Situational motivational profiles and performance with elite performers

In Study 1, a sample of tennis players ranked at the national level (n = 173) completed a French version of the Situational Motivation Scale the day before a tennis competition. Results revealed the presence of a three‐cluster solution. Differences among clusters on subsequent sport performance were significant. Specifically, athletes with the least self‐determined motivational profile obtained the lowest levels of performance. Study 2 (n = 319) replicated the findings of Study 1 with a larger sample of national level tennis players. Overall, these results suggest that it is useful to analyze individuals' situational motivational profiles using a cluster analysis to understand the complex link between motivation and performance.     

Is the Humean defeated by induction?

Many necessitarians about cause and law (Armstrong, What is a law of nature. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983; Mumford, Laws in nature. Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy. Routledge, Abingdon, 2004; Bird, Nature’s metaphysics: Laws and properties. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007) have argued that Humeans are unable to justify their inductive inferences, as Humean laws are nothing but the sum of their instances. In this paper I argue against these necessitarian claims. I show that Armstrong is committed to the explanatory value of Humean laws (in the form of universally quantified statements), and that contra Armstrong, brute regularities often do have genuine explanatory value. I finish with a Humean attempt at a probabilistic justification of induction, but this fails due to its assumption that the proportionality syllogism is justified. Although this attempt fails, I nonetheless show that the Humean is at least as justified in reasoning inductively as Armstrong.     

Twelve-Year Review of Major Family Therapy Journals: Topic Areas,Authors' Characteristics and Publishing Institutions

Topics of interest, authors' characteristics, and institutions in three major MFT journals (American Journal of Family Therapy, Family Process, and Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy) from 1992 to 2004 were reviewed. The findings indicated that most authors had earned a Ph.D. and worked in a university setting as a faculty member. Publishing institutions were equally distributed throughout the United States. Six topics areas accounted for 42% of articles written including (1) Theory; (2) Techniques and Interventions; (3) Assessments and Instruments; (4) Ethnic, Minority, and Cross-cultural Issues; (5) Violence, Abuse, and Incest; and (6) Training and Supervision. As in the earlier reviews, faculty and/or students from Purdue University and Brigham Young University authored the highest percentage of papers.     

The Costs of Asking for Help

Research reveals that aggressive primes activate hostile information in memory. However, it is unclear whether this is true of all people or whether the activation of hostile information differs by trait aggression. In 3 studies, we investigate the organization of aggression-related knowledge. In Study 1, ratings of one's hostile emotions speeded subsequent ratings of hostile emotions, but particularly among individuals low in trait aggression. In Study 2, categorizations of blame-related words speeded categorizations of anger-related words, but particularly among individuals low in trait aggression. In Study 3, categorizations of actions as mean facilitated similar categorizations, but particularly among individuals low in trait aggression. These results suggest that aggressive primes activate hostile information in memory particularly for individuals low (rather than high) in trait aggression. The discussion of the results attempts to reconcile spreading activation processes with judgment and behavior in the particular context of trait aggression and priming effects.     

Kinds of process and the levels of selection

Synthese - Most attempts to answer the question of whether populations of groups can undergo natural selection focus on properties of the groups themselves rather than the dynamics of the...     

Some additional predictions and further tests of the Marr-Ullman model of motion perception

The Marr-Ullman model for motion detection in the human visual system functions by means of the dual input of polarity-specific edge detectors and luminance change detectors. Moulden and Begg (1986) found a polarity-specific motion aftereffect which they claimed provided support for this dual input model. The logic of their experiment is examined, and it is shown that several additional predictions arise from the Marr-Ullman model, which were not supported by Moulden and Begg's study. A more powerful experiment was carried out and these additional predictions were disconfirmed, although the polarity-specific effect did emerge. A consideration of alternative explanations of this effect led to a second experiment in which an attempt was made to discover the actual determinants of the effect. This revealed that polarity-specific units are unlikely to play any part in the phenomenon. It was concluded, in the light of this and other evidence, that one of a class of alternative models is more likely to be the actual mechanism for motion perception. However, careful consideration of the Marr-Ullman model indicated that it may be untestable in principle if various differentially weighted levels of neural integration are envisaged.     

Kedushah: The Sexual Abstinence of Married Men in Gur, Slonim, and Toledot Aharon

Kedushah (holiness) developed as a pietistic ideal for the virtuous few, encouraging married men to limit to the minimum the frequency and modes of sexual intercourse with their wives. Today, the hasidic groups of Gur, Slonim, and Toledot Aharon (Toldes Aaron) radicalize this ideal by imposing it on the community as a whole. Gur’s version is the most restrictive and the only one formalized as a set of ordinances (takunes), while Toldes Aaron’s version is the most lenient. The radical kedushah norms have given rise to controversy and dissent. Prominent rabbis have argued that they were at odds with the halakhah, offensive to women, and harmful to men, while marriage guides within the Gur community have debated their rigidity and universal applicability. The hasidic Rebbes themselves are reticent about the topic, addressing it only in unpublished homilies and personal letters, from which excerpts appear in print for the first time in the present paper. The rise of these kedushah norms in modern Hasidism should be attributed to (a) the inherent hasidic quest for spiritual renewal, which has generated a range of “mysticism substitutes”; (b) resistance to modern “promiscuity”; (c) the historical legacies of these particular hasidic groups, which they strove to revive after the Holocaust by generating new spiritual energies that would attract “virtuous” young men to their ranks. One of the ways to achieve this was to renew the old battle against the traditional enemy—the sexual drive.