Larger reward values alone are not enough to entice more cooperation

Two experiments using an iterated prisoner's dilemma game examined under which conditions participants' cooperation rates would either change due to monetary value changes (e.g., 3 cents to 3 dollars) or not change due to numeric value changes (e.g., 3 dollars to 300 cents). A total of 102 university students played the game against a computer that employed one of four strategies across blocks. Results showed high rates of cooperation when participants played against a tit-for-tat strategy and low rates of cooperation against a random strategy. There was no change in cooperation rates due to changes in numeric value alone and a decrease in cooperation rates when large monetary values were at stake. Cooperation rates were higher and cooperation responses slower at earlier stages of the game. I argue that people's ability to strategize plays a key role in the changing rates and speed of cooperative behaviour in the prisoner's dilemma.     

An Evaluation of Weighting Methods Based on Propensity Scores to Reduce Selection Bias in Multilevel Observational Studies

Observational studies of multilevel data to estimate treatment effects must consider both the nonrandom treatment assignment mechanism and the clustered structure of the data. We present an approach for implementation of four propensity score (PS) methods with multilevel data involving creation of weights and three types of weight scaling (normalized, cluster-normalized and effective), followed by estimation of multilevel models with the multilevel pseudo-maximum likelihood estimation method. Using a Monte Carlo simulation study, we found that the multilevel model provided unbiased estimates of the Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATT) and its standard error across manipulated conditions and combinations of PS model, PS method, and type of weight scaling. Estimates of between-cluster variances of the ATT were biased, but improved as cluster sizes increased. We provide a step-by-step demonstration of how to combine PS methods and multilevel modeling to estimate treatment effects using multilevel data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K).     

Reading and Writing: Psychoanalytical Treatment in a Case of Paranoia

Difficulties encountered in clinical work with psychoses require psychoanalytical approaches different from those used for treating neurosis. The authors use a clinical case of a paranoiac patient to highlight the role played by writing, drawing, and painting in the psychoanalytical treatment of psychosis. They also discuss the role of the reader-analyst in this patient’s transferential process, which led to the emergence of a new subjectivity.     

The Refined Extension Principle for Semantics of Dynamic Logic Programming

Over recent years, various semantics have been proposed for dealing with updates in the setting of logic programs. The availability of different semantics naturally raises the question of which are most adequate to model updates. A systematic approach to face this question is to identify general principles against which such semantics could be evaluated. In this paper we motivate and introduce a new such principle the refined extension principle. Such principle is complied with by the stable model semantics for (single) logic programs. It turns out that none of the existing semantics for logic program updates, even though generalisations of the stable model semantics, comply with this principle. For this reason, we define a refinement of the dynamic stable model semantics for Dynamic Logic Programs that complies with the principle.     

Subjects At-Risk for Genetic Diseases in Portugal: Illness Representations

This study investigates illness representations of subjects at-risk for 3 autosomal dominant late-onset disorders: Familial Amyloid Polyneuropathy (FAP) TTR V30M, Huntington’s disease (HD) and Machado-Joseph disease (MJD), comparing them with the illness representations of subjects at-risk for Hemochromatosis (HH). The present study included a clinical group that consisted of 213 subjects at genetic risk (FAP, HD and MJD), comprising 174 subjects at-risk for FAP, 34 subjects at-risk for HD and only 5 subjects at-risk for MJD; and the control group consisting of 31 subjects at genetic risk for HH. All subjects at-risk were undergoing the process of genetic counseling to learn their genetic status (carrier or non-carrier). Subjects were assessed through a semi-structured single interview, in order to obtain sociodemographic data and the answer to an open-ended question relating to the illness representation issue: “What does this illness mean to you?/ What is this disease to you?” It was in the subjects’ metaphors that subjects best expressed what they felt regarding the disease and the situation of being at-risk for this disease. Family is their mirror and their source of learning and, therefore, it is inevitable that family is related to the meaning of the disease itself.     

Is Fallibility an Epistemological Shortcoming?

