Contracting From Epistemic Hell is Routine

I respond to Erik Olsson's critique of my account of contraction frominconsistent belief states, by admitting that such contraction cannot be rationalized as adeliberate decision problem. It can, however, be rationalized as a routine designed prior toinadvertent expansion into inconsistency when the deliberating agent embraces a consistent point of view.     

Predicting Parent-Child Aggression Risk in Mothers and Fathers: Role of Emotion Regulation and Frustration Tolerance

Efforts to identify targets that could be instrumental for child abuse prevention programs have often implicated stress as a key risk factor. However, existing research has not adequately considered the role of emotion dysregulation and frustration intolerance in predicting parents’ risk to engage in parent-child aggression (PCA). In addition, research in this field continues to focus heavily on mothers, with limited attention to fathers. Thus, the current study investigated whether perceived stress and distress, emotion dysregulation, and frustration intolerance independently predicted risk of PCA in a sample of 81 couples; moreover, the study evaluated whether emotion regulation or frustration tolerance mediated or moderated the association between stress and PCA risk. Findings indicated that each of the risk factors uniquely predicted PCA risk after controlling for demographic factors; neither emotion dysregulation nor frustration intolerance moderated the association between stress and PCA risk but emotion regulation did partially mediate this association. No significant differences in the pattern of these relationships were observed between mothers and fathers. Future research directions are discussed, including methodological considerations as well as evaluating how emotion regulation skills training and improved parental frustration tolerance may prevent parent-child aggression.     

To be or not to be (ethnic): Public vs. private expressions of ethnic identification differentially impact national inclusion of White and non-White groups

Many pluralistic nations are witnessing vigorous debate about multiculturalism. In the U.S., Americans generally embrace principles of ethnic diversity but dislike minorities who express strong ethnic identification. Two experiments examined this seeming contradiction by differentiating between ethnic identity expressed in private vs. public by non-White and White individuals. Then we tested whether individuals' identity expressions differentially affected perceivers' construal of their entire ethnic group as legitimately American. Results indicated that at a conscious level, White and non-White ethnic groups were held to the same standard and construed as significantly less American when members expressed their ethnic identity publicly vs. privately. However, at an unconscious level, a double standard emerged: non-White ethnic groups were implicitly rejected as less American if members expressed ethnic identity publicly, while White ethnics were implicitly accepted as legitimate Americans regardless of where they expressed ethnic identity.     

Meta-analytic Decisions and Reliability: A Serendipitous Case of Three Independent Telecommuting Meta-analyses

Purpose  

Despite the potential for researcher decisions to negatively impact the reliability of meta-analysis, very few methodological studies have examined this possibility. The present study compared three independent and concurrent telecommuting meta-analyses in order to determine how researcher decisions affected the process and findings of these studies.     

Predicting ADHD Symptoms in Adolescence from Early Childhood Temperament Traits

Extreme levels of certain temperament traits can be early markers of different developmental pathways of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, the long-term utility of using these traits as predictors of ADHD is not fully known. This study includes 64 male adolescents (M age = 13.5), who have been followed since birth as part of a longitudinal study. The primary aim was to test effortful control (EC), activity level, and anger, measured in early childhood – both with mother’s reports and laboratory assessments –as predictors of ADHD symptoms in adolescence. Further, we investigated the specificity of this prediction to the different ADHD symptom domains. The results demonstrated that early temperament dimensions of EC and activity level were predictive of ADHD symptoms about 10 years later, when the participants reached adolescence. Moreover, activity level showed specificity only to hyperactivity-impulsivity symptoms whereas EC was a predictor of the two symptom domains. Anger had a predictive correlation with ADHD symptoms; however, it did not have a unique predictive contribution. These results emphasize the relevance of EC and activity level in the developmental course of ADHD. Identification of early risk factors can lead to more efficient design and implementation of intervention programs.     

The Power of Powerlessness

Philosophers should forget what they think they know about divine assistance, power, control, up‐to‐usness, freedom‐from and free will, when it comes to alcoholism, given what Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) says. Alcoholics will never be free of their alcoholism; although it is up to them to acknowledge their powerlessness over alcohol, often that is not possible until they hit bottom, and even then they might not acquire the power of powerlessness without help from a Higher Power. After explaining and defending these insights of AA, the unwarranted assumptions behind how philosophers (and others) criticise them are identified.     

At the threshold of knowledge

We explore consequences of the view that to know a proposition your rational credence in the proposition must exceed a certain threshold. In other words, to know something you must have evidence that makes rational a high credence in it. We relate such a threshold view to Dorr et al.’s (Philosophical Studies 170(2):277–287, 2014) argument against the principle they call fair coins: “If you know a coin won’t land tails, then you know it won’t be flipped.” They argue for rejecting fair coins because it leads to a pervasive skepticism about knowledge of the future. We argue that the threshold view of evidence and knowledge gives independent grounds to reject fair coins.     

Status of the provoker,opportunity to retaliate,and interest in video violence

Two hypotheses derived from affect-dependent stimulus arrangement theory [Zillmann D, Bryant J (1985): In: “Selective Exposure to Communication.” Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Associates.] were tested: (1) provoked persons will express less interest in seeing video violence than will those not provoked, unless they anticipate an opportunity to retaliate against their provocateur; and (2) when provoked persons anticipate an opportunity to retaliate against a provocateur who is not high status, they will express greater interest in seeing video violence than will those not provoked. After being provoked or not provoked by a high or low status experimenter, half the 160 male college student participants were led to believe that their evaluation of the experimenter would determine the experimenter's grade for conducting the research, and half were not given any reason to expect an opportunity to evaluate him. Then each man indicated his degree of interest in seeing each of twelve video selections that had been described in brief paragraphs, three each in four content categories: aggressive, humorous, mildly erotic, and neutral. In confirmation of the first hypothesis, provoked subjects who did not anticipate opportunity to retaliate expressed less interest in seeing aggressive material than did those not provoked. In relationship to the second hypothesis, provoked subjects showed the greatest interest in aggressive video material when they anticipated an opportunity to retaliate against a low status provocateur, but their interest was not greater than corresponding nonangered subjects. The effect of provocation upon interest in the other categories of video material was generally in line with what would be predicted from the theory. When there was no anticipated opportunity to retaliate, interest in humorous material was greater in provoked subjects than in those not provoked. In the case of the mildly erotic category of video selections, there was less interest expressed among provoked subjects when they anticipated having a chance to retaliate against a low status experimenter.