Can Robert Adams Survive Moral Twin Earth?

Richard Boyd and Robert Adams have both developed semantic accounts of moral terms based on Hilary Putnam's causal regulation theory for natural kind terms, according to which the terms in question refer to the properties which predominantly causally regulated the terms. However, Terence Horgan and Mark Timmons have mounted an objection to Boyd's semantics—their Moral Twin Earth argument. If this argument is successful against Boyd then it might be thought that it should also be successful against Adams, given the similarity between their semantic accounts. I will argue in this essay that Adams's semantics is sufficiently different from Boyd's to enable him to survive Moral Twin Earth, but that he is vulnerable to a modified version of Moral Twin Earth that I describe.     

Enhancing feedback and improving feedback: subjective perceptions,psychological consequences,behavioral outcomes

Three experiments examined subjective perceptions, psychological consequences, and behavioral outcomes of enhancing versus improving feedback. Across experiments, feedback delivery and assessment were sequential (i.e., at each testing juncture) or cumulative (i.e., at the end of the testing session). Although enhancing feedback was seen as more satisfying than useful, and improving feedback was not seen as more useful than satisfying, perceptions differed as a function of short‐term versus long‐term feedback delivery and assessment. Overall, however, enhancing feedback was more impactful psychologically and behaviorally. Enhancing feedback engendered greater success consistency, overall satisfaction and usefulness, optimism, state self‐esteem, perceived ability, and test persistence intentions; improving feedback, on the other hand, engendered greater state improvement. The findings provide fodder for theory development and applications.     

An integrated model for guiding the selection of treatment components for problem behavior maintained by automatic reinforcement

We evaluated the usefulness of 2 assessments to guide treatment selection for individuals whose prior functional analysis indicated that automatic reinforcement maintained their problem behavior. In the 1st assessment, we compared levels of problem behavior during a noncontingent play condition and an alone or ignore condition. In the 2nd, we assessed participants’ relative preferences for automatic reinforcement and social reinforcers in a concurrent‐operants arrangement. We used the results of these 2 assessments to assign 5 participants to a treatment based on noncontingent access to social reinforcers or to a treatment based on differential access to social reinforcers. We conducted monthly probes with the participants over 10 to 12 months to evaluate the effects of the treatment procedures. All participants showed reductions in problem behavior over this period.     

Three‐year‐olds express suspense when an agent approaches a scene with a false belief

Research on early false belief understanding has entirely relied on affect‐neutral measures such as judgments (standard tasks), attentional allocation (looking duration, preferential looking, anticipatory looking), or active intervention. We used a novel, affective measure to test whether preschoolers affectively anticipate another's misguided acts. In two experiments, 3‐year‐olds showed more expressions of suspense (by, e.g. brow furrowing or lip biting) when they saw an agent approach a scene with a false as opposed to a true belief (Experiment 1) or ignorance (Experiment 2). This shows that the children anticipated the agent's surprise and disappointment when encountering reality. The findings suggest that early implicit knowledge of false beliefs includes anticipations of the affective implications of erring. This vital dimension of beliefs should no longer be ignored in research on early theory of mind.