Emotions as indeterminate justifiers

Synthese - Sentimentalists believe that values are crucially dependent on emotions. Epistemic sentimentalists subscribe to what I call the final-court-of-appeal view: emotional experience is...     

Allies Against Sexism: The Impact of Men’s Egalitarian Versus Paternalistic Confrontation on Women’s Empowerment and Well-Being

Sex Roles - Men as advantaged group members can be involved in actions against inequality. But how do women experience men’s confrontation of sexism? We examine how women perceive men’s...     

Perception of Sentence Stress in Speech Correlates With the Temporal Unpredictability of Prosodic Features

Numerous studies have examined the acoustic correlates of sentential stress and its underlying linguistic functionality. However, the mechanism that connects stress cues to the listener's attentional processing has remained unclear. Also, the learnability versus innateness of stress perception has not been widely discussed. In this work, we introduce a novel perspective to the study of sentential stress and put forward the hypothesis that perceived sentence stress in speech is related to the unpredictability of prosodic features, thereby capturing the attention of the listener. As predictability is based on the statistical structure of the speech input, the hypothesis also suggests that stress perception is a result of general statistical learning mechanisms. To study this idea, computational simulations are performed where temporal prosodic trajectories are modeled with an n‐gram model. Probabilities of the feature trajectories are subsequently evaluated on a set of novel utterances and compared to human perception of stress. The results show that the low‐probability regions of F0 and energy trajectories are strongly correlated with stress perception, giving support to the idea that attention and unpredictability of sensory stimulus are mutually connected.     

A Theoretical Model of Psychometric Effects of Faking on Assessment Procedures: Empirical findings and implications for personality at work

This article proposes a theoretical model for explaining the psychometric effects of faking on assessment procedures (e.g., biodata, interviews, assessment center, personality inventories, and self‐reported measures). The model hypothesizes that faking is a phenomenon of homogenization of scores, consisting of a double mechanism that increases the mean, on one hand, and decreases the standard deviation of distributions of scores, on the other. Subsequently, this affects the covariance, reliability, and validity of assessment procedures negatively. The model predicts that a mean ratio (faking ratio) greater than 1 and a coefficient of homogeneity u smaller than 1 characterizes faking. Meta‐analysis was used to test several predictions of the theoretical model in the case of the personality measures. A database of 46 independent studies was created. All the studies used the NEO‐PI‐R for assessing the Big Five and their facets. The general pattern of data fully supported the model predictions. Implications for personnel assessment and, particularly, for personality assessment are discussed.     

A Study of the Ethical Dilemmas Experienced by School Psychologists in Portugal

This study examines the ethical dilemmas and difficulties encountered by Portuguese school psychologists. As part of a larger survey, participants were asked about ethical issues faced in daily practice and asked to describe ethical incidents. Of the 477 respondents, 274 reported 441 ethically troubling or challenging situations. Responses were coded into a six-category system based on the code of ethics of Portuguese psychologists. Most of the reported dilemmas concerned privacy and confidentiality principles (53%). Results are discussed in light of relevant literature and international findings. Implications for the development of the profession and future research are provided.     

Reproductive Endocrinologists’ Utilization of Genetic Counselors for Oncofertility and Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) Treatment of <Emphasis Type="Italic">BRCA1/2</Emphasis> Mutation Carriers

Genetic counselors believe fertility preservation and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) discussions to be a part of their role when counseling ss="EmphasisTypeItalic ">BRCA1/2 mutation-positive patients. This study is the first to explore reproductive endocrinologists’ (REI) practices and attitudes regarding involvement of genetic counselors in the care of ss="EmphasisTypeItalic ">BRCA1/2 mutation carriers seeking fertility preservation and PGD. A survey was mailed to 1000 REIs from Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility (SREI), an American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) affiliate group. A 14.5 % response rate was achieved; data was analyzed using SPSS software. The majority of participating REIs were found to recommend genetic counseling to cancer patients considering fertility preservation (82 %) and consult with a genetic counselor regarding PGD for hereditary cancer syndromes (92 %). Additionally, REIs consult genetic counselors regarding PGD patient counseling (88 %), genetic testing (78 %), and general genetics questions (66 %). Two areas genetic counselors may further aid REIs are: elicitation of family history, which is useful to determine fertility preservation and PGD intervention timing (32 % of REIs utilize a cancer family history to determine intervention timing); and, interpretation of variants of uncertain significance (VOUS) as cancer panel genetic testing becomes more common (36 % of REIs are unfamiliar with VOUS). Given our findings, the Oncofertility Consortium® created an online resource for genetic counselors focused on fertility preservation education and communication strategies.     

