Does Semantic Relationism Solve Frege’s Puzzle?

In a series of recent works, Kit Fine (The Journal of Philosophy, 100(12), 605–631, 2003, 2007) has sketched a novel solution to Frege’s puzzle. Radically departing from previous solutions, Fine argues that Frege’s puzzle forces us to reject compositionality. In this paper we first provide an explicit formalization of the relational semantics for first-order logic suggested, but only briefly sketched, by Fine. We then show why the relational semantics alone is technically inadequate, forcing Fine to enrich the syntax with a coordination schema. Given this enrichment, we argue, that that the semantics is compositional. We then examine the deep consequences of this result for Fine’s proposed solution to Frege’s puzzle. We argue that Fine has mis-diagnosed his own solution–his attempted solution does not deny compositionality. The correct characterization of Fine’s solution fits him more comfortably among familiar solutions to the puzzle.     

A High By Any Other Name: Exploring the Motivations for Consumption of “Legal Highs”

A large number of legal, semi-legal, synthetic, and organic drugs are sold online or through commercial vendors as novelties, often labeled as “not for human consumption.” It is fairly common knowledge, however, that many, if not all, of the purchasers of such products buy them for personal use. This study conducted ethnographic interviews with 26 synthetic and organic drug users over a five month period. Using a grounded theory approach, the authors created a typology of users that fell into three general categories: Risk reducers (who saw these drugs as either safer or less likely to be detected than illegal drugs), plan “B” users (those who preferred illegal drugs but used these drugs when their preferred drugs were unavailable), and novelty seekers (who used these drugs experimentally, or simply for fun and recreation).     

A First Step to a Conceptual Framework of Parent Empowerment: Exploring Relationships Between Parent Empowerment and Academic Performance in a National Sample

This study tested a parent empowerment framework using a national sample of 9,982 parents from the Parent and Family Involvement Survey (National Center for Education Statistics, 2007 ) to investigate relationships between parent empowerment and children's academic performance. A multinomial logistic regression demonstrated significant relationships between parents' competence, self‐determination, community belonging, community participation, and academic performance, which differentiate among parents based on racial/ethnic, language, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Findings highlight the importance of parent empowerment interventions that consider structural barriers in schools.     

Marital Conflict and Health in Taiwan: A Dyadic Longitudinal Analysis

Marital conflict is predictive of physical health; however, there are few studies that demonstrate this relationship in Chinese cultures. The purpose of this study was to test the effect of marital conflict on physical health among couples in Taiwan. This study utilized dyadic data of 239 married couples from three waves of a longitudinal study on work and family issues conducted in Taiwan. This study used participant’s reports of marital conflict at time 2, depressive symptoms at time 3, and physical health at time 4. Using a time-sequential method of analysis, results indicated that marital conflict was indirectly predictive of physical health 2 years later, with depressive symptoms fully mediating this relationship for husbands and wives. There were no significant partner effects or gender differences. The findings of this study provide evidence that the quality of marital relationships is important for the physical wellbeing of couples in Chinese cultures.     

Evidence of 12-year predictive and concurrent validity for SII Occupational Scale scores

This longitudinal study assessed the power of the Occupational Scales (OSs) of the Strong Interest Inventory to predict the participants’ occupations 12 years after Time 1 testing, 8 years after Time 2 testing, and concurrently at Time 3. Results indicated that OS scores predicted occupational membership at a level substantially higher than chance at all three points in time. Eight-year and concurrent prediction hit rates were not significantly different from each other but were significantly higher than 12-year hit rates. No significant gender differences were found, and OSs predicted membership equally well for occupations that corresponded directly to those represented on the SII profile and occupations indirectly represented on the inventory. These findings are important for informing counseling practice and providing validity evidence for SII scale scores.     

Family Dynamics and Changes in Sibling of Origin Relationship After Lesbian and Gay Sexual Orientation Disclosure

Despite the knowledge that the entire family system plays a role in the development of an individual, research on the disclosure of LG sexual orientation to the family of origin is mostly concentrated on the parental reaction. Siblings are rarely a focus of such research. Thus, the purpose of this qualitative study was to provide an understanding of the experiences of 14 heterosexual biological siblings of LG persons after they learn that their sister or brother is LG. More specifically, this study explored the changing family dynamics with a focus on the sibling of a LG sister or brother and the ways in which sexual orientation disclosure affects the sibling relationship. Data analysis identified ten themes: personal reaction to disclosure, suspecting sibling was LG based on stereotyping, protectiveness/concern, gay equals being different, anger/disappointment in how parent(s) handled LG sibling coming out, sibling relationship changes, increased comfort with having a LG sibling, disclosure of LG sibling sexual orientation to others, dealing with and challenging heterosexism, and changes to self as a result of sibling sexual orientation.     

Do positive illusions predict overconfidence in judgment? A test using interval production and probability evaluation measures of miscalibration

We address the question as to whether judgmental overconfidence, as assessed by probability miscalibration, is related to positive illusions about the self. We first demonstrate that judgmental overconfidence measured with interval production procedures can be considered a trait, due to correlations observed in miscalibration scores in two sets of general‐knowledge questions of varying difficulty administered at different times. In addition, the hard‐easy effect operated in different ways on overprecision and self‐placement of one's performance relative to others: The more difficult the calibration task, the greater the over precision but the greater the under placement of one's performance. Finally, there was no evidence that miscalibration was related to dispositional optimism and self‐efficacy. A second study extended these results by including further measures of disposition to experience positive illusions such as unrealistic optimism, a general tendency to consider oneself “better‐than‐average,” and two indexes of dispositional perception of control. The positive illusion measures showed considerable inter‐correlations, but did not correlate with miscalibration on the interval production task, and correlated negatively with optimism concerning societal risks. A final study replicated this pattern of findings, but showed that disposition to positive illusions did predict miscalibration on the same questions measured with a probability evaluation technique. Our research demonstrates that “overconfidence” is not a unitary construct, but a series of overlapping ones. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

School Counselors as Social Capital: The Effects of High School College Counseling on College Application Rates

Using social capital theory as a framework, the authors examined data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (Ingels, Pratt, Rogers, Siegel, & Stutts, 2004) to investigate how student contact with high school counselors about college information and other college‐related variables influence students' college application rates. In addition to some college‐related variables, the number of school counselors and student contacts were significant predictors of college application rates. Implications for school counselors and counselor training are included.     

The role of faith in intuition, need for cognition and method of attitude formation in implicit–explicit brand attitude relationship strength

We tested the hypothesis that Faith in Intuition (FI) would moderate implicit–explicit attitude relationship strength for attitudes formed via associative processes, but not propositional processes. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that FI moderated I–E relationship strength for attitudes formed via evaluative conditioning. High FI people had stronger I–E correlations. Experiment 2 showed that FI did not moderate I–E relationship strength for attitudes formed via propositional reasoning. Those low in Need for Cognition (NC), however, showed stronger I–E correlations than those high in NC. The importance of considering trait variables in combination with the method of attitude formation is discussed.