Relativism of Distance - a Step in the Naturalization of Meta-Ethics

Bernard Williams proposed his relativism of distance based on the recognition “that others are at varying distances from us”. Recent work in moral psychology and experimental philosophy highlights the prevalence of folk relativism in relation to spatial and temporal distance. However, Williams’ relativism of distance as well as recent empirical findings which seem to support some of Williams’ main ideas on this issue have received scant attention. In this article, we would like to focus on the phenomenon of moral relativism regarding spatiotemporal distance as an entry point to the nature of folk moral relativism and the methodology of meta-ethics. To do so, we first introduce Williams’ relativism of distance. Then we compare Williams’ approach on this matter to recent experimental approaches on folk relativism. On this score the main result is that Williams’ proposal is consistent with several well-established insights on the experimental study of folk relativism. Williams’ relativism of distance is not only empirically plausible, but it is also of relevance for shaping the methodology of an empirically informed meta-ethics. We close this paper by stressing this methodological contribution.     

Construct and concurrent validity of the Cambridge neuropsychological automated tests in Portuguese older adults without neuropsychiatric diagnoses and with Alzheimer’s disease dementia

We aimed to analyze the construct and concurrent validity of the Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVP), Paired Associates Learning (PAL), Reaction Time (RTI), and Spatial Working Memory (SWM) tests from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB®). Inclusion criteria were checked in a first session. The CANTAB and additional pencil-and-paper tests were administered within 1 week. The participants (aged 69–96 years) were 137 Portuguese adults without neuropsychiatric diagnoses and 37 adults with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease dementia. Comparisons were made between the CANTAB tests and between these tests and the Rey Complex Figure Test (RCFT), Verbal Fluency (VF) test, and some Wechsler Memory Scale-III and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III subtests. Most intra-test correlations were stronger than the CANTAB inter-test correlations. The RVP correlated more with VF animals (.44), the PAL with RCFT immediate recall (–.52), the RTI with RVP mean latency (.42), and the SWM with Spatial Span backward (–.39).     

The gift of Mexican historicism

The focus of this paper is Mexican historicism. It has three objectives: first, to introduce English-speaking readers to the nature and history of Mexican historicism; second, to defend Mexican historicism against the charges of relativism usually raised against historicism in general and “Mexican” philosophy in particular; and third, to argue for what I call the transcendental, or alternatively, “liberatory,” nature of Mexican historicism—a nature with philosophical and political consequences. The hope is that by making the clarifications and determinations made here, the tradition of Mexican philosophy, of which Mexican historicism is a key moment, may find its place in the increasingly pluralistic US philosophical landscape.     

Do Envy and Compassion Pave the Way to Unhappiness? Social Preferences and Life Satisfaction in a Spanish City

Mounting evidence shows that people’s self-reported life satisfaction (LS) is negatively related to income inequality. Under the interpretation that the relationship between macro-level variables and LS reflects individuals’ social preferences, this finding indicates that most people display inequality-averse preferences. We explore the relationship between self-reports on inequality aversion and LS in a citywide representative survey/experiment conducted in Spain. If self-reported well-being can be used to infer people’s social preferences, LS should correlate negatively with both “envy” and “compassion” scores (i.e., how much one suffers from disadvantageous and advantageous inequality, respectively). We find that LS relates negatively to envy but positively to compassion, which would imply that suffering from observing poorer others, paradoxically, increases well-being. Using an incentivized Dictator Game as a measure of generous behavior, we reject the hypothesis that the positive link between compassion and LS is actually driven by generosity. We discuss how these findings could indicate that the way LS is used to assess social preferences in the population should be revised.     

Children’s and Adolescents’ Conceptions of Happiness at School and Its Relation with Their Own Happiness and Their Academic Performance

Previous research on children’s and adolescents’ well-being at school has been focused on the possible determinants. However, no previous research has analysed children’s and adolescents’ lay-beliefs or conceptualizations of happiness at school. In the present work, we studied children’s (N = 104, 9–10-year-olds) and adolescents’ (N = 113, 15–16-year-olds) conceptualizations of happiness at school and its link with self-reported happiness (assessed 3 months later) and academic achievement (assessed 7 months later). For both samples, seven conceptualizations emerged: happiness as ‘being with friends’, ‘being praised’, ‘getting good grades’, ‘learning’, ‘leisure’, ‘enjoyment’, and ‘helping’. Age differences appeared for the conceptualizations of ‘being friends’ and ‘helping’, as children mentioned significantly more the former and adolescents the latter. No gender differences emerged. For adolescents, the conceptualizations of happiness at school as ‘being with friends’, ‘being praised’, ‘helping’, and not ‘having leisure time’ were positively related to self-reported happiness, which was positively related to academic achievement. For children, none of the conceptualizations were positively related to self-reported happiness. The conceptualization of happiness as ‘learning’ was positively related to academic achievement. The results are discussed in regards to their implications for children’s and adolescents’ well-being at school.     

