Bestowal Without Appraisal: Problems in Frankfurt’s Characterization of Love and Personal Identity

Harry Frankfurt characterizes love as “a disinterested concern for the existence of what is loved, and for what is good for it.” As such, he views romantic love as an inauthentic paradigm for love since such love desires reciprocation, sexual gratification and so on. I argue that Frankfurt’s conception of love is (a) too general—he does not distinguish between the type of love one has for one’s partner, one’s country, a moral ideal, etc., (b) it overemphasizes the role of bestowal at the expense of the part played by appraisal and (c) it is insufficiently social. Certain forms of love, romantic love and friendship for instance, are defined largely in terms of reciprocation. For Frankfurt, reciprocation is somewhat of an accidental feature of love. This deficiency in Frankfurt’s conception of love can be traced to a problem in his conception of selfhood which I argue is insufficiently social in nature.

Monitoring Online Training Behaviors: Awareness of Electronic Surveillance Hinders E‐Learners1

Web‐based training programs commonly capture data reflecting e‐learners' activities, yet little is known about the effects of this practice. Social facilitation theory suggests that it may adversely affect people by heightening distraction and arousal. This experiment examined the issue by asking volunteers to complete a Web‐based training program designed to teach online search skills. Half of participants were told their training activities would be tracked; the others received no information about monitoring. Results supported the hypothesized effects on satisfaction, performance, and mental workload (measured via heart rate variability). Explicit awareness of monitoring appeared to tax e‐learners mentally during training, thereby hindering performance on a later skills test. Additionally, e‐learners reported less satisfaction with the training when monitoring was made salient.     

Open versus closed economies: performance of domestic hens under fixed ratio schedules

Domestic hens responded under fixed-ratio schedules of food (wheat) reinforcement under several experimental conditions. Part 1 (open economy) investigated performance on fixed-ratio schedules over both multisession steady-state conditions and daily changes of the schedule, with hens maintained at 80% of free-feeding weights by extraexperimental feeding. In Parts 2 and 3 (closed economy and short sessions) sessions were 40 min long, and the hens' weights were allowed to vary (Part 2) or sessions were conducted only when the hens were at approximately 80% of free-feeding weights (Part 3). In Part 4 (closed economy and long sessions) sessions were 24 hr long and the fixed-ratio requirement was changed either daily or after 7 consecutive days. In general, the daily changes of fixed-ratio requirement in the open economy and short-session closed economy gave much the same result as the steady-state open-economy sessions. Overall response and reinforcer rates decreased with increasing fixed-ratio requirement (except at the shortest fixed ratios). Running response rates decreased, and postreinforcement pauses generally increased. In contrast, overall response rates in the long-session closed economy generally increased with the fixed-ratio requirement. Session length is suggested as a cause of the differences between the short- and long-session closed-economy results.     

Disablement and eye contact

This study investigated the effect of height level and wheelchair presence on eye contact and interaction. Presence of a wheelchair increased eye contact to a standing colleague, possibly due to the wheelchair-confined individuals' perceived dependence on others.     

Commitment, pro-relationship behavior, and trust in close relationships

The present work advances and tests an interdependence-based model of the associations among commitment, pro-relationship behavior, and trust. Findings from two longitudinal studies revealed good support for model predictions. Commitment-inspired acts such as accommodation and willingness to sacrifice provide diagnostic information regarding a partner's pro-relationship motives. Individuals come to trust their partners when they perceive that their partners have enacted pro-relationship behaviors, departing from their direct self-interest for the good of the relationship. The results of mediation analyses are consistent with a model of mutual cyclical growth in which (a) dependence promotes strong commitment, (b) commitment promotes pro-relationship acts, (c) pro-relationship acts are perceived by the partner, (d) the perception of pro-relationship acts enhances the partner's trust, and (e) trust increases the partner's willingness to become dependent on the relationship. Auxiliary analyses revealed that self-reported attachment style does not account for substantial variance beyond the features of interdependence that form the basis for the present model.     

The effects of differing response types and price manipulations on demand measures

Animals' behavioral needs have become an important component of animal welfare legislation. Behavioral economics provides a framework for the study of such needs. A function, analogous to a demand function relating consumption rate to price, can be obtained by increasing the price (or work) required for access to a commodity. This experiment investigated the effects of different response types and price manipulations on these functions. Six hens pushed a door or pecked a key for food under open economic conditions (short experimental sessions and supplementary food). In Part 1, the number of door pushes required (fixed-ratio schedule) was increased each session, and the force needed to push the door was increased across conditions. In Part 2, the force needed to push the door was increased session to session, and the fixed-ratio schedule was increased across conditions. In Part 3, the number of key pecks required was increased each session. Both response types produced similarly shaped (approximately linear in logarithmic coordinates and downward sloping) demand functions when price was increased by increasing the number of responses required. These imply an elastic demand for food under these conditions. In contrast, increasing the force required to push the door resulted in highly curvilinear functions. These functions indicated little change in consumption across lower door forces and abrupt drops in consumption at higher force requirements, implying mixed elasticity in the animals' demand for food. The differences between the shapes of the two functions seem to arise from the different ways that the two price manipulations alter the time taken to complete the work required. Increasing the fixed-ratio requirement necessarily increases the time needed to complete each response unit, whereas increasing the force requirement does not. The different shapes of the functions were robust when either force or number was varied across sessions and the value of the other was varied over conditions. They were also robust when the price increases were taken from different conditions, showing that the shapes of the functions were independent of the place in the experiment in which the price was examined. Unit price (which combines number and force into a single price measure) unified the data from the two price manipulations to a large degree, producing moderately curved functions. However, there was some variance around the unit price functions, and this was attributable to the different shapes of the underlying functions. The data suggest that different price manipulations may give different measures of animal demand but that unit price might provide some unification.