Reichenbach on the relative a priori and the context of discovery/justification distinction

Hans Reichenbach introduced two seemingly separate sets of distinctions in his epistemology at different times. One is between the axioms of coordination and the axioms of connections. The other distinction is between the context of discovery and the context of justification. The status and nature of each of these distinctions have been subject-matter of an ongoing debate among philosophers of science. Thus, there is a significant amount of works considering both distinctions separately. However, the relevance of Reichenbach’s two distinctions to each other does not seem to have enjoyed the same amount of interest so far. This is what I would like to consider in this paper. In other words, I am concerned with the question: what kind of relationship is there between his two distinctions, if there is any?     

Examining Positive Performance Implications of Role Stressors by the Indirect Influence of Positive Affect: A Study of New Business Managers

This article examines whether managers' performance in new businesses improves when they are exposed to role stressors. In a 3‐year longitudinal survey, we drew on the challenge–hindrance framework and Karasek's (1979 ) job demand‐control model to acknowledge direct and interaction effects of role stressors (i.e., role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload) on positive affect. In addition to finding support for such influences, our results support that positive affect facilitates performance, thus suggesting that role stressors can be indirectly positive for performance. This study encourages research to go beyond the traditional stressor–strain perspective, to incorporate positive affect in role‐stress models, and pay more attention to interaction effects between role stressors.     

Women Assimilate Across Gender,Men Don't: The Role of Gender to the Own‐Anchor Effect in Age,Height, and Weight Estimates1

This paper reports 2 studies of the own‐anchor effect (i.e., assimilation in age, height, and weight estimates) in same‐ and cross‐gender age, height, and weight estimates. The own‐anchor effect is believed to be stronger for same‐gender estimates, but the investigation reported here is the first to test this hypothesis with participants and target persons of both genders. Several own‐anchor effects were found in females' same‐ and cross‐gender estimates, whereas males only showed own‐anchor effects in same‐gender estimates. These results lean toward the possibility that women assimilate across gender, whereas men do not. Explanations of these results with reference to Krueger's ( Krueger & Zeiger, 1993 ; Robbins & Krueger, 2005 ) theory of social projection and the consequences for witness reliability are discussed.     

Word fluency performance and strategies in children with cochlear implants: age‐dependent effects?

Löfkvist, U., Almkvist, O., Lyxell, B. & Tallberg, I.‐M. (2012). Word fluency performance and strategies in children with cochlear implants: age‐dependent effects? Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 53, 467–474. Word fluency was examined in 73 Swedish children aged 6–9 years divided into two age groups, 6–7 and 8–9 years; 34 deaf children with cochlear implants (CI) (15 girls/19 boys) and 39 age‐matched children with normal hearing (NH) (20 girls/19 boys). One purpose was to compare the ability to retrieve words in two different word fluency tasks; one phonemically based (FAS letter fluency) and one semantically based (animal fluency). A second purpose was to examine retrieval strategies in the two tasks by conducting an analysis of clustering and switching of word sequences. In general we found that age was an important factor for word fluency ability, in both the CI and the NH groups. It was also demonstrated that children with CI aged 8–9 years retrieved significantly fewer words and used less efficient strategies in the retrieval process, especially on the phonemically based task compared to children with NH of the same ages, whereas children 6–7 years performed similarly in both groups regarding number of retrieved words and use of strategies. The results are discussed with respect to factors such as age differences in performance for children with CI, especially for the phonemically based task.     

The effects of cognitive behavior therapy delivered by students in a psychologist training program: an effectiveness study

Relatively little is known about the efficacy of clinically inexperienced student therapists carrying out cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) under supervision during a professional, psychologist training program. The current study evaluated this by collecting pre- and posttreatment data on 591 consecutive patients receiving treatment at the Psychotherapy Clinic of the Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden, over an 8-year period. The patients had mainly anxiety disorders or depression with a mean duration of 15 years, and received individual CBT for a mean of 18 sessions. They improved significantly on both general measures (Beck Anxiety Inventory [BAI], Beck Depression Inventory [BDI], and Quality of Life Inventory [QOLI]) and disorder-specific self-report scales. The proportions of recovered patients on the BAI (63%) and the BDI (60%) were higher than those of a comparison effectiveness study. On the specific self-report scales the current sample improved as much as the samples in extant efficacy trials. We conclude that clinically inexperienced student therapists who receive supervision from experienced supervisors can achieve treatment effects that are on a par with those of experienced licensed psychotherapists.     

