The conditional-recency dissociation is confounded with nominal recency: Should unitary models of memory still be devaluated?

The conditional-recency dissociation between immediate and delayed free recall FR; Farrell (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36, 324–347, 2010) has critical implications regarding the prolonged debate between unitary and dual-store models of memory. In immediate FR, when the availability of items is controlled for, the recency of the final list item increases across the first few output positions. No such increase is found in delayed FR, with a trend in the opposite direction. This dissociation challenges temporal context TCM; Howard & Kahana (Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 46, 269–299, 2002) and distinctiveness SIMPLE; Brown, Neath, & Chater (Psychological Review, 114, 539–576, 2007) unitary models of memory and suggests the involvement of a short-term buffer in immediate FR. We show that this dissociation is confounded with the different magnitudes of nominal recency (i.e., the prevalence of the final list item) found in immediate as compared to delayed FR. By reshuffling output orders and comparing the empirical results to those of a null hypothesis of no output-order effect, we controlled for the greater prevalence of the final list item that has been observed in immediate FR. Under this control, we found no evidence for a dissociation in the tendency to recall the final list item across output positions. This finding suggests that the conditional-recency dissociation imposes no new constraint on unitary models of memory. More generally, we demonstrate how biases that influence measures of output-order tendencies (e.g., conditional recency) can be controlled for, thus yielding “purer” measures of these variables.     

中国背景下员工沉默的测量以及信任对其的影响

应用自行编制的员工沉默行为调查问卷,通过对928名被试的调查,对中国背景下员工沉默行为的结构维度进行了探讨。探索性因素分析结果表明,员工沉默由三个因素构成。三因素结构的结果在验证性因素分析中得到了证实。由此得到结论,员工沉默有三维结构：默许沉默、漠视沉默和防御沉默。以员工沉默的三个维度为因变量,以员工对上级和组织的信任为自变量进行回归分析,结果表明,员工对上级信任对员工沉默三个维度都有负面影响,而员工对组织信任对默许沉默和漠视沉默有负向影响,对防御沉默的影响并不显著     

PROBLEMS OF SINCERITY

ABSTRACT It is undeniable that the assumption of sincerity is important to assertion, and that assertion is central to the transmission of beliefs through human testimony. Discussions of testimony, however, often assume that the epistemic importance of sincerity to testimony is that of a (fallible) guarantee of access to the actual beliefs of the speaker. Other things being equal, we would do as well or better if we had some kind of unmediated access to the beliefs of the other person, without the risks involved in the overt act of speaking, and the assumption of sincerity in speech is the closest we can come to this access. Contrary to this picture, I argue that sincerity has a quite different epistemic role to play in testimony than that of an indicator of the speaker's beliefs. The epistemology of testimony requires reference to the speaker as agent, and not just the speaker's beliefs, as well as a sense of 'expression of belief that links it to the specifically addressive relation to another person.     

When performance goals deter performance: Transfer of skills in integrative negotiations

The current study deals with the ability of teams to learn and transfer complex knowledge across situations and therefore achieve better long term performance. In an experiment on integrative (value-creating) negotiations, High Learning Teams (with learning goals, high learning values, and team discussions) and Low Learning Teams (with performance goals, low learning values, and no team discussions) participated first in a repeated integrative negotiation task and then in a new more complex one. In the first task both types of teams improved their performance over time. However, in the second transfer task, when conditions changed, High Learning Teams performed better than Low Learning Teams. Findings indicate that the High Learning Teams’ advantage cannot be attributed to the discussion alone. Furthermore, for the Low Learning Teams, negative transfer was observed: when faced with a new component, not experienced before, these teams performed worse than teams that had no experience at all.     

And All is Always Now: Contemplations on Artistic Talent

This paper aims to suggest the notion of layers of dying, as a metaphorical discussion of states that call for the breakdown of opposites and a unification in the form of a lived experience. Artistic talent is seen as a personal capacity to sustain such a state and transform it into a communicative form that is accessible to us all. Winnicott, in his “fear of breakdown” paper is a main source of influence, along with Bion who encouraged the articulation of “stray thoughts.”

