Brentano's theory of intentionality

Chapters Five through Nine of Book Two of Brentano's 1874 Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint were republished in 1911 with a substantive Appendix of Brentano's remarks. In the Appendix Brentano makes a significant addition to his theory of intentionality. In particular, he introduces new modes within the mode of presentation itself. These new modes are needed to account for our thinking about anything in a relational structure (in recto and in obliquo modes) and for our thoughts about time (the temporal mode). I want to suggest that in the end Brentano simply takes relations to be different kinds of modes.     

It's just (family) business: The impact of familial work experience on perceived qualification and hireability during the selection process

Though scholars have explored the impact of familial work experience (FWE) posthire, research has yet to determine the role of such experience during the selection process. Drawing from Attribution Theory and research on nepotism and family business dynamics, we suggest that the presence of FWE on an applicant's selection materials will lead to reduced perceptions of qualifications and hireability. Through two online experiments (N₁ = 170, N₂ = 251), we found mixed support for this proposition. In our first study focused on cover letters, we found that applicants who reported FWE were not appraised differently than those who did not. In our second study focused on letters of recommendation, however, we found that applicants who reported FWE were perceived as less qualified and less hireable. Moreover, we found that the level of job (i.e., service vs. managerial) moderates these relations, such that managerial applicants with FWE on their letter of recommendation were perceived as less hireable than those who did not. Implications for research and practice are discussed, and future research directions are offered.     

Awe and guilt: Desirability and feasibility appeals in social media green campaigns

As the world has become increasingly concerned about environmental plastic pollution, private and public sectors remain devoted to creating effective green marketing campaigns on social media platforms. Drawing upon construal level theory and appraisal tendency theory, this research examines the interaction effect of green ad appeals and two distinct emotions—awe and guilt—on consumers' social media engagement and pro-environmental intentions. The findings from two experimental studies demonstrate that when individuals experience awe, desirability (vs. feasibility) message appeals generate stronger engagement in social media green campaigns. In contrast, it was found that when individuals experience guilt, feasibility (vs. desirability) message appeals enhance social media engagement and pro-environmental behaviors more effectively. This research offers novel theoretical contributions to the existing body of literature and provides practical insights by suggesting that awe and guilt act as moderators leading to greater consumer responses when used with matching social media messages promoting green campaigns.     

Reflexivity in quantitative research: A rationale and beginner's guide

Reflexivity is the act of examining one's own assumption, belief, and judgement systems, and thinking carefully and critically about how these influence the research process. The practice of reflexivity confronts and questions who we are as researchers and how this guides our work. It is central in debates on objectivity, subjectivity, and the very foundations of social science research and generated knowledge. Incorporating reflexivity in the research process is traditionally recognized as one of the most notable differences between qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Qualitative research centres and celebrates the participants' personal and unique lived experience. Therefore, qualitative researchers are readily encouraged to consider how their own unique positionalities inform the research process and this forms an important part of training within this paradigm. Quantitative methodologies in social and personality psychology, and more generally, on the other hand, have remained seemingly detached from this level of reflexivity and general reflective practice. In this commentary, we, three quantitative researchers who have grappled with the compatibility of reflexivity within our own research, argue that reflexivity has much to offer quantitative methodologists. The act of reflexivity prompts researchers to acknowledge and centre their own positionalities, encourages a more thoughtful engagement with every step of the research process, and thus, as we argue, contributes to the ongoing reappraisal of openness and transparency in psychology. In this paper, we make the case for integrating reflexivity across all research approaches, before providing a ‘beginner's guide’ for quantitative researchers wishing to engage reflexively with their own work, providing concrete recommendations, worked examples, and reflexive prompts.     

Ideology,moral reframing,and persuasion in the context of COVID-19 vaccines

A possible strategy for circumventing vaccine hesitancy and increasing support for vaccines is moral reframing. Moral Foundations Theory suggests messages framed using individuating foundations should be more persuasive to liberals, while messages framed using binding foundations should be more persuasive to conservatives. In an experiment, we investigated the role of political ideology and moral reframing in persuading college students to support mandating COVID-19 vaccination on university campuses. We tested harm-framed and loyalty-framed interventions to persuade liberals and conservatives, respectively. Results indicated that overall conservatives were less persuaded than liberals. Liberals were more persuaded by a harm-framed than loyalty-framed message when measuring ideology categorically (but not continuously). There were no differences in persuasion among conservatives. With further research, moral reframing could be effective in increasing support for vaccines and mandatory vaccinations.     

Coping with COVID: Use,factor structure,and health behavior implications of specific emotion regulation strategies during the coronavirus pandemic

This series of studies examined U.S. individuals' use of specific emotion regulation/coping strategies during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, investigated the factor structure among strategies during this universally experienced stressor, and the extent to which these factors predicted engagement in COVID-related health-promoting behaviors. In Study 1, participants (N = 520) rated their use of 17 strategies for coping with pandemic-related stress during the past 24 h. Differences emerged in strategy use across demographic groups (age, race, income). Results of exploratory factor analysis suggest a factor structure grouping strategies in terms of goals beyond emotion regulation per se, rather than phases of the emotion process or a binary adaptive versus maladaptive distinction. In Study 2 (N = 264), participants reported daily on their coping strategy use and weekly on their engagement in COVID-specific health behaviors for 22 days. Results of confirmatory factor analysis replicate the factor structure found in Study 1. Some significant associations of coping strategy use with health-promoting behaviors were observed, but these were sporadic and largely involved baseline measures rather than predicting change over time. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Competency,and other constructs,in right to die cases

Subjects had to make a “remove” or “do not remove” life-sustaining measures decision in three right to die cases where the patients differed in competence; for half the subjects, a living will was present in all the cases, whereas, for the other half, it was not. Subjects also gave their determinative reasons for their decisions. Support for the right to die varied by case, but not by competency, or by the presence of a living will. The subjects' reasons were highly predictive of their decisions, and related to the way case-specific facts were construed, revealing a number of disparities between the way courts and citizens construe whether the patient's condition is “terminal,” “irreversible,” and “painful,” or not. Beyond construing facts differently, the results also revealed a disparity between evolving case law and the community's “common sense justice” over a fundamental belief: whether dying is seen as private matter, outside the bounds of State intervention, or not.     

EFFECTS OF MEMORY AIDS ON THE DYADIC CONVERSATIONS OF INDIVIDUALS WITH DEMENTIA

The effects of a prosthetic memory aid on the conversational content and social skills of dyads with dementia were evaluated. Six individuals with moderate to severe dementia served as either subject or partner in dyads during 5-min conversational probes conducted three times per week in daycare and nursing-home settings. During phases when a memory aid, consisting of personally relevant picture and sentence stimuli, was available, most subjects used their own aid to improve the quality of conversations by increasing the frequency of on-topic statements, diminishing nonproductive utterances, lengthening their conversational turn, and/or increasing the frequency of turns taken. Most partners demonstrated awareness of social discourse conventions by appropriately relinquishing conversational dominance, decreasing both content and nonproductive utterances, and increasing acknowledging or affirmative comments when subjects used memory aids. Naive judges' ratings of aided and unaided conversational samples on seven conversational dimensions reflected differences in perceptions of significant improvement as a function of the conversational discourse style of each dyad.