Money talks in attention bias modification: Reward in a dot-probe task affects attentional biases

Attention bias modification (ABM) aimed at correcting dysfunctional biases in anxiety patients has met with only mild success. Inspired by recent studies showing large effects of financial reward upon attention shifts, we contrasted effects of traditional dot-probe ABM and reward upon attention biases in a between-subject 2 × 2 design. Twenty-seven participants in group cognitive behavioural therapy (GCBT) for social anxiety disorder (SAD) were randomly assigned to undergo six sessions of a dot-probe task consisting of ABM or placebo ABM along with random or high reward following neutral stimuli. There was no influence of ABM on participants' attention bias over and above the influence of GCBT. Reward, however, had a strong influence on attention bias. Neither ABM nor reward reduced SAD symptoms over and above the effects of GCBT. The results add to the growing evidence that benefits of ABM through dot-probe training are unreliable but suggest on the other hand that rewarding attention may strongly influence dysfunctional attention biases.     

Collaborative consumption: determinants of satisfaction and the likelihood of using a sharing economy option again

Collaborative consumption, often associated with the sharing economy, takes place in organized systems or networks, in which participants conduct sharing activities in the form of renting, lending, trading, bartering, and swapping of goods, services, transportation solutions, space, or money. In this paper, a framework on the determinants of choosing a sharing option is developed and tested with two quantitative studies by applying partial least squares path modeling analysis. In study 1, users of the B2C car sharing service car2go (N = 236), and in study 2, users of the C2C online community accommodation marketplace Airbnb (N = 187) are surveyed. The results reveal the satisfaction and the likelihood of choosing a sharing option again to be predominantly explained by determinants serving users' self‐benefit. Utility, trust, cost savings, and familiarity were found to be essential in both studies, while service quality and community belonging were identified solely in study 1. Four proposed determinants had no influence on any of the endogenous variables. This applies to environmental impact, internet capability, smartphone capability, and trend affinity. Finally, research and managerial implications are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inclusive Essential Luther—Invitation for Global Scholarship

Lutheran theology does not have a monopoly on grace. “Grace alone” statements do not suffice in unfolding what “all” grace is and does. In comparison to Catholic tradition, the Lutheran imagination of grace appears abstract and excludes experience. Feminist theology, in conversation with the tradition, promises to expand Lutheran hermeneutics and epistemology, starting with grace. In the footsteps of Tuomo Mannermaa, returning to Luther's transformative experience of grace, new avenues open up for reforming Lutheran grace‐language. With Luther, a holistic approach to grace can be developed, one that includes Mary the mother of God.     

What is the Problem with Fundamental Moral Error?

Quasi-realists argue that meta-ethical expressivism is fully compatible with the central assumptions underlying ordinary moral practice. In a recent paper, Andy Egan has developed a vexing challenge for this project, arguing that expressivism is incompatible with central assumptions about error in moral judgments. In response, Simon Blackburn has argued that Egan's challenge fails, because Egan reads the expressivist as giving an account of moral error, rather than an account of judgments about moral error. In this paper I argue that the challenge can be reinstated, even if we focus only on the expressivist's account of judgments about moral error.     

Judgements,Expertise, and Counterfactuals

Abstract

In The Philosophy of Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), Tim Williamson has offered a sophisticated account of thought experiments and of modal epistemology. More recently, he has also engaged in a variant of the so-called ‘expertise defence’ of traditional philosophical methodology. In this paper I argue that if Williamson’s account of thought experiments and of modal epistemology is right, this seriously undermines his version of the expertise defence.     

A general proof of consistency of heuristic classification for cognitive diagnosis models

The Asymptotic Classification Theory of Cognitive Diagnosis (Chiu et al., 2009, Psychometrika, 74, 633–665) determined the conditions that cognitive diagnosis models must satisfy so that the correct assignment of examinees to proficiency classes is guaranteed when non‐parametric classification methods are used. These conditions have only been proven for the Deterministic Input Noisy Output AND gate model. For other cognitive diagnosis models, no theoretical legitimization exists for using non‐parametric classification techniques for assigning examinees to proficiency classes. The specific statistical properties of different cognitive diagnosis models require tailored proofs of the conditions of the Asymptotic Classification Theory of Cognitive Diagnosis for each individual model – a tedious undertaking in light of the numerous models presented in the literature. In this paper a different way is presented to address this task. The unified mathematical framework of general cognitive diagnosis models is used as a theoretical basis for a general proof that under mild regularity conditions any cognitive diagnosis model is covered by the Asymptotic Classification Theory of Cognitive Diagnosis.