Intrinsicalism and Conditionalism about Final Value

The paper distinguishes between two rival views about the nature of final value (i.e. the value something has for its own sake) — intrinsicalism and conditionalism. The former view (which is the one adopted by G.E. Moore and several later writers) holds that the final value of any F supervenes solely on features intrinsic to F, while the latter view allows that the final value of F may supervene on features non-intrinsic to F. Conditionalism thus allows the final value of F to vary according to the context in which F appears. Given the plausible assumption that there is an intimate tie between final values and appropriate attitudinal responses, it appears that conditionalism is the better approach for mainly the following three reasons: First, intrinsicalism is too indiscriminate, which makes it subject to what I call ‘location problems’ of final value. I illustrate this problem by discussing alleged examples of Moorean organic unities. Second, intrinsicalism evokes symptoms of ‘evaluative schizophrenia’. Third, considerations of theoretical economy tell in favour of conditionalism. Thereafter I respond to some recent challenges to conditionalism. An appendix surveys some meritorious implications that conditionalism offers for various substantial versions of such structurally different views about value as monism, pluralism, and particularism.     

A Friend in Creed: Does the Religious Composition of Geographic Areas Affect the Religious Composition of a Person's Close Friends?

Numerous theories of religion rest on the assumption that the religious composition of local populations influences the religious identities of a person's close friends, but there have been few empirical tests of this assumption. Using a combination of data on the religious identity of close friends (from the 1988 and 1998 General Social Survey) and information on the religious composition of counties (from the U.S. Religious Congregations and Membership Study) we find that despite tendencies toward religious homogeneity, the religious composition of the surrounding population has an effect on the proportion of a respondent’s same‐religion friends and on the proportion of friends belonging to specific other religious groups. Local population characteristics are unrelated to the proportion of respondents’ friends known in congregational settings. Results have implications for a broad range of sociological theories of religion as well as research examining the impact of same‐congregation and same‐religion friends (e.g., health and well‐being).     

Thinking about representations: the case of opaque contexts

To address the question of whether young children are differentially sensitive to referential opacity, an advanced Theory of Mind skill, we assessed 4-, 6-, and 8-year-olds on three types of opaque contexts: epistemic, quotational, and intentional. Children’s performance improved as a function of age and varied significantly by opacity type. Performance was best for epistemic opacity (using the verb “know”) and poorest for intentional opacity (using “mean to”), with quotational opacity (using “said”) falling in-between. Importantly, the current results suggest that children’s sensitivity to referential opacity is not an all-or-nothing competence but rather one that varies across the contexts examined. Possible reasons for this variability are discussed.     

EFFECTS OF MATERNAL DEPRESSION AND PANIC DISORDER ON MOTHER-INFANT INTERACTIVE BEHAVIOR IN THE FACE-TO-FACE STILL-FACE PARADIGM

The present study evaluated the interactive behavior of three groups of mothers and their 3-month-old infants in the Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm. The mothers had either a clinical diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD, n = 33) with no comorbidity, a clinical diagnosis of panic disorder (PD, n = 13) with no comorbidity, or no clinical diagnosis (n = 48). The sample was selected to be at otherwise low social and medical risk, and all mothers with PD or MDD were in treatment. The findings indicated that (a) infants of mothers with PD or MDD displayed the traditional still-face and reunion effects described in previous research with nonclinical samples; (b) the 3-month-old infants in this study showed similar, but not identical, gender effects to those described for older infants; and (c) there were no patterns of maternal or infant interactive behavior that were unique to the PD, MDD, or control groups. These results are discussed in light of mothers' risk status, receipt of treatment, severity of illness, and comorbidity of PD and MDD.     

A Longitudinal Analysis of Psychiatric Severity upon Outcomes Among Substance Abusers Residing in Self-Help Settings

A longitudinal analysis of psychiatric severity was conducted with a national sample of recovering substance abusers living in Oxford Houses, which are self-run, self-help settings. Outcomes related to residents' psychiatric severity were examined at three follow-up intervals over one year. Over time, Oxford House residents with high versus low baseline psychiatric severity reported significantly more days using psychiatric medication, decreased outpatient psychiatric treatment, yet no significant differences for number of days abstinent and time living in an Oxford House. These findings suggest that a high level of psychiatric severity is not an impediment to residing in self-run, self-help settings such as Oxford House among persons with psychiatric comorbid substance use disorders.     

A Blueprint for Social Cognitive Development

ABSTRACT— The field of social cognitive development (SCD) has historically failed to emerge as a dominant approach in developmental psychology. We take this opportunity to articulate the assumptions, goals, and contributions of SCD with the aim of invigorating research from this perspective. We begin by describing the current landscape of social and cognitive development, suggesting what they have and have not given us. We then outline major goals of the social cognitive developmental approach and walk through examples of successful SCD research. Finally, we examine the unique potential of the social cognitive approach to cross-fertilize social and cognitive development (as well as related fields such as social psychology and neuroscience) and to answer new questions about development.     

Self-esteem differences in the effects of hypocrisy induction on behavioral intentions in the health domain

Two studies investigated whether individuals with varying levels of self-esteem respond differently in the hypocrisy paradigm. In the first study, all participants were regular smokers. Those in the hypocrisy condition delivered a speech in front of a camera on the dangers of smoking. The principal dependent measure was the intention to stop smoking. In the second study, participants in the hypocrisy condition wrote a public (personally identifiable) passage about the importance of a healthy lifestyle. The principal dependent measure was the intention to improve one's health behaviors. In both studies, self-esteem scores were positively related to intentions to change behavior in the hypocrisy condition but not in a control condition. The implications of these findings for conceptions of self-esteem and for dissonance theory are discussed.     

Judgments of the lucky across development and culture

For millennia, human beings have believed that it is morally wrong to judge others by the fortuitous or unfortunate events that befall them or by the actions of another person. Rather, an individual's own intended, deliberate actions should be the basis of his or her evaluation, reward, and punishment. In a series of studies, the authors investigated whether such rules guide the judgments of children. The first 3 studies demonstrated that children view lucky others as more likely than unlucky others to perform intentional good actions. Children similarly assess the siblings of lucky others as more likely to perform intentional good actions than the siblings of unlucky others. The next 3 studies demonstrated that children as young as 3 years believe that lucky people are nicer than unlucky people. The final 2 studies found that Japanese children also demonstrate a robust preference for the lucky and their associates. These findings are discussed in relation to M. J. Lerner's (1980) just-world theory and J. Piaget's (1932/1965) immanent-justice research and in relation to the development of intergroup attitudes.     

Temporal Parts and Timeless Parthood

What is a temporal part? Most accounts explain it in terms of timeless parthood: a thing's having a part without temporal qualification. Some find this hard to understand, and thus find the view that persisting things have temporal parts—four‐dimensionalism—unintelligible. T. Sider offers to help by defining temporal parthood in terms of a thing's having a part at a time. I argue that no such account can capture the notion of a temporal part that figures in orthodox four‐dimensionalism: temporal parts must be timeless parts. This enables us to state four‐dimensionalism more clearly.     

Humour's role in the relation between attributional style and dysphoria

The present study empirically investigated the role of adaptive and maladaptive components of humour in the relation between attributional style and dysphoria. Four hundred eighteen students (134 male, 282 female; 2 respondents did not indicate gender) completed questionnaires measuring attributional style, humour styles and depressive symptoms. Among men and women, higher levels of affiliative and self‐enhancing humour, and lower levels of self‐defeating humour, were each associated with fewer depressive symptoms. Additionally, higher levels of affiliative humour provided a buffer against the deleterious effects of a negative attributional style in men, but not women. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.