HOW DID MORALITY EVOLVE?

Abstract. This paper presents and criticizes. Alexander's evolutionary theory of morality (1987). Earlier research, on which Alexander's theory is based, is also reviewed. The propensity to create moral systems evolved because it allowed ancestral humans to limit conflict within cooperating groups and thus form larger groups, which were advantageous because of intense between-group competition. Alexander sees moral codes as contractual, and the primary criticism of his theory is that moral codes are not completely contractual but also coercive. Ways of evaluating Alexander's theory as well as modified versions of it are discussed.     

The problem of business ethics: Oxymoron or inadequate vocabulary?

Recently critics have faulted American business schools for failing to impart to their students an understanding of ethics and its role in business. In this paper, we agree and attribute this situation, at least in part, to the need for a vocabulary of ethics and a failure to communicate Adam Smith's moral orientation to capitalism. So long as business schools fail to recognize explicitly that Smith, whoseThe Wealth of Nations serves as an intellectual backdrop for business school curricula, did in fact provide a place for ethics in capitalist economic relations (indeed, some would argue a dominant place), they will continue to advocate implicitly the theory of amorality in business—the idea that ethics has no place in business. By examining Smith's ethical arguments we can explicate the moral underpinnings of stakeholder analysis, a currently popular approach to management decision-making.Although we will use ethics and morality interchangeably in this paper, there is a distinction to be made. Ethics is the branch of philosophy concentrating on morality. Morality pertains to what is right and wrong.     

A case study of institutional collaboration to enhance knowledge use: Restructuring practitioner-researcher dialogue in education

The research reported herein was supported by funds from The National Science Foundation. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the National Science Foundation and no official endorsement should be inferred.     

Ret in the college classroom

Thirty-five undergraduates participated in an outcome study which compared the results of enrollment in an RET seminar with enrollment in a seminar on another psychotherapy topic, Humanistic Psychology, and two seminars which lacked a psychotherapeutic orientation: Social Development and Extra Sensory Perception. RET instruction failed to decrease irrationality significantly. However, students who received RET instruction had significantly higher perceived self-efficacy than did those in the two nontherapy oriented seminars. There was a significant, inverse relationship between academic achievement (grade point average) and irrational beliefs about need for comfort, need for approval, awfulizing, and low frustration tolerance. Perceived self-efficacy was significantly and positively associated with high academic achievement. Superior students were significantly less likely than their peers to awfulize or exhibit low frustration tolerance; the poorest students were the least likely group to perceive themselves as effective. The implications of these findings for educators and counselors were addressed.A fellow in Rational-Emotive Therapy, Naomi McCormick, Ph.D. is a professor and William Tooke, Ph.D. is an assistant professor at the State University of New York-Plattsburgh. An earlier version of this article was presented at the World Congress on Mental Health Counseling: A 35th Anniversary Celebration of Rational-Emotive Therapy, Keystone, Colorado: June 13–16, 1990. The authors are grateful to H. Morlock for his methodological insights and thank G. Brannigan, N. Smith, and P. Jarvis for assisting in data collection. Special thanks go to H. Rock for providing information on students from the college's Office of Institutional Research.     

Behavioral assessment and treatment of acquired visuoperceptual disorders

Visuoperceptual deficits are common sequelae of damage to either hemisphere of the brain, but are typically more pronounced following injuries involving the right cerebral hemisphere. Common visuoperceptual disorders include visual field cuts, hemi-inattention and hemi-spatial neglect, hemi-perceptual deficits, and gaze and visual pursuit disturbances. A number of behavioral interventions have been developed to teach patients to compensate for acquired visual deficits. Studies addressing assessment and treatment issues in this area are reviewed, and future directions for research are outlined.     

