THE EFFECTS OF MESSAGE INTRODUCTION,MESSAGE STRUCTURE,AND VERBAL ORGANIZING ABILITY UPON LEARNING OF MESSAGE INFORMATION

This study focused primarily upon Ausubel's advance organizer concept as a relatively abstract message introduction. Subsumption theory suggests that the advance organizer should be superior in learning effects to an introduction of message main points and that the advance organizer should interact with message structure and verbal organizing ability. This study found no overall advance organizer superiority to other introduction conditions. However, simple interactions, which were analyzed to interpret a significant three-way interaction on one of two dependent variables, provided qualified support for first-order interaction hypotheses. These hypotheses predicted that the superiority of an advance organizer to other introduction conditions would be greater for a low-structure message than for a high-structure message and greater for low-ability subjects than for high-ability subjects. They also included a prediction that the superiority of a high-structure message to a low-structure message would be greater for high-ability subjects than for low-ability subjects. Analysis of serial position effects indicated primacy in recall under high-structure message conditions.     

The social relations model for family data: A multilevel approach

Multilevel models are proposed to study relational or dyadic data from multiple persons in families or other groups. The variable under study is assumed to refer to a dyadic relation between individuals in the groups. The proposed models are elaborations of the Social Relations Model. The different roles of father, mother, and child are emphasized in these models. Multilevel models provide researchers with a method to estimate the variances and correlations of the Social Relations Model and to incorporate the effects of covariates and test specialized models, even with missing observations.     

Narrative and Character Formation

I defend the claim that fictional narratives provide cognitive benefits to readers in virtue of helping them to understand character. Fictions allow readers to rehearse the skill of selecting and organizing into narratives those episodes of a life that reflect traits or values. Two further benefits follow: first, fictional narratives provide character models that we can apply to real‐life individuals (including ourselves), and second, fictional narratives help readers to reflect on the value priorities that constitute character. I defend the plausibility of these cognitive benefits against certain worries raised by Gregory Currie and Peter Goldie.     

CATCHING BERKELEY'S SHADOW

Berkeley thinks that we only see the size, shape, location, and orientation of objects in virtue of the correlation between sight and touch. Shadows have all of these spatial properties and yet are intangible. In Seeing Dark Things (2008), Roy Sorensen argues that shadows provide a counterexample to Berkeley's theory of vision and, consequently, to his idealism. This paper shows that Berkeley can accept both that shadows are intangible and that they have spatial properties.     

Religious Diversity in America: The Emergence of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and Others

America has always been a religiously diverse nation, but this has increased in recent decades. Changes in the non–Judeo–Christian population in the United States in general and the market share held by Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus in particular are examined. While the share of the population following these faiths has increased appreciably in recent decades, both the size of these groups and their growth has often been exaggerated.