Unity through truth

Synthese - Renewed worries about the unity of the proposition have been taken as a crucial stumbling block for any traditional conception of propositions. These worries are often framed in terms of...     

Black American Men's Treatment Experiences in Mental Health Court: A Phenomenological Analysis

In this qualitative study, the authors examined young adult Black American men's perceptions of treatment in mental health diversion programs. Findings included 3 themes: helpful treatment factors, cognitive dissonance, and treatment barriers. The authors explore counseling competency and advocacy considerations for judicial settings.     

The effect of multiple negative,neutral, and positive organizational changes

Organizational change research has largely concluded that employees appraise changes in their workplace negatively and thus respond negatively to greater amounts of change. However, whether this conclusion is warranted remains unclear because previous research has examined single workplace changes in isolation or asked employees to make a global assessment of the changing nature of their workplace. Researchers have not had the means to capture the number of changes employees experience or their appraisals of the many different changes occurring in their workplace. In this study, we developed and validated the Quantity of Change Scale (QCS) to provide a more nuanced understanding of employees’ appraisals of their changing workplace. We found that the negative changes employees experience disproportionately influenced their reactions to the changing work environment. However, we also demonstrated that contrary to popular belief, employees appraised fewer changes as negative than as positive or neutral. Together these findings provide new insight into why assessments of employees’ general reactions to workplace change tend to be negative. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our empirical examination of employees’ appraisals of the many changes in their workplace.     

Forgiveness as institution: a Merleau-Pontian account

Continental Philosophy Review - Recent literature on forgiveness suggests that a successful account of the phenomenon must satisfy at least three conditions: it must be able to explain how...     

Extensive Philosophical Agreement and Progress

This article argues, first, that there is plenty of agreement among philosophers on philosophically substantive claims, which fall into three categories: reasons for or against certain views, elementary truths regarding fundamental notions, and highly conditionalized claims. This agreement suggests that there is important philosophical progress. It then argues that although it's easy to list several potential kinds of philosophical progress, it is much harder to determine whether the potential is actual. Then the article attempts to articulate the truth that the deniers of philosophical progress are latching on to. Finally, it comments on the significance of the agreement and (potential) progress.     

The role of early visual input in the development of contour interpolation: the case of subjective contours

We tested the effect of early monocular and binocular deprivation of normal visual input on the development of contour interpolation. Patients deprived from birth by dense central cataracts in one or both eyes, and age‐matched controls, discriminated between fat and thin shapes formed by either illusory or luminance‐defined contours. Thresholds indicated the minimum amount of curvature (the fatness or thinness) required for discrimination of the illusory shape, providing a measure of the precision of interpolation. The results show that individuals deprived of visual input in one eye, but not those deprived in both eyes, later show deficits in perceptual interpolation. The deficits were shown mostly for weakly supported contours in which interpolation of contours between the inducers was over a large distance relative to the size of the inducers. Deficits shown for the unilateral but not for the bilateral patients point to the detrimental effect of unequal competition between the eyes for cortical connections on the later development of the mechanisms underlying contour interpolation.     

Measuring individual research productivity: A review and development of the integrated research productivity index

The purpose of the present study was to investigate methods of measuring individual research productivity for counseling psychologists. Using the 60 members of the Journal of Counseling Psychology editorial board, the authors computed a comparison of 6 popular indices of productivity, revealing considerable levels of positive skewness, kurtosis, and overlap with each other. Combining the strengths of the 6 indices, the authors developed a new productivity index entitled the Integrated Research Productivity Index (IRPI). The IRPI measures individual productivity by statistically combining an individual's author-weighted publications, average times cited by other publications, and years since first publication into a comprehensive score. Productivity values and IRPI scores for 3 groups of counseling psychologists (Tyler Award recipients, Kuder Award recipients, and Division 17 Presidents) were computed to provide evidence of discriminant validity among the indices. In contrast to the other measures examined, the IRPI accounts for productivity per year and years in the field and assesses mean citation count per article as opposed to total citation count, thus yielding similar scores for Tyler (lifetime) and Kuder (early career) research award recipients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).     

Competing Contingencies Over Derived Relational Responding: A Behavioral Model of the Implicit Association Test

The Psychological Record - Subjects were exposed to a word-picture association training phase in which each of 2 arbitrary nonsense syllables printed in blue and red font, respectively, were paired...     

Black–White differences on IQ and grades: The mediating role of elementary cognitive tasks

The relationship between IQ scores and elementary cognitive task (ECT) performance is well established, with variance on each largely reflecting the general factor of intelligence, or g. Also ubiquitous are Black–White mean differences on IQ and measures of academic success, like grade point average (GPA). Given C. Spearman's (Spearman, C. (1927). The Abilities of Man. New York: Macmillan) hypothesis that group differences vary directly with a test's g loading, we explored whether ECT performance could mediate Black–White IQ and GPA differences. Undergraduates (139 White and 40 Black) completed the Wonderlic Personnel Test, followed by inspection time and choice reaction time ECTs. Despite restriction of range, ECT performance completely mediated Black–White differences on IQ (d = .45). Group differences on GPA (d = .73), however, were larger and ECT performance did not mediate them. We discuss findings in light of Spearman's hypothesis.