Neuroscience, the Person, and God: An Emergentist Account

Strong forms of dualism and eliminative materialism block any significant dialogue between the neurosciences and theology. The present article thus challenges the Sufficiency Thesis, according to which neuroscientific explanations will finally be sufficient to fully explain human behavior. It then explores the various ways in which neuroscientific results and theological interpretations contribute to an overall theory of the person. Supervenience theories, which hold that mental events are dependent on their physical substrata but not reducible to them, are explained. Challenging the determinism of "strong" supervenience, I defend a version of "soft" supervenience that allows for genuine mental causation. This view gives rise in turn to an emergentist theory of the person. Still, I remain a monist: there are many types of properties encountered in the world, although it is only the one nature that bears all these properties. The resulting position, emergentist monism , allows for diversity within the context of the one world. This view is open at the top for theological applications and interpretations while retaining the close link to neuroscientific study and its results. Theology offers an interpretation of the whole world based on a yet higher order of emergence, although the notion of God moves beyond the natural order as a whole. It therefore supplements the natural scientific study of the world without negating it.     

Truth,knowledge, and the standard of proof in criminal law

Could it be right to convict and punish defendants using only statistical evidence? In this paper, I argue that it is not and explain why it would be wrong. This is difficult to do because there is a powerful argument for thinking that we should convict and punish defendants using statistical evidence. It looks as if the relevant cases are cases of decision under risk and it seems we know what we should do in such cases (i.e., maximize expected value). Given some standard assumptions about the values at stake, the case for convicting and punishing using statistical evidence seems solid. In trying to show where this argument goes wrong, I shall argue (against Lockeans, reliabilists, and others) that beliefs supported only by statistical evidence are epistemically defective and (against Enoch, Fisher, and Spectre) that these epistemic considerations should matter to the law. To solve the puzzle about the role of statistical evidence in the law, we need to revise some commonly held assumptions about epistemic value and defend the relevance of epistemology to this practical question.

     

Psychometric characteristics of role-play assessments of social skill in schizophrenia

There is an extensive literature documenting that people with schizophrenia have marked impairments in social role functioning and social skill. One of the most widely employed strategies for assessing social skill has been role-play tests: simulated social interactions that are videotaped for subsequent behavioral coding. There has been considerable discussion of the validity of the approach in the literature, but there has not been adequate consideration of other psychometric characteristics of role-play tests. This paper examines the psychometric characteristics of a representative role-play measure: the Maryland Assessment of Social Competence (MASC). Data from 5 large schizophrenia studies that included the MASC were examined: a study of victimization in women who abuse drugs, a study of health care among people with diabetes, a study of vocational outcomes, a study of social skill among drug abusers, and a clinical trial comparing two antipsychotic medications. Data were examined in terms of five questions: (1) Can role-play scenes be rated reliably? (2) How are role-play ratings distributed across populations? (3) How many and which behaviors should be rated? (4) How many role-play scenes are required? (5) Is role-play behavior temporally stable? Overall, the data suggest that the MASC, and by implication other similar role-play procedures, does have good psychometric properties. However, several things often taken for granted in the literature warrant careful consideration in the design of research using role-play. Implications of the results for design of research are discussed.     

Positive and negative opinion modeling: the influence of another's similarity and dissimilarity

Modeling research that has focused on the effects of observing similar others appears to have underestimated the influence of observing dissimilar others. Two experiments demonstrated that observing a model express liking for a piece of music induced more favorable opinions of the music (positive modeling) when the model was similar to the participant observer in relevant opinions, and more negative opinions (negative modeling) when the model was dissimilar to the participant in relevant opinions. Of note, this pattern was more pronounced when participants also believed their general backgrounds were dissimilar rather than similar to that of the model. Underlying social comparison processes and the mediational role of participants' liking of the model are considered.     

Can Temperament Identify Affectively Ill Patients Who Engage in Lethal or Near‐Lethal Suicidal Behavior? A 14‐Year Prospective Study

Among affectively ill patients followed naturalistically for up to 14 years, 36 committed suicide, 120 attempted suicide, and 373 had no recorded suicide attempt. Comparing these three groups on clinical and intake personality revealed that suicide completed within 12 months was predicted by clinical but not personality variables, and suicide beyond 12 months was predicted by newly derived temperament factors, not clinical variables. Attempters and completers shared core characteristics: previous attempts, impulsivity, substance abuse, and psychic turmoil within a cycling/mixed bipolar disorder. Such temperament attributes as impulsivity and assertiveness were the best prospective predictors of completed suicides beyond 12 months with a sensitivity level of 74% and specificity level of 82%.     

