Feelings or cognitions? Moral cognitions and emotions as longitudinal predictors of prosocial and aggressive behaviors

There is debate regarding the roles of sociomoral cognitions and emotions in understanding moral development. The short-term longitudinal relations among perspective taking, sympathy, prosocial moral reasoning, prosocial behaviors and aggression in adolescents were examined. Participants were 489 students (M age = 12.28 years, SD = .48; 232 boys) in public and private schools from predominantly middle class families in Valencia, Spain. Students completed measures of perspective taking, sympathy, prosocial moral reasoning, prosocial behaviors, and aggressive behaviors. Overall, structural equation modeling analyses showed that moral reasoning and emotions were interrelated and predicted both prosocial behaviors and aggression. Discussion focuses on the relevance of both social cognitions and emotions in moral development.     

The perceptual salience of symmetrical and asymmetrical sections of a line

A vertical line segment intersecting a horizontal one at different crossing points generates line sections. Visual perception of such line sections was investigated here in two experiments. In both experiments participants were most accurate and precise when they had to reproduce symmetrical sections. Interestingly, the different asymmetrical sections of a line were not equivalent in terms of participants' performance: constant errors changed as a function of sections and the error curve was nicely interpolated by the composition of two harmonics of the line length. In consistence with the harmonic fitting of the data, we propose that the perceptual salience of specific asymmetrical sections is a byproduct of the automatic triggering of a line midpoint identification process. Being perceptually tuned to symmetry warps our visual representation of the line, which results in systematic misperceptions. The way of bringing present and past experimental findings into a unitary whole is proposed.     

A pragmatic interpretation of intuitionistic propositional logic

We construct an extension ^P of the standard language of classical propositional logic by adjoining to the alphabet of a new category of logical-pragmatic signs. The well formed formulas of are calledradical formulas (rfs) of ^P;rfs preceded by theassertion sign constituteelementary assertive formulas of ^P, which can be connected together by means of thepragmatic connectives N, K, A, C, E, so as to obtain the set of all theassertive formulas (afs). Everyrf of ^P is endowed with atruth value defined classically, and everyaf is endowed with ajustification value, defined in terms of the intuitive notion of proof and depending on the truth values of its radical subformulas. In this framework, we define the notion ofpragmatic validity in ^P and yield a list of criteria of pragmatic validity which hold under the assumption that only classical metalinguistic procedures of proof be accepted. We translate the classical propositional calculus (CPC) and the intuitionistic propositional calculus (IPC) into the assertive part of ^P and show that this translation allows us to interpret Intuitionistic Logic as an axiomatic theory of the constructive proof concept rather than an alternative to Classical Logic. Finally, we show that our framework provides a suitable background for discussing classical problems in the philosophy of logic.This paper is an enlarged and entirely revised version of the paper by Dalla Pozza (1991) worked out in the framework of C.N.R. project n. 89.02281.08, and published in Italian. The basic ideas in it have been propounded since 1986 by Dalla Pozza in a series of seminars given at the University of Lecce and in other Italian Universities. C. Garola collected the scattered parts of the work, helped in solving some conceptual difficulties and refining the formalism, yielded the proofs of some propositions (in particular, in Section 3) and provided physical examples (see in particular Remark 2.3.1).     

Australian professional women's evaluations of male and female written products

Goldberg's provocative evidence of 1968 suggesting that female evaluators may be biased against females has initiated extensive research efforts in the last two decades to investigate the nature and extent of any possible prejudice. Recent reviews have concluded that the accumulated evidence is not strongly supportive of the initial claims. However, most of the available research has been conducted in only one country (America), and most of the subject samples have been from a restricted group (college age students). This study was designed to test for evaluative prejudice in a different society, with professional women of Anglo-Australian background, and across the age range from 20 to 60 years. Despite these variations, no evidence of bias against women was detected. The result are discussed with reference to changing societal attitudes and legislation.     

On the Costs of Nonclassical Logic

Solutions to semantic paradoxes often involve restrictions of classical logic for semantic vocabulary. In the paper we investigate the costs of these restrictions in a model case. In particular, we fix two systems of truth capturing the same conception of truth: (a variant) of the system KF of Feferman (The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 56, 1–49, 1991) formulated in classical logic, and (a variant of) the system PKF of Halbach and Horsten (The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 71, 677–712, 2006), formulated in basic De Morgan logic. The classical system is known to be much stronger than the nonclassical one. We assess the reasons for this asymmetry by showing that the truth theoretic principles of PKF cannot be blamed: PKF with induction restricted to non-semantic vocabulary coincides in fact with what the restricted version of KF proves true.     

Change and Management of Complex Services: The Ethno-narrative Form to Support Good Living and Working Together

Nowadays, managing change in complex services requires that middle management re-designs its objects and professional practices, in order to cope with new needs. It seems therefore crucial to activate training settings that allow managers to: (1) develop research and analytical skills on their own work practices and professional objects; (2) face and manage conflict, related to every change, that represents an opportunity to reflect and review one's own practices; and (3) build new and shared repertories of managerial practices, able to support a better form of living and working together within the management community. Moving from these hypotheses, inside the setting of a training intervention conducted in an educational service, the article discusses a specific tool used to generate opportunity of exchange, and reflection, within a challenging framework of change.     

Visual object imagery and autobiographical memory: Object Imagers are better at remembering their personal past

In the present study we examined whether higher levels of object imagery, a stable characteristic that reflects the ability and preference in generating pictorial mental images of objects, facilitate involuntary and voluntary retrieval of autobiographical memories (ABMs). Individuals with high (High-OI) and low (Low-OI) levels of object imagery were asked to perform an involuntary and a voluntary ABM task in the laboratory. Results showed that High-OI participants generated more involuntary and voluntary ABMs than Low-OI, with faster retrieval times. High-OI also reported more detailed memories compared to Low-OI and retrieved memories as visual images. Theoretical implications of these findings for research on voluntary and involuntary ABMs are discussed.