Propositional attitudes and formal ontology

This paper develops — within an axiomatic theory of properties, relations, and propositions which accords them well-defined existence and identity conditions — a sententialist-functionalist account of belief as a symbolically mediated relation to a special kind of propositional entity, theproxy-encoding abstract proposition. It is then shown how, in terms of this account, the truth conditions of English belief reports may be captured in a formally precise and empirically adequate way that accords genuinely semantic status to familiar opacity data.I am deeply indebted to Edward Zalta for many helpful comments and suggestions.     

Factor analytic structure of theScale to Asses World View

This article reports on the factor structure of theScale to Assess World View ^(c) (SAWV). Alpha reliabilities for the factors are presented. Gender differences in world views are also explored to understand how men and women in this sample viewed the world. Recommendations for client assessment, therapy, education and training, and scale revision are discussed. The research reported here is based on a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, August 17, 1992.     

Attentional misguidance in visual search

Previous research has shown that a task-irrelevant sudden onset of an object will capture an observer’s visual attention or draw it to that object (e.g., Yantis & Jonides, 1984). However, further research has demonstrated the apparent inability of an object with a task-irrelevant but unique color or luminance to capture attention (Jonides & Yantis, 1988). In the experiments reported here, we reexplore the question of whether task-irrelevant properties other than sudden onset may capture attention. Our results suggest that uniquely colored or luminous objects, as well as salient though irrelevant boundaries, do not appear to capture attention. However, these irrelevant features do appear to serve as landmarks for a top-down search strategy which becomes increasingly likely with larger display set sizes. These findings are described in terms of stimulus-driven and goal-directed aspects of attentional control.     

Latent Structure of the Sources of Mathematics Self-Efficacy

General social cognitive theory and its career-specific elaborations posit four primary sources through which self-efficacy beliefs are acquired and modified: personal performance accomplishments, vicarious learning, social persuasion, and physiological states and reactions. We present two studies exploring the dimensionality of these sources within the context of career-relevant mathematics activities. In Study 1, 295 college students completed measures of the source variables. Testing two- through five-factor models, we found strongest support for a four-factor latent structure of the efficacy sources. In Study 2, involving 481 high school students, a five-factor model fit the data well. We also found evidence of a higher order factor structure in both samples. Several directions for further research on the sources of efficacy information are considered, along with implications for career and academic interventions.     

Parental Smoking and the “Epidemic” Spread of Cigarette Smoking1

“Epidemic” models of transitions between stages of cigarette smoking describe the spread of smoking behavior through face-to-face encounters. An epidemic model was successfully fitted that allowed epidemic parameters to be conditioned on the smoking status of adolescents' parents. Model comparisons supported the conclusion that the transition from nonsmoker to trier involved social contacts, whereas the transition from trier to regular smoker was best modeled as a constant rate (i.e., did not depend on the population prevalence of smokers). The transition rate from nonsmoker to trier was more rapid in children of smoking parents than in children of nonsmoking parents. Adolescents with and without smoking parents did not differ in the rate of transition from trier to regular smoking.     

Undermind

David Albert and Barry Loewer have proposed a new interpretation of quantum mechanics which they call the Many Minds interpretation, according to which there are infinitely many minds associated with a given (physical) state of a brain. This interpretation is related to the family of many worlds interpretations insofar as it assumes strictly unitary (Schrödinger) time-evolution of quantum-mechanical systems (no reduction of the wave-packet). The Many Minds interpretation itself is principally motivated by an argument which purports to show that the assumption of unitary evolution, along with some common sense assumptions about mental states (specifically, beliefs) leads to a certain nonphysicalism, in which there is a many-to-one correspondence between minds and brains. In this paper, I critically examine this motivating argument, and show that it depends on a mistaken assumption regarding the correspondence between projection operators and yes/no questions.Thanks to David Albert, Arthur Fine, Martin Jones, and the two anonymous referees for their comments on an earlier version of this paper, and thanks to Jeremy Butterfield, Rob Clifton, Meir Hemmo and David Malament for comments on a revised version. Special thanks to Arthur for several helpful discussions.     

Antecedents and Consequences of Victimization of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Young People: A Structural Model Comparing Rural University and Urban Samples

Research indicates that antigay victimization is widespread and that lesbian, gay, and bisexual young people may be very vulnerable to such victimization. The current study builds upon previous work by Hershberger and D'Augelli (1995), who studied the consequences of sexual orientation-based victimization in 194 urban lesbian, gay, and bisexual youths. Using structural equation modeling, the present study models both antecedents and consequences (including psychological distress, self-esteem, and suicidality) of victimization via a secondary analysis of their data set. In addition, a second sample of 54 lesbian, gay, and bisexual youths from a rural university setting was examined to cross-validate and generalize the relationships found in urban settings. Results indicated that a revised model of victimization exhibited sufficient fit to the urban sample data and provided preliminary support for the generalizability of the model beyond the initial sample. Additional similarities were found between the urban and rural university community samples, including a high prevalence of reported suicide attempts: 42% of the urban sample and 32% of the rural university sample had attempted suicide at least once. Results indicated that victimization based on sexual orientation has similar correlates for young people in different community settings.