The life and times of PSI

This paper describes the essential features of the personalized system of instruction (PSI). Results from outcome research examining the effectiveness of PSI-based courses relative to traditional methods provide unequivocal support for the superiority of PSI. Parametric studies, or component analyses, show that the mastery requirement, immediate performance feedback, and review units are the key features underlying high quality student performances in PSI courses. The use of student proctors as peer-tutors, optional lectures, and selfpacing do not, in and of themselves, appear to be vital to student success in PSI courses. Despite its superiority, PSI has not supplanted traditional methods as the dominant pedagogical system in higher education. Difficulties inherent in overcoming the inertia of the lecture within our established instructional system, the implications of PSI for that system, and the Zeitgeist that permeates educational reform are the major obstacles to widespread adoption of PSI.     

ODAP: a stand-alone program for observational data acquisition

A software program written to collect real-time, observational data is described. The flexible program allows customized behavior codes and observational durations and simultaneously records both timed and counted events. The data are collected by means of single keystrokes, automatically stored to disk with 100th of a second resolution and summarized for each observational session. The program’s database files are dBASE III PLUS compatible and may be browsed, edited, or converted to ASCII files from the program’s main menu. Field testing demonstrated the efficiency and interobserver reliability of the program (for frequency,r=0.81; for durational behaviors,rs=0.89 and 0.96). The software operates on IBM XT/AT/PS 2s and most clones with PC/MS DOS version 2.0 or greater.     

CONDITIONAL DISCRIMINATION VS. MATCHING TO SAMPLE: AN EXPANSION OF THE TESTING PARADIGM

A subject's performance under a conditional-discrimination procedure defines conditional relations between stimuli: “If A1, then B1; if A2, then B2.” The procedure may also generate matching to sample. If so, the stimuli will be related not only by conditionality, but by equivalence: A1 and B1 will become equivalent members of one stimulus class, A2 and B2 of another. One paradigm for testing whether a conditional-discrimination procedure has generated equivalence relations uses three sets of stimuli, A, B, and C, three stimuli per set. Subjects learn to select Set-B and Set-C comparisons conditionally upon Set-A samples. Having been explicitly taught six sample-comparison relations, A1B1, A1C1, A2B2, A2C2, A3B3, and A3C3, subjects prove immediately capable of matching the B- and C-stimuli; six new relations emerge (B1C1, B2C2, B3C3, C1B1, C2B2, C3B3). The 12 stimulus relations, six taught and six emergent, define the existence of three three-member stimulus classes, A1B1C1, A2B2C2, and A3B3C3. This paradigm was expanded by introducing three more stimuli (Set D), and teaching eight children not only the AB and AC relations but DC relations also—selecting Set-C comparisons conditionally upon Set-D samples. Six of the children proved immediately capable of matching the B- and D-stimuli to each other. By selecting appropriate Set-B comparisons conditionally upon Set-D samples, and Set-D comparisons conditionally upon Set-B samples, they demonstrated the existence of three four-member stimulus classes, A1B1C1D1, A2B2C2D2, and A3B3C3D3. These larger classes were confirmed by the subjects' success with the prerequisite lower-level conditional relations; they were also able to select Set-D comparisons conditionally upon samples from Sets A and C, and to do the BC and CB matching that defined the original three-member classes. Adding the three DC relations therefore generated 12 more, three each in BD, DB, AD, and CD. Enlarging each class by one member brought about a disproportionate increase in the number of emergent relations. Ancillary oral naming tests suggested that the subject's application of the same name to each stimulus was neither necessary nor sufficient to establish classes of equivalent stimuli.     

A look at social support patterns

The issue of how to provide support for patients with a life-threatening illness continues to be a problem for pastors and chaplains. The authors discuss the significance and reasons for looking at the present day social support patterns as an unnatural problem. Unless the unnatural nature of support in the modern medical setting is understood pastors and chaplains can miss the target on answering the question of how to provide support. The authors conclude the article by addressing this question from the position of reserving the unnatural nature of providing support.Dr. Bergen is Professor of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH 03755. Dr. Nelson is affiliated with the Chaplain Service, Veterans Administration Center, White River Junction, VT 05001 and Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School.