Means-end coherence,stringency, and subjective reasons

Intentions matter. They have some kind of normative impact on our agency. Something goes wrong when an agent intends some end and fails to carry out the means she believes to be necessary for it, and something goes right when, intending the end, she adopts the means she thinks are required. This has even been claimed to be one of the only uncontroversial truths in ethical theory. But not only is there widespread disagreement about why this is so, there is widespread disagreement about in what sense it is so. In this paper I explore an underdeveloped answer to the question of in what sense it is so, and argue that resolving an apparent difficulty with this view leads to an attractive picture about why it is so.

Core self-evaluations interact with cognitive ability to predict academic achievement

Extant research suggests that core self-evaluations (CSE) is associated with various work-related criteria, but such research often focuses on main effects when predicting subjective outcomes. Drawing upon psychological theories involving self-concept and motivation, we investigated both the main and interactive effects of CSE and cognitive ability when predicting an objective outcome. Specifically, results indicated that high CSE strengthened the positive relation between cognitive ability and academic achievement. Study contributions and limitations are discussed.     

Investigating the Relation between Gender Typicality and Pressure to Conform to Gender Norms

Sex Roles - Previous research suggested that gender typicality and pressure to conform to gender norms were unrelated; however, this may have been due to how gender typicality was assessed (i.e.,...     

Common coding in symbolic matching tasks with humans: Training with a common consequence or antecedent

The present experiments explored the importance of training with a common antecedent or consequence for common coding in symbolic matching-to-sample tasks with human subjects using reversal and transfer tests. Experiment 1 assessed common coding following training in many-to-one (MTO) and one-to-many (OTM) symbolic matching-to-sample tasks by comparing learning of partial and total reversals of these contingencies. Experiment 2 assessed common coding in MTO and OTM tasks by comparing performances in transfer tests when the common coding relations in the transfer phase were either consistent or inconsistent with those present during initial training. Evidence for common coding in the MTO and OTM discriminations was obtained in both experiments, although the amount of common coding was greater in the MTO discrimination in Experiment 1. These data are discussed in terms of associative mediational approaches to common coding phenomena. It is suggested that a basic requirement of an associative theory is that common coding should be more likely to occur when the stimuli are trained with a common consequence than when they are trained with a common antecedent, and that this requirement has been at least partly satisfied in the present studies.     

Desire and pleasure in John Pollock’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Thinking about Acting</Emphasis>

The first third of John Pollock’s Thinking about Acting is on the topics of pleasure, desire, and preference, and these topics are the ones on which this paper focuses. I review Pollock’s position and argue that it has at least one substantial strength (it elegantly demonstrates that desires must be more fundamental than preferences, and embraces this conclusion wholeheartedly) and at least one substantial weakness (it holds to a form of psychological hedonism without convincingly answering the philosophical or empirical objections that might be raised).     

The Effects of Caffeine Consumption on Direct and Indirect Majority and Minority Influence

A study is reported that examines the effect of caffeine consumption on majority and minority influence. In a double blind procedure, 72 participants consumed an orange drink, which either contained caffeine (3.5mg per kilogram of body weight) or did not (placebo). After a 40-minute delay, participants read a counter-attitudinal message (antivoluntary euthanasia) endorsed by either a numerical majority or minority. Both direct (message issue, i.e., voluntary euthanasia) and indirect (message issue-related, i.e., abortion) change was assessed by attitude scales completed before and after exposure to the message. In the placebo condition, the findings replicated the predictions of Moscovici's (1980) conversion theory; namely, majorities leading to compliance (direct influence) and minorities leading to conversion (indirect influence). When participants had consumed caffeine, majorities not only led to more direct influence than in the placebo condition but also to indirect influence. Minorities, by contrast, had no impact on either level of influence. The results suggest that moderate levels of caffeine increase systematic processing of the message but the consequences of this vary for each source. When the source is a majority there was increased indirect influence while for a minority there was decreased indirect influence. The results show the need to understand how contextual factors can affect social influence processes.