Reaching Across the DMZ: Identity Uncertainty and Reunification on the Korean Peninsula

Drawing on uncertainty‐identity theory (Hogg, 2012), we explore the effects of uncertainty concerning a specific social identity on group identification and attitudes toward subgroup integration and separation in South Koreans' nested identity context (N = 148). All variables were measured. Path analysis revealed, as predicted, that superordinate identity uncertainty weakened superordinate identification and subgroup identity uncertainty weakened subgroup identification. We also found that subgroup identity uncertainty strengthened superordinate identification. This effect was stronger for those who perceived their superordinate group prototype and subgroup prototype to be distinct and nonoverlapping. Furthermore, superordinate identity uncertainty decreased reunification intentions by weakening superordinate identification. Subgroup identity uncertainty increased reunification intentions by strengthening superordinate identification only for those who perceived their superordinate group prototype and subgroup prototype to be distinct and nonoverlapping. Implications for uncertainty identity theory and intergroup relations are discussed.     

Assessing risky public investments with MUSTARD

This paper presents a practical implementation of multicriteria methodologies based on the UTA model by Jacquet‐Lagrèze and Siskos and Quasi‐UTA model by Beuthe and Scannella, which are specified with a non‐linear, but piecewise linear, additive utility function. In contrast with the general UTA model, the Quasi‐UTA specification structures the partial utilities as recursive exponential functions of only one curvature parameter. This allows for a reduction of the quantity of information necessary to build the utility function. The software MUSTARD implements different variants of these models. Firstly, it offers the basic deterministic UTA model of disaggregation, but also its first programmed stochastic version. In both cases, the software proceeds stepwise and interactively helping the decision maker to formulate the problem and state preferences between projects; in the stochastic case, the decision maker is even helped to build the criteria distributions. The Quasi‐UTA specification can be introduced in this disaggregation model. Secondly, the software offers an aggregation model whereby the Quasi‐UTA partial utility functions are built separately through specific questioning processes. The questions relating to deterministic criteria are of the ‘direct rating type’, while those of the stochastic criteria are either of the ‘variable probability’ or the ‘variable outcome’ type. The criteria weights can be assessed by the ‘swing weight’ method or by a UTA‐II side‐program. As an example as well as a test of the Quasi‐UTA aggregation approach, the paper presents its application to a real problem of selecting road investment projects in Belgium. Several experts and civil servants were interviewed, and their individual utility functions derived. The projects are ranked according to their rate of return, which is computed on the basis of the projects certain equivalent money value. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stochastic pairwise comparative judgements and direct ratings of alternatives in the REMBRANDT system

The REMBRANDT system for multicriteria decision analysis consists of both the multiplicative variant of the AHP (which employs a method of pairwise comparative judgements by a decision maker to arrive at final impact scores for the alternatives under consideration) and SMART, the simple multiattribute rating technique (which utilizes direct rating of alternatives to achieve final impact scores). This paper examines the effect of imprecision or uncertainty in the decision maker's pairwise judgements or ratings of alternatives by expressing each pairwise judgement or rating as a probability distribution, and the structure of REMBRANDT's component models is exploited to derive interval judgements or interval ratings of the alternatives’ final impact scores. These interval judgements or interval ratings can be used to determine the probability of rank reversal amongst alternatives, i.e. to assess the stability of the final impact score vector. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Patterns of Preference for Numerical and Verbal Probabilities

We report results of an experiment designed to test a principle formulated by Budescu and Wallsten (1995), that, when communicating uncertainty information, mode choices are sensitive to sources and degrees of vagueness. In addition, we examined subjects’ efficacy in using such uncertainty information as a function of communication mode, source, and vagueness. In phase one of the experiment, subjects in a dyad used precise (numerical) or imprecise (verbal) expressions to communicate to a remote partner precise or vague uncertainty about the likelihoods of events. Spinner outcomes were used to generate precise uncertainty while answers to almanac questions were used to elicit vague uncertainty. In phase two, subjects saw the events paired with their partners’ estimates of similar events, and were asked to gamble on one event from each pair. Communication mode preferences were measured as the relative frequency that subjects chose the numerical mode to either express or receive uncertainty information regarding the events. Efficacy was measured as the relative frequency that subjects choose from the pair the event associated with the objectively more probable uncertainty expression. Underlying uncertainty interacted with direction of communication to affect preferences for modes of expression of the probabilities. Subjects preferred precise (numerical) information, especially for precise events (spinners). For vague events (questions), their preference for precise (numerical) information was stronger when receiving than when communicating information. Similar preferences were reflected in the efficiency of subsequent gamble decisions based on the probability estimates. Specifically, decisions were more efficacious (i.e. consistent with Expected Utility) when degrees of precision in events and estimates matched. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

表情对婴儿面孔图式效应的调节及其机制

婴儿面孔图式效应是促进早期亲子关系形成的一种先天本能反应, 该效应一直被认为主要是受婴儿面孔结构的影响。但近年来表情对该效应的影响开始得到关注, 在以成人面孔为基线的条件下, 婴儿面孔图式效应量会因表情不同而有所变化, 表现出中性婴儿面孔图式效应最强的现象。鉴于目前对该现象的成因及其神经机制知之甚少, 所以本项目拟先建立一套婴儿与成人同面孔多表情图片系统; 然后以此为基础, 分别考察面孔表情不确定性是否会调节成人对不同表情婴儿面孔的偏好和注意偏向, 并探究其相应神经机制, 促进养育脑研究在我国的开展。     

