Asymmetries Between Positives and Negatives

How people react to negatives (what they dislike) is not always symmetric to how they react to positives (what they like). We propose a theoretical framework that links three potentially general types of positive–negative asymmetries: asymmetry in prediction errors (people err more when predicting others' attitudes about positives than about negatives), asymmetry in consensus (people agree more among themselves about negatives than about positives), and asymmetry in base rates (there are more negatives than positives). Our theory further explores a moderator for these asymmetries – importance of the stimulus to the self: greater importance engenders greater positive–negative asymmetries. We provide empirical evidence for our theory and discuss the boundaries and implications of our propositions and findings.     

Direct and indirect measures of contextual information: Older versus young adult subjects

Abstract

Several reports in the literature suggest that older adults have impaired memory for contextual information. Support for this approach was derived from studies that tested different aspects of contextual information by direct measures of memory (i.e., recall or recognition). the purpose of the present study is twofold: first, to test the possibility that contextual information, although inaccessible via direct measures, may be evident via indirect measures of memory; and second, to evaluate the contribution of duration of exposure to direct and indirect memory measures of contextual information. Two groups of subjects participated in the present study, 35 younger and 30 older subjects. Duration of exposure was not found to have a differential effect on the groups, in either direct or indirect memory tasks. As predicted, age-related differences emerged when direct, but not indirect, measures of contextual memory were tested. These findings argue against the context-memory deficit hypothesis in elderly sbjects, and are interpreted in terms of the theoretical distinction between implicit and explicit memory, where the former is found to be preserved in older adult subjects.     

Civic Republicanism and Education: Democracy and Social Justice in School

The republican political tradition, which originated in Ancient Rome and picked up by several early-modern thinkers, has been revived in the last couple of decades following the seminal works of historian Quentin Skinner and political theorist Philip Pettit. Although educational questions do not normally occupy the center stage in republican theory, various theorists working within this framework have already highlighted the significance of education for any functioning republic. Looking at educational questions through the lens of freedom as non-domination has already yielded important insights to discussions of political education. However, consideration of the existing republican educational discourse in light of the wide range of issues discussed in Pettit’s recent works reveals that it suffers from two major lacunae. First, it does not take into consideration the distinction (and deep connection) between democracy and social justice that has become central to Pettit’s republicanism. Thus, the current discussion focuses almost exclusively on education for democratic citizenship and hardly touches upon social justice. Second, the current literature thinks mainly in terms of educating future citizens, rather than conceiving of students also as political agents in the present, and of school itself as a site of non-domination. This paper aims at filling these voids, and it will therefore be oriented along two intersecting axes: the one between democracy and justice, and the other between future citizenship in the state and present citizenship at school. The resulting four categories will organize the discussion: future citizens and democracy; future citizens and social justice; present citizens and democracy; present citizens and social justice. This will not only enable us to draw a clearer line between the civic republican and liberal educational theories, but also make civic republican education a viable alternative to current educational approaches.     

An old problem for the new rationalism

A well known skeptical paradox rests on the claim that we lack warrant to believe that we are not brains in a vat (BIVs). The argument for that claim is the apparent impossibility of any evidence or argument that we are not BIVs. Many contemporary philosophers resist this argument by insisting that we have a sort of warrant for believing that we are not BIVs that does not require having any evidence or argument. I call this view ‘New Rationalism’. I argue that New Rationalists are committed to there being some evidence or argument for believing that we are not BIVs anyway. Therefore, New Rationalism, since its appeal is that it purportedly avoids the problematic commitment to such evidence or argument, undermines its own appeal. We cannot avoid the difficult work of coming up with evidence or argument by positing some permissive sort of warrant.     

Domestic Stress and Well-Being of Employed Women: Interplay Between Demands and Decision Control at Home

Family researchers have suggested that shared decision control is important for coping with stressful demands at home, whereas occupational stress theorists view personal decision control as an essential coping resource. We studied the effects of home demands, personal decision control, and shared decision control at home on burnout and satisfaction with life, using Karasek’s job-demands-control model to gauge home stress and its outcomes. Participants were 133 mothers employed in secretarial and managerial jobs. We hypothesized that shared control would correlate more strongly with burnout and satisfaction with life than would personal control. In multiple regression analyses, demands had independent main effects on both outcomes. Shared control significantly predicted satisfaction with life, but not burnout, and personal control predicted neither. It is suggested that in families (as in teams), shared decision control may be a more potent coping resource than personal control.     

