Cognitive bias,situationism, and virtue reliabilism

Synthese - Mark Alfano claims that the heuristics and biases literature supports inferential cognitive situationism, i.e., the view that most of our inferential beliefs are arrived at and retained...     

The patient in the family and the family in the patient

The notion that the family is “the unit of care” for family doctors has been enigmatic and controversial. Yet systems theory and the biopsychosocial model that results when it is imported into medicine make the family system an indispensable and important component of family medicine. The challenge, therefore, is to provide a coherent, plausible account of the role of the family in family practice. Through an extended case presentation and commentary, we elaborate two views of the family in family medicine — treating the patient in the family and treating the family in the patient — and defend both as appropriate foci for care by family doctors. The practical problem that arises when the family is introduced into health care is deciding when to concentrate on the family system. The moral problems that arise concern how extensively doctors may become involved in the personal lives of their patients and families. The patient-centered clinical method provides a strategy for handling both problems. Thus, making the family a focus of care in family medicine can be justified on theoretical, practical, and moral grounds.     

An Appraisal of Psychological &; Religious Perspectives of Self-control

The boundary between psychology and religion is at its murkiest around topics of interest to both forms of discourse. An attempt to clarify some of the boundary issues specifically present in discussions of self-control or self-regulation, this paper begins by examining self-control in healthy psychological functioning. Research on feedback loops, information processing and ego depletion have highlighted key psychological mechanisms involved in self-control. Next this paper explores common themes in religious perspectives regarding the virtue of self-control and self-restraint. A clear preoccupation of major religious traditions is the management of human passion and desire. In conclusion, three boundary concerns relevant to both psychology and religion are discussed: the meaning of virtue, differences in defining the self in self-control, and relational concerns important to understanding self-control.

Work options for women in women's magazines: The medium and the message

A content analysis of women profiled in women's magazines asked, How do “established” vs. “new” magazines differ in socialization messages about work options for women? Six established and four new magazines were analyzed from 1971 through 1980, for a total random sample of 232 issues (172 individual profiles). Three hypotheses were investigated. Compared to new magazines, established magazines are (1) less likely to present women in a variety of work roles and (2) more likely to profile women in “traditional” occupations. (3) Employed women profiled in established magazines are less likely to perceive themselves as having responsibility and/or power/influence in relation to their jobs. Hypotheses 2 and 3 were supported. The discussion highlights changes in both types of magazines but notes the fairly traditional message established magazines present vs. new magazines.     

Approximate truth

Conclusion The technical results presented here on continuity and approximate implication are obviously incomplete. In particular, a syntactic characterization of approximate implication is highly desirable. Nevertheless, I believe the results above do show that the theory has considerable promise for application to the areas mentioned at the top of the paper.Formulation and defense of realist interpretations of science, for example, require approximate truth because we hardly ever have evidence that a particular scientific theory corresponds perfectly with a portion of the real world. Realists need to assert, then, that evidence for a theory is evidence for its approximate truth, not its truth (see [3] and [18]). Approximate truth is, however, a vague notion, and specification of quantity terms and of a sense of approximation are needed to make precise applications of it. Suitability of both vocabulary and sense of approximation depend on the subject matter, and their selection is a partly empirical matter that raises complex issues. In light of the number of common inferences which are not continuous, realists also need to be concerned about indiscriminate use of deductive logic to derive consequences from approximately true theories. These issues will be considered further in a future paper.Approximate truth also has potential application in areas of artificial intelligence that require inference from inaccurate data. In the qualitative physical theories of de Kleer and Brown [6], for example, qualitative values are derived by partitioning the real numbers into regions. Inferences leading from inside to outside a region must be identified and avoided, and approximate implication and continuity may prove useful in doing this. More generally, growing use of predicate logic as a programming language invites application of the theory of approximate truth as a symbolic substitute for numerical evaluation of computation errors. This too will be the subject of a future paper.Thanks to R. Boyd, A. Garfinkel, H. Hertz, P. Solomon, P. Suppes, S. Weissman, and anonymous referees for advice and criticism.     

Correspondence Between Preference Assessment Outcomes and Stimulus Reinforcer Value for Social Interactions

Preferred forms of social interaction were identified using a paired-stimulus format in which two 3–5 s videos of the experimenter providing the social interaction to the participant were presented. Reinforcer efficacy of the high-, medium-, and low-preferred interactions was evaluated using a progressive-ratio schedule to determine the amount of work maintained by the stimuli. Results showed that higher preference stimuli produced larger break points than did lower preference stimuli.