ANIMAL SUFFERING,EVOLUTION, AND THE ORIGINS OF EVIL: TOWARD A “FREE CREATURES” DEFENSE

Does an affirmation of theistic evolution make the task of theodicy impossible? In this article, I will review a number of ancient and contemporary responses to the problem of evil as it concerns animal suffering and suggest a possible way forward which employs the ancient Jewish insight that evil—as resistance to God's will that results in suffering and alienation from God's purposes—precedes the arrival of human beings and already has a firm foothold in the nonhuman animal world long before humans are ever tempted to go astray. This theological intuition is conferred renewed relevance in light of the empirical reality of evolutionary gradualism and continuity and in view of the recent findings of cognitive ethology. Consequently, I suggest that taking biological evolution seriously entails understanding “moral evil” as a prehuman phenomenon that emerges gradually through the actions and intentions of “free creatures” which—as evolutionary history unfolded—increasingly possessed greater levels of freedom and degrees of moral culpability.     

Persistence is key: investigating innovative problem solving by Asian elephants using a novel multi-access box

Animal Cognition - Innovative problem solving is considered a hallmark measure of behavioral flexibility as it describes behavior by which an animal manipulates its environment in a novel way to...     

Working Hard to Take the Easy Way Out: How the Need for Cognitive Closure Shapes Strategic Effort Investment to Ease Future Decision Making

Consumers make countless decisions each day that force them to determine the amount of effort they are willing to invest into the decision process. Due to their desire for immediate resolution and propensity to seize upon available options, individuals high in the need for cognitive closure make decisions that are traditionally associated with reduced effort investment. Counter to this traditional perspective, this research demonstrates that those seeking closure strategically invest effort into the decision process, so long as the initial effort investment is expected to simplify similar decisions in the future. Three experiments demonstrate that those motivated by closure put forth greater effort when they expect to repeat the decision (Experiment 1) and in contexts where a justifiable choice option is not readily available (Experiment 2). Furthermore, this effort investment is shown to payoff in terms of streamlining subsequent decision making (Experiment 3). These findings detail the strategic use of effort by those seeking closure to ease future decision making and thus provide a conceptual framework for when and why those seeking closure allocate effort in decision making.     

What Makes Politicians “Religious”? How Identity Congruence Shapes Religious Evaluations

How do Americans evaluate politicians’ religiosity? We theorize extra-religious “identity congruence,” the perceived correspondence between others’ group identities and our own, will powerfully shape evaluations. We test this expectation using data from two large, nationally representative surveys that ask Americans to rate the religiosity of prominent politicians. Consistent with our theory, the strongest predictors of how Americans rate politicians’ religiosity are their congruence on party identification and ideological identity as well as expected alignments with racial identity and Christian nationalism. Respondents’ religious characteristics are relatively weak predictors. And these trends hold regardless of Americans’ knowledge of leaders’ professed religious identity. Patterns are consistent with our theory even when we split samples by party. When we compare ratings between politicians who are widely regarded as irreligious to those who are regarded as conventionally religious, partisan congruence and racial identity largely mitigate the religious advantage of the latter. Racial identity also moderates congruence on key factors. Finally, identity congruence on party, ideology, and Christian nationalism follows expected patterns even among secular Americans for whom “religious” less intuitively implies “my group.” In a time of growing identity-alignment along partisan, ideological, racial, and religious lines, extra-religious “identity congruence” powerfully shapes how Americans evaluate politicians’ religiosity.     

Beyond the Academic Journal: Unfreezing Misconceptions About Mental Illness and Gun Violence Through Knowledge Translation to Decision-Makers

In a policy arena characterized by polarized debate, such as the consideration of legal interventions to prevent gun violence, research evidence is an important tool to inform decision-making processes. However, unless the evidence is communicated to stakeholders who can influence policy decisions, the research will often remain an academic exercise with little practical impact. The Educational Fund to Stop Violence's process of “unfreezing” individual perceptions and conventional interpretations of the relationship between mental illness and gun violence, forming a consensus, and translating this knowledge to stakeholders through state discussion forums is one way to inform policy change. The recent passage of gun violence prevention legislation in California provides an example of successfully closing the knowledge translation gap between research and decision-making processes. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding Psychopathy Using the Basic Elements of Personality

Psychopathy is a form of personality disorder characterized by arrogance, self‐absorption, callousness, exploitation, and impulsivity that is also strongly associated with antisocial behavior. The present paper argues that psychopathy can and should be understood as a configuration of personality traits from a general model of personality functioning – the five‐factor model (FFM). In this paper, we demonstrate that previous theoretical conceptualizations of psychopathy and current empirical ones converge on a general FFM profile characterized by very low scores on agreeableness and conscientiousness and mixed relations to aspects of neuroticism and extraversion. Further, we articulate the advantages to understanding psychopathy in this way. The FFM provides an assay of extant inventories, explains the factor structure of various inventories, accounts for the epidemiology of psychopathy, and makes sense of the litany of putative psychopathic deficits. Perhaps most importantly, the FFM provides a connection to basic research in personality.     

Home-Based vs. Clinic-Based Parent–Child Interaction Therapy: Comparative Effectiveness in the Context of Dissemination and Implementation

Disruptive child behavior disorders remain a major public health issue despite the proliferation of several strong Evidence-Based Practices (EBPs) for these children and their families. This may stem from barriers to treatment facing many families in need, particularly families with low resources. Home-based treatment may be best suited for this population; however, EBPs are not always available or tested as home-based interventions. The current study compares an intensive home-based adaptation of Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) to the standard clinic-based model in the context of a statewide implementation. As part of the statewide implementation, therapists entered archival data into an online system. Data was gathered for 314 families receiving PCIT, with 181 children in clinic-based PCIT and 133 in intensive home-based PCIT. Consistent with other trials of PCIT, results of the current study indicate that both versions of the therapy were effective in reducing child-behavior problems and increasing parenting skills; however, there were marked differences in attrition. Intensive home-based participants were twice as likely to complete treatment (64.66%) compared to clinic-based participants (33.15%) despite facing more adversity. These results underscore the importance of scientifically-sound adaptations of EBPs, as well as the role of comparative effectiveness studies as a critical tool in the integrative model of intervention science.     

Linking Formal Child Care Characteristics to Children’s Socioemotional Well-Being: A Comparative Perspective

Most research on formal child care and children’s outcomes has focused on single countries. We, however, contend that policy context may moderate the association between formal child care characteristics and children’s socioemotional well-being. We examined this by comparing the Netherlands, Finland and the UK; three countries that differ regarding family policies. Of these three countries, Finland was recently ranked highest (ranked 1st) with regards to quality of child care in a recent analysis by the Economist, followed by the UK (ranked 3rd) and then the Netherlands (ranked 7th). We hypothesized that children who attend child-care settings in countries with higher-quality formal child-care provision would generally show better socioemotional outcomes. Data from the comparative ‘Families 24/7’ survey were used, including 990 parents with children aged 0–12. We distinguished between two age groups in our analysis. Results indicated that, compared to the UK, longer hours in formal care were less beneficial in the Netherlands. Furthermore, spending time in formal care during nonstandard hours was more harmful for children in Finland compared to the UK. Lastly, receiving care from multiple caregivers was more disruptive for British children than for Dutch children. No differences were found between Finland and the Netherlands.