Subjunctive Conditional Probability

There seem to be two ways of supposing a proposition: supposing “indicatively” that Shakespeare didn’t write Hamlet, it is likely that someone else did; supposing “subjunctively” that Shakespeare hadn’t written Hamlet, it is likely that nobody would have written the play. Let P(B//A) be the probability of B on the subjunctive supposition that A. Is P(B//A) equal to the probability of the corresponding counterfactual, A □→B? I review recent triviality arguments against this hypothesis and argue that they do not succeed. On the other hand, I argue that even if we can equate P(B//A) with P(A □→B), we still need an account of how subjunctive conditional probabilities are related to unconditional probabilities. The triviality arguments reveal that the connection is not as straightforward as one might have hoped.     

Positive Affect and College Success

This study investigated the relation between positive affect and a variety of variables related to college success for undergraduate students matriculating at 21 academically selective 4-year colleges and universities in the United States. Positive affect??cheerfulness??is generally positively related to students?? self-rated academic abilities, self-predicted likelihoods of various college outcomes, self-stated major and academic-degree intentions, and self-reported subjective college outcomes, but negatively related to most objective college-success variables (e.g., cumulative college grade-point average) recorded by the institution of matriculation, and not related to objective college outcomes reported by the student. Positive affect is thus associated with ??positive illusions?? about college-success variables.     

Decomposition can harm the accuracy of behavioural frequency reports

In survey research, the use of decomposition can lead to pronounced reporting errors as seen by overreporting and overall reporting error. A total of 87 subjects answered either decomposed or undecomposed questions concerning telephone calls made by them while at work. The questionnaire conditions varied the length of the reference period (1 week or 6 months), and the type of call (local or long‐distance). Decomposition conditions introduced either spatial or temporal cues. In all comparisons, decomposed questions increased overreporting bias relative to undecomposed questions. In addition, undecomposed questions with a 1‐week reference period led to increased overreporting bias in comparison to undecomposed/6‐month questions. Results are consistent with a category split estimation model in which smaller categories are predicted to lead to overreporting, and larger categories to underreporting. Decomposition is not recommended for gaining retrospective reports of non‐distinctive, frequent events. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rationalism,irrationalism and taylorism

From Taylorism to Fordism: A Rational Madness, by Bernard Doray, London: Free Association Books, 1988, 229 pages, hb £27.50, pb £11.95.     

Kandidaten in psychotherapeutischer Ausbildung

In the context of the discussion about a reform of psychotherapeutic training in Germany the question arises, which factors influence the decision of psychologists and physicians for a particular training. 343 candidates in psychodynamic, behavioural or psychoanalytic training were asked about their motives for the training, their professional objectives in general and their satisfaction with their choice of training. The candidates' decision for a particular training was associated with personal attitudes and professional goals, with the given information about psychotherapeutic treatment within their studies and with their field of study. For the most part, the respondents are not satisfied with the quality and quantity of information on psychotherapeutic treatment within their studies. Candidates in analytic training are altogether more satisfied with their choice of training and do not plan to start an additional psychotherapeutic training as often as candidates in behavioral training. The consequences of these results in particular for the medical and psychological curricula (a more balanced representation of psychotherapeutic methods) are discussed.     

Stochastic cascade processes as a model of multi-stage concurrent information processing

McClelland's (Psychol. Rev. 86 (1979) 287) influential cascade model of reaction time (RT) is often seen as an important explicitly formulated alternative to strictly serial models because some of its basic notions fit in with known characteristics of neural activation processes. A disadvantage is that it is an essentially deterministic model to which noise is added by across-trials parameter variability that is unrelated to the concept of cascaded activation propagation per se. We propose and analyze a general stochastic cascade model based on neural counting processes; within this framework we present a new process-oriented interpretation of McClelland's cascade activation equation. We then theoretically explain and numerically explore conditions under which the stochastic cascade model predicts additive vs. interactive mean RT effects, and compare them to known properties of McClelland's model. Some of these properties remain valid even within a stochastic neural counting formulation, while others reflect assumptions which are essentially unrelated to the concept of cascaded activation.     

The Role of Ease of Retrieval and Attribution in Memory Judgments: Judging Your Memory as Worse Despite Recalling More Events

Participants who had to recall 12 childhood events (a difficult task) were more likely to infer that they could not remember large parts of their childhood than participants who had to recall 4 events (an easy task), although the former recalled three times as many events. This pattern of results suggests that memory judgments are based on the experienced ease or difficulty of recall. Accordingly, the negative impact of recalling 12 events was attenuated when participants were led to attribute the experienced difficulty to the task rather than to the poor quality of their memory. The findings emphasize the role of subjective experiences and attribution in metamemory judgments.     

When reactance effects persist despite restoration of freedom: Investigations of time delay and vicarious control

Two studies are reported indicating that changes in attractiveness induced by psychological reactance are eliminated by a restoration of freedom only if the restoration occurs immediately following the threat. When the restoration was delayed, changes in attractiveness were attenuated but were still significant, no matter whether the restoration occurred by chance or was under subjects' vicarious control. A threat immediately followed by a restoration, however, may be perceived as one event, and thus may not be very threatening. Therefore, the absence of reactance effects after immediate restoration may be due to a weak induction of reactance rather than to a reduction of reactance. To this extent, the incomplete reduction of reactance effects found after delayed restoration, on the other hand, calls into question earlier conclusions (based on immediate restoration) that reactance is completely reduced by restoration of freedom and that reactance effects will no longer be obtained.