Cyber victimization and adolescent self‐esteem: The role of communication with parents

Internet use has increased rapidly in recent years, and has inevitably led to some negative outcomes, notably cyber bullying and cyber victimization. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of cyber victimization and parent–adolescent communication on self‐esteem, and the moderating role of parent–adolescent communication in the relationship between cyber victimization and self‐esteem among Turkish adolescents. The participants were 337 adolescents with a mean age of 16.37, (SD = 0.89). The results of hierarchical regression analysis reveal that self‐esteem was predicted negatively by cyber victimization, but positively by mother–adolescent communication. Results also indicate the moderating roles of parent–adolescent communication in the links between cyber victimization and self‐esteem. The findings indicate a need to consider the parent–adolescent relationship while working with victimized youth, and the implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Do Ramadan Fasting Restrictions Alter Eating Behaviours in Obese Women?

Ramadan fasting can be considered as a kind of dietary restriction. Eating restriction is a risk factor for later development of eating disorders. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether Ramadan fasting changes the eating behaviours of obese women. Our sample consisted of 34 obese women who fasted during the Ramadan month. The data were collected by using Questionnaire Form, Eating Attitude Test (EAT) and Bulimic Investigatory Test, Edinburgh (BITE). No statistically significant differences were found between the scores of EAT, BITE, BMI, which were administered within the weeks before and after Ramadan. According to our results, Ramadan fasting restrictions do not seem to change the eating behaviours of obese women.     

Higher Order Structure of Personality and Mental Health: Does General Affectivity Matter?

The higher order personality model, namely the Big Two, was tested in 2 studies (Ns = 878 and 467, respectively) by controlling for the effects of both general affectivity and common method variance. Study 2 also examined the associations of the metatraits with different mental health indicators through regression analyses. The results consistently provided support for the validity of the Big Two model in the latent space, with and without the effects of general affectivity and the common method variance. Moreover, in both studies, the high correlation between stability and plasticity decreased when these 2 method effects were controlled statistically. The regression analyses also showed that the associations of plasticity and stability with the indicators of both subjective and psychological well-being, as well as psychopathology, were consistent with the theoretical arguments behind the Big Two.     

Memory factors in Rey AVLT: Implications for early staging of cognitive decline

Supraspan verbal list learning is widely used to assess dementia and related cognitive disorders where declarative memory deficits are a major clinical sign. While the overall learning rate is important for diagnosis, serial position patterns may give insight into more specific memory processes in patients with cognitive impairment. This study explored these patterns in a memory clinic clientele. One hundred eighty three participants took the Rey Auditory‐Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT). The major groups were patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), Vascular Dementia (VD), Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), and Subjective Cognitive Impairment (SCI) as well as healthy controls (HC). Raw scores for the five trials and five serial partitions were factor analysed. Three memory factors were found and interpreted as Primacy, Recency, and Resistance to Interference. AD and MCI patients had impaired scores in all factors. SCI patients were significantly impaired in the Resistance to Interference factor, and in the Recency factor at the first trial. The main conclusion is that serial position data from word list testing reflect specific memory capacities which vary with levels of cognitive impairment.     

Social representation of events in world history: Crosscultural consensus or Western discourse? How Turkish students view events in world history

The perceptions of historical events are considered to be an important cultural, political, and social psychological variable. Earlier studies have shown a crosscultural consensus on historical events that are considered to be important. It has been indicated that a strong Western–Christian European template dominates the view of which events are considered to be important events in history, by many samples across the world. It was the aim of this study to test this finding with a Turkish sample, which would represent some unique characteristics in that it is Muslim, comes from an Empire background, and has undergone a recent nation‐building process. College students (n = 372) responded to a questionnaire that was utilized in seven other countries. It was shown that Turkish students were not Eurocentric as expected by the literature: They were highly sociocentric; they gave importance to events related to Turkish history. They were similar to their European counterparts in that war and violence were given primary importance when selecting events as important in history. However, they did not behave as predicted by earlier literature: They did not see Western European events as having a primary importance in history but gave at least equal importance to events that originated from Ottoman Empire roots. The results were discussed in terms of the unique cultural and historical variables that contribute to the identity and social psychological attributions of Turkish students. Further research should focus on not only which events are considered as important historical events but also the reasons behind these.