A STIT Logic for Reasoning About Social Influence

In this paper we propose a method for modeling social influence within the STIT approach to action. Our proposal consists in extending the STIT language with special operators that allow us to represent the consequences of an agent’s choices over the rational choices of another agent.     

Cross‐national comparisons of attitudes towards suicide and suicidal persons in university students from 12 countries

This paper reports the results of a comparative investigation of attitudes to suicide and suicidal persons in 5,572 university students from 12 countries. Participants filled out two scales measuring attitudes towards suicide and suicidal persons, a measure of psychological distress together with the questions about suicidal behavior. Results showed that the highest suicide acceptance scores were observed in Austrian, UK, Japanese and Saudi Arabian samples and the lowest scores were noted in Tunisian, Turkish, Iranian and Palestinian samples. While the highest social acceptance scores for a suicidal friend were noted in Turkish, US, Italian and Tunisian samples, the lowest scores were seen in Japanese, Saudi Arabian, Palestinian and Jordanian samples. Compared to participants with a suicidal past, those who were never suicidal displayed more internal barriers against suicidal behavior. Men were more accepting of suicide than women but women were more willing to help an imagined suicidal peer. Participants with accepting attitudes towards suicide but rejecting attitudes towards suicidal persons reported more suicidal behavior and psychological distress, and were more often from high suicide rate countries and samples than their counterparts. They are considered to be caught in a fatal trap in which most predominant feelings of suicidality such as hopelessness or helplessness are likely to occur. We conclude that in some societies such as Japan and Saudi Arabia it might be difficult for suicidal individuals to activate and make use of social support systems.     

Apparent movement in phenomenal space

The spatial and temporal variables in Korte’s third law of apparent movement were studied in pictorial arrays in which size constancy could be expected to prevail. The thresholds for apparent movement were determined under conditions in which two squares appeared on a plane either with or without perspective information for depth. The results suggest that apparent movement varies with the perceived depth separation only if the size of the stimulus pair is congruent with contextual depth representations. The obtained psychophysical function relating thresholds for third-dimensional movement to pictorial depth scale supports the view that apparent movement preserves gradient-of-texture information.     

Quantum symmetry breaking and physical inequivalence: the case of ferromagnetism

Synthese - This paper discusses an outstanding issue in philosophy of physics concerning the relation between quantum symmetries and the notion of physical equivalence. Specifically, it deals with...     

Comments on Daniel E. Flage’s “Berkeley’s Contingent Necessities”

According to Daniel Flage, Berkeley thinks that all necessary truths are founded on acts of will that assign meanings to words. After briefly commenting on the air of paradox contained in the title of Flage’s paper, and on the historical accuracy of Berkeley’s understanding of the abstractionist tradition, I make some remarks on two points made by Flage. Firstly, I discuss Flage’s distinction between the ontological ground of a necessary truth and our knowledge of a necessary truth. Secondly, I discuss Flage’s attempt to show that, according to Berkeley, the resemblance relation does not constitute a necessary connection.

Coping as a mediator of the relationships between trait intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and approaches to studying during academic exam preparation

This study investigated how students’ approaches to studying during exam preparation are influenced by their trait intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and situational coping strategies. A sample of 317 college students completed the approaches and study skills inventory for students (ASSIST), the revised COPE (R-COPE), and the work preference inventory (WPI), one week before exams. Structural equation modeling indicated that intrinsic motivation fosters deep and strategic approaches to studying directly and indirectly, through the mediation of approach coping, and prevents surface approach to studying directly and indirectly, through the mediation of avoidance coping. Moreover, the modeling indicated that extrinsic motivation fosters surface approach to studying directly and indirectly, through the mediation of avoidance coping. The implications of these findings are outlined.     

Practicing REBT in Italy: Cultural Aspects

This paper attempts to explore the cultural background for the adoption and practice of REBT by cognitive therapists in Italy since the 1980s. It is not an attempt to capture the history of Italian culture and philosophy from antiquity. Italian therapists tend to prefer the assessment phase of the ABC framework and not fully adopt REBT disputing interventions. They also attempt to link the ABC not only to the here and now but also to clients’ personal development. In our experience, they have combined REBT with constructivism and metacognition. These current features parallel the historical lack of confidence shown by many Italian philosophical thinkers—from Machiavelli to Gianni Vattimo—in the possibility of reducing reality to verification as well as the reproducible rules of logical rationality. The foregoing highlights the interest in exploring the emotional roots of politics, history, and concrete reality in the time frame following the 1980s. Some typical features of Italian social life, such as individualism, hierarchy, remote social distance, and competition can also be thought of as corresponding with the historical features of the way REBT has been adopted and functions in Italy.     

The appeal of the devil’s eye: social evaluation affects social attention

Humans typically exhibit a tendency to follow the gaze of conspecifics, a social attention behaviour known as gaze cueing. Here, we addressed whether episodically learned social knowledge about the behaviours performed by the individual bearing the gaze can influence this phenomenon. In a learning phase, different faces were systematically associated with either positive or negative behaviours. The same faces were then used as stimuli in a gaze-cueing task. The results showed that faces associated with antisocial norm-violating behaviours triggered stronger gaze-cueing effects as compared to faces associated with sociable behaviours. Importantly, this was especially evident for participants who perceived the presented norm-violating behaviours as far more negative as compared to positive behaviours. These findings suggest that reflexive attentional responses can be affected by our appraisal of the valence of the behaviours of individuals around us.     

Men Should Be Competent,Women Should Have it All: Multiple Criteria in the Evaluation of Female Job Candidates

Sex Roles - The present research investigated whether evaluations of female and male job candidates rely on different dimensions. Going beyond previous studies on the role of gender stereotypes, we...     

Wittgenstein and Cassirer on Hinges and Relativity

The paper explores the striking similarities between some of Wittgenstein’s core claims in On Certainty (1969), including the famous hinge metaphor, and Cassirer’s Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (1921). Moreover, it suggests that Wittgenstein’s remark on relativity in On Certainty might have been triggered by his reading of Cassirer’s book.