Individual values and well-being: The moderating role of personality traits

This study examined the role of values, traits and their interactions for the experience of eudaimonic and hedonic well-being. First wave studies on value and well-being relationships yielded inconsistent results suggesting that these relationships are moderated by other factors, possibly by personality traits. We asked a representative sample of adult Poles (N = 1161) to report on their personality traits (according to five-factor theory), values (conceptualised by Schwartz) and well-being (hedonic and eudaimonic). Results showed, that higher Extraversion, Emotional stability, Intellect, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were related to higher well-being, confirming and expanding claims from personality theory of subjective well-being: stable predispositions are related not only to subjective, but also to eudaimonic well-being. Values expressing Openness to change, Self-transcendence and Conservation were also positively correlated with well-being, while the role of Self-enhancement was unclear. This confirmed that growth needs expressed in Openness to change and Self-transcendence values promote well-being, but also that values expressing deficiency needs can be positively related to well-being, possibly in specific circumstances. Finally, the two levels of personality (traits and values) proved to have a joint relationship to well-being: higher Conscientiousness and Agreeableness enhanced positive relationships of Openness to change and Self-transcendence with some aspects of well-being.     

Patents and ethics: Is it possible to be balanced?

In this presentation, principles of ethics are confronted with the desire of the inventor to make a profit. To this end the presentation is focused on patent protection. Patents should guarantee the return of an inventor’s investment and profit and, on the other side, ensure availability — by patent disclosure — of the invention for the society when the patent terminates. Recent patent applications made by inventors are infringing this principle and societies are paying an unexpected price for these practices. Patent claims are too broad and disclosures too poor. Extreme examples will be discussed. An earlier version of this paper was presented at an international conference, “The Ethics of Intellectual Property Rights and Patents,” held in Warsaw, Poland on 23–24 April, 2004.     

Complex effects of NMDA receptor antagonist APV in the basolateral amygdala on acquisition of two-way avoidance reaction and long-term fear memory

Although much has been learned about the role of the amygdala in Pavlovian fear conditioning, relatively little is known about an involvement of this structure in more complex aversive learning, such as acquisition of an active avoidance reaction. In the present study, rats with a pretraining injection of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, 2-amino-5-phosphonopentanoic acid (APV), into the basolateral amygdala (BLA) were found to be impaired in two-way active avoidance learning. During multitrial training in a shuttle box, the APV-injected rats were not different from the controls in sensitivity to shock or in acquisition of freezing to contextual cues. However, APV injection led to impaired retention of contextual fear when tested 48 h later, along with an attenuation of c-Fos expression in the amygdala. These results are consistent with the role of NMDA receptors of the BLA in long-term memory of fear, previously documented in Pavlovian conditioning paradigms. The APV-induced impairment in the active avoidance learning coincided with deficits in directionality of the escape reaction and in attention to conditioned stimuli. These data indicate that normal functioning of NMDA receptors in the basolateral amygdala is required during acquisition of adaptive instrumental responses in a shuttle box but is not necessary for acquisition of short-term contextual fear in this situation.     

Defense mechanisms in alexithymia

The Polish version of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 and Defense Mechanisms Questionnaire were completed by 387 university students. Scores on alexithymia correlate significantly with scores on the whole group of 12 immature defenses (Pearson r = .39, p < .001) and with scores on such individual immature defense mechanisms as Autistic Fantasy (r = .39), Somatization (r = .37), Projection (r = .32), and Displacement (r = .32). These results support other findings indicating that alexithymia is significantly associated with immature ego defenses.     

Information retrieval with semantic memory model

Psycholinguistic theories of semantic memory form the basis of understanding of natural language concepts. These theories are used here as an inspiration for implementing a computational model of semantic memory in the form of semantic network. Combining this network with a vector-based object-relation-feature value representation of concepts that includes also weights for confidence and support, allows for recognition of concepts by referring to their features, enabling a semantic search algorithm. This algorithm has been used for word games, in particular the 20-question game in which the program tries to guess a concept that a human player thinks about. The game facilitates lexical knowledge validation and acquisition through the interaction with humans via supervised dialog templates. The elementary linguistic competencies of the proposed model have been evaluated assessing how well it can represent the meaning of linguistic concepts. To study properties of information retrieval based on this type of semantic representation in contexts derived from on-going dialogs experiments in limited domains have been performed. Several similarity measures have been used to compare the completeness of knowledge retrieved automatically and corrected through active dialogs to a “golden standard”. Comparison of semantic search with human performance has been made in a series of 20-question games. On average results achieved by human players were better than those obtained by semantic search, but not by a wide margin.     

What chance-credence norms should be

Synthese - Multiple realizability says that the same kind of mental states may be manifested by systems with very different physical constitutions. Putnam (1967) supposed it to be...     

Argumentative Polylogues in a Dialectical Framework: A Methodological Inquiry

In this paper, we closely examine the various ways in which a multi-party argumentative discussion—argumentative polylogue—can be analyzed in a dialectical framework. Our chief concern is that while multi-party and multi-position discussions are characteristic of a large class of argumentative activities, dialectical approaches would analyze and evaluate them in terms of dyadic exchanges between two parties: pro and con. Using as an example an academic committee arguing about the researcher of the year as well as other cases from argumentation literature, we scrutinize the advantages and pitfalls of applying a dialectical framework to polylogue analysis and evaluation. We recognize two basic dialectical methods: interpreting polylogues as exchanges between two main camps and splitting polylogues into a multitude of dual encounters. On the basis of this critical inquiry, we lay out an argument expressing the need for an improved polylogical model and propose its basic elements.