Choice reactions with a null stimulus event

A procedure for producing a null stimulus (S₀) in a CRT task is described. The S₀ produced is shown to elicit reactions that have characteristics of responses given to stimuli (S₁) that appear in regular CRT tasks. It was also discovered that, in this procedure, the initiation of S₀ sampling comes earlier than that of S₁ when S₀ and S₁ appear in the same CRT task. The nature of S₀ as well as the apparent reasons for its early sampling are discussed.     

The Consulting Process: A Multidimensional Approach

The consulting process seems to work similarly regardless of whether the consultant is internal or external or is doing individual or group consultation. Some differences may occur depending on whether the consultant is a process helper or content helper, although good content-focused consultants often possess excellent process skills and use them as a regular part of the consulting process. Several consultation processes were reviewed, and from this a six-step approach is presented.     

The ethics and politics of the brain drain: A communal alternative to liberal perspectives

In Debating Brain Drain, Gillian Brock and Michael Blake both draw on a liberal moral-political foundation to address the issue, but they come to different conclusions about it. Despite the commonly held value of free and equal persons having a dignity that grounds human rights, Brock concludes that many medical professionals who leave a developing country soon after having received training there are wrong to do so (if they do not provide compensation) and that the state may place some limits on their ability to exit, whereas Blake infers that there is neither any wrongdoing on their part, nor rightful restrictions placed on them. In this article, rather than sort out which has the better interpretation of what liberalism entails, I consider the medical brain drain in the light of an alternative normative framework, one informed by ideals of communion salient in the sub-Saharan moral tradition. I argue that a principle of prizing communal relationships more naturally entails Brock’s conclusions than does her appeal to liberalism.     

Pretreatment task persistence predicts smoking cessation outcome

R. Eisenberger's (1992) learned industriousness theory states that individuals display differing degrees of persistence depending on their history of reinforcement for effortful behavior. These differences may influence the development, maintenance, and cessation of addictive behaviors. In cross-sectional studies, E. P. Quinn, T. H. Brandon, and A. L. Copeland (1996) found that cigarette smokers were less persistent than nonsmokers, and R. A. Brown, C. W. Lejuez, C. W. Kahler, and D. R. Strong (2002) found that smokers who had previously abstained for 3 months were more persistent than those who had never quit. The present study extended these findings by using a prospective design. A pretreatment measure of task persistence (mirror tracing) completed by 144 smokers predicted sustained abstinence throughout 12 months of follow-up. Moreover, persistence predicted outcome independent of other significant predictors: gender, nicotine dependence, negative affect, and self-efficacy.     

The Immortality Requirement for Life's meaning

Many religious thinkers hold the immortality requirement, the view that immortality of some kind is necessary for life to have meaning. After clarifying the nature of the immortality requirement, this essay examines three central arguments for it. The article establishes that existing versions of these arguments fail to entail the immortality requirement. The essay then reconstructs the arguments, and it shows that once they do plausibly support the immortality requirement, they equally support the God-centred requirement, the view that God's existence is a necessary condition for life to be meaningful. The paper concludes by explaining why we should expect any argument for the immortality requirement also to constitute an argument for the God-centred requirement.