Challenging Merton's Protestantism‐Science Hypothesis: The Historical Impact of Sacerdotal Celibacy on German Science and Scholarship

Denominational differences in the number of scientists produced in Germany during the period 1550 to 1900 are linked to the historical impact of Catholic celibate and Protestant noncelibate clergy households. Protestant leadership in science is largely attributable to the development of a new social mobility pattern among descendants of their clergy that enhanced the pastorate's ability to convey cultural and social capital to their marrying offspring, something denied to Catholic clergy. By reference to German historical developments, I show that the contributions of clerical households, far from being limited to the natural sciences, were equally in evidence across most other areas of scholarly endeavor. A discussion of the theoretical implications of these findings provides a comparative analysis of Protestant to Catholic scholarly achievements in general, and of scientific achievements in particular, as well as a critical assessment of Robert K. Merton's theorizing on the subject.     

Exploring the Valence‐Framing Effect: Negative Framing Enhances Attitude Strength

In his now‐classic research on inoculation theory, McGuire (1964 ) demonstrated that exposing people to an initial weak counterattitudinal message could lead to enhanced resistance to a subsequent stronger counterattitudinal message. More recently, research on the valence‐framing effect ( Bizer & Petty, 2005 ) demonstrated an alternative way to make attitudes more resistant. Simply framing a person's attitude negatively (i.e., in terms of a rejected position such as anti‐Democrat) led to more resistance to an attack on that attitude than did framing the same attitude positively (i.e., in terms of a preferred position such as pro‐Republican). Using an election context, the current research tested whether valence framing influences attitude resistance specifically or attitude strength more generally, providing insight into the effect's mechanism and generalizability. In two experiments, attitude valence was manipulated by framing a position either negatively or positively. Experiment 1 showed that negatively framed attitudes were held with more certainty than were positively framed attitudes. In Experiment 2, conducted among a representative sample of residents of two U.S. states during political campaigns, negatively framed attitudes demonstrated higher levels of attitude certainty and attitude‐consistent behavioral intentions than did attitudes that were framed positively. Furthermore, the effect of valence framing on behavioral intentions was mediated by attitude certainty. Valence framing thus appears to be a relatively low‐effort way to impact multiple features associated with strong attitudes.     

Psychometric Properties and Administration Measurement Invariance of Social Phobia Symptom Measures: Paper-Pencil vs. Internet Administrations

The psychometric properties of the online versions of assessment instruments for phobias and related symptoms were compared to those of paper-pencil versions. The examined measures were the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) and Social Phobia Scale (SPS). Students (n = 514) completed the instruments either in a paper-pencil in lab condition or an online at home condition. Means of the measures were largely equivalent between the two groups. Factor structures of the measures support construct validity of the two versions of the questionnaires. The coefficient alphas for the measures were reasonably high, ranging between .91 and .93 for both groups. Correlations between the measures were similar across groups. Overall, adequate psychometric properties of the online versions of the instruments were demonstrated, however, neither of the social phobia measures demonstrated measurement invariance between the two assessment modalities.     

Distorted temporal consciousness and preserved knowing consciousness in confabulation: a case study

In this study we describe a patient, TA, who developed a chronic amnesic-confabulatory syndrome, following rupture of a right internal carotid siphon aneurysm. Our aim was to elucidate as fully as possible the nature of TA's impairment and to test the hypothesis of confabulation as reflecting a dysfunction of Temporal Consciousness, i.e., to become aware of something as part of a personal past, present or future. TA's confabulations were present in answers to questions tapping Temporal Consciousness, i.e., autobiographical episodic memory, orientation in time and place, and foresight of personal future. In contrast, confabulations were not observed in answers to questions tapping Knowing Consciousness, i.e., to become aware of something as a meaning or as an element of impersonal knowledge. In fact, he had normal access to semantic knowledge, including foresight of impersonal future. TA's brain MRI showed lesions involving the right hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, fornix, mammillary bodies, and thalamus. Moreover TA showed sub-cortical lesions involving the caudate and putamen nuclei bilaterally, a lesion site not commonly described in amnesic-confabulatory syndrome. We suggest that this pattern of results is better accounted for within the framework of the Memory, Consciousness and Temporality Theory and reflects a specific distortion of Temporal Consciousness.     