Qualities of reflection: using Saul’s (2001) On Equilibrium to restore humanity to reflection in healthcare

Reflection features strongly in health and care work as a tool for personal and professional development and can support us as practitioners to be critical and self-aware in practice, of practice and the impact on clients and patients. Its power to transform learning and practice, however, has been watered down through recipe-following in reflective recording and through the avoidance of recording uncertainty or practice that might not measure against professional codes. Drawing on the humanist philosophy of John Ralston Saul, I suggest using Saul’s ‘six qualities’ as themes for reflective questions. I reflect on the influence of reason through codes of practice and offer suggestions for questions to restore an awareness of Self in work with clients and patients. Finally, from my experience as a counselling student and healthcare educator, I argue that we should have a greater appreciation of the power of uncertainty in reflective recording.     

Autistic Heterogeneity: Linking Uncertainties and Indeterminacies

Autism is a highly uncertain entity and little is said about it with any degree of certainty. Scientists must, and do, work through these uncertainties in the course of their work. Scientists explain uncertainty in autism research through discussion of epistemological uncertainties which suggest that diverse methods and techniques make results hard to reconcile, ontological uncertainties which suggest doubt over taxonomic coherence, but also through reference to autism’s indeterminacy which suggests that the condition is inherently heterogeneous. Indeed, indeterminacy takes two forms—an inter-personal form which suggests that there are fundamental differences between individuals with autism and an intra-personal form which suggests that no one factor is able to explain all features of autism within a given individual. What is apparent in the case of autism is that scientists put uncertainty and indeterminacy into discussion with one another and, rather than a well-policed epistemic-ontic boundary, there is a movement between, and an entwinement of, the two. Understanding scientists’ dialogue concerning uncertainty and indeterminacy is of importance for understanding autism and autistic heterogeneity but also for understanding uncertainty and ‘uncertainty work’ within science more generally.     

Missing what was true: Problems of seeing and knowing in Henry James's The wings of the dove

The author examines a central theme in this late novel by Henry James in relation to current psychoanalytic ideas that link the Oedipus complex with the child's developing perception of reality (both psychic and external), specifi cally through the experience of seeing and being seen. Britton visualises the oedipal triangle as a psychic structure through which the child may achieve recognition not only of its parents' sexual relationship, from which it is excluded, but also of itself being observed by one parent while the child is with the other. Thus, it both observes and is observed. The differing perspectives achieved‐of subjectivity and objectivity‐ promote the perception of objective reality, as the world of relationships grows and becomes more complex. James captures with great subtlety and penetration the experience of three characters living out a symbolic oedipal relationship in which the truth is evaded or perverted. A young couple in love exploit the situation of a dying heiress whose vulnerability is intensifi ed by her reluctance to acknowledge the truth about their relationship. At the same time, she shrinks from the gaze of others and consigns herself to isolation and ultimate despair. The author presents three signifi cant scenes in which seeing and being seen are central to the development. In each, the dying woman is forced to face, if momentarily, her exclusion from the sexual relationship. Increasingly this connects with her approaching death‐but also with the anguished recognition that the couple have cruelly befriended her only to betray her. It is suggested that James's late style and novelistic technique require the reader to tolerate confusion and uncertainty. As the perspective shifts from one protagonist to another, we ourselves are in danger of ‘missing what is true’ in this characteristic Jamesian scenario, where relationships are gradually perverted by manipulation, evasion and lies. In psychoanalytic theory, this would represent a failure to work through the oedipal situation, where the struggle of the child to face reality is met by a parental relationship that is too weak or too perverse to contain the pain and confl ict.     

我国一大型考试等值的铆题参数漂移检验

设置铆题来链接不同测验形式是一种常用的等值设计。但受到曝光等因素影响,铆题功能在不同施测时间会发生改变。本研究采用MH检验和logistic回归考察我国一大型考试等值的铆题质量,结果发现,有22个铆题发生参数漂移,铆题的难度参数和区分度参数可能发生漂移;这些铆题中大部分在二次使用时无法通过模型拟合检验;若不删除参数发生漂移的铆题导致较大的系统等值误差,应将铆题参数漂移检验作为等值中的一步必要工作。     

Task formats and ambiguity aversion

This paper proposes that task format (choosing or rejecting) moderates the effect of ambiguity aversion. Specifically, an ambiguous option is more attractive in a choosing task than in a rejecting task compared with a risky option. The author performed three experiments to test the propositions. In the first experiment, participants showed less ambiguity aversion when they had to choose a preferred option (risky or ambiguous) compared with when they had to reject an option they preferred less. In the second experiment with a monetary incentive, participants had to form a cash‐equivalent estimate for both a risky gamble and an ambiguous gamble in a traditional Ellsberg scenario. The ambiguous option emerged as more attractive than the risky option in the choosing task compared with the rejecting task. The third experiment showed that the participants' decision rationale mediated the effect of the task format on choice. These three experiments support the proposition that task formats moderate the effect of ambiguity aversion. On the basis of the findings, the author provides suggestions for practice and further research. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.