Chance,determinism, and unsettledness

A previously unrecognised argument against deterministic chance is introduced. The argument rests on the twin ideas that determined outcomes are settled, while chancy outcomes are unsettled, thus making cases of determined but chancy outcomes impossible. Closer attention to tacit assumptions about settledness makes available some principled lines of resistance to the argument for compatibilists about chance and determinism. Yet the costs of maintaining compatibilism may be higher with respect to this argument than with respect to existing incompatibilist arguments.

     

A Typology of Market Sellers of Protected Wildlife Across Peru

This exploratory field investigation describes five categories of sellers (casual, transient, opportunistic, hidden, and professional) who commercialize protected wildlife out of open-air markets across Peru. These categories were created through an analysis of interviews with wildlife market sellers (N = 15), observations across 13 open-air markets where protected wildlife are sold, and interviews with persons involved in wildlife trade processes (N = 45). The market sellers’ accounts highlight the changes of Peru’s informal wildlife trade and help to contextualize the social, cultural, and economic realities connected to this commerce. Market sellers describe nuanced motivations behind their involvement in the wildlife trade that go beyond economic gains.     

Twenty-One Arguments against Propensity Analyses of Probability

I argue that any broadly dispositional analysis of probability will either fail to give an adequate explication of probability, or else will fail to provide an explication that can be gainfully employed elsewhere (for instance, in empirical science or in the regulation of credence). The diversity and number of arguments suggests that there is little prospect of any successful analysis along these lines.     

We feel, therefore we are: emotion as a basis for self-categorization and social action

Building on intergroup emotion research, we test the idea that intergroup emotion influences self-categorization. We report two studies using minimal (Study 1) and natural (Study 2) groups in which we measured participants' emotional reactions to a group-relevant event before manipulating the emotional reactions of other ingroup members and outgroup members (anger vs. happiness in Study 1; anger vs. indifference in Study 2). Results supported the hypotheses that (a) the fit between participants' own emotional reactions and the reactions of ingroup members would influence self-categorization, and (b) the specific content of emotional reactions would shape participants' willingness to engage in collective action. This willingness was greater when emotional reactions were not only shared with other group members, but were of anger (consistent with group-based action) rather than happiness or indifference (inconsistent with group-based action). Implications for the relationship between emotion and social identities are discussed.     

Development of a repeated measures affective change blindness task

Flicker-induced change blindness paradigms have been used to explore attentional biases for a range of concern-related cues. However, previous studies have had limitations related to concerns about carryover effects in repeated measures designs, as well as problems with response modalities. The present article develops a repeated measures paradigm utilising nonverbal responses and explores the implications of these design modifications for the reliability and validity of the paradigm. Affective stimuli were presented to participants, and the results suggest that the modified paradigm is a useful tool for assessing attentional bias. A number of recommendations for the future use of this methodology are made.     

Thought dismissability in obsessive-compulsive disorder versus panic disorder

This study sought to better understand the persistence of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) by studying the dismissability of obsessional thoughts in individuals with OCD relative to the dismissability of panic-relevant thoughts in individuals with panic disorder with or without agoraphobia (PD/A). Individuals with a principal diagnosis of OCD (n = 25) or PD/A (n = 25) completed a thought replacement task in which they replaced a primary obsession (target thought for the OCD group) or a primary panic-relevant thought (target thought for the PD/A group), with a neutral thought, signaling when the target thought occurred and when the neutral thought was in mind. The OCD group had more target thoughts and appraised the recurrence of the target thought more negatively. Whereas mood state did not change in the PD/A group, it declined in the OCD group, and this change was predicted by negative appraisal of target thought recurrences, but not amount of time thinking the target thought. These findings suggest that in vivo appraisal of the recurrence of obsessions may be a unique, key mechanism in the persistence of OCD and that the identification and exploration of appraisal of thought recurrences may be an especially important target in its treatment.     

Are Our Concepts conscious state and conscious creature Vague?

Intuitively it has seemed to many that our concepts conscious state and conscious creature are sharp rather than vague, that they can have no borderline cases. On the other hand, many who take conscious states to be identical to, or realized by, complex physical states are committed to the vagueness of those concepts. In the paper I argue that conscious state and conscious creature are sharp by presenting four necessary conditions for conceiving borderline cases in general, and showing that some of those conditions cannot be met with conscious state. I conclude that conscious state is sharp, and the conclusion is then extended to conscious creature. The paper ends with a brief discussion of some implications.

Group cohesion in cognitive-behavioral group therapy for social phobia

Cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) for Social Phobia is effective in both group and individual formats. However, the impact of group processes on treatment efficacy remains relatively unexplored. In this study we examined group cohesion ratings made by individuals at the midpoint and endpoint of CBT groups for social phobia. Symptom measures were also completed at the beginning and end of treatment. We found that cohesion ratings significantly increased over the course of the group and were associated with improvement over time in social anxiety symptoms, as well as improvement on measures of general anxiety, depression, and functional impairment. In conclusion, findings are consistent with the idea that changes in group cohesion are related to social anxiety symptom reduction and, therefore, speak to the importance of nonspecific therapeutic factors in treatment outcome.