Risk, moral value of actions, and mood

In this article the acceptability of risk is related to the moral value of risky actions. Four widely different groups of subjects (clergy, MBA students, prison inmates and pregnant women) judged 20 individual and 20 collective acts with reference to acceptability of risk, moral value, and value and probability of negative and positive consequences. They also rated their current mood. Acceptability of risks was most strongly related to moral value, which thus was found to be an important determiner of acceptability of risk. A depressed mood was associated with a lenient attitude to risks. Societal acts were more negatively evaluated than individual acts. There was a strong positive correlation between values and probabilities of outcomes, both positive and negative.     

ACCEPTABILITY OF ALTERNATIVE TREATMENTS FOR SCHOOL REFUSAL: EVALUATIONS BY STUDENTS,CAREGIVERS, AND PROFESSIONALS

Summary . School refusal is a debilitating condition that may be treated in various ways. This study examined the acceptability and perceived effectiveness of alternative treatments for school refusal. A total of 376 people comprising students, parents, and professionals, were required to evaluate several treatment options in relation to a vignette. Despite its potential aversiveness, behavioural management was the most acceptable treatment approach followed, in order, by home tuition with psychotherapy, hospitalisation, and medication. A strong positive relationship was found between acceptability and perceived effectiveness.     

Group aggression among school children in three schools

"Mobbing", i.e. school children repeatedly ganging up on the same victims, was studied among 434 12–16 years old children in three schools in Finland. A group of bullies and a group of victims were selected on basis of peer ratings. 13.7% of the boys and 5.4% of the girls were involved in mobbing behaviour. The children's personality variables were studied with questionnaires. The victims had low self-esteem, were subjectively maladjusted, and experienced their peer relations negatively. The victims were physically weaker than well-adjusted children, and obesity and handicaps were more common among them. The bullies were physically strong, and handicaps were also among them more frequent than among well-adjusted children. The bullies held positive attitudes towards aggression, experienced their peer relations negatively, and held negative attitudes towards teachers and peers. They were unpopular among their peers, though not so unpopular as the victims.     

New Evidence for the Social Embeddedness of Infants' Early Triangular Capacities

Infants appear to be active participants in complex interactional sequences with their parents far earlier than previously theorized. In this report, we document the capacity of 3‐month‐old infants to share attention with two partners (mothers and fathers) simultaneously, and trace links between this capacity and early family group‐level dynamics. During comprehensive evaluations of the family's emergent coparenting alliance completed in 113 homes, we charted infants' eye gaze patterns during two different mother‐father‐infant assessment paradigms. Triangular capacities (operationalized as the frequency of rapid multishift gaze transitions between parents during interactions) were stable across interaction context. Infants exhibiting more advanced triangular capacities belonged to families showing evidence of better coparental adjustment. Theoretical and practice implications of these findings are discussed.     

WISDOM,MODERATION, AND ELENCHUS IN PLATO'S APOLOGY

Abstract: This article contends that Socratic wisdom (sophia) in Plato's Apology should be understood in relation to moderation (sophrosune), not knowledge (episteme). This stance is exemplified in an interpretation of Socrates' disavowal of knowledge. The god calls Socrates wise. Socrates holds both that he is wise in nothing great or small and that the god does not lie. These apparently inconsistent claims are resolved in an interpretation of elenchus. This interpretion says that Socrates is wise insofar as he does not believe himself to know what he does not know. Whether one knows is demonstrated through elenchus, which moderates between knowledge claims. Thus, elenchus is productive of a kind of wisdom even if it does not produce knowledge. This claim, if true, forms a suitable basis for Socrates' defense of himself. That it does so serves as further evidence for the interpretation of sophia as sophrosune.