Self‐Determination Theory as a Framework for Understanding Road Rage1

The present study examined relations between motivational orientations, driving anger, and aggressive driving behaviors. It was hypothesized that the tendency to regulate behavior according to contingencies and pressures (controlled orientation), as opposed to interest and choice (autonomy orientation), would be associated with experiencing more driving anger and in turn driving more aggressively. Data from 109 college students were examined. As hypothesized, (a) controlled orientation was associated with feeling more driving anger as a result of other drivers' actions; (b) controlled orientation was associated with more aggressive driving behaviors and more traffic citations; (c) the relation between controlled orientation and aggressive driving was mediated by driving anger; and (d) self‐esteem and social anxiety did not account for the results of motivational orientations.     

The Effect of Response Cards on Participation and Weekly Quiz Scores of University Students Enrolled in Introductory Psychology Courses

Increasing student participation in college classrooms is an overlooked yet socially valid endeavor. The present study attempted to increase student participation, accuracy of responding, and weekly quiz scores, by incorporating student response-cards. Measures of social validity were also addressed. One hundred twenty university students in two sections of an introductory course served as participants. An augmented incomplete ABA reversal design was used to compare the effects of review questions with and without response-cards. Results suggest that response cards can increase participation as well as measures of learning, in this case quiz scores. Also, students rated the intervention positively on a consumer satisfaction rating scale. In addition to improving rates of student participation and quiz scores, response-cards positively impacted both students and the instructor's subjective experience in the classroom.     

Home Versus School Environments and their Influences on the Affective and Behavioral States of African American,Hispanic, and Caucasian Juvenile Offenders

We examined and compared the influence of home and school environments to the affective (anxiety and depression) and behavioral (impulsivity and compliance) states of 626 African American, Caucasian, and Hispanic adjudicated juvenile offenders. African Americans showed the strongest relationship between their home environment and compliance. Caucasian and Hispanic males exhibited increased home and school environment problems associated with affective states. Among females, African American and Caucasian females exhibited the strongest relationships between their home environment and behavioral states, whereas Caucasian and Hispanic males revealed increased school environment problems related to affective states with Hispanic males showing the strongest relationships. In addition, the school environment was more predictive of the affective and behavioral states of the adolescents, particularly females.     

Pilfering Eurasian jays use visual and acoustic information to locate caches

Pilfering corvids use observational spatial memory to accurately locate caches that they have seen another individual make. Accordingly, many corvid cache-protection strategies limit the transfer of visual information to potential thieves. Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) employ strategies that reduce the amount of visual and auditory information that is available to competitors. Here, we test whether or not the jays recall and use both visual and auditory information when pilfering other birds’ caches. When jays had no visual or acoustic information about cache locations, the proportion of available caches that they found did not differ from the proportion expected if jays were searching at random. By contrast, after observing and listening to a conspecific caching in gravel or sand, jays located a greater proportion of caches, searched more frequently in the correct substrate type and searched in fewer empty locations to find the first cache than expected. After only listening to caching in gravel and sand, jays also found a larger proportion of caches and searched in the substrate type where they had heard caching take place more frequently than expected. These experiments demonstrate that Eurasian jays possess observational spatial memory and indicate that pilfering jays may gain information about cache location merely by listening to caching. This is the first evidence that a corvid may use recalled acoustic information to locate and pilfer caches.     

Thinking about Others versus Another: Three Reasons Judgments about Collectives and Individuals Differ

In this article, we review evidence that people are more positive in assessments of specific individuals than they are about collectives of others, even when people have essentially no information about the individual or collective they are judging. We offer three explanations for this difference. First, evaluative “attacks” on individuals are more aversive than similar attacks on collectives. Second, to encourage or smooth interaction, people sometimes “assume the best” about individuals until proven wrong. Social interaction occurs between specific individuals, so such optimism does not extend to people in general. Third, in making judgments of individuals versus collectives, people naturally focus on different types of information. For an individual, people spontaneously consider influences that operate inside an individual (e.g., one's will, one's moral conscience). But for collectives, people instead contemplate influences that operate at a social level (e.g., social influence, social norms). We explore how these three proposals help predict when judgments of individuals and collectives do or do not differ.