Games,Rules, and Practices

We present and defend a view labeled “practiceism” which provides a solution to the incompatibility problems. The classic incompatibility problem is inconsistency of: 1. Someone who intentionally violates the rules of a game is not playing the game.

2. In many cases, players intentionally violate the rules as part of playing the game (e.g. fouling to stop the clock in basketball).

The problem has a normative counterpart: 1’. In normal cases, it is wrong for a player to intentionally violate the rules of the game.

2’. In many normal cases, it is not wrong for a player to intentionally violate the rules of the game (e.g. fouling to stop the clock in basketball).

According to both formalism and informalism, the rules of the game include the formal rules of the game. Both traditional positions avoid the incompatibility problems by rejecting 1 and 1'. Practiceism rejects 2 and 2’: it maintains that the rules are the rules manifested in playing the game, not the formal rules.

Practiceism presents two theses: (a) the real rules of the game are the rules players follow: the practice determines the rules, and not vice versa. (b) the (first order) rules of a game determine what is legitimate within the game.     

Blood phobics and nonphobics: psychological differences and affect during exposure.

This study compared psychological dimensions of blood phobics and nonphobic controls, examined affect in response to phobic and neutral stimuli, and investigated the relationship between reported feelings of faintness and blood pressure. Blood phobics (24 adults with extreme Mutilation Questionnaire scores) and 24 nonphobics completed several psychological measures and viewed one of two 60 sec surgery scenes and a 60 sec neutral scene in counterbalanced order. Subjective, psychophysiologic, and motoric measures of affect were assessed. On questionnaires, phobics reported greater anxiety sensitivity, empathic distress, fear and insecurity, and nightmares, but no difference in autonomic arousal, muscle tension, motion sickness, or other empathy domains. During surgery scenes, phobics had more negative affect than controls; however, phobics were more anxious during only one of the two surgeries, and often only when the surgery was presented prior to the neutral scene. Fainting did not occur, and self-reported feelings of faintness were unrelated to blood pressure changes. The findings highlight the lack of information on blood phobic stimulus properties, fainting's relationship to self-reports and blood pressure, and the specific emotion experienced in blood phobia.     

The effects of physical fitness and feeling vigorous on self-rated health

OBJECTIVE: We prospectively studied the hypothesized beneficial effects of feeling vigorous and of objective physical fitness (gauged based on functional capacity) on subsequently assessed self-rated health (SRH), controlling for possible confounders known to be precursors of SRH and of our predictors. We also investigated the reverse-causation hypothesis that SRH predicts subsequent vigor and functional capacity. DESIGN: Participants were apparently healthy employees (N = 779) who underwent a routine health check at two points of time, Time 1 (T1) and Time 2 (T2), about 18 months apart. We used regression analysis, predicting T2 SRH by T1 SRH, the control variables, and T1vigor and functional capacity. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Vigor was assessed using the Shirom-Melamed Vigor Measure; objective physical fitness was indicated by functional capacity following a treadmill exercise, and self-rated health was measured by a single item. RESULTS: As hypothesized, we found that the change in T2 SRH was positively predicted by T1 vigor, functional capacity, and their interactive term. Testing the reverse causation paths, we found that T1 SRH did not predict subsequent functional capacity and was a relatively weak predictor of subsequent vigor. CONCLUSION: The affective state of vigor and objectively assessed functional capacity interact to predict subsequent changes in self-rated health.     

Technological and medical advances: implications for health psychology.

Behavioral telehealth, health informatics, organ and tissue transplantation, and genetics are among the areas that have been affected by advances in technology and medicine. These areas illustrate the opportunities and the challenges that new developments can pose to health psychologists. Each area is discussed with respect to implications for practice, research, public policy, and education and training: recommendations are provided.