God knows (but does God believe?)

The standard view in epistemology is that propositional knowledge entails belief. Positive arguments are seldom given for this entailment thesis, however; instead, its truth is typically assumed. Against the entailment thesis, Myers-Schulz and Schwitzgebel (Noûs, forthcoming) report that a non-trivial percentage of people think that there can be propositional knowledge without belief. In this paper, we add further fuel to the fire, presenting the results of four new studies. Based on our results, we argue that the entailment thesis does not deserve the default status that it is typically granted. We conclude by considering the alternative account of knowledge that Myers-Schulz and Schwitzgebel propose to explain their results, arguing that it does not explain ours. In its place we offer a different explanation of both sets of findings—the conviction account, according to which belief, but not knowledge, requires mental assent.     

Severe Social Withdrawal: Cultural Variation in Past Hikikomori Experiences of University Students in Nigeria,Singapore, and the United States

Hikikomori (social withdrawal that lasts six months or longer) is a growing problem among Japanese adolescents and young adults, with recent estimates that approximately 1% of Japanese youths will suffer from an episode of hikikomori in their lifetimes. What remains unclear is whether hikikomori is a culture-bound syndrome or a condition impacting youths around the globe. Hence, the self-reported prevalence and psychosocial correlates of past experiences with hikikomori were examined in cross-sectional samples of university students from Singapore (n?=?147), Nigeria (n?=?151), and the United States (n?=?301). Following tests of measurement invariance, comparisons showed that past experiences with hikikomori were related to elevated levels of current loneliness and depressive symptoms in each sample. However, analyses also revealed evidence of cultural variation in both the prevalence and the psychosocial correlates associated with past experiences of hikikomori, which taken together, provide preliminary evidence that the culture-bound characterization of hikikomori may not be appropriate.     

Job Stress and Dyadic Synchrony in Police Marriages: A Preliminary Investigation

Despite reports documenting adverse effects of stress on police marriages, few empirical studies focus on actual emotional behaviors of officers and spouses. In this preliminary investigation, 17 male police officers and their nonpolice wives completed daily stress diaries for 1 week and then participated in a laboratory‐based discussion about their respective days. Conversations were video‐recorded and coded for specific emotional behaviors reflecting hostility and affection, which are strong predictors of marital outcomes. We examined associations between officers' job stress (per diaries and the Police Stress Survey) and couples' emotional behavior (mean levels and behavioral synchrony) using a dyadic repeated measures design capitalizing on the large number of observations available for each couple (1020 observations). When officers reported more job stress, they showed less hostility, less synchrony with their wives' hostility, and more synchrony with their wives' affection; their wives showed greater synchrony with officers' hostility and less synchrony with officers' affection. Therefore, for officers, greater job stress was associated with less behavioral negativity, potentially less attunement to wives' negativity, but potentially greater attunement to wives' affection—perhaps a compensatory strategy or attempt to buffer their marriage from stress. These attempts may be less effective, however, if, as our synchrony findings may suggest, wives are focusing on officers' hostility rather than affection. Although it will be important to replicate these results given the small sample, our findings reveal that patterns of behavioral synchrony may be a key means to better understand how job stress exacts a toll on police marriages.     

Scheduling Scaffolding: The Extent and Arrangement of Assistance During Training Impacts Test Performance

Various kinds of assistance, including prompts, worked examples, direct instruction, and modeling, are widely provided to learners across educational and training programs. Yet, the effectiveness of assistance during training on long-term learning is widely debated. The authors examined how the extent and schedule of assistance during training on a novel mouse movement task impacted unassisted test performance. Learners received different schedules of assistance during training, including constant assistance, no assistance, probabilistic assistance, alternating assistance, and faded assistance. Constant assistance led to better performance during training than no assistance. However, constant assistance during training resulted in the worst unassisted test performance. Faded assistance during training resulted in the best test performance. This suggests that fading may allow learners to create an internal model of the assistance without depending on the assistance in a manner that impedes successful transfer to unassisted circumstances.     

Feed My Sheep: An Analysis of the Black–White Biblical Academic Achievement Gap

Secular academic achievement gap analyses consistently hold that Blacks perform worse than their White counterparts. Although gaps are closing, significant variances remain; sadly, poor performance isn’t limited to secular academics. Analysis of Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life’s 2010 U.S. Religious Knowledge survey holds that although African-American Christians are more likely to attend church more frequently than other ethnicities, they are significantly more likely to know the least about the Bible. Unfortunately, the literature does not address the biblical racial achievement gap; we seek to correct this deficiency. We explored the extent of the Black–White biblical academic achievement gap and identified variables which exacerbate it. Linear regression analysis reveals that Blacks actualize a negative impact to biblical literacy engendered by their race: regardless of attendance frequency, the total number of questions answered correctly (μ = 4.337 out of 8) is reduced by 0.705. This impact is (a) not experienced by Whites and (b) larger than the church attendance benefit (0.228).