From crisis of evidence to a “crisis” of relevance? Incentive-based answers for social psychology’s perennial relevance worries

Current controversies in social psychology have sparked the promotion of new rules for evidence in the field. This “crisis of evidence” echoes prior concerns from the 1970s about a so-called “crisis of social psychology”, with such issues as replication and statistical significance once more under examination. I argue that parallel concerns about the relevance of our research, raised but not completely resolved in the 1970s crisis, also deserve a fresh look. In particular, the advances made in the current crisis of evidence came about because of changes in academic career incentives, particularly publishing. Today, many voices in psychology urge greater respect for relevance in topics, methods and communication, but the lack of clear and concrete incentives to do so has stood in the way of answers. I diagnose the current incentive structures, propose partial solutions that are within the reach of journal editors and professional societies, and conclude by discussing the links between relevance and evidence, as well as special challenges to the relevance of social psychology post-2016.     

Applying a longitudinal tracer methodology to evaluate complex interventions in complex settings

Long-running multi-faceted intervention studies are particularly problematic in large complex organizations where traditional methods prove too resource intensive and can yield inaccurate and incomplete findings. This paper describes the first use of, longitudinal tracer methodology (LTM), a realist approach to evaluation, to examine the links between multiple complex intervention activities (processes) and their outcomes on a construction megaproject. LTM is especially useful when the researcher has little control over intervention delivery but has evidence drawn from multiple sources to evaluate the intervention activities effects over time. This methodology has rarely been deployed in complex organizational settings and not on a construction megaproject. This paper presents a case study of its use over a period of three years, on 24 construction sites forming London’s Thames Tideway Tunnel (Tideway) megaproject. The study examines the “transformational” power of occupational safety and health (OSH) interventions across the multiple organizations and supply chains in the megaproject. The study shows how the method can be adapted in-flight to accommodate shifting lines of inquiry as the intervention activities progress and change. This feature along with its resource-efficient operation, make it an attractive option where interventions are likely to have differential effects across multiple sites of enactment.     

Grasping remaps the distribution of visuospatial attention and enhances competing action activation

We examined how action goals influence the distribution of visuospatial attention near the body (Experiment 1) and how the temporal relationship between distractors and targets modifies shifts in visuospatial attention (Experiment 2). Targets were light emitting diodes (LEDs) in the left and right hemispace of a visual display. Following left or right target illumination, participants reached to point-to or grasp target object in blocked trials. Coincident with target onset, a distractor LED illuminated in the same or opposite hemispace between the initiation point and target, or no distractor appeared. In Experiment 1, during grasping there was a larger temporal interference effect (slower reach initiation) than with pointing. When grasping versus pointing, participants deviated more towards same-side distractors and away from opposite-side distractors. In Experiment 2, distractors onset 200ms prior to (?200-ms), coincident with (0 ms), or 200ms following (+200 ms) the target. For both reach types, ?200-ms distractors had greater onset temporal interference than 0 ms and +200-ms distractors. For grasping, +200 ms distractors had larger temporal interference than 0 ms distractors. For ?200-ms, reach trajectories deviated more towards opposite-side distractors and away from same-side distractors, the reverse of the pattern for 0 ms and +200-ms distractors.     

Is There a Correlation Between Static and Dynamic Postural Balance Among Young Male and Female Dancers?

Aimed to investigate whether young male and female dancers have different patterns of association between static and dynamic postural balance (PB), 60 dancers from the Australian Ballet School (14–19 years old) were tested for static and dynamic PB with head and lumbar accelerometers. Monotonic relationships between static and dynamic PB were found in head movements among young female dancers in all three directions, but were found for young male dancers in the mediolateral (ML) and anteroposterior (AP) directions only. In lumbar movements, monotonic relationships were found for young female dancers in the AP direction only. Comparing head with lumbar movements in static PB, young male dancers demonstrated monotonic relationships between head and lumbar movements in all 3 directions; however, young female dancers demonstrated monotonic relationships in the AP direction only. In the dynamic measurements, both male and female dancers demonstrated monotonic relationships between head and lumbar movements for all parameters measured in the ML and vertical directions (p < .05). In conclusions, among female dancers static PB ability is correlated with their dynamic ability, whereas among male dancers, no relationship between the static and dynamic PB in the AP direction exists. Male dancers showed head and lumbar coordination in the static PB movement, but both genders manifested no head and lumbar coordination in the AP direction measured for dynamic PB.     

