The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), but not the Defence Mechanism Test (DMTm), separates schizophrenics and normal controls in a factorial cluster analysis

Ten schizophrenic patients and ten healthy control subjects matched with respect to sex, age and education were tested by a psychological test battery including WAIS, WCST, FAS and a modified version of the tachistoscopic Defence Mechanism Test (DMTm). In a Q-factor analysis two factors were derived in the analysis of DMTm test scores. The distribution of cases among these factors was wholly at random. On the other hand, when analysing WAIS scores, five factors were derived and schizophrenic cases as well as control subjects were almost unequivocally clustered by different factors. It is argued that also if an unequivocal categorisation of cases had been achieved in the analysis of DMTm data, such a finding might well have been interpreted as an effect of anomalies in cerebral structures assumed to be of critical importance in the filtering of signals in the stream of visual perception. The existence of such anomalies in schizophrenics is now well established by neuroimaging as well as postmortem studies, and findings are also well in accordance with phenomenological and physiological data. The failure of DMTm to separate schizophrenic and control subjects does thus make the second and important step in a discussion on validity entirely superfluous, namely whether signs recorded really measure what they are assumed to measure, in this case defence mechanisms in a psychoanalytic sense.     

Memory and Externalism

Content externalism about memory says that the individuation of memory contents depends on relations the subject bears to his past environment. I defend externalism about memory by arguing that neither philosophical nor psychological considerations stand in the way of accepting the context dependency of memory that follows from externalism.     

Styles in humour and social self-images

Abstract.— The three-dimensional Sense-of-Humour Questionnaire (SHQ) was coordinated with items based upon social self-image related to three styles in humour-"funny" wit, "sarcastic" wit, and "mixed" wit. The total questionnaire was answered by male and female students in college (average age: 17) and teacher's certificate school (average age: 25) to test the relationship between social self-image and sense of humour at different age levels. The social self-image of college women proved highly loaded on the "funny" style compared with college males. A two-way analysis of variance (sex by age) revealed a strong sex effect on the "sarcastic" category (males high). "Mixed" wit yielded an interaction effect: high scores in college males and teacher females. Males and older subjects (teaching students) tended to associate high senstivity to humorous messages and emotional impulsiveness with the "sarcastic" style. Women who scored high on "mixed" wit favoured the humorist as a general social stereotype. A sex difference in development trends from adolescence to adulthood was indicated the way that females changed from "funny" to "mixed" wit and males from "mixed" to "sarcastic" wit.     

Type A behaviour and its relation to seriousmindedness (telic dominance)

A sample of 222 students in medicine and psychology, of both sexes, completed the Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS: Norwegian translation of a Swedish student version) and the Telic Dominance Scale (TDS). The latter is a measure of an individual's tendency to take life seriously, i.e., to pursue important goals, to plan ahead, and to avoid arousal if possible. The total scores on both scales were found to be orthogonally related over the sample as a whole, and the same was true of the main factor extracted from the JAS in relation to both the TDS total scores and the scores of each of the subscales of the TDS (for the sample as a whole and for each of the subgroups). This implies that the JAS survey for Type A behaviour assessment and the TDS were measuring rather different psychological characteristics. It is argued that there are reasons for supposing that telic dominance may be a factor which predisposes the individual to high cardiovascular reactivity and that, since this factor appears to be different from the Type A personality as measured by the present JAS version, further investigation is called for.     

Agent Reliabilism and the Problem of Clairvoyance

This paper argues that John Greco's agent reliabilism fails in its attempt to meet the double requirement of accounting for the internalist intuition that knowledge requires sensitivity to the reliability of one's evidence and evading the charge of psychological implausibility.     

