Establishing the next generation at work: leader generativity as a moderator of the relationships between leader age, leader-member exchange, and leadership success

In this study, the authors investigated leader generativity as a moderator of the relationships between leader age, leader-member exchange, and three criteria of leadership success (follower perceptions of leader effectiveness, follower satisfaction with leader, and follower extra effort). Data came from 128 university professors paired with one research assistant each. Results showed positive relationships between leader age and leader generativity, and negative relationships between leader age and follower perceptions of leader effectiveness and follower extra effort. Consistent with expectations based on leadership categorization theory, leader generativity moderated the relationships between leader age and all three criteria of leadership success, such that leaders high in generativity were better able to maintain high levels of leadership success at higher ages than leaders low in generativity. Finally, results of mediated moderation analyses showed that leader-member exchange quality mediated these moderating effects. The findings suggest that, in combination, leader age and the age-related construct of generativity importantly influence leadership processes and outcomes.     

Probability for the Revision Theory of Truth

Journal of Philosophical Logic - We investigate how to assign probabilities to sentences that contain a type-free truth predicate. These probability values track how often a sentence is satisfied...     

Normativity and context in young children's pretend play

In two studies 3-year-olds’ understanding of the context-specificity of normative rules was investigated through games of pretend play. In the first study, children protested against a character who joined a pretend game but treated the target object according to its real function. However, they did not protest when she performed the same action without having first joined the game. In the second study, children protested when the character mixed up an object's pretend identities between two different pretend games. However, they did not protest when she performed the same pretend action in its correct game context. Thus, the studies show that young children see the pretence–reality distinction, and the distinction between different pretence identities, as normative. More generally, the results of these studies demonstrate young children's ability to enforce normative rules in their pretence and to do so context-specifically.     

Young children's selective learning of rule games from reliable and unreliable models

We investigated preschoolers’ selective learning from models that had previously appeared to be reliable or unreliable. Replicating previous research, children from 4 years selectively learned novel words from reliable over unreliable speakers. Extending previous research, children also selectively learned other kinds of acts – novel games – from reliable actors. More important, – and novel to this study, this selective learning was not just based on a preference for one model or one kind of act, but had a normative dimension to it. Children understood the way a reliable actor demonstrated an act not only as the better one, but as the normatively appropriate or correct one, as indicated in both their explicit verbal comments and their spontaneous normative interventions (e.g., protest, critique) in response to third-party acts deviating from the one demonstrated. These findings are discussed in the broader context of the development of children's social cognition and cultural learning.     

Multidimensional similarity: an experimental and theoretical comparison of vector,distance, and set theoretical models : I. Models and internal consistency of data

In an experiment (conducted by the senior author) subjects were instructed to give three kinds of quantitative judgment on pairs of simple geometrical stimuli: similarity, commonality ratio and magnitude ratio. It was assumed that the different kinds of judgments could be interpreted in terms of one cognitive structure, and that formal models for each of these judgments should be validated by predicting one kind of judgment from knowledge of another kind of judgment. The present report proposes two different, though related, systems of formal models for similarity, commonality and magnitude ratio judgments. One, called E-model, interprets the judgments in terms of set- and vector-representations, and connections between them; the other, called R-model, interprets the judgments in terms of set- and distance-representations and their connections. The results are slightly in favor of the E-model. In a subsequent paper, the authors will report the results of multidimensional analyses for the same data, which slightly favor the R-model.     

Two-year-olds grasp the intentional structure of pretense acts

Twenty-two- and 27-month-old children were tested for their understanding of pretending as a specific intentional action form. Pairs of superficially similar behaviors - pretending to perform an action and trying to perform that action - were demonstrated to children. The 27-month-olds, and to some degree the 22-month-olds, showed in their responses that they understood the intentional structure of both kinds of behaviors: after pretense models, they themselves performed appropriate inferential pretense acts, whereas after the trying models they properly performed the action or tried to perform it with novel means. These findings are discussed in the light of recent debates about children's developing understanding of pretense and theory of mind.     

A Lottery Paradox for Counterfactuals Without Agglomeration

We will present a new lottery‐style paradox on counterfactuals and chance. The upshot will be: combining natural assumptions on (i) the truth values of ordinary counterfactuals, (ii) the conditional chances of possible but non‐actual events, (iii) the manner in which (i) and (ii) relate to each other, and (iv) a fragment of the logic of counterfactuals leads to disaster. In contrast with the usual lottery‐style paradoxes, logical closure under conjunction—that is, in this case, the rule of Agglomeration of (consequents of) counterfactuals—will not play a role in the derivation and will not be entailed by our premises either. We will sketch four obvious but problematic ways out of the dilemma, and we will end up with a new resolution strategy that is non‐obvious but (as we hope) less problematic: contextualism about what counts as a proposition. This proposal will not just save us from the paradox, it will also save each premise in at least some context, and it will be motivated by independent considerations from measure theory and probability theory.     

The Role of Memory Distrust in Cases of Internalised False Confession

This paper reviews the literature on the role of ‘memory distrust’ in cases of internalised false confessions and provides a heuristic model for understanding the antecedents and mechanism involved. It also provides an in‐depth analysis of two real life cases of ‘suspected’ murders involving six convicted persons, five of whom showed evidence of profound memory distrust regarding the alleged offences. The key factors were coercive interviewing, lengthy solitary confinement, contamination, psychological vulnerabilities (both state and trait) and lack of independent support during questioning. The vulnerabilities in such cases typically involve a combination of cognitive (memory flaws, lack of confidence in memory and failure to invoke distinctiveness heuristic), personality (suggestibility and compliance), health problems and motivational (desire and willingness to assist the police) factors. The two cases suggest that the process of internalised false confessions may be conceptualised in terms of five sequential steps: a trigger, plausibility, acceptance, reconstruction and resolution. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.