How to be a Normative Expressivist1

Abstract. Expressivism can make space for normative objectivity by treating normative stances as pro or con attitudes that can be correct or incorrect. And it can answer the logical challenges that bedevil it by treating a simple normative assertion not merely as an expression of a normative stance, but as an expression of the endorsement of a proposition that is true if and only if that normative stance is correct. Although this position has superficial similarities to normative realism, it does full justice to the core expressivist thesis that, at bottom, a normative assertion expresses a normative stance rather than a factual belief.     

Indirect interception actions by blind and visually impaired perceivers: Echolocation for interceptive actions

Vernat, J.-P. & Gordon, M. S. (2010). Indirect interception actions by blind and visually impaired perceivers: Echolocation for interceptive actions. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 75–83.
This research examined the acoustic information used to support interceptive actions by the blind. Congenitally blind and severely visually impaired participants (all wearing an opaque, black eye-mask) were asked to listen to a target ball rolling down a track. In response, participants rolled their own ball along a perpendicular path to intercept the target. To better understand what information was used the echoic conditions and rolling dynamics of the target were varied across test sessions. In addition the rolling speed of the target and the distance of the participant from the target were varied across trials. Results demonstrated that participants tended to perform most accurately at moderate speeds and distances, overestimating the target's arrival at the fastest speed, and underestimating it at the slowest speed. However, changes to the target's dynamics, that is, the amount of deceleration it underwent on approach, did not strongly influence performance. Echoic conditions were found to affect performance, as participants were slightly more accurate in conditions with faster, higher-intensity echoes. Based on these results blind individuals in this research seemed to be using spatial and temporal cues to coordinate their interceptive actions.     

False Memories,Negative Affects,and Psychic Reality: The Role of Extra‐Clinical Data in Psychoanalysis1

Psychoanalysis as a treatment originated in the idea that neurosis is related to the ways in which individual psychic reality departs from actuality. Psychic reality includes memories, beliefs and their associated affects and fantasies connected with an individual's experience of the inner and outer world. The psychoanalytic determination of what meaningful memories or beliefs are inaccurate, distorted or false ordinarily relies upon principles of intra‐clinical validation. By itself, however, intra‐clinical validation is subject to limitations and pitfalls that conviction alone about what is actual cannot circumvent. Despite this fact, there are remarkably few analytic case reports demonstrating false or signifi cantly distorted memories through the use of data obtained from outside the consulting room. This paucity of reports may be related, at least in part, to the belief that the use of extra‐clinical data is essentially unanalytic or supports resistance. Based on the views that (a) psychic reality cannot be regarded as exclusively subjective or objective but is inherently both; and that (b) a goal of analysis is to achieve a different, acceptable and more accurate view of reality, the authors report a clinical case involving a confi rmably false pivotal memory and its associated negative affects. They discuss theoretical and technical considerations in utilizing extra‐clinical data during the treatment process.     

RELATIONSHIP OF PERSONALITY TRAITS AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVE WORK BEHAVIORS: THE MEDIATING EFFECTS OF JOB SATISFACTION

This study used path analysis to test a model that posits that relevant personality traits will have both direct relationships with counterproductive work behaviors (CPBs) and indirect relationships to CPBs through the mediating effects of job satisfaction. Based on a sample ( n = 141) of customer service employees, results generally supported the hypothesized model for both boss- and self-rated CPBs. Agreeableness had a direct relationship with interpersonal counterproductive work behaviors (CPB-I); Conscientiousness had a direct relationship with organizational counterproductive work behaviors (CPB-O); and, job satisfaction had a direct relationship to both CPB-I and CPB-O. In addition, job satisfaction partially mediated the relationship between Agreeableness and both CPB-O and CPB-I. Overall, results show that personality traits differentially predict CPBs and that employees' attitudes about their jobs explain, in part, these personality–behavior associations.     

APPLYING U.S. EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION LAWS TO INTERNATIONAL EMPLOYERS: ADVICE FOR SCIENTISTS AND PRACTITIONERS

The question of whether U.S. employment discrimination laws apply to international employers is complex and involves multiple sources of legal authority including U.S. statutes, international treaties, and the laws of non-American host countries. This article provides detailed and simplifying guidance to assist employers in working through that complexity. Based on an examination of 98 federal courts cases, this article identifies and explains 8 general guidelines for determining when U.S. laws apply to international employers (e.g., U.S. employees working abroad or "foreign" employees working in the United States). These guidelines are incorporated into an organizing framework or "decision tree" that leads employers through the various decisions that must be made to determine whether U.S. discrimination laws apply in a wide range of international employment situations. Guidance for industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists who advise international employers is provided and summarized in terms of general recommendations and conclusions.     

PUBLICATION BIAS: A CASE STUDY OF FOUR TEST VENDORS

This article has 2 goals. First, we discuss publication bias and explain why it presents a potential problem for industrial and organizational psychology. After reviewing the traditional failsafe N, or file drawer analysis, we introduce a more sophisticated method of publication bias analysis (trim and fill), which has been developed in the medical literature but is largely unfamiliar to industrial and organizational psychology researchers. Second, we demonstrate trim and fill by applying it to validity information reported in the technical manuals of 4 test vendors. In doing so, we assess the likelihood that criterion-related validity information provided by test publishers may overestimate test validity. In our analysis of 18 validity distributions, we found evidence of either no or minimal bias for 2 of the vendors' distributions and evidence of moderate-to-severe bias in at least 1 distribution from each of the other 2 vendors. In both cases in which publication bias was found, we noted instances in which the publishers tended to report only statistically significant correlations and that this practice was detected using publication bias methodology.     

A SUDDEN SURPRISE OF THE SOUL: THE PASSION OF WONDER IN HOBBES AND DESCARTES

Philosophy begins in wonder, according to Plato and Aristotle. However, they did not expand a great deal on what precisely wonder is. Does this fact alone not raise curiosity in us as to why this passion is important? What is its role in our thinking except to end as soon as one begins conceptually delimiting its nature? The thinkers Thomas Hobbes and René Descartes both expanded upon earlier brief articulations of wonder in natural, supernatural and practical ways. By means of an historical and philosophical examination of these two early modern thinkers, this article hopes to begin to answer the question: ‘What is wonder?’