Radical Scepticism Without Epistemic Closure

This paper contributes to the current debate about radical scepticism and the structure of warrant. After a presentation of the standard version of the radical sceptic’s challenge, both in its barest and its more refined form, three anti‐sceptical responses, and their respective commitments, are being identified: the Dogmatist response, the Conservativist response and the Dretskean response. It is then argued that both the Dretskean and the Conservativist are right that the anti‐sceptical hypothesis cannot inherit any perceptual warrants from ordinary propositions about the environment—and so the Dogmatist response founders. However, if this is so Epistemic Closure lacks any clear rationale. There is therefore good reason to agree with both the Dretskean and the Dogmatist that perceptual warrants for ordinary propositions about the environment are enough in order for those propositions to enjoy a positive epistemic status—and so the Conservativist response founders. However, the Conservativist is nonetheless right that a warrant for the anti‐sceptical hypothesis is needed. For contrary to what much of the recent literature suggests, the radical sceptic need not appeal to Epistemic Closure in order to cast doubt on the legitimacy of our beliefs in ordinary propositions about the environment: there is a Pyrrhonian version of scepticism that, though equally radical, is consistent with failure of Epistemic Closure. For this reason, the Dretskean response is insufficient to answer scepticism.     

The EMG gradient as a reflection of metamotivational state

The significance of motivational statedominance in everyday life and actual motivational state during task performance was investigated in relation to skeletal muscle tension patterns during performance in the continuous preceptual-motor task paradigm. Subjects were recruited to form seriousminded (telic) and playful (paratelic) extreme groups according to their responses to the Telic Dominance Scale (6 subjects in each group). They all performed a continuous perceptual-motor task twice in a neutral context (N1, N2), once with threat of aversive shock at poor performance (T), and once with promise of monetary reward for good performance (R); T and R being balanced around N 2. Measures of tonic (slow) EMG activation were derived from the "passive" forearm, and structured (blind) interview assessed motivational state. It was concluded that motivational state, rather than statedominance, was associated with EMG activation. The telic state was significant to high EMG activation for the N I and T treatments in particular.     

Self-stimulation and mating behavior in the male rat

Abstract.— A presumed relationship between selfstimulation of the brain and sexual behavior was studied in two experiments. In the first experiment the male rat was allowed self-stimulation during a period of 5 minutes and thereafter transferred to a mating cage with a female. No effects of the self-stimulation were recorded in the mating behavior. In the second experiment the male was allowed one intromission and thereafter presented with a lever for self-stimulation, still having access to the female. The sexual responses were completely inhibited, and selfstimulation at normal rate resumed. It was concluded that there is no necessary link between self-stimulation of the brain and sexual behavior.     

Revised questionnaire on the sense of humor

Abstract.— A Sense-of-Humor Questionnaire (SHQ), based on the proposed 3–dimensional theory of sense of humor, was given to male and female students in social and physical sciences to test its construct validity. There were positive and significant correlations between the laughter-activating dimension (M_p) and each of the two laughter-inhibiting dimensions (L_p, and E_p), the latter being zero correlated with each other. In a two-way analysis of variance (sex X science), the main effects were a sex difference on the L_p- as well as E_p-dimension, while no main effect was found on the M_p-dimension. The L_p-scores discriminated between men and women in the social sciences, and the E_p-scores in the physical sciences. All results are in agreement with theory.     

A theory of sense of humor

Abstract.— Humor is a strategem for relating the collective social reality of a group of persons (the rational world) to their personal imaginations of alternative social worlds, meanings, or identities (the irrational world). The humorist is committed to the rational world. At the same time he permits idiosyncratic phantasies to occur within the social context if they are accompanied by an explicit message saying that the performance is made for fun. By such communications the rational social world is kept stable as well as more tolerable. The comical situation is composed of three essential elements: (1) the message, (2) the audience, and (3) the target or content treated by the message. The message brings the target to the irrational level, where it is brought into disrespect in favor of the alliance between the humorist and his audience. Laughter is the announcement that the disrespect is accepted just for fun. A person may, however, keep a straight face for different reasons. A conceptual scheme is proposed for prediction of laughter. It is based upon three dimensions of the comic situation: (1) the humorous message, (2) the interpersonal likings, and (3) the permissiveness towards actual laughter. The corresponding personal dispositions are the habitual sensitivity to such messages, the habitual tendency to favor comical situations and persons, and the habitual need for emotional-impulse control. Suggestions are made as to the modification of laughter by constellations of high and low values on these variables.