Ethical Costs and Economic Costs

Studies in Philosophy and Education -     

Assessing the Utility of Compound Trait Estimates of Narrow Personality Traits

It has been argued that approximations of narrow traits can be made through linear combinations of broad traits such as the Big Five personality traits. Indeed, Hough and Ones (2001 Hough, L. M., &; Ones, D. S. (2001). The structure, measurement, validity, &; use of personality variables in industrial, work, and organizational psychology. In N. Anderson, D. S. Ones, H. K. Sinangil, &; C Viswesvaran (Eds.), Handbook of industrial, work, and organizational psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 233–277). London, UK: Sage.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) used a qualitative analysis of scale content to arrive at a taxonomy of how Big Five traits might be combined to approximate various narrow traits. However, the utility of such compound trait approximations has yet to be established beyond specific cases such as integrity and customer service orientation. Using data from the Eugene-Springfield Community Sample (Goldberg, 2008 Goldberg, L. R. (2008). The Eugene-Springfield community sample: Information available from the research participants. Eugene: Oregon Research Institute. [Google Scholar]), we explore the ability of linear composites of scores on Big Five traits to approximate scores on 127 narrow trait measures from 5 well-known non-Big-Five omnibus measures of personality. Our findings indicate that individuals' standing on more than 30 narrow traits can be well estimated from 3 different types of linear composites of scores on Big Five traits without a substantial sacrifice in criterion validity. We discuss theoretical accounts for why such relationships exist as well as the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for researchers and practitioners.     

Animacy increases second target reporting in a rapid serial visual presentation task

Attentional blink occurs when two target items, T1 and T2, are presented within brief moments of each other in a series of rapidly presented items and participants fail to report T2. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of characteristics of T2 on T2 reporting. Participants (N = 67) completed 4 blocks of 40 trials. Each trial consisted of 15 images, two of which were designated as T1 and T2. T2 was manipulated in three ways: animacy (animate or inanimate), threat (threatening or nonthreatening), and lag (200 ms or 400 ms after T1). The results indicated that more T2s were reported at the longer lag and that animate objects were reported more often than inanimate objects at both lags. Threat did not have a significant effect on T2 reporting although it interacted with lag: threatening objects were reported more frequently than nonthreatening objects at lag 2 but this trend reversed at lag 4. The results were consistent with the animate monitoring hypothesis, which claims that animate objects, because of their importance in ancestral environments, attract attention more easily than inanimate objects. Animate objects appear to capture attention more easily than inanimate objects as second targets in a rapid serial visual presentation task. This result is similar to animacy advantages reported with other attention tasks and with memory tasks.     

Individual differences in executive function partially explain the socioeconomic gradient in middle‐school academic achievement

Children from families with low socioeconomic status (SES) earn lower grades, perform worse on achievement tests, and attain less education on average than their peers from higher‐SES families. We evaluated neurocognitive mediators of SES disparities in achievement in a diverse sample of youth whose data were linked to administrative records of performance on school‐administered tests of 7th grade reading and math proficiency (N = 203). We used structural equation modeling to evaluate whether associations between SES (measured at ages 8–9) and achievement (measured at age 13) are mediated by verbal ability and executive function (measured at age 10), a suite of top‐down mental processes that facilitate control of thinking and behavior. Children from relatively higher‐SES families performed better than their lower‐SES peers on all neurocognitive and achievement measures, and SES disparities in both reading and math achievement were partially mediated by variation in executive function, but not verbal ability. SES disparities in executive function explained approximately 37% of the SES gap in math achievement and 17% of the SES gap in reading achievement. Exploratory modeling suggests that SES‐related variation in working memory may play a particularly prominent role in mediation. We discuss potential implications of these findings for research, intervention programming, and classroom practice.     

Hyperactivity in Boys with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A Ubiquitous Core Symptom or Manifestation of Working Memory Deficits?

Hyperactivity is currently considered a core and ubiquitous feature of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); however, an alternative model challenges this premise and hypothesizes a functional relationship between working memory (WM) and activity level. The current study investigated whether children’s activity level is functionally related to WM demands associated with the domain-general central executive and subsidiary storage/rehearsal components using tasks based on Baddeley’s (Working memory, thought, and action. New York: Oxford University Press 2007) WM model. Activity level was objectively measured 16 times per second using wrist- and ankle-worn actigraphs while 23 boys between 8 and 12 years of age completed control tasks and visuospatial/phonological WM tasks of increasing memory demands. All children exhibited significantly higher activity rates under all WM relative to control conditions, and children with ADHD (n = 12) moved significantly more than typically developing children (n = 11) under all conditions. Activity level in all children was associated with central executive but not storage/rehearsal functioning, and higher activity rates exhibited by children with ADHD under control conditions were fully attenuated by removing variance directly related to central executive processes.

The problem of evil and the suffering of creeping things

Even philosophers of religion working on the problem of non-human animal suffering have ignored the suffering of creatures like insects. Sensible as this seems, it’s mistaken. I am not sure whether creatures like these can suffer, but it is plausible, on both commonsensical and scientific and philosophical grounds, that many of them can. If they do, their suffering makes the problem of evil much worse: their vast numbers mean the amount of evil in the world will almost certainly be increased by many, many orders of magnitude, the fact that disproportionately many of them live lives which are nasty, brutish, and short means that the proportion of good to evil in the world will be drastically worsened, and their relative lack of cognitive sophistication means that many theodicies, including many specifically designed to address animal suffering, would apply to their suffering only with much greater difficulty, if at all. Philosophers of religion should therefore more seriously investigate whether these beings can suffer and what, if anything, could justify God in allowing as much.     

Mastery goal orientation and cognitive ability effects on performance in learner‐guided training

To conserve resources, organizations are increasingly turning to learner‐guided training methods in which workers are given control over when, how, and what they cover in the learning process. However, the impact of individual differences such as goal orientation and cognitive ability has not been adequately addressed in learner‐guided training. This study seeks to advance our knowledge of how these differences affect performance through previously unexplored pathways. Specifically, we examined the indirect effects of mastery goal orientation and cognitive ability on post‐training performance in a learner‐directed training context. Findings indicate that off‐task thoughts mediate the positive effect of mastery goal orientation on post‐training performance, while declarative knowledge mediates the positive effect of cognitive ability on post‐training performance.     

Adaptability of Family Therapy Modalities in the Treatment of Lesbian and Gay Clients with Bulimia Nervosa

Bulimia nervosa (BN) has becoming an increasingly common form of eating disorder, particularly with gay and lesbian populations. The lack of current literature on this particular topic, as well as the limited resources for recommendations of treatment adaptations for this population is evident by the disproportionate number of sexual minorities that present for treatment. This paper discusses the possible reasons for the lack of literature and resources, and provides clinicians with the adaptations of Emotion Focused Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Structural Family Therapy, and Internal Family Systems when working with lesbian and gay populations who are suffering from BN. This paper aims to contribute more to the limited research in the area of sexual minorities in hopes to broaden the understanding of the treatment of individuals, as well as family functioning. We attempt to adapt these therapy modalities to be more inclusive of these nuanced presenting concerns, and to provide clinicians from all scopes of practice a thorough look into the treatment of a sexual minority population.