Social and personal determinants of workplace aggression: Evidence for the impact of perceived injustice and the Type A Behavior Pattern

Four hundred fifty‐two employed persons rated the frequency with which they had been the victims of a wide range of aggressive actions at work. In addition, they also rated the frequency with which they themselves had aggressed against others in their workplaces. Three hypotheses were investigated: (1) covert forms of aggression, in which aggressors seek to conceal their identity from target persons, are significantly more frequent in workplaces than overt forms of aggression; (2) the greater the perceived injustice reported by employees, the greater their tendency to engage in workplace aggression; and (3) the higher individuals' scores on a measure of the Type A Behavior Pattern, the greater their reported frequency of engaging in various forms of workplace aggression. Results offered support for all three hypotheses. In addition, several demographic variables (participants' age and gender; the physical location of their workplaces) were also found to play a role in the occurrence of workplace aggression. Together, these findings were interpreted as underscoring the importance of establishing close conceptual links between research on workplace aggression and basic research on human aggression. Aggr. Behav. 25:281–296, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Epistemic Circularity Squared? Skepticism about Common Sense

Epistemic circularity occurs when a subject forms the belief that a faculty F is reliable through the use of F. Although this is often thought to be vicious, externalist theories generally don't rule it out. For some philosophers, this is a reason to reject externalism. However, Michael Bergmann defends externalism by drawing on the tradition of common sense in two ways. First, he concedes that epistemically circular beliefs cannot answer a subject's doubts about her cognitive faculties. But, he argues, subjects don't have such doubts, so epistemically circular beliefs are rarely called upon to play this role. Second, following Thomas Reid, Bergmann argues that we have noninferential, though epistemically circular, knowledge that our faculties are reliable. I argue, however, that Bergmann's view is undermined by doubts a subject should have and that there is no plausible explanation for how we can have noninferential knowledge that our faculties are reliable.     

The Power of Social Influence on Estimation Accuracy

Research shows that crowds can provide more accurate estimates of uncertain quantities than individuals (Surowiecki, 2004). But little is known about how to organize crowd members to maximize accuracy. When should crowd members work independently, and when should they work collaboratively? We examined the effects of social influence on estimation accuracy, consensus, and confidence. Participants first made independent estimates of uncertain quantities, such as the percentage of U.S. deaths due to heart attacks or the height of the tallest building. Then, in some conditions, they interacted with others online. After the discussion, they made second independent estimates. Social interaction improved accuracy. Despite well‐known problems with groups, such as herding and free riding, discussion resulted in more accurate estimates and greater consensus relative to independent estimates. We offer a simple model that describes the process by which group discussion improves the estimates of uncertain quantities. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Correlations of trait and state emotions with utilitarian moral judgements

In four experiments, we asked subjects for judgements about scenarios that pit utilitarian outcomes against deontological moral rules, for example, saving more lives vs. a rule against active killing. We measured trait emotions of anger, disgust, sympathy and empathy (the last two in both specific and general forms, the latter referring to large groups of people), asked about the same emotions after each scenario (state emotions). We found that utilitarian responding to the scenarios, and higher scores on a utilitarianism scale, were correlated negatively with disgust, positively (but weakly and inconsistently) with anger, positively with specific sympathy and state sympathy, and less so with general sympathy or empathy. In a fifth experiment, we asked about anger and sympathy for specific outcomes, and we found that these are consistently predictive of utilitarian responding.     

Back to the Unchanging Past

The standard philosophical view of time travel has it that time travelers cannot change the past. It has been argued by some that the standard view is false, and that this can be shown using a two‐dimensional model of time. I defend the standard view against this attack. I show, first, that the addition of a second temporal dimension does not provide a model of changing the past and, second, that neither does the addition of n temporal dimensions for any n > 1.