Personality Factors and the Short-Term Variability in Subjective Well-Being

The present study used a sample of 60 college students and an intensive longitudinal approach to investigate the variability in subjective well-being (SWB). At the beginning of the semester students provided information related to their personalities, while throughout the semester they provided SWB data on a weekly basis. Considerable between-student and within-student variability in SWB was found. Multiple regression analyses revealed that personality-based models were useful in explaining the variability in SWB. Conscientiousness and the Chance component of locus of control were found to be statistically significant independent personality predictors of variability in SWB. Specifically, students high in conscientiousness and high in external locus of control experienced more variability in SWB over the study period.     

The multidimensional analysis of asymmetries in alphabetic confusion matrices: Evidence for global-to-local and local-to-global processing

This study examined the ability of an asymmetric multidimensional scaling program (DEDICOM) to reveal information about letter-perception processes. To demonstrate its potential, we applied it to the controversy concerning local-to-global versus global-to-local letter perception. These two theories lead to different predictions about stimulus confusion asymmetries. Since DEDICOM is capable of recovering the structure of asymmetric or directional patterns, it should reveal whether a stimulus-response confusion matrix contains patterns of asymmetry more consistent with one or the other perceptual theory. This was tested using two data sets. The first (from Lupker, 1979) revealed an additive hierarchy of asymmetry strongly consistent with global-tolocal processing, although unexpected additional structure and reliable anomalies indicated the need for a more refined theoretical account. The second (a full alphabetic confusion matrix combining data from Gilmore et al., 1979; Loomis, 1982; and Towasend, 1971) revealed five distinct patterns, each consisting of transformations attributable to the failure to detect specific local letter features. This solution strengthened support for local-to-global processing, in sharp contrast to the first analysis. Possible reasons for this divergence are discussed, including differences in the stimuli, exposure durations, and a hypothetical two-stage process of perception. Despite their differences, both solutions demonstrated how asymmetric scaling can reveal structure in asymmetries, which is relevant to perceptual theory and which would have been difficult to recover by other means.     

Fifteen years after “Animal Liberation”: Has the animal rights movement achieved philosophical legitimacy?

Fifteen years ago, Peter Singer published Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals. In it, he proposed to end "the tyranny of humans over nonhuman animals" by "thinking through, carefully, and consistently, the question of how we ought to treat animals" (p. ix). On this anniversary of the book's publication, a critical analysis shows that the logic he presents, though popularly appealing, is philosophically flawed. Though influential in slowing and in some cases stopping biomedical research involving animals, the animal rights movement in the United States has yet to offer a clear and compelling argument for the equality of species.     

'An intimate loneliness': evaluating the impact of a child's death on parental self-identity and marital relationships

Marital relationships may degenerate following a son's or daughter's death. This paper explores ways in which problems of communication between grieving partners may be linked to the challenge which each is facing in reordering their parental self-narrative. The role which'talk'plays in constructing and maintaining self-identity, and the contributions which professional and volunteer support might make in facilitating marital conversation are examined. A brief note is also made of current research upon which this paper is based, commenting on the appropriateness of the narrative technique for collecting emotionally sensitive field-data.     

Israel Scheffler on Religion,Reason and Education

Israel Scheffler has only recently written directly and about religion and education in religion, although these are matters in which he has a strong personal interest. Scheffler's views on these issues are outlined and critically appraised, with some reference to the views of R.S. Peters on similar questions. It is suggested that one of the major difficulties which arise in relation to Schelffer's position concern its account of the balance between acceptance and critical search for clarity needed on the part of students in their engagement with Jewish ritual. This difficulty brings into focus a numer of central questions which arise concerning the reinterpretive account of Jewish tradition which Scheffler offers.     

Supposition as Quantification versus Supposition as Global Quantificational Effect

This paper follows up a suggestion by Paul Vincent Spade that there were two Medieval theories of the modes of personal supposition. I suggest that early work by Sherwood and others was a study of quantifiers: their semantics and the effects of context on inferences that can be made from quantified terms. Later, in the hands of Burley and others, it changed into a study of something else, a study of what I call global quantificational effect. For example, although the quantifier in ¬xPx is universal, it can be seen globally as having an existential effect; this is because the formula containing it is equivalent to x¬Px. The notion of global effect can be explained in terms of the modern theory of normal forms. I suggest that early authors were studying quantifiers, and the terminology of the theory of personal supposition is a classification of kinds of quantifiers. In this theory, to say that a term has distributive supposition is to say, roughly, that it is quantified by a universal quantifying sign. Later authors turned this into a theory of global quantificational effect. In the later theory, to say that a term has distributive supposition is to say that the overall effect is as if the term were universally quantified with a quantifier taking (relatively) wide scope. The difference between these two approaches is illustrated by the fact that the term man is classified as having distributive ("universal") supposition in Not every man is running in the earlier theory, whereas in the later theory that term does not have distributive supposition; it has determinate ("existential") supposition. In the paper I explain these options, and I argue from several texts that the earlier and later medieval theories actually worked like this. In an appendix I make further efforts to clarify the obscure early accounts, as well as the nineteenth century "doctrine of distribution". The last section of the paper discusses the "purpose(s)" of supposition theory.     

Hemisphere functioning and motor imitation in autistic persons

Previous research has found that a high proportion of autistic individuals exhibit an atypical pattern of hemispheric specialization suggestive of impaired left hemisphere functioning: namely, right hemisphere dominance for both verbal and visual-spatial processing. Studies of brain-damaged persons have suggested that the left hemisphere is specialized for the use of nonverbal gesture. Since a major characteristic of autism is an impairment in the use of gesture, it was predicted that autistic persons would also show atypical hemispheric specialization for motor imitation. To test this hypothesis, hemispheric activation was measured using EEG recordings of alpha rhythm in autistic and matched normal control subjects during four motor imitation tasks. Autistic subjects showed significantly greater right hemisphere activation during the imitation tasks, than normal subjects. This pattern was particularly evident in younger autistic subjects and during oral, rather than manual, imitation tasks.     

GENERALIZATION OF VERBAL CONDITIONING TO VERBAL AND NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR: GROUP THERAPY WITH CHRONIC PSYCHIATRIC PATIENTS1

Twelve chronic hospitalized female patients received token reinforcement contingent on two separate classes of verbalizations: (a) positive statements about optional activities available in the hospital setting, and (b) positive statements about people. Cross-class generalization of reinforced verbal responses about activities to overt behavior was tested by actual participation in activities; within-class generalization of verbal responses about people to verbalizations in another stimulus setting was assessed in a structured interview situation. A multiple baseline design with contingency reversals was employed to demonstrate experimental control of both classes of verbalizations in the group sessions. Positive statements about activities generalized to actual participation in activities, while generalization of positive statements about people to verbalization in the extra-group setting did not occur.