James C. Edwards,The Plain Sense of Things: The Fate of Religion in an Age of Normal Nihilism

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Testimony,Knowledge, and Epistemic Goals

Various considerations are adduced toshow that we require that a testifier know hertestimony. Such a requirement apparentlyimproves testimony. It is argued that the aimof improving testimony explains why we have anduse our concept of knowledge. If we were tointroduce a term of praise for testimony, usingit at first to praise testimony that apparentlyhelped us in our practical projects, it wouldcome to be used as we now use the word``know'.     

Paradoxical effects of presentation modality on false memory.

Two experiments are reported in which the effects of presentation modality on false memory in recall and recognition are studied. False recall and recognition of critical targets are lower for non-presented items related to a study list when that study list is presented visually than when presented auditorily. This pattern of low levels of false memory for critical targets holds even when participants read the visually presented study items aloud. These results suggest that recollection of visual detail plays a role in the prevention of false memory. However, both the hit rates (true memory) and the false-alarm rates to weakly related distractors (non-critical targets) were higher for visual presentation than for auditory presentation, suggesting that more than one mechanism may underlie false recognition.     

Auditory temporal processing deficits in children with periventricular brain injury

The present study investigated whether auditory temporal processing deficits are related to the presence and/or the severity of periventricular brain injury and the reading difficulties experienced by extremely low birthweight (ELBW: birthweight <1000 g) children. Results indicate that ELBW children with mild or severe brain lesions obtained significantly lower scores on a test requiring auditory temporal order judgments than ELBW children without periventricular brain injury or children who were full-term. Structural equation modeling indicated that a model in which auditory temporal processing deficits predicted speech sound discrimination and phonological processing ability provided a better fit for the data than did a second model, which hypothesized that auditory temporal processing deficits are associated with poor reading abilities through a working memory deficit. These findings suggest that an impairment in auditory temporal processing may contribute to the reading difficulties experienced by ELBW children.     

A study of parents of violent children

This study based on in-depth interviews of 25 parents of violent children and a control group of 25 parents of nonviolent children concerned the parents' personalities. Parents were between 22 and 48 years of age and were from middle and lower middle socioeconomic backgrounds. Differences in classification by the nonblinded interviewers of parents into the two groups on six behavior characteristics were significant on chi2 tests. Some recommendations are made for further research.     

The interactive effects of conscientiousness and agreeableness on job performance

The authors hypothesized that the relationship between conscientiousness and job performance would be stronger for persons high in agreeableness than for those low in agreeableness. Results of hierarchical moderated regression analyses for 7 independent samples of employees across diverse occupations provided support for the hypothesis in 5 of the samples. In samples supporting the hypothesis, among the highly conscientious workers, those low in agreeableness were found to receive lower ratings of job performance than workers high in agreeableness. One explanation for lack of an interaction between conscientiousness and agreeableness in the other 2 samples is that those jobs were not characterized by frequent, cooperative interactions with others. Overall, the results show that highly conscientious workers who lack interpersonal sensitivity may be ineffective, particularly in jobs requiring cooperative interchange with others.     

Self-monitoring personality at work: a meta-analytic investigation of construct validity

The validity of self-monitoring personality in organizational settings was examined. Meta-analyses were conducted (136 samples; total N = 23,191) investigating the relationship between self-monitoring personality and work-related variables, as well as the reliability of various self-monitoring measures. Results suggest that self-monitoring has relevance for understanding many organizational concerns, including job performance and leadership emergence. Sample-weighted mean differences favoring male respondents were also noted, suggesting that the sex-related effects for self-monitoring may partially explain noted disparities between men and women at higher organizational levels (i.e., the glass ceiling). Theory building and additional research are needed to better understand the construct-related inferences about self-monitoring personality, especially in terms of the performance, leadership, and attitudes of those at top organizational levels.     

The ethical confrontation of the unethical forensic colleague

In the course of clinical and forensic work, psychologists sometimes discover serious weaknesses in knowledge, performance, or ethics in other psychologists' work. The ethical code of the American Psychological Association mandates confronting such a psychologist prior to making a professional complaint. This mandatory confrontation typically is omitted because of a sense of awkwardness or a fear of insulting the other psychologist. Education and training in psychology does not cover this sensitive and important area. In this article, sample templates of letters are provided to meet that ethical requirement and to begin to resolve problem behaviors by colleagues.