A familiar form of scepticism supposes that knowledge requires infallibility. Although that requirement plays no role in our ordinary epistemic practices, Barry Stroud has argued that this is not a good reason for rejecting a sceptical argument: our ordinary practices do not correctly reflect the requirements for knowledge because the appropriateness-conditions for knowledge attribution are pragmatic. Recent fashion in contextualist semantics for 'knowledge' agrees with this view of our practice, but incorrectly. Ordinary epistemic evaluations are guided by our conception of a person's standing with regard to the reasons that there are for and against the truth of a belief. Thus the objection from our ordinary practices is sound: fallibility is not an epistemological shortcoming, and a convincing sceptical argument must use only requirements which figure in ordinary epistemic practice.     

Behavioral variability as avoidance behavior

This study aimed to investigate whether variable patterns of responses can be acquired and maintained by negative reinforcement under an avoidance contingency. Six male Wistar rats were exposed to sessions in which behavioral variability was reinforced according to a Lag contingency: Sequences of three responses on two levers had to differ from one, two or three previous sequences for shocks to be avoided (Lag 1, Lag 2 and Lag 3, respectively). Performance under the Lag conditions was compared with performance on a Yoke condition in which the animals received the same reinforcement frequency and distribution as in the Lag condition but behavioral variability was not required. The results showed that most of the subjects varied their sequences under the Lag contingencies, avoiding shocks with relatively high probability (≥ 0.7). Under the Yoke procedure, responding continued to occur with high probability, but the behavioral variability decreased. These results suggest that behavioral variability can be negatively reinforced.     

Believing one’s reasons are good

Is it coherent to suppose that in order to hold a belief responsibly, one must recognize something else as a reason for it? This paper addresses this question by focusing on so-called “Inferential Internalist” principles, that is principles of the following form: in order for one to have positive epistemic status Ø in virtue of believing P on the basis of R, one must believe that R evidentially supports P, and one must have positive epistemic status Ø in relation to that latter belief as well. While such principles and their close relatives figure centrally in a wide variety of recent epistemological discussions, there is confusion in the literature about what, precisely, Inferential Internalism commits one to and whether it is so much as coherent. This paper (1) articulates a broader framework for understanding the notion of epistemic responsibility, (2) motivates Inferential Internalism on the basis of considerations about the basing relation, epistemic responsibility, and parallels with practical deliberation, (3) defends Inferential Internalism against charges of incoherence leveled by James Van Cleve and Paul Boghossian, and (4) shows that contrary to a currently widespread view, Inferential Internalism is coherent even if foundationalism and the a priori are rejected. The paper closes with a preliminary argument for an affirmative answer to the initiating question about the requirements of epistemic responsibility.     

Parenting and management skills: The mediator role of empathy

The present study aimed to test the effect of sex as well as the experience of parenting at the level of empathy and management skills and the mediating effect of empathy on the relationship between the experience of parenting and management skills. No differences were found between men and women concerning management skills. Women had higher empathy levels than men. Being a father or mother increased management skills and empathy levels. However, the experience of parenting interferes with management skills by increasing levels of empathy only in men. Career counselors need to considerer not only the processes inherent to each management task, but also the variables that intensify these competences, integrating emotional and relational dimensions.     

Epistemic Gradualism and Ordinary Epistemic Practice: Responce to Hetherington

This paper responds to Stephen Hetherington's discussion of my ‘Is Fallibility an Epistemological Shortcoming?’ (2004). The Infallibilist skeptic holds that in order to know something, one must be able to rule out every possible alternative to the truth of one’s belief. This requirement is false. In this paper I first clarify this requirement’s relation to our ordinary practice. I then turn to a more fundamental issue. The Infallibilist holds – along with many non-skeptical epistemologists – that Infallibility is epistemically superior to the epistemic position attained when we have (what we ordinarily call) knowledge. This is false, too, as our ordinary practices show. Ordinary epistemic appraisal does not concern our standing on a scale of evaluation which has Infallibility at its apex. For this reason, even if gradualism is correct, it does not show how Infallibilist skepticism can arise out of our ordinary practice.