A Formal Reconstruction of Buridan's Modal Syllogism

In this paper, we provide a historical exposition of John Buridan's theory of divided modal propositions. We then develop a semantic interpretation of Buridan's theory which pays particular attention to Buridan's ampliation of modal terms. We show that these semantics correctly capture his syllogistic reasoning.     

Learning the Relevance of Relevance and the Trouble with Truth: Evaluating Explanatory Relevance across Childhood

ABSTRACT

In four experiments, we investigate how the ability to detect irrelevant explanations develops. In Experiments 1 and 2, 4- to 8-year-olds and adults rated different types of explanations about “what makes cars go” individually, in the absence of a direct contrast. Each explanation was true and relevant (e.g., “Cars have engines that turn gasoline into power”), true and irrelevant (e.g., “Cars have radios that play music”), or a false statement that would be relevant if it were true (e.g., “Cars have rockets that speed them up”). Participants of all ages spontaneously indicated that false explanations were less helpful than relevant explanations. However, there was a developmental shift for irrelevant explanations: 4-year-olds only detected irrelevant explanations that did not involve internal features of cars (e.g., “Cars have parking lots that they park in”). Crucially, this shift between age 4 and 5 cannot be explained by 4-year-olds’ lack of knowledge since 4-year-olds correctly indicated that relevant explanations were more helpful than irrelevant feature explanations when given a direct contrast in Experiment 3. These results are further clarified in Experiment 4, in which we provided a different explanatory goal (“where to find cars”) and found that even young children have a nuanced understanding of explanatory relevance that is sensitive to differing explanatory goals. Together, these four experiments suggest an early-emerging ability to understand relevance, but a shift between age 4 and 5 in the ability to spontaneously use this understanding when evaluating individual explanations in isolation.     

Socioanalytic theory and work behavior: Roles of work values and political skill in job performance and promotability assessment

Socioanalytic theory postulates that job performance ratings are predicted by basic social motives moderated by social competency. The two motives are the motive to get along with others and the motive to achieve status and power. The present two-study investigation assessed these motives as work values and collected supervisors' job performance and promotability assessments. Social competency was assessed as political skill at work. The results provided strong and consistent support for the hypotheses, thus providing a more direct test of socioanalytic theory and extending it to demonstrate effects beyond overall job performance ratings on contextual performance and promotability assessments. Contributions and implications of these results, strengths and limitations, directions for future research, and practical implications are discussed.     

Positive Illusions of Social Competence in Girls with and Without ADHD

We compared social self-competence ratings in 9–12 year old girls with (n = 42) versus without (n = 40) ADHD, relative to ratings of the girls’ social competence made by mothers, teachers, and blind raters during a social laboratory task. Relative to scores from mothers, teachers, and the lab-task, girls with ADHD over-estimated their competence significantly more than control girls. Over-estimates were greater for girls with ADHD who also had heightened oppositional-defiant symptoms, or lower depressive symptoms. Over-estimates were positively related to a socially desirable reporting bias for girls with ADHD, but not for control girls, suggesting that girls with ADHD attempt to present themselves in an unduly positive, self-protective light. For girls with ADHD, over-estimates also were positively related to maladjustment and negatively related to adjustment. However, for girls without ADHD, over-estimates were positively related to adjustment. Overall, over-estimates of competence function differently in girls with and without ADHD.     

Dynamic links between memory and functional limitations in old age: longitudinal evidence for age-based structural dynamics from the AHEAD study

This study examined competing substantive hypotheses about dynamic (i.e., time-ordered) links between memory and functional limitations in old age. We applied the Bivariate Dual Change Score Model to 13-year longitudinal data from the Asset and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old Study (AHEAD; N = 6,990; ages 70 - 95). Results revealed that better memory predicted shallower increases in functional limitations. Little evidence was found for the opposite direction that functional limitations predict ensuing changes in memory. Spline models indicated that dynamic associations between memory and functional limitations were substantively similar between participants aged 70-79 and those aged 80-95. Potential covariates (gender, education, health conditions, and depressive symptoms) did not account for these differential lead-lag associations. Applying a multivariate approach, our results suggest that late-life developments in two key components of successful aging are intrinsically interrelated. Our discussion focuses on possible mechanisms why cognitive functioning may serve as a source of age-related changes in health both among the young-old and the old-old.     

