Expectancy-value models of health behaviour: An analysis by conjoint measurement

Various studies in the health area consistently rejected the multiplicative combination between severity and probability of threat which is predicted by expectancy-value (EV) theories. It is hypothesized here, that this negative evidence may be due to an overly demanding assumption underlying the multiplicative combination, namely, the assumption that people are able to performs trade-offs between expectancies and valences. This hypothesis is tested in two studies in which subjects judged hypothetical health threats. Results from a nonparametric analysis (conjoint measurement) of individual data (Study 1) and an experimental study of trade-off judgments (Study 2) are mostly consistent with the prediction. Unexpectedly, however, an ANOVA of the aggregate data of Study 1 yielded a small, but significant effect consistent with the multiplicative assumption. Whereas this latter result can be interpreted as evidencing an attempt to perform trade-offs, the overall results show as predicted that trade-off judgments are associated with a systematic error component due to the inherent difficulty of this type of judgment.     

Humanizing education: Dewey's concepts of a democratic society and purpose in education revisited

Humanizing education in a democratic society requires an adequate conception of democratic life. Dewey's ideal of a society with free interaction among groups and extensive sharing of interests provides such a vision. His idea of purposing, as a key ingredient in meaningful learning, thought and action, also gives depth to the concept of education in democracy.     

Mathematical Indispensability and Arguments from Design

Philosophia - The recognition of striking regularities in the physical world plays a major role in the justification of hypotheses and the development of new theories both in the natural sciences...     

Modeling consensus emergence in groups using longitudinal multilevel methods

Organizational researchers have long been interested in studying bottom‐up multilevel processes where lower level units (e.g., employees) in organizations interact to jointly create characteristics of higher level units (e.g., work groups). This article contributes to the literature on bottom‐up processes by detailing a statistical approach—the consensus emergence model (CEM)—that allows researchers to study emergence of shared perceptions and feelings or climates in groups over time. The described methodological approach extends standard multilevel methodology by examining residual variances within a growth model to account for dynamic change in group consensus. The CEM provides a formal test for consensus emergence. The approach also allows researchers to test explanatory models of consensus emergence by including person‐level, group‐level, and observation‐level predictors. We illustrate the CEM by applying the method to data from two longitudinal studies of work units. The first study investigated job satisfaction in military companies. Our second study examined professional archeologists working in groups on a field excavation mission and focused on fatigue at the end of the work day. Our analyses demonstrate the CEM's ability to detect and study emergence, and suggest that the CEM may be a valuable tool to help extend the study of emergence in organizational research.     

Breaking the Habit: On the Highly Habitualized Nature of Meat Consumption and Implementation Intentions as One Effective Way of Reducing It

Reducing meat consumption is an important element of an effective climate protection strategy, but meat consumption is highly habitualized and therefore difficult to change. This article uses an extended version of the theory of planned behavior with habit strength as additional predictor. In one longitudinal (N?=?227) and one prospective correlational study (N?=?212), attitudes toward and perceived ease of meat consumption reduction explained about 60% of variance of meat consumption reduction intentions, with habit strength being the strongest correlate of actual self-reported meat consumption. A third experimental study (N?=?192) demonstrated that implementation intentions can be an effective strategy for realizing reduction aims. We discuss the central role of habits for meat consumption.     

Learning to Reach by Constraining the Movement Search Space

Trial‐and‐error learning strategies play a central role in sensorimotor development during early infancy. However, learning to reach by trial‐and‐error normally requires a slow and laborious search through the space of possible movements. We propose a computational model of reaching based on the notion that early sensorimotor control is driven by the generation of exploratory movements, followed by the selection and maintenance of adaptive movement patterns. We find that, instead of exhaustively exploring the full search space of movement patterns, the model exploits several emergent constraints that limit the initial size of the movement search space. These constraints exploit both mechanical and kinematic properties of the reaching task. We relate these results to the development of reaching during infancy, and discuss recent findings that have identified similar constraints in young infants.     

A (R)evaluation of Nietzsche’s Anti-democratic Pedagogy: The Overman,Perspectivism, and Self-overcoming

In this paper, I argue that Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of self-overcoming has been largely misinterpreted in the philosophy of education journals. The misinterpretation partially stems from a misconstruction of Nietzsche’s perspectivism, and leads to a conception of self-overcoming that is inconsistent with Nietzsche’s educational ideals. To show this, I examine some of the prominent features of the so-called “debate” of the 1980s surrounding Nietzsche’s conception of self-overcoming. I then offer an alternative conception that is more consistent with Nietzsche’s thought, and provides a more nuanced understanding of Nietzsche’s “anti-democratic” pedagogy. Ultimately, I argue that while Nietzsche’s educational philosophy is not egalitarian, it can be effectively utilized in “democratic” classrooms, assuming his concept of self-overcoming is properly construed.