What is Postnormal When There is no Normal? A Postdichotomous View of the Histories of the Past,Present, and Future

In this paper, I discuss the concept of ‘postnormal times’ and argue that the term postnormal is misrepresentative where applied to describe a state beyond so-called ‘normal’ times. Such normality is characterized by, i) progress towards social, economic and political equilibrium, and ii) future betterment for all. I posit that these conditions represent, at best, misplaced optimism and, at worst, a deliberate veil of untruths. I also argue that the foundation of thinking on normalcy, based on the classical free market economics of Adam Smith, was flawed from the outset. I propose that what are termed postnormal times actually represent an extreme set of long-term ‘normal times’. Importantly, I propose that human responses to a situation of extreme normalcy will be different from responses to the novel and truly postnormal. Action, or lack thereof, to address extreme normalcy requires a different mindset and starting point to that for addressing a new or post-normalcy. As such, I call for fundamental change to economic and political priorities and for a focus on social needs and values in the very near future. Finally, I posit that, whether we live in postnormal, ‘hyper-normal’, abnormal or ‘new normal’ times, we must accept that, for most of humanity and for the planet on which we live, these are not good times, and we must strive to bring about urgent and radical change.     

Evaluation of the William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute Clinical Psychology Internship: a replication and extension

This study extends three earlier investigations involving participants who completed their predoctoral clinical psychology internship at the William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute. Intern graduates (N = 37) evaluated how effectively their internship training prepared them for seven aspects of their current work as practicing psychologists. Participants also rated the relevancy of 24 different internship training experiences to their current work and how much these experiences contributed to their development as clinical psychologists. The present study, in conjunction with the three previous studies, covers most of the 40-year period since the inception of the internship program. Analysis of the current data indicates the internship has improved over time and was deemed an exceptional training experience by its graduates. Findings may be of particular interest to internship directors and faculty interested in improving their training program and those who plan to conduct a self-study to maintain their accreditation for clinical psychology internship.     

On the Proof-Theory of two Formalisations of Modal First-Order Logic

We introduce a Gentzen-style modal predicate logic and prove the cut-elimination theorem for it. This sequent calculus of cut-free proofs is chosen as a proxy to develop the proof-theory of the logics introduced in [14, 15, 4]. We present syntactic proofs for all the metatheoretical results that were proved model-theoretically in loc. cit. and moreover prove that the form of weak reflection proved in these papers is as strong as possible.     

Development of infant prehension handedness: A longitudinal analysis during the 6- to 14-month age period

Handedness is a developmental phenomenon that becomes distinctively identifiable during infancy. Although infant hand-use preferences sometimes have been reported as unstable, other evidence demonstrates that infant hand-use preference for apprehending objects can be reliably assessed during the second half of the infant's first year of life. The current study provides further insight into the stability of prehension preferences. We modeled individual and group level patterns of prehension handedness during the period from 6 to 14 months of age. We examined the developmental trajectories for prehension handedness in relation to the sampling rate at which preferences are assessed. The results revealed interesting developmental changes in prehension handedness that can only be identified when using monthly sampling intervals. We conclude that using non-linear multilevel models of infant handedness with monthly sampling intervals permit us to accurately capture the developmental changes in manual skills that occur during this period of infancy.     

Head-body ratio as a visual cue for stature in people and sculptural art

Body size is crucial for determining the outcome of competition for resources and mates. Many species use acoustic cues to measure caller body size. Vision is the pre-eminent sense for humans, but visual depth cues are of limited utility in judgments of absolute body size. The reliability of internal body proportion as a potential cue to stature was assessed with a large sample of anthropometric data, and the ratio of head height to body height (HBR) was found to be highly correlated with stature. A psychophysical experiment was carried out to investigate whether the cue actually influences stature judgments. Participants were shown pairs of photographs of human figures in which HBR had been manipulated systematically, and asked to select the figure that appeared taller. Results showed that figures with a relatively small HBR were consistently perceived as taller than figures with a relatively large HBR. Many classical statues such as Michelangelo's David depart from the classical proportions defined in Leonardo's Vitruvian Man. A supplementary experiment showed that perceived stature in classical statues also depends on HBR. Michelangelo's David was created with the HBR of a man 165 cm (5 ft 5 in) tall.