Cookson,R., Griffin,S., Norheim,O. F., & Culyer,A. J. (Eds.). (2020). Distributional Cost-Effectiveness Analysis: Quantifying Health Equity Impacts and Trade-Offs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Paperback (ISBN-13: 9780198838197). £ 28.03. 365 pp

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice -     

A FURTHER EVALUATION OF PICTURE PROMPTS DURING AUDITORY‐VISUAL CONDITIONAL DISCRIMINATION TRAINING

This study was a systematic replication and extension of Fisher, Kodak, and Moore (2007 ), in which a picture prompt embedded into a least‐to‐most prompting sequence facilitated acquisition of auditory‐visual conditional discriminations. Participants were 4 children who had been diagnosed with autism; 2 had limited prior receptive skills, and 2 had more advanced receptive skills. We used a balanced design to compare the effects of picture prompts, pointing prompts, and either trial‐and‐error learning or a no‐reinforcement condition. In addition, we assessed the emergence of vocal tacts for the 2 participants who had prior tact repertoires. Picture prompts enhanced acquisition for all participants, but there were no differential effects on tact emergence. The results support a generality of the effect reported by Fisher et al. and suggest that a variety of learners may benefit from the incorporation of picture prompts into auditory‐visual conditional discrimination training.     

Construal level mind-sets moderate self- and social stereotyping

Construal level theory suggests that events and objects can be represented at either a higher, more abstract level involving consideration of superordinate goals, desirability, global processing, and broad categorizations or a lower, more concrete level involving consideration of subordinate goals, feasibility, local processing, and narrow categorizations. Analogously, social targets (including the self) can be represented more broadly, as members of a group, or more narrowly, as individuals. Because abstract construals induce a similarity focus, they were predicted to increase the perceived fit between social targets and a salient social category. Accordingly, placing individuals into a more abstract construal mind-set via an unrelated task increased the activation and use of stereotypes of salient social groups, stereotype-consistent trait ratings of the self, group identification, and stereotype-consistent performance relative to more concrete construal mind-sets. Thus, nonsocial contextual influences (construal level mind-sets) affect stereotyping of self and others.     

Integrating Social Identity and the Theory of Planned Behavior: Predicting Withdrawal from an Organizational Recruitment Process

This study develops and tests a model of applicant withdrawal. Drawing on tenets from social identity theory and the theory of planned behavior, this study proposes that applicants who highly identify with an organization will experience higher pursuit intentions and subsequently be less inclined to withdraw from recruitment. Data were collected from a sample of 669 applicants to the U.S. military at 2 intervals, separated by 3 months. Strong support was found for the proposed theoretical model. Implications for research and practice will be discussed.     

Modal Mereology and Modal Supervenience

David Lewis insists that restrictivist composition must be motivated by and occur due to some intuitive desiderata for a relation R among parts that compose wholes, and insists that a restrictivist??s relation R must be vague. Peter van Inwagen agrees. In this paper, I argue that restrictivists need not use such examples of relation R as a criterion for composition, and any restrictivist should reject a number of related mereological theses. This paper critiques Lewis and van Inwagen (and others) on their respective mereological metaphysics, and offers a Golden Mean between their two opposite extremes. I argue for a novel account of mereology I call Modal Mereology that is an alternative to Classical Mereology. A modal mereologist can be a universalist about the possible composition of wholes from parts and a restrictivist about the actual composition of wholes from parts. I argue that puzzles facing Modal Mereology (e.g., puzzles concerning Cambridge changes and the Problem of the Many, and how to demarcate the actual from the possible) are also faced in similar forms by classical universalists. On my account, restricted composition is rather motivated by and occurs due to a possible whole??s instantiating an actual type. Universalists commonly believe in such types and defend their existence from objections and puzzles. The Modal Mereological restrictivist can similarly defend the existence of such types (adding that such types are the only wholes) from similar objections and puzzles.     

Consciously identified attachment hierarchies: cognitive accessibility of attachment figure names as a function of threat primes in a lexical decision task

Studies have linked the subliminal priming of threat-related words to heightened cognitive accessibility directed towards the names of identified attachment figures. The present study used a lexical decision task to examine the cognitive accessibility of names of individuals who formed part of participants' self-reported attachment hierarchies. We did not find support for heightened accessibility in relation to the names of (a) consciously identified attachment figures in general, (b) full-blown attachment figures, or (c) primary attachment figures. However, our data revealed that participants showed increased accessibility to mothers' names in response to threat primes. This effect was even identified in individuals who did not consider mothers to occupy a primary position in their attachment hierarchy. Results are discussed in the context of attachment system activation in early adulthood.     

Reading between the minds: the use of stereotypes in empathic accuracy

An ideal empathizer may attend to another person's behavior in order to understand that person, but it is also possible that accurately understanding other people involves top-down strategies. We hypothesized that perceivers draw on stereotypes to infer other people's thoughts and that stereotype use increases perceivers' accuracy. In this study, perceivers (N = 161) inferred the thoughts of multiple targets. Inferences consistent with stereotypes for the targets' group (new mothers) more accurately captured targets' thoughts, particularly when actual thought content was also stereotypic. We also decomposed variance in empathic accuracy into thought, target, and perceiver variance. Although past research has frequently focused on variance between perceivers or targets (which assumes individual differences in the ability to understand other people or be understood, respectively), the current study showed that the most substantial variance was found within targets because of differences among thoughts.     

Ethics Code Awareness,Perceived Ethical Values,and Organizational Commitment

This study examines the relationships among ethics code awareness, perceived corporate ethical values, and organizational commitment. Three key findings emerged. First, those aware of the existence of an ethics code in their organizations perceived their organizations as having more ethical values than those not aware of an ethics code in their organizations. Second, respondents exhibited higher levels of organizational commitment when they were aware of an ethics code in their companies. Finally, the relationship between ethics code awareness and organizational commitment was fully mediated by perceptions of an organization’s ethical values. The results suggest that ethics codes may lead to higher levels of organizational commitment by increasing the belief that their organizations have strong ethical values, as long as the existence of ethics codes are adequately communicated.     

Does Multitasking Impair Studying? Depends on Timing

It is often said that contemporary students frequently study while ‘multitasking’. However, this rather diffuse term encompasses situations that vary as to the whether the learner controls the pace at which educational materials are provided. On the basis of prior cognitive research, we hypothesize that this may well be a critical determinant of interference. Three studies required students to read or listen to several short historical narratives and also to engage in five to eight very short conversations (akin to an instant messaging conversation). In Experiment 1, subjects read the narratives; here, multitasking marginally increased total time spent reading the narratives, especially when it occurred at random times. However, final memory for the narratives was not significantly affected. Similar results were obtained when the narratives were presented in audio format and the learner could pause them while conversing (Experiment 2). By contrast, when audio narratives did not pause, interruptions reduced comprehension performance (Experiment 3). Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.