Developmental change and intraindividual variability: relating cognitive aging to cognitive plasticity, cardiovascular lability, and emotional diversity

Repeated assessments obtained over years can be used to measure individuals' developmental change, whereas repeated assessments obtained over a few weeks can be used to measure individuals' dynamic characteristics. Using data from a burst of measurement embedded in the Berlin Aging Study (BASE; Baltes & Mayer, 1999), we illustrate and examine how long-term changes in cognitive ability are related to short-term changes in cognitive performance, cardiovascular function, and emotional experience. Our findings suggest that "better" cognitive aging over approximately 13 years was associated with greater cognitive plasticity, less cardiovascular lability, and less emotional diversity over approximately 2 weeks at age 90 years. The study highlights the potential benefits of multi-time scale longitudinal designs for the study of individual function and development.     

Missed by an inch or a mile? Predicting the size of intention-behaviour gap from measures of executive control

Failing to achieve healthy intentions can have a direct impact on subsequent health. The extent of this impact is partially determined by the size of the discrepancy between intentions and behaviour, that is, on whether an unachieved behavioural target is missed by an inch or a mile. Over two studies, measures of 'executive control' ability were used to predict the size of the intention-behaviour gap for two dietary behaviours - eating fruits and vegetables and snacking. In Study 1, participants (n=50) reported intended dietary intake, completed objective and self-report measures of executive control ability and recorded actual dietary intake over 3 days with computerised diaries. Using multiple regression, general executive control ability was found to account for 16-23% of the variance in the size of intention-behaviour gap for both the dietary behaviours. In Study 2 (n=52), deviation from intentions about snacking was significantly related to individual differences in prepotent response inhibition. Overall, individuals with weak executive control ate less fruits and vegetables and more snacks than intended. Intention-behaviour 'failures' are not homogenous, but instead vary predictably with the availability of executive control resources. This suggests that individuals with large intention-behaviour shortfalls may benefit from interventions designed to reduce the demands on executive control.     

Distinctiveness Reconsidered: Religiosity,Structural Location,and Understandings of Racial Inequality

Are conservative Protestants distinct in their support for individualistic explanations of racial inequality in America? Past research has generated contradictory findings on this question, along with debates about the best measure of evangelicalism and the factors that moderate religious influences on racial attitudes. Using data from the nationally representative Boundaries in the American Mosaic Project (2014), we examine how structural location interacts with religious commitment to influence understandings of and preferred solutions to African‐American disadvantage. We show that religious beliefs, involvement, and centrality influence adherents differently, depending on their age, gender, education, income, and race. We find that measures do matter, and that denominational affiliation is less predictive than the orthodoxy and centrality of religious belief. We also find that straightforward talk about distinctiveness can mask the strong and pervasive effects of structural location on racial attitudes. We call for more research that makes the interaction between religiosity and structural location a central focus of analysis.     

Controlled Social Interaction Tasks to Measure Self-Perceptions: No Evidence of Positive Illusions in Boys with ADHD

Studies have suggested that children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) possess a Positive Illusory Bias (PIB) where they have higher self-perceptions of competence than more objective measures of their competence. However, recent research calls into question the primary methodology of these studies, that is, difference scores. This study investigated the PIB in boys with ADHD within the social domain using a novel methodology that refrains from using difference scores. Eighty-one 8- to 12-year-old boys with and without ADHD completed social interaction tasks where their actual social performance was made comparable, allowing for tests of between-group differences in self-perceptions that do not rely on difference scores. In addition, to examine whether clarity of social feedback moderates the presence of the PIB, the social tasks presented unclear, clear positive, or clear negative feedback. Boys rated how well they performed in each social interaction task, and these ratings were compared between ADHD and non-ADHD groups. Compared to the non-ADHD group, boys with ADHD did not show a PIB in their ratings of performance on the social tasks. There also was no moderation of boys’ ratings by type of feedback received. In contrast, when the PIB was calculated using difference scores based on child and parent ratings of child competence, boys with ADHD showed a PIB compared to boys without ADHD. These findings call attention to the need to re-examine the phenomenon of the PIB using methodologies outside of difference scores.