Nested Deontic Modalities: Another View of Parking on Highways

A suggestion is made for representing iterated deontic modalities in stit theory, the “seeing-to-it-that” theory of agency. The formalization is such that normative sentences are represented as agentive sentences and therefore have history dependent truth conditions. In contrast to investigations in alethic modal logic, in the construction of systems of deontic logic little attention has been paid to the iteration... of the deontic modalities. L. Goble (1966, p. 197) N. Belnap and P. Bartha (1995) present a formalization of iterated deontic modalities in stit theory, the “seeing-to-it-that” theory of agency, due to Belnap, Perloff, and Xu (1996). In the present paper a simplification of Belnap and Bartha's approach is suggested. In order to support easy comparison with (1995), I shall take up Belnap and Bartha's discussion of R. Barcan Marcus' (1966) example Parking on highways ought to be forbidden. The simplified account underlines the power of stit theory and represents obligations, prohibitions and permissions as agentive sentences, as required by iteration. Therefore, in particular, the truth of obligations, prohibitions and permissions is it history dependent. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Thought contents and cognitive functioning in motivational versus volitional states of mind

Do people who are about to make a decision differ from people who are about to enact a decision just made with respect to (1) the contents of their spontaneous stream of thought, and (2) aspects of cognitive functioning reflective of short-term memory? Subjects either made a choice between, or were assigned to, two available test materials allegedly designed to measure creativity and differentially suited to promote an individual's full creative potential. Subjects were, however, interrupted prior to or shortly after making this choice: In Study 1, they were asked to report on the thoughts they experienced during the time period just before the interruption; in Study 2, subjects were interrupted either before or after making a choice and were asked to recall lists of words designed to test memory span. The results of Study 1 confirmed our assumption that predecisional versus postdecisional streams of spontaneous thought reflectmotivational versusvolitional states of mind. That is, predecisional thought was preoccupied with incentive values of goal options, expectancy of performance outcomes, and metamotivational directives, whereas postdecisional thought was concerned with questions of how to implement the pursued goal. In Study 2, subjects in a motivational state of mind exhibited a greater memory span than subjects in a volitional state of mind. Since, in a further study, performance on arithmetic tasks did not improve for subjects in a motivational as opposed to a volitional state of mind, the results of Study 2 are understood as a state-dependent increase in receptivity with respect to incoming information. In interpreting the present findings, the characteristic features of motivational and volitional states are explicated. Furthermore, it is suggested that the dominating research tradition focusing on motivational problems (i.e., expectancy-value models) and the abandoned research tradition concerned with volitional problems (i.e., formation and implementation of an intent) should be integrated into a functional unit.     

Efficiency under record performance demands: exertion control--an individual difference variable?

Semiprofessional players ran basketball circuits under either normal or record performance demands. Lactate concentration and heart rate were measured as indexes of exertion. Number of dribbling errors, attempted shots, hits, and hit rate served as measures of performance and efficiency. Several individual difference measures were taken in order to identify those athletes who were capable of moderating the extent of exertion and of preserving their performance from impairment. The indexes of exertion rose sharply from normal to record trials. Correspondingly, the numbers of dribbling errors and of shots increased while the hit rate declined. However, there were considerable individual differences in restraining exertion and preserving efficiency--both indexes of exertion control. Neither achievement motive scores nor questionnaire items that ask for self-knowledge about exertion control could account for these differences. However, individuals capable of exertion control could be discriminated by an action-control scale that asks about postdecisional implementation of action steps (Kuhl, 1985).     

A general possible worlds framework for reasoning about knowledge and belief

In this paper non-normal worlds semantics is presented as a basic, general, and unifying approach to epistemic logic. The semantical framework of non-normal worlds is compared to the model theories of several logics for knowledge and belief that were recently developed in Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is shown that every model for implicit and explicit belief (Levesque), for awareness, general awareness, and local reasoning (Fagin and Halpern), and for awareness and principles (van der Hoek and Meyer) induces a non-normal worlds model validating precisely the same formulas (of the language in question).     

What motivates men to offer sperm donation via the internet?

To investigate why men offer sperm donation via the internet, a questionnaire was disseminated via 39 Dutch-language websites thought to be visited by potential sperm donors. Nine internet donors completed the survey, men who typically knew the women they were donating to. Their responses were compared with those of a control group of 35 general sperm bank donors who were recruited using flyers in Dutch sperm banks, and who were typically unaware of the identity of the eventual recipients. The findings shed light on the motives and attitudes of internet donors. Both groups of donors indicated that their primary motivation for donating was altruism (>80% of all respondents). However, internet donors had a more pronounced desire to procreate than sperm bank donors (6 out of 9, i.e. 66 vs. 22%, respectively) and more often felt that they had good genes they wished to pass on (5 out of 9, i.e. 55 vs. 31%, respectively). The main reason internet donors gave for donating via the internet was that they wanted to know the prospective parents and be kept up to date on the progress of the offspring conceived from their donations. This distinguishes them significantly from sperm bank donors. A further finding was that they were not prompted to avoid the formal donation circuit for which, by law in the Netherlands, pregnancies resulting from donations have to be registered in a central database. This study is subject to several, in some cases inevitable, limitations, but it provides an interesting starting point that future studies can seek to confirm and extend.     