Missed opportunity for creating value in negotiations: reluctance to making Integrative Gambit Offers

In the present study we address a multi‐issue negotiation agenda, where several issues are under consideration and parties have different priorities among these issues. We suggest that in such agendas loss aversion and within issue anchoring may constrain the configuration of offers that parties propose to each other during the course of negotiation. We specifically focus on offers in which negotiators self‐propose to give the other party more than was demanded on one of the issues, while still maintaining or improving their overall value. We term such offers Integrative Gambit Offers (“IGO”s) and show that although making such offers improves integrative negotiation outcome, the frequency of making them is relatively low, and does not increase as negotiators gain experience with the task. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The mystery of the well-attended group. A model of Personal Construct Therapy for adolescent self-harm and depression in a community CAMHS service

This paper describes a style of weekly group therapy offered in a city CAMHS department for adolescent girls who are depressed and self-harming. Research has found that such girls typically have other psychological problems, such as anger, anxiety, low self-esteem, poor school performance, grief reactions and poor school attendance. This paper describes a group based upon Personal Construct Theory (Kelly, 1955 Kelly, G. (1955). The psychology of personal constructs, Vol. 1. New York: Routledge  [Google Scholar]) which addresses the management of symptoms and the problems underlying them. It takes into account each girl's unique history and her personal priorities, and group sessions aim to encourage each individual to understand and address their own difficulties. The group is open, has no set number of sessions to attend, and has no set week-by-week curriculum. Instead, it takes the individual's personal construction of their difficulties and works with it through the principles and techniques of Personal Construct Therapy. The group has been well-attended and has a positive atmosphere in sessions with the emphasis upon each individual taking responsibility for her own progress inside and outside the group. This paper will describe the principles and practice that are used in the group and the need for further research into the efficacy of this therapeutic treatment is highlighted.     

Psychometric properties of scales in the General Nordic Questionnaire for Psychological and Social Factors at Work (QPSNordic): Confirmatory factor analysis and prediction of certified long-term sickness absence

Psychometric properties, particularly predictive validity, of scales in the General Nordic Questionnaire for Psychological and Social Factors at Work (QPS_Nordic) were assessed. The analysis is confined to the scales in the QPS_Nordic, and 24 of the 26 scales are included. A large group of Swedish county council employees ( n = 3,976; response rate = 65%) participated in a study and were given the QPS_Nordic. Register data for long-term sick leave (>90 days), with diagnosis, were used for predictive analysis. The following main results were obtained: Reliability was generally satisfactory, confirmatory factor analysis indicated good fit, concurrent validity was good, some less often investigated organizational variables predicted sickness absence, and scales were differentially associated with absence due to psychiatric and musculoskeletal disorders. In conclusion, the psychometric testing of the QPS_Nordic so far suggests that it is a good instrument for assessing health-related factors at work.     

RELIGIOUS REASONS AND POLITICAL ARGUMENTATION

In Evangelium Vitae Pope John Paul II calls for a renewal of culture to combat the culture of death. He criticizes various aspects of a pluralistic, liberal society—a type of society that he claims is based on moral relativism and a view of democracy that becomes a substitute for moral law. He maintains that such a view trivializes moral choice. In this essay I argue that John Rawls's notion of a liberal society as an overlapping consensus of comprehensive doctrines can avoid relativism while allowing for reasonable debate among opposed positions. While Rawls maintains that comprehensive doctrines, including religions, should employ a form of public reason that is not a unique feature of any one comprehensive doctrine, I argue that this requirement is too strong. One is often justified in appealing to features of comprehensive doctrines other than one's own, features that are unique to the doctrines themselves. Such an appeal does not pretend to be neutral as public reason would seem to be. In the final section of the paper I discuss some suggestions made by the Pope regarding actions in civil society that are independent of debates about legal change and suggest some ways in which they might contribute to desired cultural transformation.     

A Test of Voir Dire as a Remedy for the Prejudicial Effects of Pretrial Publicity1

The present experiment asked two questions: Does prejudicial pretrial publicity produce bias that may impair juror objectivity and, if it does, can extended, defense attorney-conducted voir dire (jury examination procedure) remedy its untoward effects? Subjects were 68 college undergraduates who had or had not read pretrial publicity one week before viewing a mock murder trial. Just prior to viewing the trial, subjects experienced either minimal or extended voir dire. Both pretrial publicity and voir dire produced significant main effects on subjects' perceptions of defendant culpability. Subjects exposed to pretrial publicity perceived the defendant as more culpable than subjects not exposed to pretrial publicity. Subjects who experienced extended voir dire perceived the defendant as less culpable than subjects who experienced minimal voir dire. The interaction between pretrial publicity and voir dire was nonsignificant, indicating that, contrary to our hypothesis, voir dire did not reduce the impact of pretrial publicity.