Labeled Calculi and Finite-Valued Logics

A general class of labeled sequent calculi is investigated, and necessary and sufficient conditions are given for when such a calculus is sound and complete for a finite-valued logic if the labels are interpreted as sets of truth values (sets-as-signs). Furthermore, it is shown that any finite-valued logic can be given an axiomatization by such a labeled calculus using arbitrary "systems of signs," i.e., of sets of truth values, as labels. The number of labels needed is logarithmic in the number of truth values, and it is shown that this bound is tight.     

A Representation Theorem for a Decision Theory With Conditionals

This paper investigates the role of conditionals in hypothetical reasoning and rational decision making. Its main result is a proof of a representation theorem for preferences defined on sets of sentences (and, in particular, conditional sentences), where an agent’s preference for one sentence over another is understood to be a preference for receiving the news conveyed by the former. The theorem shows that a rational preference ordering of conditional sentences determines probability and desirability representations of the agent’s degrees of belief and desire that satisfy, in the case of non-conditional sentences, the axioms of Jeffrey’s decision theory and, in the case of conditional sentences, Adams’ expression for the probabilities of conditionals. Furthermore, the probability representation is shown to be unique and the desirability representation unique up to positive linear transformation. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Psychoanalysis and the Model of Homosexuality as Psychopathology: A Historical Overview

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Teachers' and mothers' assessment of children's behaviors from kindergarten to grade two: Stability and change within and across informants

Consistency between teachers' and parents' ratings of 229 children's prosocial and problem behaviors was investigated from kindergarten through grade two. Intrarater stability was also analyzed. Results indicated moderate but decreasing interrater agreement from kindergarten to grade two for boys on externalizing behaviors. Interrater agreement for the same behavior dimension for girls was moderate and stable, whereas it was low on internalizing behavior problems and prosocial behaviors, for both genders throughout the 3-year period. Moreover, difference between teachers' and parents' ratings of externalizing behaviors increased from kindergarten to grade two. Decreasing level of agreement through time appeared to be related to a reduction of teacher-rated externalizing behaviors not paralleled by a reduction in parent ratings. Analyses were also performed at the item level of the externalization scale to identify which specific behaviors were responsible for the increasing divergence in interrater agreement from kindergarten through grade two. Alternative interpretations were considered in order to account for present and past results. Implications for screening and assessment purposes were discussed.This research was supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and from Québec's Health Research Fund (FRSQ). We wish to thank the authorities and directors of the schools from the Val d'Or School Board as well as the kindergarten, first and second grade teachers, children, and parents for their collaboration. We also thank Lyse Desmarais-Gervais, Daniel Corriveau, Jean Desrosiers and Hélène Boileau for their participation in the data collection or analysis.     

The Social Psychology of Jury Nullification: Predicting When Jurors Disobey the Law1

The United States judiciary assumes jurors obey the law as it is charged to them in the trial judge's instructions. This paper contends that jurors' comprehension of the law results from an active intelligence which makes available alternative decision rules giving rise to the power of juries to nullify instructions. To study the compliance assumption, we presented to mock jurors pattern jury instructions along with summaries of testimonies from a rape trial. Four times during the trial we administered to participants measures of their attributions of defendant responsibility, judgments about the legal elements of the case, and verdicts. Multiple regressions conducted with data from separate subsamples and with separate questionnaire administrations revealed that a) verdicts were based on attributions independent of the jury instructions, b) individual differences in life experiences predicted the degree to which decision makers used their attributions, and c) the more practiced participants were at applying the jury instructions the more heavily they weighed their own attributions and less heavily the judgments required by the law. We concluded that comprehension alone cannot predict the likelihood that jurors will comply with the law. Therefore, the assumption that jurors follow the law needs to be more carefully considered.