The illusion of knowledge: When more information reduces accuracy and increases confidence

Intuition suggests that having more information can increase prediction accuracy of uncertain outcomes. In four experiments, we show that more knowledge can decrease accuracy and simultaneously increase prediction confidence. Participants were asked to predict basketball games sampled from a National Basketball Association season. All participants were provided with statistics (win record, halftime score), while half were additionally given the team names. Knowledge of names increased the confidence of basketball fans consistent with their belief that this knowledge improved their predictions. Contrary to this belief, it decreased the participants’ accuracy by reducing their reliance on statistical cues. One of the factors contributing to this underweighting of statistical cues was a bias to bet on more familiar teams against the statistical odds. Finally, in a real betting experiment, fans earned less money if they knew the team names while persisting in their belief that this knowledge improved their predictions.     

Urban adolescents’ experience of social class in relationships at work

This article describes a qualitative study examining two interrelated facets of the school-to-work transition among urban high school students: their relationships with important adults within that transition and the ways they experience the subjective aspects of social class and class-related constructs in those relationships. Participants were 27 urban adolescents participating in a school-to-work program or otherwise employed after school. We analyzed data generated from participants’ elaborations on their scaled responses to adapted Relational Health Index items pertaining to supervisors and other important adults at work. Qualitative analysis identified four thematic categories of how social class is experienced in urban adolescents’ relationships at work: Navigation of Identity; Perceptions of Similarity, Difference, and Being Understood; Receipt of Mobility Encouragement; and Awareness of Stratification. Results suggest that the first two of these categories represent the ways that participants work to find balance between the dual realities of Mobility and Stratification.     

The Turing Test as Interactive Proof

In 1950, Alan Turing proposed his eponymous test based on indistinguishability of verbal behavior as a replacement for the question “Can machines think?” Since then, two mutually contradictory but well‐founded attitudes towards the Turing Test have arisen in the philosophical literature. On the one hand is the attitude that has become philosophical conventional wisdom, viz., that the Turing Test is hopelessly flawed as a sufficient condition for intelligence, while on the other hand is the overwhelming sense that were a machine to pass a real live full‐fledged Turing Test, it would be a sign of nothing but our orneriness to deny it the attribution of intelligence. The arguments against the sufficiency of the Turing Test for determining intelligence rely on showing that some extra conditions are logically necessary for intelligence beyond the behavioral properties exhibited by an agent under a Turing Test. Therefore, it cannot follow logically from passing a Turing Test that the agent is intelligent. I argue that these extra conditions can be revealed by the Turing Test, so long as we allow a very slight weakening of the criterion from one of logical proof to one of statistical proof under weak realizability assumptions. The argument depends on the notion of interactive proof developed in theoretical computer science, along with some simple physical facts that constrain the information capacity of agents. Crucially, the weakening is so slight as to make no conceivable difference from a practical standpoint. Thus, the Gordian knot between the two opposing views of the sufficiency of the Turing Test can be cut.     

Extraversion and neuroticism in team sport participants, individual sport participants, and nonparticipants

Scores on Extraversion and on Neuroticism as measured by the Eysenck Personality Inventory were compared for 90 undergraduate team sport participants, individual sport participants, and nonparticipants (43 men, 47 women, M age = 20.3 yr.). From past research and Eysenck's biological theory of personality, it was hypothesized that sport participants would score higher on Extraversion and lower on Neuroticism than nonparticipants, and that team participants would score higher on Extraversion and perhaps higher on Neuroticism than individual sport participants. By comparing scores for students in first year and final year, it was also investigated whether pre-existing personality differences drew people to sport (the gravitational hypothesis) or whether personality changed as a function of sport participation (the developmental hypothesis). The main findings were that team participants scored higher on Extraversion than both individual sport participants and nonparticipants, and that test scores did not change over time, supporting the gravitational hypothesis for Extraversion.     

Too Few Tensions, But Not Enough Utopia? Comments on Equality: From Theory to Action

This welcomes Equality: From Theory to Action as an important contribution both to linking egalitarian political philosophy to public policy and as a book which helps communicate a wealth of philosophical ideas in an accessible way to a wide public. On the critical side, it argues that the authors understate some tensions between egalitarianism and pluralism, and that the book’s discussion of egalitarian economic institutions is quite narrow in scope. As a complement and development of this latter discussion, the paper discusses some policy proposals to address inequality of wealth.     

Defining answer classes using resolution refutation

Resolution theorem proving provides a useful paradigm for the exploration of question answering. A partition of the clauses generated during resolution refutation based on their syntactic structure is presented. The three classes comprising this partition correspond to semantically intuitive types of answers. This work encompasses and expands upon previous work on question answering in a theorem proving paradigm, which began with the association of answers with proofs. A complete, formal definition of what is meant by answer in the context of resolution theorem proving is presented. In this context, clauses that are relevant are all identified as answers, where relevance is determined with respect to a question and knowledge base: any clause descended from the clause form of a negated question is deemed relevant. This definition of relevance is not in and of itself novel; rather, it is the way in which the set of relevant clauses is partitioned that provides the key to interpreting clauses as answers. The three answer classes identified are: specific, generic, and hypothetical. These classes are formally distinguished by the way in which literals in a clause share variables, with class membership based on a property termed the closure of variable sharing of a literal. The results presented provide a foundation for further work by establishing a context-independent logical pragmatics of question answering.     

Getting the Job: Attributional Retraining and the Employment Interview1

This study examined the effectiveness of attributional retraining (AR) in an employment interview setting. Our sample consisted of 50 co‐operative education students completing job interviews who were randomly assigned to a control or writing‐based AR condition. Dependent measures included attributions, expectations, and affect, as well as behavior with respect to an interview skills workshop, and actual employment outcomes. Results showed AR to promote controllable failure attributions, expectations, motivated behavior, and interview success, particularly among participants with maladaptive baseline attributions. Findings further revealed AR effects on emotions mediated by post‐treatment attributions. Implications for attribution theory and research on AR in employment settings are discussed.     

Observational learning use and self-efficacy beliefs in adult sport novices

ObjectivesThe purposes of this study were to investigate adult sport novices' use of the functions of observational learning and to examine its relationship to their self-efficacy beliefs to learn sport-related skills and strategies, and to regulate mental states during the learning process.MethodAdults enrolled in beginner level sport classes completed the Functions of Observational Learning Questionnaire (FOLQ; Cumming, J., Clark, S.E., Ste-Marie, D.M., McCullagh, P., & Hall, C. (2005). The functions of observational learning questionnaire (FOLQ). Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 6, 517–537.) as well as a self-efficacy questionnaire. Internal consistencies were acceptable for all subscales and a factor analysis confirmed that this instrument can be used with sport novices.ResultsAthletes' use of observational learning and their self-efficacy beliefs differed according to sport type. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that for adults learning an independent sport, more frequent use of the skill function of observational learning predicted higher self-efficacy to learn skills and self-efficacy to learn strategies. For adults learning an interactive sport, more frequent use of the performance function predicted higher self-efficacy to regulate mental states during the learning process.ConclusionsResults suggest that factors related to specific sport types, such as sport demands and model availability, may differentially influence learners' use of observational learning as well as its impact on their self-efficacy for learning technical sport components and self-efficacy for controlling their mental state during learning. This has implications for sport instructors and coaches regarding optimal methods for structuring observational learning experiences to enhance learners' self-efficacy beliefs.