version. The new 24-item version improves the construct validity of the EMBU and presents similar reliability coefficients.     

Do parents and adolescents differ in their perceptions of rearing styles? Analysis of the EMBU versions for parents and adolescents

In the present study, memories of rearing styles between parents, mother and father, and their son/daughters were explored through the EMBU versions for parents (EMBU-P) and adolescents (EMBU-A). Results show that parents differ in three of the four scales of the EMBU: Emotional Warmth, Control Attempts, and Favoring Subject. Also, mothers score higher on Emotional Warmth, and Control Attempts, but less on Favoring Subject. When parents and adolescents were compared in the common items to both versions, no substantial differences were found, except for the Favoring Subject scale. The sex of the adolescent seems not to play a relevant role in the observed differences. A revision of specialized literature suggested that differences in the fathers' and mothers' perceptions of their rearing styles could be related to differences in personality and marital satisfaction. These hypothetical relationships should be investigated in a parallel study.     

The sunk cost effect in pigeons and humans

The sunk cost effect is the increased tendency to persist in an endeavor once an investment of money, effort, or time has been made. To date, humans are the only animal in which this effect has been observed unambiguously. We developed a behavior-analytic model of the sunk cost effect to explore the potential for this behavior in pigeons as well as in humans. Each trial started out with a short expected ratio, but on some trials assumed a longer expected ratio part way through the trial. Subjects had the (usually preferable) option of "escaping" the trial if the longer expected ratio had come into effect in order to bring on a new trial that again had a short expected ratio. In Experiments 1 through 3, we manipulated two independent variables that we hypothesized would affect the pigeons' ability to discriminate the increase in the expected ratio within a trial: (a) the presence or absence of stimuli that signal an increase in the expected ratio, and (b) the severity of the increase in the expected ratio. We found that the pigeons were most likely to persist nonoptimally through the longer expected ratios when stimulus changes were absent and when the increase in the expected ratio was less severe. Experiment 4 employed a similar procedure with human subjects that manipulated only the severity of the increase in the expected ratio and found a result similar to that of the pigeon experiment. In Experiment 5, we tested the hypothesis that a particular history of reinforcement would induce pigeons to persist through the longer expected ratios; the results suggested instead that the history of reinforcement caused the pigeons to persist less compared to pigeons that did not have that history.     

Discourse as Care: A Phenomenological Consideration of Spatiality and Temporality

Scholars increasingly recognize that discourse is not a standing collection of representations for pre-existing thoughts and/or things in a pre-existing world. Still, many obstacles remain, and these seem to be inseparable from contemporary common-sense. When we ask about the nature of discourse, we are, ultimately, asking about the nature of world, the nature of the body, and also, there must be, if only tacitly, an account of space and time. Discourse, I would suggest, is a mode of evaluative praxis, a way of articulately being-concerned-with-others. But discourse is not only a finely nuanced praxis, or a sophisticated mode of cooperative action. Its powers for spatializing and temporalizing include predication in their peculiar kind of care. In general, as implying a concernful -being-with-others-being-toward-world, discourse is an intentional nexus whose capacities for spatializing and temporalizing make-room for those situations in which we find ourselves thrown, projected, and concernfully stretching along.