Prerogatives Without Restrictions?

Philosophical Studies -     

Relational Risk and Its Personal Correlates in Strategic Alliances

In this study we focus on the perception of one particular type of risk in the context of strategic alliances—relational risk. Perceived relational risk refers to the degree to which decision makers are concerned with the partner's opportunistic behavior in cooperative efforts. We develop a measure of relational risk in strategic alliances, and empirically examine some of its personal correlates. Based on a survey of senior executives of corporations and MBA students, we found partial support for the principal hypothesis that the perception of relational risk for prospective strategic alliances is related to an individual's age and trust in people.     

A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SIMULTANEOUS-SUCCESSIVE SYNTHESIS AND CONCRETE OPERATIONAL THOUGHT

In two studies, performance in concrete operational tasks was related to individual differences in simultaneous-successive processing. Although the studies were carried out in culturally different populations (in Canada and in India), it was observed that children who prefer simultaneous to successive processing did better in the Piagetian tasks of conservation, transitive inference, and class inclusion. But performance in class inclusion appeared to be helped by both processes in the study in India. On the whole, rational as well as empirical reasons were found to claim that simultaneous processing is utilized in the successful solution of concrete operational tasks.     

CHILDREN'S VERBAL RESPONSES TO PHONETICALLY DIFFERENT AUDITORY STIMULI1

L'expérience a été réalisée à Belgrade avec des enfants serbo-croates, monolingues de 6 ans (N = 20). La moitié des sujets étaient normaux quant à L'articulation et L'intelligence (performance à un test); les autres a vaient des difficultés d'articulation et des résultats faibles au test. On leur demandait de répéter des stimulus verbaux qui étaient présentés dans la structure phonologique du serbo-croate ou de L'anglais: dix mots anglais dont les éléments et les groupements présentent phonologiquement plus ou moins de ressemblance en serbo-croate et en anglais sont utilisés comme stimulus. Les réponses verbales sont notées selon quatre qualités phonétiques: temps (ou durée), accentuation (ou intensité), tonalité (ou mélodie du mot), qualité de la prononciation. Les réponses des enfants normaux diffèrent significativement de celles des enfants déficients dans les quatre modalités, pour sept des stimulus. Les différences qui sont dues à la structure phonologique ne sont pas significatives pour ce qui est du temps, de L'accentuation et de la tonalité pour huit stimulus, mais sont significatives pour ce qui est de la qualité de la prononciation pour six stimulus. En se basant sur la comparaison entre les résultats obtenus avec des stimulus présentés selon une structure phonologique familière (ou conditionnée) et ceux qu'on obtient avec des stimulus présentés selon une structure phonologique non familiàre (ou non-conditionnée), on peut penser qu'il existe des structures acoustiques plus spécifiques et plus complexes qui seraient impliquées dans la qualité de la prononciation et des structures plus simples et plus générales qui seraient impliquées dans la durée, L'accentuation et la tonalité.     

A Neo-Lurian Approach to Assessment and Remediation

The first part of this article presents an operational battery of tasks for measuring the four cognitive processes of Planning, Arousal–Attention, and Simultaneous and Successive processing (PASS) not only based on the qualitative data provided in Luria's syndrome analysis, but also taken from tasks in experimental cognitive psychology and neuropsychology. The second part of the article presents a remedial program based on PASS for enhancement of reading. Because this part provides in some detail the efficacy of the remedial procedure, it simultaneously validates the PASS constructs as well. In both parts of the article, I have been unmistakably guided by Luria's views: Tests are approaches to investigating cognitive functions, and the purpose of testing is to guide rehabilitation.     

Responses of low-IQ students on the learning awareness questionnaire compared to students matched on mental and chronological age

Learning awareness, including semantic content, response strategy, processing strategy, summarization, and memory in the classroom, were examined in students with mental retardation. From urban schools in Japan special high school students with average IQ of 60 (n = 40) and students with normal intellectual capacity matched on mental (n = 40) and chronological age (n = 40) were administered a 16-item Learning Awareness Questionnaire. Students of low IQ on the Tanaka-Binet test obtained lower scores on semantic content and memory strategies than chronological or mental age-matched controls, but not on response and processing. Scores indicated that students of low IQ may be equally aware of learning processes related to response and processing strategies.     

A 32-society investigation of the influence of perceived economic inequality on social class stereotyping

There is a growing body of work suggesting that social class stereotypes are amplified when people perceive higher levels of economic inequality—that is, the wealthy are perceived as more competent and assertive and the poor as more incompetent and unassertive. The present study tested this prediction in 32 societies and also examines the role of wealth-based categorization in explaining this relationship. We found that people who perceived higher economic inequality were indeed more likely to consider wealth as a meaningful basis for categorization. Unexpectedly, however, higher levels of perceived inequality were associated with perceiving the wealthy as less competent and assertive and the poor as more competent and assertive. Unpacking this further, exploratory analyses showed that the observed tendency to stereotype the wealthy negatively only emerged in societies with lower social mobility and democracy and higher corruption. This points to the importance of understanding how socio-structural features that co-occur with economic inequality may shape perceptions of the wealthy and the poor.     

Bad News for Moral Error Theorists: There Is No Master Argument Against Companions in Guilt Strategies

A ‘companions in guilt’ (CG) strategy against moral error theory aims to show that the latter proves too much: if sound, it supports an implausible error-theoretic conclusion in other areas such as epistemic or practical reasoning. Christopher Cowie [2016 Cowie, C. 2016. Good News for Moral Error Theorists: A Master Argument Against Companions in Guilt Strategies, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94/1: 115–30.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]] has recently produced what he claims is a ‘master argument’ against all such strategies. The essence of his argument is that CG arguments cannot work because they are afflicted by internal incoherence or inconsistency. I argue, first, that Cowie's master argument does not succeed. Beyond this, I argue that there is no good reason to think that any such argument—one that purports to identify an internal incoherence in CG arguments—can succeed. Second, I argue that the main substantive area of disagreement between error theorists and CG theorists essentially concerns the conceptual profile of epistemic reasons—specifically, whether they are strongly categorical—not the ontological question of whether such reasons exist (in some form or other). I then develop an argument in favour of the CG theorist's position by considering the moral error theorist's arguments in support of the conceptual claim that moral reasons are strongly categorical. These include, notably, criticisms made by Joyce [2011] and Olson [2014] of Finlay's [2008] ‘end relational’ view of morality, according to which moral reasons are relative to some end or standard, hence not strongly categorical. Examining these criticisms, I argue that, based on what moral error theorists have said regarding the conceptual profile of moral reasons, there is a strong case to be made that moral reasons are strongly categorical (hence, according to the moral error theorist, ontologically problematic) if and only if epistemic reasons are.