A new approach to manipulation arguments

There are several argumentative strategies for advancing the thesis that moral responsibility is incompatible with causal determinism. One prominent such strategy is to argue that agents who meet compatibilist conditions for moral responsibility can nevertheless be subject to responsibility-undermining manipulation. In this paper, I argue that incompatibilists advancing manipulation arguments against compatibilism have been shouldering an unnecessarily heavy dialectical burden. Traditional manipulation arguments present cases in which manipulated agents meet all compatibilist conditions for moral responsibility, but are (allegedly) not responsible for their behavior. I argue, however, that incompatibilists can make do with the more modest (and harder to resist) claim that the manipulation in question is mitigating with respect to moral responsibility. The focus solely on whether a manipulated agent is or is not morally responsible has, I believe, masked the full force of manipulation-style arguments against compatibilism. Here, I aim to unveil their real power.     

Controlling anger in self-reported sober and alcohol intoxicated states: moderating effects of trait anger and alcohol consumption

Controlling anger in self-reported sober and alcohol intoxicated states: Moderating effects of trait anger and alcohol consumption. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 52, 382-388. Retrospective self-reports about prior sober and alcohol intoxicated states were explored to reveal moderating effects of trait anger and alcohol consumption on anger control. The analyses were based on self-reports of trait anger and alcohol consumption as well as self-reports of the participants' typical levels of anger control in sober and alcohol intoxicated states in a population based sample of Finnish twins and their siblings (N = 4,852). The reported levels of anger control were lower regarding prior alcohol intoxicated states than sober states. A three-way interaction between alcohol consumption, trait anger and anger control was found. Whereas no interaction between alcohol consumption and trait anger was found in the self-reported sober state, there was an interactive effect of trait anger and alcohol consumption on anger control in the intoxicated state, indicating that the difference in anger control between those with high levels of alcohol consumption and those with low levels, was greater at higher levels of trait anger. Women had lower levels of anger control than men, but the relationship between trait anger, alcohol consumption and anger control was similar for both genders. In conclusion, the results showed that those with high levels of trait anger and alcohol consumption showed the lowest levels of anger control in self-reported alcohol intoxicated states, and indicate the importance of separating between anger control when sober and intoxicated since anger control seems to be differently related to at least trait anger and alcohol consumption in these states.     

Clarity about concessive knowledge attributions: reply to Dodd

Recently, Dylan Dodd (this Journal) has tried to clear up what he takes to be some of the many confusions surrounding concessive knowledge attributions (CKAs)??i.e., utterances of the form ??S knows that p, but it??s possible that q?? (where q entails not-p) (Rysiew, Noûs 35(4): 477?C514, 2001). Here, we respond to the criticisms Dodd offers of the account of the semantics and the sometime-infelicity of CKAs we have given (Dougherty and Rysiew, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78(1): 121?C132, 2009), showing both how Dodd misunderstands certain central features of that view and how the latter can, pace Dodd, be naturally extended to explain the oddity of those ??For all I know?? statements to which Dodd draws attention.     

Emerging Adulthood and Leaving Foster Care: Settings Associated with Mental Health

The present study examined the role of contextual support on mental health during the transition to adulthood within a vulnerable group, adolescents leaving foster care because of their age. Participants were 265 19- to 23-year-olds who retrospectively reported on 3 main contexts of emerging adulthood: housing security, educational achievement, and employment attainment in the first 2 years after leaving foster care. Mental health measured self-reported emotional distress, substance abuse, and deviancy at the time of interview. Growth Mixture Modeling empirically identified 3 latent trajectory classes. Stable-Engaged (41%) experienced secure housing and increasing connections to education and employment over time. Stable-Disengaged (30%) maintained housing but reported decreasing rates of education and small increases in employment. Instable-Disengaged (29%) experienced chronic housing instability, declined connection to education, and failed to attain employment. Stable-Engaged and Stable-Disengaged classes reported better mental health compared to the Instable-Disengaged class, indicating the importance of housing in transitioning to adulthood.     

Assessing and Promoting Spiritual Wellness as a Protective Factor in Secondary Schools

Spiritual wellness, much like resilience, is a multidimensional protective factor for students. This article reviews the relevant literature linking spiritual wellness and thriving in the adolescent population. Assessment and intervention methods that can be used in secondary school settings to promote spiritual wellness are provided.     

The Emotional Citizen: Emotion as a Function of Political Sophistication

Scholars and popular commentators have often stereotyped emotion as a tool that citizens use to reason about politics in place of hard fact and critical thought. Indeed, critics have often seen emotion as a potentially dangerous force that can sway the unsophisticated masses to undesirable ends. This article challenges the view that emotion is an outgrowth of low sophistication, arguing that high sophisticates are more likely to experience emotion in reaction to politics and that emotions are more influential on the political behavior of high sophisticates. Drawing upon appraisal theory, this article develops a theory of how political engagement elicits emotionality about politics, and how emotion interacts with understanding and motivation to produce its greatest impact on the behavior of those citizens who are the most politically sophisticated. Behavioral effects are examined in the contexts of presidential voting behavior and Iraq War policy attitudes. Hypotheses are tested on pooled American National Election Studies (ANES) data and an original web‐based survey of undergraduates.     

Optimism and the Big Five factors of personality: Beyond Neuroticism and Extraversion

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between the Big Five factors of personality and dispositional optimism. Data from five samples were collected (Total N = 4332) using three different measures of optimism and five different measures of the Big Five. Results indicated strong positive relationships between optimism and four of the Big Five factors: Emotional Stability, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Agreeableness and Conscientiousness explained additional variance in dispositional optimism over and above Neuroticism and Extraversion, providing evidence for the complexity of optimism. The position of optimism in the larger web of human personality constructs is discussed.     

New rule use drives the relation between working memory capacity and Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices

The correlation between individual differences in working memory capacity and performance on the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM) is well documented yet poorly understood. The present work proposes a new explanation: that the need to use a new combination of rules on RAPM problems drives the relation between performance and working memory capacity scores. Evidence for this account is supported by an item-based analysis of performance during standard administration of the RAPM and an experiment that manipulates the need to use new rule combinations across 2 subsets of RAPM items. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).