平等与民主

当我们思考公共空间和语言时,会发现有一种不可忽视的关联似乎将它们连结在一起,倘若我们同意从民主角度来看待它们。汉娜·阿伦特告诉我们,在基督教贬低古代之后,现代革命是与古希腊人重新获得联系的一种方式,在古希腊人看来,政治平等是参与的平等以及被统治者和统治者之间没有分歧、共同生活的能力。但是,新的情况是公共领域不再为一小部分不为生活必需品所累的人保留。     

Entitlement as a response to I–II–III scepticism

In this paper, Crispin Wright’s unified strategy against scepticism is put under pressure through an examination of the concept of entitlement. Wright’s characterisation of a generalised form of scepticism is first described, followed by an examination of the concept of entitlement and of the role played by presuppositions in his strategy. This will make manifest the transcendental structure of this response to scepticism. The paper ends with a discussion of the effectiveness of this transcendental strategy in providing a satisfying response to scepticism.     

Science and ethics in conducting, analyzing, and reporting psychological research

The relationship between scientific quality and ethical quality is considered for three aspects of the research process: conduct of the research, data analysis, and reporting of results. In the area of conducting research, issues discussed involve design, recruitment, causism, scientific quality, and costs and utilities. The discussion of data analysis considers data dropping, data exploitation, and meta-analysis. Issues regarding reporting of results include misrepresentation of findings, misrepresentation of credit, and failure to report results as a result of self censoring or external censoring.     

Complexities in Cancer Risk Counseling: Presentation of Three Cases

Complexities abound in the identification and management of families at increased risk for inherited forms of cancer. One of the ways to learn as a profession how best to provide cancer risk counseling (CRC) is to share counseling experiences. Such cases can provide insight into the issues raised by families and ways in which genetic counselors have handled complex situations. Here we describe three CRC cases initially presented at the 1995 American College of Medical Genetics meeting. The first case involves balancing the importance of informing a family of the presence of an inherited cancer syndrome with the family's right not to know. The second case illustrates the difficulties in assisting an individual to make medical management decisions in the face of uncertain risk information. The third case describes the complex interactions with a woman before and after her decision to have prophylactic surgery. (affiliated with Long Beach Memorial Breast Center at the time of counseling)     

How accurate are time-use reports? Effects of cognitive enhancement and cultural differences on recall accuracy

In order to assess the accuracy of time-use reports, 80 young adults were observed for 2-hour periods, and were interviewed about their activities by a different person the following day. Two experiments were performed. In the first, three different levels of cognitive enhancement were used to improve recall accuracy. Subjects were 60 California college students, 20 per group. In the second study the maximum enhancement condition was replicated with 20 Guatemalan subjects, similar in age, sex and level of education to the California subjects. Both the accuracy of their recall of specific activities, and the accuracy of their time-duration estimates were calculated. Results indicated that the enhancement conditions in Study 1 significantly increased both the number of activities recalled accurately (from 40 to 63 per cent) and the amount of time accurately recalled (from 58 to 70 per cent). In Study 2 the Guatemalans recalled 60 per cent of their activities accurately, and recalled as much time accurately as the Californians. The Guatemalans were significantly more likely to underestimate their time. In other words, when they made errors, these were almost always underestimations. Most of the recall error could be accounted for by forgetting an activity altogether, rather than by estimating its time inaccurately.     

Constructing comparative sentences: Linguistic marking and affect

Past research has demonstrated a greater naturalness of comparative constructions with the unmarked adjective. Not only do subjects typically create sentences of the form A is longer than B more frequently than B is shorter than A, but such constructions are also more quickly verified. One explanation for this preference is in terms of Linguistic Marking (e.g., Clark, 1969a, b). Because the semantic featural coding hypothesized for unmarked adjectives is simpler than that of marked adjectives, the observed facilitation effects would be expected. However, an equally viable explanation is in terms of the greater positive affect of the unmarked adjective (see Osgood et al., 1957). Since linguistic marking and affect are typically confounded in past research (the unmarked adjective is also the most affectively positive), the present experiment discriminates between these two interpretations by providing also contexts in which linguistic marking and affect are not confounded. Here, analysis of the comparatives constructed by 96 subjects revealed the preference for the unmarked adjective only where it was also the most affectively positive. Where the marked was the more positive, the reverse was observed, as predicted by Osgood (et al., 1957).     

The effects of covert and overt modeling on assertive behavior

Three modeling therapy formats (overt modeling with a standard hierarchy of situations. covert modeling with the standard hierarchy, and covert modeling with a self-tailored hierarchy) were compared to assess their relative efficacy in developing assertive skills. Half the subjects in each treatment condition received or did not receive generalization training. Significant within-group improvement was indicated on four self-report measures. Overall, the results suggest that covert modeling was as effective as overt modeling or covert modeling plus self-tailoring for instating assertion among nonassertive college women.