A reason for theoretical terms

The presence of nonobservational vocabulary is shown to be necessary for wide application of a conservative principle of theory revision.Support for this research was provided by the Office of Naval Research under contract No. N00014-87-K-0401. We thank Daniel Andler and Clark Glymour for helpful discussion.     

Role of intertrial interval following an escape or avoidance response in bar-press avoidance

In three experiments, rats learned bar-press avoidance as a function of the intertrial interval following an escape or an avoidance. The general hypothesis is that the length of these intervals affects bar-press avoidance differentially, depending on whether an avoidance follows an escape (avoidance/escape) or an avoidance (avoidance/avoidance) on the previous trial. Specifically, it is proposed that short escape ITIs will facilitate avoidance/escape and avoidance/avoidance, while avoidance ITIs will have no effect on avoidance responding. The results tend to support this hypothesis. The shorter the intertrial interval following an escape, the higher the probability of both measures: avoidance/escape and avoidance/avoidance. No effect of avoidance interval was found on avoidance/avoidance. Unpredictedly, however, it was found that in comparison to a very short intertrial interval following an avoidance (0.5 sec), relatively long intervals (5 and 45 sec) facilitate avoidance/escape. These results were interpreted as mainly reflecting nonassociative factors such as shock-produced activity.     

If the boy loves the girl and the girl loves the dog,does the boy love the dog?: The overgeneralization of verbal transitive inference skills

Two studies investigated 4- to 10-year-old children's capacity to make verbal transitive inferences. The results of the two studies suggest that the development of transitive inference skills follows a specific to general developmental path, and that children overgeneralize their verbal transitive inference skills to inappropriate relational terms prior to determining the general principle that underlies the use of relational terms in transitive sentences.     

The Priority of the Now

This article motivates and develops a new theory of time: priority presentism. Priority presentism is the view according to which (i) only present entities exist fundamentally and (ii) past and future entities exist, but they are grounded in the present. The articulation of priority presentism is an exercise in applied grounding: it draws on concepts from the recent literature on ontological dependence and applies those concepts in a new way, to the philosophy of time. The result, as I will argue, is an attractive position that can do much of the same work in satisfying our intuitions about time as presentism, but without the ontological cost.     

Integrated Treatment Programmes for Mothers with Substance Use Problems: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Interventions to Prevent Out-of-home Child Placements

Approximately half of mothers receiving substance use treatment are involved with childcare proceedings. This review aims to determine whether integrated treatment programmes for mothers with substance use problems are effective in preventing out-of-home placement (temporally/permanent) and influencing other maternal factors such as patterns of substance use, treatment completion and parenting behaviours. Six trials were identified—two randomised controlled trials and four non-randomised controlled studies. The pooled sample of participants was 1717. The results showed that mothers who participated in integrated treatment programmes were significantly less likely to have the children removed from their care (Odds Ratio (OR)?=?0.40, 95% CI?=?0.27, 0.61), more likely to complete substance use treatment (OR?=?3.01, 95% CI?=?1.79, 5.06), and more likely to reduce their alcohol consumption (Standardised Mean Difference (SMD)?=??0.40, 95% Cl?=??0.78, ?0.01) and drug use (SMD?=??0.30, 95% CI?=??0.53, ?0.07). However, non-significant reductions were observed for parent–child conflict (SMD?=??0.35, 95% CI?=??0.72, 0.03) and child abuse risk (SMD?=??0.03, 95% CI?=??0.36, 0.31). While the findings from this review suggest that mothers involved in integrated treatment programmes could potentially be less likely to experience out-of-home child placements and more likely to improve substance use treatment outcomes, little evidence exists for the effectiveness of these interventions. Further research, particularly high-quality RCTs, is required to demonstrate and persuade health and public policy on the far-reaching value of the integrated approaches.

     

How Academic Community and an Ethic of Care Can Shape Adjunct Work Environments: A Case Study of a Community College

This article presents a qualitative case study that explores how faculty and administrators at one community college conceptualized and experienced academic community within their institution and how that conceptualization helped shape the part-time faculty work environment. Using a combined framework of academic community and care ethics, this study utilizes data from 55 interviews with full-time and part-time faculty and administrative leaders from a large community college. Findings from this study indicate that defining membership, a sense of belonging, and shared mission and goals are key components to their understanding of academic community. From these three components, the study found that when participants included adjunct faculty as members of their academic community, they also reported a sense of responsibility or obligation to supporting them.

     

Perceived discrimination is associated with poorer health and well‐being outcomes among Pacific peoples in New Zealand

Our study investigated the association between perceived discrimination and outcomes related to health and well‐being for Pacific adults in New Zealand. We examined personal and group discrimination from the 2013 wave of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (n = 429 women and 196 men). Personal discrimination was associated with poorer health and well‐being outcomes (higher psychological distress and lower self‐esteem, subjective evaluation of health, satisfaction with life and personal well‐being). Group discrimination, in contrast, was associated with poorer well‐being but not health outcomes (lower subjective evaluation of health and personal well‐being). These findings corroborate previous research and highlight the corrosive effect of discrimination towards health and well‐being among Pacific communities in New Zealand.     

An agenda for psychological distance apart from construal level

Mental life is not confined to physical reality. Instead, anchored in the here and now, people can conjure worlds set in other locations, in other times, from other people's perspectives, and with otherworldly odds. These routes away from immediacy represent different dimensions of psychological distance—space, time, social distance, and probability—in that they all provide a means by which targets of consideration can feel psychologically distant. Though largely developed under the theoretical banner of construal level theory, psychological distance benefits from consideration in its own, independent right. This review proposes that prominent characteristics of it inform an agenda for translational insights across the four dimensions of psychological distance.