Fallacies

Fallacies are things people commit, and when they commit them they do something wrong. What kind of activities are people engaged in when they commit fallacies, and in what way are they doing something wrong? Many different things are called fallacies. The diversity of the use of the concept of a fallacy suggests that we are dealing with a family of cases not related by a common essence. However, we suggest a simple account of the nature of fallacies which encompasses them all, viz., the term “fallacy” is our most general term for criticizing any general procedure used for the fixation of beliefs that has an unacceptably high tendency to generate false or unfounded beliefs, relative to that method of fixing beliefs. Very different sorts of things called fallacies are examined in the light of this account, e.g., denying the antecedent, circular arguments, so-called informal fallacies, and propositions said to be fallacies. We do not provide a theory of fallacies. Still, on our account pretty much all of those things that have been called fallacies are fallacies, and they have been called fallacies for pretty much the same reasons.     

Sex differences in environmental concern and knowledge: The case of acid rain

Several theories have been presented that predict differences between women and men in attitudes toward the environment due to differences in sex roles. Research on which these theories can be tested has tended to examine general environmental concern, and the results have generally been weak and inconclusive. Using an approach suggested in the literature, this study examines sex differences in concern and knowledge, using multi-item scales for each, about one environmental issue — acid rain. The results contradict the theories being tested, however: if there is a sex difference, men are found to be more concerned and knowledgeable about the environmental problem.     

Perceived Control in Prison: Its Relation to Reported Crowding,Stress, and Symptoms1

Two studies were conducted to investigate the effects of perceived control in two men's prisons, one housing 181 inmates and the other housing 623 inmates. In both prisons, inmates' perceived control over the environment was found to be significantly related to their ratings of their living accommodations, experienced stress, and physical symptoms, even when type of cell was held constant.     

Comparing the effects of two correction procedures on human acquisition of sequential behavior patterns

Thirty-one college undergraduates learned to touch abstract stimuli on a computer screen in arbitrarily designated “correct” sequential orders. Four sets of seven stimuli were used; the stimuli were arrayed horizontally on the screen in random sequences. A correct response (i.e., touching first the stimulus designated as first) resulted in that stimulus appearing near the top of the screen in its correct sequential position (left to right), and remaining there until the end of the trial. Incorrect responses (i.e., touching a stimulus out of sequence) terminated the trial. New trials displayed either the same sequence as the one on which an error had occurred (same-order correction procedure), or a new random sequence (new-order correction procedure). Whenever all responses occurred in the correct sequence, the next trial displayed a new random sequence. Each phase ended when five consecutive correct response sequences occurred. Initially, the same-order correction procedure increased control by the position as well as by the shape of the stimuli; also, it produced more errors, more total trials, more trials to mastery, and more individual patterns of reacquisition than were produced by the new-order procedure.     

Evidence for a general category of oblique orientations in four-month-old infants

Recent work on orientation perception and memory in infants suggest that oblique stimulus orientations are treated as members of a category. The two studies in this report support this hypothesis and extend previous findings by demonstrating that this category includes obliques on either side of vertical even when infants are previously exposed to obliques on only one side.     

Classification of empirically derived prototypes as a function of category experience

In three experiments, subjects learned to classify dot patterns into three categories represented by either three, six, or nine exemplars. Following learning, subjects were tested on an additional set of patterns, which included patterns from the learning phase, the category objective prototypes, and new distortions of the objective prototypes. Also included in the test set were empirical prototypes and distortions of empirical prototypes. Empirical prototypes were derived by averaging feature values of category exemplars in the learning phase. The overall results revealed that empirical prototypes were classified more accurately than were objective prototypes. In addition, a pattern of convergence in error rates was observed for distortions of the objective and empirical prototypes as category set size increased, but this same pattern was not observed for the objective and empirical prototypes themselves. This lack of convergence for the prototypes is inconsistent with explanations of the category set size effect that rely on the central limit theorem.     

The Novacco Anger Scale and Jenkins Activity Survey as predictors of cardiovascular reactivity

This study investigated the relationship among anger, the Type A construct, and cardiovascular reactivity. The Novacco Anger Scale and the Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS) were used to measure anger proneness and Type A characteristics, respectively. Twenty-four college males were selected from the upper and lower quintiles of the JAS distribution. During the study, the subjects were exposed to varying levels of experimentally induced challenge, while measurements were taken of heart-rate and blood-pressure changes. The results showed a modest but significant correlation between scores on the Novacco Anger Scale and the JAS. More importantly, scores on the Novacco Anger Scale correlated significantly with heart rate and systolic blood pressure under all challenge conditions, while those on the JAS were unrelated to cardiovascular excitability. These results raise questions about the usefulness of the JAS as a predictor of CHD risk. They are also consistent with the beliefs of other investigators that anger and hostility are the most important Type A behaviors in predisposing patients to coronary heart disease. Additional implications of the study are discussed.     

“You're overreacting!”: The ambiguity of Asian American microaggressions delegitimizes collective action

Asian Americans are lauded as the model minority who are intelligent and industrious. Simultaneously, they are deemed as perpetual foreigners. The current research examines how racial microaggressions expressed by a White American source toward an Asian American target affect perceptions of the perpetrator and target. White Americans and Asian Americans read about an interaction between two college students, where the racial microaggression made was either an ambiguous expression of the model minority myth (MMM; all studies), an ambiguous perpetual foreigner stereotype (all studies), an unambiguous MMM (all studies), or no racial bias (Studies 2 and 3). Findings indicate that both Whites and Asian Americans respond differently—when exposed to the aforementioned conditions—regarding perceived racism of the White perpetrator and appropriateness of response by the Asian American target; however, they respond similarly regarding perceived legitimacy of collective action by the target. Nevertheless, Whites and Asian Americans deemed the ambiguous microaggression against the target as a model minority not racist relative to unambiguous MMM. Our findings show that ambiguous forms of bias toward Asian Americans go “under the radar” of both Whites and Asian Americans as being racist and contribute to the maintenance of the racial status quo.     

Behavioral consequences of intergroup sensitivity

Communication of criticism between groups is important to productive societal discourse, but may serve to inflame conflict. The defensive rejection of intergroup, relative to intragroup, criticism (intergroup sensitivity effect [ISE]) may contribute to such divides. The ISE has been observed in self-report measures, but such measures are weak and biased predictors of actual (divisive) behavior. We review recent research demonstrating that the ISE does have costly behavioral consequences. We next consider the debate concerning whether the ISE reflects defense of a valued social identity or enforcement of a conversational norm. We therefore review recent evidence for an ISE among individuals lacking identification with the target of the criticism. Third, we examine how the ISE may affect a variety of behaviors relevant to societal divisions, including political reconciliation, environmental sustainability, and vaccination. Lastly, we outline future research that can clarify the underlying mechanisms of the ISE and promote conciliatory intergroup behavior.