Preschool personality antecedents of narcissism in adolescence and young adulthood: A 20-year longitudinal study

This prospective study examined relations between preschool personality attributes and narcissism during adolescence and emerging adulthood. We created five a priori preschool scales anticipated to foretell future narcissism. Independent assessors evaluated the participants’ personality at ages 14, 18, and 23. Based upon these evaluations, we generated observer-based narcissism scales for each of these three ages. All preschool scales predicted subsequent narcissism, except Interpersonal Antagonism at age 23. According to mean scale and item scores analyses, narcissism increased significantly from age 14 to 18, followed by a slight but non-significant decline from age 18 to 23. The discussion focused on a developmental view of narcissism, the need for research on automatic processing and psychological defenses, and links between narcissism and attachment.     

The usual and the unusual suspects: level of suspicion and counter-interrogation tactics

The present study investigated guilty mock-suspects' counter-interrogation tactics with respect to the disclosure of possibly self-incriminating information, specifically, to what extent the disclosure of this information was moderated by (1) the suspects' criminal experience (naïve versus experienced) and (2) the degree of suspicion directed towards the suspects (low versus high). We found that experienced (versus naïve) suspects volunteered less self-incriminating information in an initial free recall phase. In a similar vein, when asked crime-specific questions, naïve (versus experienced) suspects admitted having committed more actions fitting with the crime under investigation. Furthermore, experienced suspects' willingness to report information was not affected by the degree of suspicion, whereas naïve suspects in a high-suspicion (versus low-suspicion) condition were more willing to report information. The results were discussed in the light of the psychology of guilt, the Strategic Use of Evidence technique for detecting deception, and the (over)use of naïve suspects as mock-suspects in psycho-legal research. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Moral Black Hole

It is commonly believed that people become selfish and turn to looting, price gouging, and other immoral behaviour in emergencies. This has been the basis for an argument justifying extraordinary measures in emergencies. It states that if emergencies are not curtailed, breakdown of moral norms threaten (‘the moral black hole’). Using the example of natural disasters, we argue that the validity of this argument in non-antagonistic situations, i.e. situations other than war and armed conflict, is highly questionable. Available evidence suggests that people in such emergencies typically do not display panic reactions or exaggerated selfishness, and that phenomena such as looting and price gouging are rare. Furthermore, a version of the moral-black-hole argument based on the mere possibility of a moral black hole occurring runs into problems similar to those of Pascal’s Wager. We conclude that we should be wary against applying the moral-black-hole argument to non-antagonistic cases.

Predicate Change

Journal of Philosophical Logic - Like belief revision, conceptual change has rational aspects. The paper discusses this for predicate change. We determine the meaning of predicates by a set of...     

Affirmation and Denial in Aristotle’s De interpretatione

Topoi - Modern logicians have complained that Aristotelian logic lacks a distinction between predication (including negation) and assertion, and that predication, according to the Aristotelians,...     

Probability of Stimulus Equivalence as a Function of Class Size vs. Number of Classes

The Psychological Record - Two experiments were conducted to study stimulus equivalence as a function of class size and number of classes. In the first experiment, equivalence was tested in 50...     

How is Self‐Forgiveness Possible?

The idea of self‐forgiveness poses a serious challenge to any philosopher interested in giving a general account of forgiveness. On the one hand, it is an uncontroversial part of our common psychological and moral discourse. On the other, any account of self‐forgiveness is inconsistent with any general account of forgiveness which implies that only the victim of an offense can forgive. To avoid this conclusion, one must either challenge the particular claims that preclude self‐forgiveness or offer an independently plausible account of self‐forgiveness. I deploy both strategies in this article, explaining what self‐forgiveness is and how it is possible.