Faking revisited: Exerting strategic control over performance on the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure

Across four studies, we demonstrate that effects obtained from the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure, like those obtained from other indirect procedures, are not impervious to strategic manipulation. In experiment 1, we found that merely informing participants to “fake” their performance without providing a concrete strategy to do so did not eliminate, reverse, or in any way alter the obtained outcomes. However, when those same instructions orientated attention toward the core parameters of the task, participants spontaneously derived a strategy that allowed them to eliminate their effects (experiment 2). When the participants were provided with a viable response strategy, they successfully reversed the direction of their overall Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure effect (experiment 3). By refining the nature of those instructions, we managed to target and alter individual trial‐type effects in isolation with some success (experiment 4).     

Is `God exists' a `hinge proposition' of religious belief?

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Plagues,Pagans, and Christians: Differential Survival,Social Networks,and the Rise of Christianity

In his book, The Rise of Christianity, Rodney Stark argues that the early Christian church indirectly benefitted from the plagues that struck the early Roman Empire in the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Common Era. In particular, he argues that the early church's doctrines concerning love, charity, and social service would have led Christians to enjoy higher survival rates than pagans, which would have left the social networks of the former relatively intact, while those of the latter in disarray. Moreover, since recruitment to new religious movements occurs largely through social ties, the probability that an average pagan would have converted to Christianity would have been greater after the plagues than before. In this article, we use computer modeling to test Stark's hypothesis. Not only do we find support for his hypothesis, we also show that higher survival rates for either group not only would have benefitted their respective social networks but also would have benefitted their competitor's social networks, highlighting how network effects often flow in multiple and unexpected ways. We conclude with suggestions for future research, in particular how scholars can build upon our analyses and explore alternative assumptions.     

Two Russellian Arguments for Acquaintance

Bertrand Russell [1912] argued that we are acquainted with our experiences. Although this conclusion has generated a lot of discussion, very little has been said about Russell's actual arguments for it. This paper aims to remedy that. I start by spelling out two Russellian arguments for acquaintance. Then I show that these arguments cannot both succeed. For if one is sound, the other isn't. Finally, I weigh our options with respect to these arguments, and defend one option in particular. I argue that we have good reason to believe that we can be, and sometimes are, acquainted with our experiences.     

Film clips and narrative text as subjective emotion elicitation techniques

Film clips and narrative text are useful techniques in eliciting emotion in a laboratory setting but have not been examined side-by-side using the same methodology. This study examined the self-identification of emotions elicited by film clip and narrative text stimuli to confirm that selected stimuli appropriately target the intended emotions. Seventy participants viewed 30 film clips, and 40 additional participants read 30 narrative texts. Participants identified the emotion experienced (happy, sad, angry, fearful, neutral—six stimuli each). Eighty-five percent of participants self-identified the target emotion for at least two stimuli for all emotion categories of film clips, except angry (only one) and for all categories of narrative text, except fearful (only one). The most effective angry text was correctly identified 74% of the time. Film clips were more effective in eliciting all target emotions in participants for eliciting the correct emotion (angry), intensity rating (happy, sad), or both (fearful).     

Dualists needn’t be anti-criterialists (nor should they be)

Sometimes in philosophy one view engenders another. If you hold the first, chances are you hold the second. But it’s not always because the first entails the second. Sometimes the tie is less clear, less clean. One such tie is between substance dualism and anti-criterialism. Substance dualism is the view that people are, at least in part, immaterial mental substances. Anti-criterialism is the view that there is no criterion of personal identity through time. Most philosophers who hold the first view also hold the second. In fact, many philosophers just assume that substance dualists ought to, or perhaps even have to, accept anti-criterialism. But I aim to show that this assumption is baseless. Substance dualism doesn’t entail, suggest, support, or in any way motivate anti-criterialism, and anti-criterialism confers no benefit on dualism. Substance dualists have no special reason—and, indeed, no good reason at all—to accept anti-criterialism. Or so I shall argue. My aim isn’t to defend substance dualism, nor is it to attack anti-criterialism. My aim is to show that, contrary to a long-standing trend, dualists needn’t be anti-criterialists. Nor, as it will turn out, should they be.     

Shut-Up and Listen: Implications and Possibilities of Albert Memmi’s Characteristics of Colonization Upon the “Natural World”

This paper begins by exploring the anti-colonial work of Tunisian scholar Albert Memmi in his classic book The Colonizer and the Colonized and determining whether the characteristics of colonization that he names can be successfully applied to the current relationship between modern humans and the “natural world”. After considering what we found to be the five key characteristics: manufacturing the colonial, alienation and unknowability, violence, psychological strategies (bad faith), and language, history, and metaphor we draw clear parallels, through selected examples, to the exploitative relationships enacted in many realms of the modern human/nature relationship. In so doing the paper posits that the beings that comprise the “natural world” are colonized. It then continues from that position to explore the possibility of cultivating practices of listening to the voices of these colonized others to inform anti-colonial ecopedagogy as allies. We employ the term “shut-up” as an anti-colonial gesture to remind ourselves as much as others of the importance of first listening to the colonized other before engaging in “post-colonial” theorizing about prospective relationships or liberatory solutions “for” them. Given the fast-paced and cacophonic urban life many humans increasingly inhabit, and the disciplined and reiterative practice(s) required to learn to listen to other voices, we suggest caution and care when importing postcolonial theory into “environmental” contexts and seek to instigate further discussion as to how we might enact solidarity with other beings as anti-colonial allies in education. To this end, we conclude the paper with some educational implications based on research at a place-based school and focus on the role history, language and metaphor play in manufacturing a colonial relationship, but also provide a potential means for changing relationships with the diverse beings with whom we share the planet.     

Meta‐Analysis of Counseling Outcomes for Youth With Conduct Disorders

Twenty‐one clinical trials were synthesized using a random‐effects model, which substantiated that counseling generally produces a medium effect in treating conduct disorder in youth at termination (d + = 0.30 to 0.57; k = 28). However, the lasting effects at follow‐up were unclear because few follow‐up studies (k = 13) have been conducted (d + = ?0.53 to 0.58), and only 2 randomized controlled follow‐up studies were located. No effects of moderating variables were evident. Implications for counseling practice and outcome research are addressed.