Necessity and Triviality

In this paper I argue that there are some sentences whose truth makes no demands on the world, being trivially true in that their truth-conditions are trivially met. I argue that this does not amount to their truth-conditions being met necessarily: we need a non-modal understanding of the notion of the demands the truth of a sentence makes, lest we be blinded to certain conceptual possibilities. I defend the claim that the truths of pure mathematics and set theory are trivially true, and hence accepting their truth brings no ontological commitment; I further defend the claim that the truths of applied mathematics and set theory do not demand the existence of numbers or sets. While the notion of a demand must not be reduced to anything modal, I nonetheless argue that sentences that are trivially true must also be necessary, lest we violate a very weak version of the principle that truth depends on the world. I further argue that all necessary truths are trivially true, lest we admit unexplained necessities. I end by showing one important consequence of this: I argue that if there are truthmakers for intrinsic predications, they must be states of affairs rather than tropes.     

Perceived Benefits Following Sport Injury: A Qualitative Examination of their Antecedents and Underlying Mechanisms

The purpose of the present study was to describe the development and validation of the Self-Talk Questionnaire (S-TQ), designed to measure two functions of self-talk strategies, namely the motivational function and the cognitive function, used by athletes to enhance their sport performances. The study was conducted in three phases. The first phase targeted item selection and content relevance. The second phase set out to test the factor structure of the instrument. The aim of the third phase was focused on further examination of the psychometric properties of the instrument. The results of an exploratory factor analysis provided adequate support for the instrument. The S-TQ consists of 11 items, representing two factors (motivational and cognitive). A confirmatory factor analysis showed an acceptable fit to the data. The factors were internally consistent, the correlations with external criteria were significant, and test-retest reliability values were very good. Examining the relationships between the S-TQ and similar constructs supported convergent validity. Discriminant validity was supported by correlations between the S-TQ and a different construct. The S-TQ appears to be a promising psychometric instrument that can be used in research and psychological intervention programs.     

Performance Accomplishment Information as Predictors of Self-Efficacy as a Function of Skill Level in Amateur Golf

The predictive capabilities of different types of performance accomplishment information (PAI) towards self-efficacy for amateur golfers were compared as a function of skill level. Male golfers (N = 197; skilled n = 84, lesser skilled n = 113) recorded self-efficacy levels before and after competitive golf performance. Multiple regression analyses revealed that handicap was the most significant predictor of PAI towards pre-round self-efficacy for skilled golfers while practice satisfaction was the most significant predictor for lesser skilled. Handicap achievement was a significant predictor of post-round self-efficacy for both skilled and lesser skilled golfers. The findings imply athletes of varying skill level utilize different information when developing efficacy beliefs. Further study of the relationship between PAI and self-efficacy is therefore warranted in the sports domain.     

Heterogeneity of strategy use in the Iowa gambling task: A comparison of win-stay/lose-shift and reinforcement learning models

The Iowa gambling task (IGT) has been used in numerous studies, often to examine decision-making performance in different clinical populations. Reinforcement learning (RL) models such as the expectancy valence (EV) model have often been used to characterize choice behavior in this work, and accordingly, parameter differences from these models have been used to examine differences in decision-making processes between different populations. These RL models assume a strategy whereby participants incrementally update the expected rewards for each option and probabilistically select options with higher expected rewards. Here we show that a formal model that assumes a win-stay/lose-shift (WSLS) strategy—which is sensitive only to the outcome of the previous choice—provides the best fit to IGT data from about half of our sample of healthy young adults, and that a prospect valence learning (PVL) model that utilizes a decay reinforcement learning rule provides the best fit to the other half of the data. Further analyses suggested that the better fits of the WSLS model to many participants’ data were not due to an enhanced ability of the WSLS model to mimic the RL strategy assumed by the PVL and EV models. These results suggest that WSLS is a common strategy in the IGT and that both heuristic-based and RL-based models should be used to inform decision-making behavior in the IGT and similar choice tasks.     

Collective Efficacy as a Task Specific Process: Examining the Relationship Between Social Ties, Neighborhood Cohesion and the Capacity to Respond to Violence, Delinquency and Civic Problems

In the neighborhood effects literature, collective efficacy is viewed as the key explanatory process associated with the spatial distribution of a range of social problems. While many studies usefully focus on the consequences of collective efficacy, in this paper we examine the task specificity of collective efficacy and consider the individual and neighborhood factors that influence residents’ perceptions of neighborhood collective efficacy for specific tasks. Utilizing survey and administrative data from 4,093 residents nested in 148 communities in Australia, we distinguish collective efficacy for particular threats to social order and assess the relative importance of social cohesion and neighborhood social ties to the development of collective efficacy for violence, delinquency and civic/political issues. Our results indicate that a model separating collective efficacy for specific problems from social ties and the more generalized notions of social cohesion is necessary when understanding the regulation potential of neighborhoods.     

Journeys in Gang Masculinity: Insights from International Case Studies of Interventions

ABSTRACT

Drawing on formal interviews and ethnographic participant observation, this paper highlights how effective gang intervention programs can and do supplant negativistic masculine identities based on violent criminality with more positivistic masculine identities based on gainful employment, family life, and desistance. The authors examine how this transition occurs at three prominent gang intervention programs in diverse transnational contexts: Los Angeles, Glasgow, and Copenhagen. In contrast to earlier work, the paper also examines how gang members can revert back to negativistic masculine identities, criminality, and violence when the support that these programs provide is withdrawn.     

Sucking Behavior: A Review of the Literature

One hundred and twenty alienated alcoholics were exposed to high and low status models claiming task success rates of 25% or 50%. The effects of such modeling on the subjects' claimed task success and mood were complex. Subjects exposed to a two-peer 2.5% rate increased their claimed task success on two tasks and decreased their depressive mood. Subjects exposed to a single-peer 50% rate changed only mood scores apparently due to rejection of the model (Semantic Differential). Overall findings suggest that behavioral changes produced appropriate mood changes and that modeling of modest success rates can produce these changes.