Spatial perseveration error by alpacas (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Vicugna pacos</Emphasis>) in an A-not-B detour task

Spatial perseveration has been documented for domestic animals such as mules, donkeys, horses and dogs. However, evidence for this spatial cognition behavior among other domestic species is scarce. Alpacas have been domesticated for at least 7000 years yet their cognitive ability has not been officially reported. The present article used an A-not-B detour task to study the spatial problem-solving abilities of alpacas (Vicugna pacos) and to identify the perseveration errors, which refers to a tendency to maintain a learned route, despite having another available path. The study tested 51 alpacas, which had to pass through a gap at one end of a barrier in order to reach a reward. After one, two, three or four repeats (A trials), the gap was moved to the opposite end of the barrier (B trials). In contrast to what has been found in other domestic animals tested with the same task, the present study did not find clear evidence of spatial perseveration. Individuals’ performance in the subsequent B trials, following the change of gap location, suggests no error persistence in alpacas. Results suggest that alpacas are more flexible than other domestic animals tested with this same task, which has important implications in planning proper training for experimental designs or productive purposes. These results could contribute toward enhancing alpacas’ welfare and our understanding of their cognitive abilities.     

Stigma Consciousness and Subjective Well-Being in Lesbians and Gays

The stigma associated with sexual identity can affect an individual’s well-being. The main goal of this study was to analyse the role of a psychosocial variable, stigma consciousness, on the well-being of lesbian and gay (LG) individuals. For this purpose, a sample of 481 participants completed various questionnaires (M _age = 32.36, SD _age = 9.60). Analysis of these results using structural equations showed two different pathways to cope with the stigma. The first pathway consists of collective action, and the second consists of stigma concealment. Specifically, stigma consciousness positively predicts well-being through group identification and collective action. Stigma concealment, however, negatively predicts well-being through the perception of prejudice. In addition, this work has confirmed that concealment has a direct negative relationship with subjective well-being. These results are interpreted from a psychosocial perspective. Finally, based on our data, we propose future interventions that provide LG individuals with strategies to cope with their perceptions of stigma.     

Poststimulation time interval-dependent effects of motor cortex anodal tDCS on reaction-time task performance

Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) induces long-term potentiation-like plasticity, which is associated with long-lasting effects on different cognitive, emotional, and motor performances. Specifically, tDCS applied over the motor cortex is considered to improve reaction time in simple and complex tasks. The timing of tDCS relative to task performance could determine the efficacy of tDCS to modulate performance. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of a single session of anodal tDCS (1.5 mA, for 15 min) applied over the left primary motor cortex (M1) versus sham stimulation on performance of a go/no-go simple reaction-time task carried out at three different time points after tDCS—namely, 0, 30, or 60 min after stimulation. Performance zero min after anodal tDCS was improved during the whole course of the task. Performance 30 min after anodal tDCS was improved only in the last block of the reaction-time task. Performance 60 min after anodal tDCS was not significantly different throughout the entire task. These findings suggest that the motor cortex excitability changes induced by tDCS can improve motor responses, and these effects critically depend on the time interval between stimulation and task performance.     

Norms for 10,491 Spanish words for five discrete emotions: Happiness,disgust, anger,fear, and sadness

The discrete emotion theory proposes that affective experiences can be reduced to a limited set of universal “basic” emotions, most commonly identified as happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust. Here we present norms for 10,491 Spanish words for those five discrete emotions collected from a total of 2,010 native speakers, making it the largest set of norms for discrete emotions in any language to date. When used in conjunction with the norms from Hinojosa, Martínez-García et al. (Behavior Research Methods, 48, 272–284, 2016) and Ferré, Guasch, Martínez-García, Fraga, & Hinojosa (Behavior Research Methods, 49, 1082-1094, 2017), researchers now have access to ratings of discrete emotions for 13,633 Spanish words. Our norms show a high degree of inter-rater reliability and correlate highly with those from Ferré et al. (2017). Our exploration of the relationship between the five discrete emotions and relevant lexical and emotional variables confirmed findings of previous studies conducted with smaller datasets. The availability of such large set of norms will greatly facilitate the study of emotion, language and related fields. The norms are available as supplementary materials to this article.     

Effect of variance ratio on ANOVA robustness: Might 1.5 be the limit?

Inconsistencies in the research findings on F-test robustness to variance heterogeneity could be related to the lack of a standard criterion to assess robustness or to the different measures used to quantify heterogeneity. In the present paper we use Monte Carlo simulation to systematically examine the Type I error rate of F-test under heterogeneity. One-way, balanced, and unbalanced designs with monotonic patterns of variance were considered. Variance ratio (VR) was used as a measure of heterogeneity (1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 2, 3, 5, and 9), the coefficient of sample size variation as a measure of inequality between group sizes (0.16, 0.33, and 0.50), and the correlation between variance and group size as an indicator of the pairing between them (1, .50, 0, ?.50, and ?1). Overall, the results suggest that in terms of Type I error a VR above 1.5 may be established as a rule of thumb for considering a potential threat to F-test robustness under heterogeneity with unequal sample sizes.