Judgements,Expertise, and Counterfactuals

Abstract

In The Philosophy of Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), Tim Williamson has offered a sophisticated account of thought experiments and of modal epistemology. More recently, he has also engaged in a variant of the so-called ‘expertise defence’ of traditional philosophical methodology. In this paper I argue that if Williamson’s account of thought experiments and of modal epistemology is right, this seriously undermines his version of the expertise defence.     

Analytic change: Assessing ways of being in a psychoanalytic follow‐up interview

The article argues that the concepts of relational scenario, structuralized affect and actualized affect are proposed candidates for observation of changes in relational ways of being as it is expressed in transference. A psychoanalytic follow‐up interview of a former analytic patient is presented in order to illustrate how change in relational ways of being may be registered and studied. By triangulating the patient's verbal report of change with nonverbal information and transference–countertransference dynamics, one may grasp qualitative changes in relational ways of being. The case presented illustrates a former patient's on‐going process of working towards representing aggression in a more direct manner and how this process is made observable with the aid of the proposed concepts in the interview situation. The proposed concepts of relational scenario, structuralized and actualized affect discussed are compared to the concept of transference used in studies of core conflictual relationship theme (CCRT).     

Agreement among adolescents, parents, and teachers on adolescent personality

Agreement between adolescents, mothers, fathers, and teachers on adolescents' personality traits was investigated in a longitudinal study. The targets for personality ratings were the adolescents who participated in the European Youth Heart Study in Estonia. There were 593 participants in the first wave and 480 participants in the follow-up study 3 years later. Adolescents' self-reports as well as father, mother, and teacher ratings were collected using questionnaires to measure the five-factor model of personality. In both waves, inter-rater agreement was highest between mothers and fathers, was low to moderate for parent-self ratings, and was lowest for ratings between self and teacher, mother and teacher, and father and teacher. Test-retest correlations were moderate for parent and self-ratings but failed to reach statistical significance for three of the five teacher-rated traits, suggesting lower reliability of teacher ratings. Possible explanations for the low agreement between teachers and other judges are discussed.     

Preference for negative emotions

This research demonstrates that preference for emotions sometimes cannot be equated with a positive-negative valence dimension. Participants were asked to make choices between pairs of affect-inducing options opposite in valence but equal in activation. The results showed that in absence of contextual cues or situational constraints, choices followed a pleasure-maximizing principle. However, when information was provided about a context cueing appropriateness of certain emotions over others, a preference reversal was observed so that negative emotions were preferred over positive emotions. These results are discussed in relation to current theories of pleasure-maximizing choice and behavior.     

The priority heuristic: making choices without trade-offs

Bernoulli's framework of expected utility serves as a model for various psychological processes, including motivation, moral sense, attitudes, and decision making. To account for evidence at variance with expected utility, the authors generalize the framework of fast and frugal heuristics from inferences to preferences. The priority heuristic predicts (a) the Allais paradox, (b) risk aversion for gains if probabilities are high, (c) risk seeking for gains if probabilities are low (e.g., lottery tickets), (d) risk aversion for losses if probabilities are low (e.g., buying insurance), (e) risk seeking for losses if probabilities are high, (f) the certainty effect, (g) the possibility effect, and (h) intransitivities. The authors test how accurately the heuristic predicts people's choices, compared with previously proposed heuristics and 3 modifications of expected utility theory: security-potential/aspiration theory, transfer-of-attention-exchange model, and cumulative prospect theory.     

Continuity of temperament from infancy to middle childhood

Continuity of temperament from 6 months (the IBQ) to 5.5 years (the CBQ) was explored in Finnish children (n = 231) within the theoretical framework deviced by Rothbart. Activity level, smiling and laughter, distress to limitations and fear showed significant differential homotypic and heterotypic continuity, while soothability and duration of orienting showed significant differential heterotypic continuity. On the level of latent superconstructs, infant positive and negative affectivity accounted for 4.6, 22.3, and 6.0% of the variance in childhood extraversion, effortful control and negative affectivity, respectively. Infant and childhood temperament clustered into profile types named “resilient”, “undercontrolled”, and “overcontrolled” mirroring ipsative continuity. These findings give empirical credence to Rothbart's theory by replicating and extending previous findings in significant ways.     

Socioeconomic status in childhood and adulthood: associations with dispositional optimism and pessimism over a 21-year follow-up

We examined whether dispositional optimism and pessimism (overall LOT-R and optimism and pessimism component scores) of 694 adults aged 24 and 27 were associated with socioeconomic status (SES) measured concurrently and in childhood at ages 3 and 6. SES measures included education, occupational status and unemployment, and income. Concurrent adulthood SES was associated with the overall LOT-R and optimism and the pessimism component scores. Childhood family SES predicted overall LOT-R and pessimism component scores, even after controlling statistically for the adulthood SES. Social mobility between SES of family of origin and current SES also influenced the scores. The current findings suggest that the foundation of dispositional optimism and pessimism is related to early SES of the family.     

The possible benefits of difficulty: how stress can increase and decrease subjective well-being

This study explores the effects of stress, trauma, coping and growth orientation on subjective well-being. Based on cognitive stress theory, it was hypothesized that adversity may contribute to increased or decreased well-being, depending on the subsequent meaning these experiences are given. Survey data from Norwegian UN/NATO veterans (N= 142) showed that stress and well-being were negatively associated (r=-0.20, p < 0.05) at the level of zero-order correlations. However, a full structural equation model revealed that the effect of stress on well-being was mediated positively through a problem-focused coping process combined with a growth component. Stress was negatively mediated through an avoidant-focused coping process and a distress component. The effect from stress was fully mediated in the model. The hypothesis that stress can produce both increased and decreased subjective well-being was confirmed.     

Discrepancies Between Implicit and Explicit Motivation and Unhealthy Eating Behavior

ABSTRACT Many people change their eating behavior as a consequence of stress. One source of stress is intrapersonal psychological conflict as caused by discrepancies between implicit and explicit motives. In the present research, we examined whether eating behavior is related to this form of stress. Study 1 (N=53), a quasi‐experimental study in the lab, showed that the interaction between the implicit achievement motive disposition and explicit commitment toward an achievement task significantly predicts the number of snacks consumed in a consecutive taste test. In cross‐sectional Study 2 (N=100), with a sample of middle‐aged women, overall motive discrepancy was significantly related to diverse indices of unsettled eating. Regression analyses revealed interaction effects specifically for power and achievement motivation and not for affiliation. Emotional distress further partially mediated the relationship between the overall motive discrepancy and eating behavior.     

Optimization of Blocked Designs in fMRI Studies

Blocked designs in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are useful to localize functional brain areas. A blocked design consists of different blocks of trials of the same stimulus type and is characterized by three factors: the length of blocks, i.e., number of trials per blocks, the ordering of task and rest blocks, and the time between trials within one block. Optimal design theory was applied to find the optimal combination of these three design factors. Furthermore, different error structures were used within a general linear model for the analysis of fMRI data, and the maximin criterion was applied to find designs which are robust against misspecification of model parameters.