Relationships Between Trait Anxiety,Demographic Variables,and School Adjustment in Students with Specific Learning Disabilities

The present study investigated relationships between dimensions of anxiety, age, gender, and school adjustment in students with specific learning disabilities (SLD). The 177 students with SLD completed measures of anxiety and school adjustment. The results of a hierarchical regression analysis indicated that age and gender together were not significant predictors of attitude to school, and that after the influence of age and gender had been removed students with more physiological and social anxiety, but less worry tended to have poorer attitudes toward school. A second hierarchical regression indicated that younger students reported more negative attitudes toward teachers, and after controlling for age and gender, students with more social anxiety reported more negative attitudes toward teachers. Implications for school personnel are discussed.     

Animal groups and social ontology: an argument from the phenomenology of behavior

Through a critical engagement with Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of the concepts of nature, life, and behavior, and with contemporary accounts of animal groups, this article argues that animal groups exhibit sociality and that sociality is a fundamental ontological condition. I situate my account in relation to the ss="EmphasisTypeItalic ">superorganism and ss="EmphasisTypeItalic ">selfish individual accounts of animal groups in recent biology and zoology. I argue that both accounts are inadequate. I propose an alternative account of animal groups and animal sociality through a Merleau-Pontian inspired definition of behavior. I criticize Merleau-Ponty’s individualistic prejudice, but show that his philosophy contains the resources necessary to overcome this bias. I define behavior as a ss="EmphasisTypeItalic ">holistic, ss="EmphasisTypeItalic ">ongoing, ss="EmphasisTypeItalic ">meaningful and Umwelt-ss="EmphasisTypeItalic ">oriented intrinsically configured expression of living forms of existence. By looking at cases of animal groups drawn from contemporary studies in zoology and behavioral ecology, I show that animal groups, in the fact that they behave, manifest themselves to be a fundamental form of existence, namely, the social form of existence.     

WHOM TO BLAME FOR THE CHARGE OF SECULARIZATION?

Abstract. In the last century science and technology have been viewed as guilty of contributing to the modern secularization process and also to a crisis in religion. The extent of this influence is less clear today: while technology is stronger, and an easy target for any kind of social and cultural criticism, science seems weaker than it used to. The aim of this commentary is to examine in a critical way the arguments for and against scientific and technological involvement in the crisis religion faces today. In the end, a revision of the future of religion is called into question, especially in the light of a more “technological theology.”     

Stress in Academic Life: Work Characteristics as Predictors of Student Well-being and Performance

La relation entre les caractéristiques du travail, le bien-être des étudiants et la performance a étéévaluée à partir du modèle de Karasck & Theorell ≪Travail, exigences, contrôle, soutien≫ (1990). Un échantillon d'étudiants portugais ( N = 825) a répondu à un questionnaire comprenant des mesures du contrôle et des exigences du travail universitaire, du soutien des pairs, de la satisfaction relative à la vie universitaire, de l'anxiété/dépression et des résultats aux examens. Il apparut, comme dans d'aures contextes de travail, que la satisfaction des étudiants pour ce qui est de la vie universitaire, ainsi que les niveaux d'anxiété/dépression étaient fortement dépendants de leur perception des caractéristiques du travail. Les niveaux de satisfaction ont un effet direct sur la performance et agissent sur la relation entre la maîtrise du travail universitaire et la performance.
The relationship between work characteristics, student well-being and performance was assessed, based upon Karasek and Theorell's (1990 ) Job Demands&ndash;Control&ndash;Support model. A sample of Portuguese university students ( N = 825) answered a questionnaire comprising measures of academic work demands and control, peer support, satisfaction with academic life, anxiety/depression and academic performance. Results suggested that, similar to other work contexts, student satisfaction with academic life and anxiety/depression levels are strongly dependent on their perceptions of work characteristics. Levels of satisfaction have a direct impact on student performance and mediate the relationship between academic work control and performance.