Harbour seals (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Phoca vitulina</Emphasis>) are able to time precisely

Time along with space is one of the two fundamental dimensions of life. Whereas spatial aspects have been considered in experiments with marine mammals, research has so far not focused on timing per se although it is most likely involved in many behaviours such as foraging or navigation. This study investigated whether harbour seals possess a sense of time and how precisely they are able to discriminate time intervals. Experiments took place in a chamber that allowed keeping ambient illumination constant at 40 lx. The animal was presented with a white circle on a black background on a monitor displayed for a preset time interval. In a two-alternative forced-choice experiment, the animal had to indicate the presence of the standard or a longer comparison time interval by moving its head to one out of two response targets. Time difference thresholds were assessed for various standard intervals between 3 to 30 s adopting a staircase procedure. The experimental animal found access to the task easily and discriminated time intervals with difference thresholds partly in the millisecond range. Thus our study revealed a well-developed sense of time in a pinniped species. Time, besides information provided by the classical senses, is thus most likely an important parameter seals can rely on for various tasks including navigation and foraging.     

A motivation-enhancing treatment to sustain goal engagement during life course transitions

Although theory-driven control striving treatments may sustain motivation for individuals navigating life course transitions, their efficacy during these challenging junctures remains unexamined. In a pre-post randomized field study (n = 316), a novel control striving treatment based on Heckhausen et al.’s (Psychol Rev 117:32–60, 2010) motivational theory of life-span development was administered to young adults making the landmark transition to university. For students who faced obstacles to goal attainment, the motivation-enhancing selective secondary control (SSC) striving treatment (vs. no-treatment) increased performance by 8 % in a two-semester course (74.85 % vs. 66.68 %). Consistent with theory, the SSC treatment-performance linkage was mediated by selective secondary and selective primary control in a hypothesized causal sequence. Findings advance the literature by showing control striving treatments can improve performance for some young adults in transition by promoting adaptive changes in theoretically-derived psychological process variables.     

Aktuelle Entwicklung in der Transaktionsanalyse

Zusammenfassung Die Transaktionsanalyse (Berne 1958) sollte vom ursprünglichen Konzept her dazu dienen, personale Strukturen und psychodynamische Prozesse auch dem Laien verstehbar und nutzbar zu machen. Obwohl dieser Anspruch bei manchen Autoren zu Oberfl?chlichkeit und „happy-go-lucky” Sicht verw?sserte, zeigt die vor allem unter europ?ischen Transaktionsanalytikern übliche Rückbesinnung auf die ursprünglichen Inhalte den Umfang klinischer Relevanz der Konzepte für Verst?ndnis und Behandlung der verschiedensten St?rungen. Dies anhand einer sog. frühen St?rung, dem Borderlinesyndrom, aufzuzeigen, ist Anliegen des vorliegenden Beitrags. Das Strukturmodell der Ich-Zust?nde dient dabei als Beschreibungsansatz für die Borderlinestruktur, Bezugsrahmen und Skript als Muster für die Entstehung und Aufrechterhaltung der Pathologie, Transaktionen, Spiele, Symbiosen und Passivit?t als Merkmale stabiler Instabilit?t der Beziehungen und Abwertungen und Grandiosit?ten als Beispiele für Abwehrmuster. Es folgen praxisorientierte überlegungen und Hinweise zum therapeutischen Vertrag als Grundlage des Arbeitsbündnisses, zu Methoden der Ent?ngstigung im Therapieproze?, zu Begegnung und Beziehung als Substrat für korrigierende Erfahrungen, heilendes Klima und Entdramatisierung des realen Geschehens. Die Ausführungen enden mit transaktionsanalytischen überlegungen zu übertragung, Gegenübertragung und dem Umgang mit Regressionsprozessen.      

Achievement motivation and its constructs: A cognitive model

The first section of this paper introduces a set of constructs, develops a cognitive model of motivation, and derives specific propositions for the case of achievement motivation. The model describes functional relationships among expectancies, instrumentalities, incentive values, and valences, each of which is calculated separately for situations, actions, and outcomes. Each valence is calculated with reference to an outcome's anticipated consequences, both immediate and delayed. The model draws on, but reworks and extends, Expectancy × Value Theory, Bolles' Psychological Syllogism, Instrumentality Theory, Achievement Motivation Theory, and Causal Attribution Theory. The second section examines the model's fit to the body of data that bears on a central area of research in achievement motivation, namely task preferences. The last section scrutinizes the motive construct as a summary concept and divides it into six parameter sets which represent sources of individual differences.I wish to thank Eric Klinger for a judicious translation of the paper into English which has considerably improved the original; Herbert Götzl, Uwe Kleinbeck, and Julius Kuhl for helpful comments; and Rosemarie Tweer for assistance in reanalyzing 31 studies on task preference.