How Fragile Is Conditional Cooperation? A Field Experiment with Smartphones during the 2014 Soccer World Cup

We conducted an experiment in a highly cooperative environment to find out how a disruption, similar to a broken window, affects behavior. A centipede game was framed as a game of soccer and run with smartphones during a soccer public viewing event, that is, a Bavarian beer garden with a large screen displaying a soccer game. We provided some subjects with information that was supportive to cooperation and others with disruptive information, aimed at inducing a broken window effect. The disruption reduced the willingness to cooperate at the final stage of the game. But expectations regarding teammates remained unaffected such that cooperation at earlier stages remained high. Cooperation is thus not as fragile as one might fear. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A citation analysis of Henri Tajfel's work on intergroup relations

The late Henri Tajfel (1919-1982) is one of the central figures who shaped the development of post-war European social psychology. His contributions range from the establishment of an infrastructure for a European social psychology, and the start of a new intellectual movement within social psychology, to the formulation of a set of concepts addressing intergroup relations that were finally integrated into Social Identity Theory. The present study provides an empirical examination of Tajfel's contribution to intergroup research over the last 30 years via a citation analysis of five journals: the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the British Journal of Social Psychology, the European Journal of Social Psychology, the South African Journal of Psychology, and the German Journal of Social Psychology (Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie). The results indicate that Tajfel's work on intergroup relations is increasingly cited, especially since the 1990s, and the international recognition of his work is substantial. Three possible reasons for the recognition his work still enjoys are proposed: its potential to generate theoretical and empirical controversies; its explanatory power; and the extent to which his work is used as a referential framework.     

The feminization of psychology: data from South Africa

In many countries, women outnumber men in psychology, both as students and as professionals. Much of this information is drawn from Europe and the USA, and the information available about the situation in developing countries is a lot less detailed. The steady increase in the presence of women in psychology in South Africa is examined, via access to two large national databases and telephone interviews. These sources are the most reliable available, and are comprehensive enough to give a very good snapshot of women in psychology in this country over the last 12 years. The data indicate that psychology as a profession in South Africa is dominated by women. Although the applied practical aspects of the discipline attract women disproportionally, women are also over-represented in research psychology and academia (except at the professorial level). The racial composition of the profession remains skewed, with white psychologists in the majority. Although the data in this regard are incomplete, approximately 5% of registered psychologists are black. An examination of student enrolments suggests that this situation will continue in future, as women (and white students) enrol in much greater numbers for both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. In 2002, 74% of psychology majors were women, and 78% of all Master's degrees in psychology were awarded to women. Thus it would appear that the feminization of psychology in this country is further advanced than in Europe and the USA. It is not a question of men abandoning the profession, but rather that women entered the profession at a much higher rate in recent years.     

Dissoziative Störung einst und jetzt

psychopraxis. neuropraxis - In der Behandlung der dissoziativen Störungen hat sich in den letzten 150 Jahren sehr viel verändert. Zu Zeiten Jean-Martin Charcots dominierten...     

Secularity and Modernity? A Brief Response to Herbert De Vriese

In this brief response to Herbert De Vriese’s The Charm of Disenchantment, his attempt to link secularism and modernity is questioned. Criticism is leveled at De Vriese’s use of the correspondence between Voltaire and Frederick the Great without reference to the historical context, notably the confessional states that existed between roughly 1650 and 1800 in Europe. De Vriese’s apology for disenchantment and modernity is also questioned in the light of both modern religious and secular responses to modernity as exemplified by the Dalai Lama and Bernard Stiegler.     

RELATIVISM,COMMENSURABILITY AND TRANSLATABILITY

This paper discusses conceptual relativism. The main focus is on the contrasting ideas of Wittgenstein and Davidson, with Quine, Kuhn, Feyerabend and Hacker in supporting roles. I distinguish conceptual from alethic and ontological relativism, defend a distinction between conceptual scheme and empirical content, and reject the Davidsonian argument against the possibility of alternative conceptual schemes: there can be conceptual diversity without failure of translation, and failure of translation is not necessarily incompatible with recognizing a practice as linguistic. Conceptual relativism may be untenable, but not for the hermeneutic reasons espoused by Davidson.