Hume on the Problem of Other Minds

Hume is not often cited as a philosopher who posited a solution to the Problem of Other Minds. He instead seems to assume the belief in other minds in his moral philosophy without justification. However, Hume needs to explain how we experience and respond to others’ affections, and hence generate moral sentiments, given how central the latter are to his moral theory. Two recent interpretations of Hume’s solution to the Problem are the Wittgensteinian Interpretation, and the Simulation Theory Interpretation. Both focus on the concept of sympathy as a solution to the Problem, claiming that, for Hume, sympathy produces the belief in other minds. This paper critically examines these two interpretations and offers an alternative called ‘the Analogical Argument Interpretation’, which reconstructs Hume’s version of an analogical argument carried out not by our rational faculty of mind but by custom and imagination. On this interpretation, Hume does not think that sympathy generates the belief in other minds, but rather, sympathy presupposes that belief.     

Predictors of improvement in an open-trial multisite evaluation of emotion regulation group therapy

Emotion regulation group therapy (ERGT) is a novel treatment specifically targeting deliberate non-suicidal self-harm (DSH) in individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Identifying robust predictors of positive response to ERGT could aid clinicians in treatment selection; however, to date, only one such study has been conducted. Thus, we aimed to replicate previously identified predictors of treatment response to ERGT by investigating demographic, clinical, and diagnostic predictors in 95 women with BPD or subclinical BPD who had participated in an open-trial evaluation of ERGT. Outcomes evaluated were frequency of DSH and emotion dysregulation. Assessments were conducted at pretreatment, post-treatment, and 6-month follow-up. Multilevel mixed linear models and multilevel negative binomial generalized estimated equations were used to identify significant interactions between the predictors and outcomes.

We found that greater pretreatment DSH frequency was associated with greater improvements in DSH during treatment (b = 0.998, SE = 0.00, p = 0.03) and follow-up (b = 0.997, SE = 0.00, p < 0.01) and that greater BPD severity was associated with greater improvements in DSH during treatment (b = 0.84, SE = 0.06, p = 0.02) and in emotion dysregulation at follow-up (b = ?3.05, SE = 1.47, p = 0.04). Co-occurring disorders were associated with poorer treatment response during follow-up. Results were generally consistent with a previous study of the predictors of response to ERGT. The findings provide further support for the utility of this treatment across a range of BPD patients, including patients with severe DSH and BPD.     

Too powerless to speak up: Effects of social rejection on sense of power and employee voice

Enabling and amplifying the voice of employees creates opportunities for organizational improvement. Prior research has shown that employees' sense of power has impact on their voice behavior. As such, when would employees feel too powerless to speak up in the workplace? The current study investigates the indirect effect of social rejection (via sense of power) on employee voice. We use conservation of resources theory to explain this relationship. Experimental data from two studies demonstrate that participants reminded of social rejection (vs. acceptance) exhibit a lower sense of power. Specifically, we observe that social rejection diminishes a person's sense of power, and that social acceptance does not enhance this sense. That is, social rejection has an indirect effect on employee voice through sense of power. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings with regard to social rejection, sense of power, and workplace voice behavior.     

Differential Determinants of Young Adult Substance Use and High‐Risk Sexual Behavior1

This investigation evaluated how personality traits, self‐efficacy, and outcome expectancies differentially relate to young adult substance use and high‐risk sex. Experiments I (N= 481) and 2 (N= 73) report the development of a new questionnaire to assess self‐efficacy for substance use and sexual behavior. Experiment 3 (N= 375) tested self‐efficacy, outcome expectancies, and trait measures of social conformity and sensation seeking as correlates of substance use and high‐risk sex. Using structural equation modeling, cross‐sectional analyses revealed that positive outcome expectancies had the largest association with substance use, whereas self‐efficacy had the largest association with sexual behavior. Further, personality traits were related to substance use and sexual behavior indirectly through outcome expectancies, with social conformity also having a direct effect on behavior. When examined longitudinally, past alcohol and drug use served as the final pathway by which expectancies and personality impacted substance use, whereas past behavior, self‐efficacy, and social conformity all contributed to high‐risk sex. Results support the utility of different models for explaining, and possibly preventing, young adult substance use and high‐risk sex.     

Subcellular Interactions between Parallel Fibre and Climbing Fibre Signals in Purkinje Cells Predict Sensitivity of Classical Conditioning to Interstimulus Interval

Classical conditioning of the nictitating membrane response requires a specific temporal interval between conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus, and produces an increase in Protein Kinase C (PKC) activation in Purkinje cells. To evaluate whether biochemical interactions within the Purkinje cell may explain the temporal sensitivity, a model of PKC activation by Ca2+, diacylglycerol (DAG), and arachidonic acid (AA) is developed. Ca2+ elevation is due to CF stimulation and IP3 induced Ca2+ release (IICR). DAG and IP3 result from PF stimulation, while AA results from phospholipase A2 (PLA2). Simulations predict increased PKC activation when PF stimulation precedes CF stimulation by 0.1 to 3 s. The sensitivity of IICR to the temporal relation between PF and CF stimulation, together with the buffering system of Purkinje cells, significantly contribute to the temporal sensitivity.     

Clinical psychologists' theory-based representations of mental disorders predict their diagnostic reasoning and memory

The theory-based model of categorization posits that concepts are represented as theories, not feature lists. Thus, it is interesting that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) established atheoretical guidelines for mental disorder diagnosis. Five experiments investigated how clinicians handled an atheoretical nosology. Clinicians' causal theories of disorders and their responses on diagnostic and memory tasks were measured. Participants were more likely to diagnose a hypothetical patient with a disorder if that patient had causally central rather than causally peripheral symptoms according to their theory of the disorder. Their memory for causally central symptoms was also biased. Clinicians are cognitively driven to use theories despite decades of practice with the atheoretical DSM.