Research Note: Assessing the Determinants of the Contemporary Social Attitudes of Roman Catholics in Britain: Abortion and Homosexuality

This research note examines the determinants of British Catholics’ social attitudes using a nationally representative survey undertaken in 2010. It examines attitudes towards abortion and homosexuality, issues where the Church has clear moral teachings and has recently intervened in national debates, but where significant proportions of Catholics currently hold dissenting views. Noteworthy findings are the consistent role played by sex, age, and religious commitment in underpinning attitudes towards social issues, while party political support only affects attitudes towards homosexuality. Men, older people, and those who attend religious services more frequently represent the sections of the Catholic community which are particularly likely to hold traditionalist views that accord with official Church teaching.     

Predictable Mispredictions in the Context of Physical Activity and Sport: A Review

Theoretical models and research that aim to identify antecedents of participation in physical activities or sport can measure antecedents of physical activity behaviour through instruments that involve subjective predictions. In this article, we argue that such instruments may not reflect physical activity experiences or behaviour accurately because people are not very good predictors of future states. Additionally, we propose that mispredictions may be predictable because they are “caused” by tendencies to neglect processes related to hedonic adaptation and competing alternatives. We also suggest that it may be possible to improve measurement of antecedents through methods that focus respondents' attention on factors that cause mispredictions or through experiential sampling methods.     

The Medieval Octagon of Opposition for Sentences with Quantified Predicates

The traditional Square of Opposition consists of four sentence types. Two are universal and two particular; two are affirmative and two negative. Examples, where ‘S’ and ‘P’ designate the subject and the predicate, are: ‘every S is P’, ‘no S is P’, ‘some S is P’ and ‘some S is not P’. Taking the usual sentences of the square of opposition, quantifying over their predicates exhibits non-standard sentence forms. These sentences may be combined into non-standard Squares of Opposition (an Octagon in this case), and they reveal a new relationship not found in the usual Square. Medieval logicians termed ‘disparatae’ pairs of sentences like ‘every S is some P’ and ‘some S is every P’, which are neither subaltern nor contrary, neither contradictory nor subcontrary. Walter Redmond has designed a special language L to express the logical form of these sentences in a precise way. I will use this language to show how Squares of Opposition, standard and non-standard, form a complex network of relations which bring to light the subtleties contained in this traditional doctrine.     

The Effect of Parents’ Literacy Skills and Children’s Preliteracy Skills on the Risk of Dyslexia

The combination of investigating child and family characteristics sheds light on the constellation of risk factors that can ultimately lead to dyslexia. This family-risk study examines plausible preschool risk factors and their specificity. Participants (N?=?196, 42 % girls) included familial risk (FR) children with and without dyslexia in Grade 3 and controls. First, we found impairments in phonological awareness, rapid naming, and letter knowledge in FR kindergartners with later dyslexia, and mild phonological-awareness deficits in FR kindergartners without subsequent dyslexia. These skills were better predictors of reading than arithmetic, except for rapid naming. Second, the literacy environment at home was comparable among groups. Third, having a dyslexic parent and literacy abilities of the non-dyslexic parent related to offspring risk of dyslexia. Parental literacy abilities might be viewed as indicators of offspring’s liability for literacy difficulties, since parents provide offspring with genetic and environmental endowment. We propose an intergenerational multiple deficit model in which both parents confer cognitive risks.     

Eveningness and Seasonality are Associated with the Bipolar Disorder Vulnerability Trait

Trait theories of vulnerability to bipolar disorder (BD) are increasingly common in the literature, yet poorly understood. The aim of the current study was to complement existing knowledge of trait theories by investigating two biological rhythm features often associated with BD – eveningness and seasonality – in a sample assessed as vulnerable to the disorder. Two hundred and thirteen participants completed an online survey consisting of the General Behavior Inventory, Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire, and Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire. Hierarchical regressions controlling for sex and age showed that greater levels of seasonality and a tendency towards an eveningness chronotype were weak, but significant predictors of the BD vulnerability trait. When the traits of vulnerability to depression and mania were investigated separately, seasonality and eveningness were significant predictors of the former, but only seasonality was a significant predictor of the latter. The Autumn/Winter pattern of seasonality was a weak predictor of trait vulnerability to mania but not depression. The current findings advance understanding of the BD vulnerability trait, and may have consequences for the behavioural management of those who are considered to be ‘at risk’ of the disorder.     

Levels of analysis and sources of data in sales research: a multilevel-multisource review

Sales researchers are increasingly adopting a multilevel-multisource (MLMS) approach to answer many key questions involving sales managers, salespeople and customers. MLMS research involves the acquisition and analysis of data collected from two or more sources pertaining to multiple hierarchical levels and presents a number of opportunities and challenges for sales researchers to consider. The authors highlight the benefits and the drawbacks of MLMS research and describe various approaches for implementing an MLMS collection and analysis. Additionally, a review of the MLMS studies conducted in the sales domain is provided which summarizes and delineates relationships tested in the extant literature. Based on this review, the authors advance a number of underdeveloped areas of research where MLMS approaches can be applied to further the understanding of the dynamic conditions that typify sales research.     

Observed Variability and Values Matter: Toward a Better Understanding of Information Search and Decisions from Experience

The search for different options before making a consequential choice is a central aspect of many important decisions, such as mate selection or purchasing a house. Despite its importance, surprisingly little is known about how search and choice are affected by the observed and objective properties of the decision problem. Here, we analyze the effects of two key properties in a binary choice task: the options' observed and objective values, and the variability of payoffs. First, in a large public data set of a binary choice task, we investigate how the observed value and variability relate to decision‐makers' efforts and preferences during search. Furthermore, we test how these properties influence the chance of correctly identifying the objectively maximizing option, and how they affect choice. Second, we designed a novel experiment to systematically analyze the role of the objective difference between the options. We find that a larger objective difference between options increases the chance for correctly identifying the maximizing option, but it does not affect behavior during search and choice. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reduced susceptibility to confirmation bias in schizophrenia

Patients with schizophrenia (SZ) show cognitive impairments on a wide range of tasks, with clear deficiencies in tasks reliant on prefrontal cortex function and less consistently observed impairments in tasks recruiting the striatum. This study leverages tasks hypothesized to differentially recruit these neural structures to assess relative deficiencies of each. Forty-eight patients and 38 controls completed two reinforcement learning tasks hypothesized to interrogate prefrontal and striatal functions and their interaction. In each task, participants learned reward discriminations by trial and error and were tested on novel stimulus combinations to assess learned values. In the task putatively assessing fronto-striatal interaction, participants were (inaccurately) instructed that one of the stimuli was valuable. Consistent with prior reports and a model of confirmation bias, this manipulation resulted in overvaluation of the instructed stimulus after its true value had been experienced. Patients showed less susceptibility to this confirmation bias effect than did controls. In the choice bias task hypothesized to more purely assess striatal function, biases in endogenously and exogenously chosen actions were assessed. No group differences were observed. In the subset of participants who showed learning in both tasks, larger group differences were observed in the confirmation bias task than in the choice bias task. In the confirmation bias task, patients also showed impairment in the task conditions with no prior instruction. This deficit was most readily observed on the most deterministic discriminations. Taken together, these results suggest impairments in fronto-striatal interaction in SZ, rather than in striatal function per se.