Affect and the computer game player: the effect of gender, personality, and game reinforcement structure on affective responses to computer game-play.

Previous research on computer games has tended to concentrate on their more negative effects (e.g., addiction, increased aggression). This study departs from the traditional clinical and social learning explanations for these behavioral phenomena and examines the effect of personality, in-game reinforcement characteristics, gender, and skill on the emotional state of the game-player. Results demonstrated that in-game reinforcement characteristics and skill significantly effect a number of affective measures (most notably excitement and frustration). The implications of the impact of game-play on affect are discussed with reference to the concepts of "addiction" and "aggression."     

The woodcock reading mastery test: impact of normative changes

This study examined the magnitude of differences in standard scores, convergent validity, and concurrent validity when an individual's performance was gauged using the revised and the normative update (Woodcock, 1998) editions of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test in which the actual test items remained identical but norms have been updated. From three metropolitan areas, 899 first to third grade students referred by their teachers for a reading intervention program participated. Results showed the inverse Flynn effect, indicating systematic inflation averaging 5 to 9 standard score points, regardless of gender, IQ, city site, or ethnicity, when calculated using the updated norms. Inflation was greater at lower raw score levels. Implications for using the updated norms for identifying children with reading disabilities and changing norms during an ongoing study are discussed.     

Childhood psychological maltreatment,sense of self,and PTSD symptoms in emerging adulthood

This study outlines the relationships among childhood psychological maltreatment (CPM), an understudied form of maltreatment, sense of self (SOS), a developmental construct negatively impacted by trauma, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in emerging adults. Results from regression analysis on a sample of emerging adults (N = 358) indicated CPM to be the greatest predictor of a weaker SOS, even when considered alongside other types of child maltreatment. Among those exposed to CPM, SOS was a significant predictor of PTSD symptoms, explaining 34.1% of the variance in the outcome. Counseling interventions that focus on SOS during emerging adulthood are recommended as one important consideration for survivors of CPM who experience PTSD symptoms. Specific counseling practice and research implications are included.     

Libertarianism and agentive experience

Libertarianism about free will conjoins the thesis that free will requires indeterminism with the thesis that we have free will. Here the claim that we have experiential evidence for the libertarian position is assessed. It is argued that, on a straightforward reading, the claim is false, for our experiences as agents don't support the claim that free will requires indeterminism. However, our experiences as agents may still have a role to play in an overall case for libertarianism, insofar as they give us some (defeasible) reason to think that we have free will. This latter claim is defended against a pair of objections that have been leveled against it.     

Conceptualizing a Nonnatural Entity: Anthropomorphism in God Concepts

We investigate the problem of how nonnatural entities are represented by examining university students’ concepts of God, both professed theological beliefs and concepts used in comprehension of narratives. In three story processing tasks, subjects often used an anthropomorphic God concept that is inconsistent with stated theological beliefs; and drastically distorted the narratives without any awareness of doing so. By heightening subjects’ awareness of their theological beliefs, we were able to manipulate the degree of anthropomorphization. This tendency to anthropomorphize may be generalizable to other agents. God (and possibly other agents) is unintentionally anthropomorphized in some contexts, perhaps as a means of representing poorly understood nonnatural entities.     

VARIETIES OF VIRTUE ETHICS

The revival of virtue ethics over the last thirty-five years has produced a bewildering diversity of theories, which on the face of it seem united only by their opposition to various features of more familiar Kantian and Utilitarian ethical theories. In this paper I present a systematic account of the main positive features of virtue ethics, by articulating the common ground shared by its different varieties. I do so not to offer a fresh defence of virtue ethics, but rather to provide a conceptual map that locates its main claims and arguments in relation to those of rival theories, and identifies its distinctive contribution to contemporary ethics. I set out six specific claims which are made by all forms of virtue ethics, and I explain how these claims distinguish the theory from recent character-based forms of Kantian ethics and Utilitarianism. I then use this framework to briefly survey two main strands of virtue ethics which have been developed in the literature.¹     

A study of drop-outs from a minor seminary

Conclusions No valid conclusions can be drawn from a short study of six seminarians.The study seems to indicate the need for a more thorough screening of candidates.The mode of reaction to sexual drives is apparently an important factor in the pursuit of a celibate career.     

Experimental Philosophy of Pain

Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research - The standard view of pains among philosophers today is that their existence consists in being experienced. The typical line of support offered...