The Interplay of Implicit Causality,Structural Heuristics,and Anaphor Type in Ambiguous Pronoun Resolution

Two visual-world eye-tracking experiments investigating pronoun resolution in Finnish examined the time course of implicit causality information relative to both grammatical role and order-of-mention information. Experiment 1 showed an effect of implicit causality that appeared at the same time as the first-mention preference. Furthermore, when we counterbalanced the semantic roles of the verbs, we found no effect of grammatical role, suggesting the standard observed subject preference has a large semantic component. Experiment 2 showed that both the personal pronoun hän and the demonstrative tämä preferred the antecedent consistent with the implicit causality bias; tämä was not interpreted as referring to the semantically non-prominent entity. In contrast, structural prominence affected hän and tämä differently: we found a first-mention preference for hän, but a second-mention preference for tämä. The results suggest that semantic implicit causality information has an immediate effect on pronoun resolution and its use is not delayed relative to order-of-mention information. Furthermore, they show that order-of-mention differentially affects different types of anaphoric expressions, but semantic information has the same effect.     

The heteronomous moral value of shame

Recent work in moral theory has argued against according shame any moral value in virtue of its supposed heteronomy. Authors who have defended shame's moral value have generally argued that shame is, in fact, autonomous. In the present article, I draw on the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Stanley Cavell and Adam Smith to develop an argument for shame's moral worth based on its heteronomy. I then contrast my defence with work that holds shame's moral value to be based on its autonomy. I argue that that view goes wrong by construing shame on the model of private experience. This psychology is unconvincing in its own right and can underwrite moral failings.     

A Preverbal Perspective on Conversion Disorder

ABSTRACT

In contrast to the vast majority of writings on hysteria that place its genesis within the Oedipal period, this article conceptualizes a preverbal, pre-Oedipal origin for the primary manifestation of hysteria—conversion disorder. Findings from infant observation research are used to support a conceptualization that includes connections to temperament, attachment strategies, Wilma Bucci’s multiple code theory, and Leslie Farber’s perspectives on will and willfulness. This article suggests an etiology that is dependent on a complexity of factors operating interactively and within the context of a relational process.     

Han feizi's legalism versus kautilya's Arthashastra

Writing only decades apart, Han Feizi (ca. 250 BCE) and Kautilya (ca. 300 BCE) were two great political thinkers who argued for strong leaders, king or emperor, to unify warring states and bring peace, who tried to show how a ruler controls his ministers as well as the populace, defended the need for spies and violence, and developed the key ideas needed to support the bureaucracies of the emerging and unified states of China and India respectively. Whereas both thinkers disliked the new merchants, Han Feizi seems content with a traditional feudal economy, whereas Kautilya wanted to use the state to increase production and the wealth in the king's treasury. Kautilya also had much more extensive discussions of war and diplomacy.     

HOW SCIENCE CAN HELP RELIGION BENEFIT SOCIETY

Abstract. Modern science has given us a revolutionary new understanding of the close interrelationship and interdependence of humans not only with all other humans but with all other living species and with the nonliving elements of the geosphere and the rest of the universe. This new understanding can provide a basis for new understandings of (1) the basic nature of religion, (2) the basic principles of major world religious traditions, and (3) the basic principles of religious ethics. The new understanding of religious ethics will involve a better understanding of our rights and responsibilities, as individuals and groups, with respect to other individuals and groups of humans, other living species, and the nonliving universe. This improved understanding will benefit not only human individuals and human societies, local and global, but also local and global ecosystems.