Tackling conflict: a beyond opposites approach

The issue of conflict is pervasive to most human undertakings at both individual/intra level and group level. Conflicts are the source of internal and external suffering. It has been argued by many authors that although humans have advanced in the technological sphere tremendously and managed to find solutions to countless scientific and material challenges, their ability to effectively resolve internal and external aspects of conflicts remains elusive. Given the level of pain and suffering that can derive from both psychological and social conflicts, it can be argued that any advances in helping improve the resolution of conflicts can have immense benefits in alleviating human suffering making this issue a very worthwhile area of study. Accordingly this paper aims to describe a developing counselling methodology for addressing conflict. The methodology, which was originally inspired by Fuzzy Logic, adopts a cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) perspective despite awareness of its limitations. The paper traces the origins of the methodology and the areas within counselling it could be applied to. The paper concludes with recommendations regarding the relevance of this approach to an increasingly multicultural environment.     

The influence of temporal resolution power and working memory capacity on psychometric intelligence

According to the temporal resolution power (TRP) hypothesis, higher TRP as reflected by better performance on psychophysical timing tasks accounts for faster speed of information processing and increased efficiency of information processing leading to better performance on tests of psychometric intelligence. An alternative explanation of individual differences in psychometric intelligence highlights individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity which has been found to be closely associated with psychometric intelligence. A latent variable approach was applied on the data of 200 participants ranging in age from 18 to 30 years and spanning a large range of levels of psychometric intelligence. Functional relationships were examined among TRP, WM capacity, as well as reasoning and speed of processing as two important aspects of psychometric intelligence. As predicted by the TRP hypothesis, the relation between TRP and psychometric intelligence was mediated by WM capacity supporting the view that higher TRP leads to better coordinated mental operations which, in turn, result in higher psychometric intelligence. The results are discussed against the background that WM capacity and psychometric reasoning are hardly dissociable from each other and that the specific factors limiting WM capacity and accounting for the mediation effect need to be identified in future research.     

Estimating latent distributions

Consider vectors of item responses obtained from a sample of subjects from a population in which ability is distributed with densityg(), where the are unknown parameters. Assuming the responses depend on through a fully specified item response model, this paper presents maximum likelihood equations for the estimation of the population parameters directly from the observed responses; i.e., without estimating an ability parameter for each subject. Also provided are asymptotic standard errors and tests of fit, computing approximations, and details of four special cases: a non-parametric approximation, a normal solution, a resolution of normal components, and a beta-binomial solution.The author would like to thank R. Darrell Bock for his comments, suggestions, and encouragement during the course of this work.     

National glorification and attachment differentially predict support for intergroup conflict resolution: Scrutinizing cross-country generalizability

Research on national identity distinguishes between national glorification and attachment. We tested whether glorification and attachment differentially predicted support for military and diplomatic conflict resolution strategies (CRS) in response to international conflicts. Using data collected in seven countries (Australia, United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Israel, China; total N = 1784), we investigated whether glorification and attachment can be equivalently measured (using tests of measurement invariance) and whether their relationships with CRS were generalizable across countries. The results revealed metric, but not scalar, measurement invariance of the two-factor structure of national identification across six countries, excluding China. Among these six countries, glorification predicted more support for military CRS, whereas attachment predicted more support for diplomatic CRS. Our study is novel in scrutinizing the cross-cultural generalizability of the bi-dimensional model of national identification. Implications for studying national identification and intergroup conflict cross-culturally are discussed.     

Pragmatic Inconsistency and Credibility

A critic may attack an arguer personally by pointing out that the arguer’s position is pragmatically inconsistent: the arguer does not practice what he preaches. A number of authors hold that such attacks can be part of a good argumentative discussion. However, there is a difficulty in accepting this kind of contribution as potentially legitimate, for the reason that there is nothing wrong for a protagonist to have an inconsistent position, in the sense of committing himself to mutually inconsistent propositions. If so, any such charge seems to be irrelevant. The questions to be answered in this essay are: what, if any, is the dialectical rationale for this type of criticism, and in what situations, if any, is this kind of charge dialectically legitimate? It will be shown that these attacks can be dialectically legitimate, in special circumstances, and that they can be seen as strategic?manoeuvres where a party attempts to reconcile his dialectical and his rhetorical objectives.     

A new experimental method to identify the process of logical reasoning

Abstract: A new method to identify the process of logical reasoning is presented. In spite of its indispensability and importance, we have had few methods to identify a subject's reasoning process, except that of using verbal protocol data. In this paper, for the purpose of objective identification of the reasoning process, we propose a new method to obtain the subject's reasoning process, in terms of a resolution tree for a task of which the logical structure can be written by first-order predicate logic. The results of an experiment using this method are presented. They revealed some interesting features of human reasoning such as, large differences between subjects, remarkable parallel processes, and the existence of subgoals for each subject.     

Identity and influence in social interaction

Researchers studying argumentation often make the simplifying assumption that rational persuasion can be studied independently from the processes through which social identities are established and maintained. However, developments in the study of message design, particularly the groundbreaking work of Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) on politeness, suggests that in practice the multiple functions of messages are intertwined in message structure and effects. In contrast to the view that identity issues distort rational processes in communication, both the communication of identity and the use of identity-based appeals in social influence are best seen as prototypical examples of rationality in message design.     

中文句子中双音节兼类词句法分析历程初探

以既可用作名词,又可用作动词的汉语双音节兼类词为材料,采用移动窗口范式,考察了汉语句子中名词倾向性高和低两类兼类词句法分析的详细历程。结果发现,两类兼类词与各自的控制词之间,均未出现阅读时间上的显著差异,因此并不支持延迟模型所提出的兼类词句法角色延迟指派的观点。实验还发现,名词倾向性高的兼类词引起了更大的加工困难。此外,即便是名词倾向性低的兼类词,被试也仍为其指派名词的句法角色。花园路径模型和制约满意理论均不能单独和完整解释上述发现。文章指出,实验结果支持一种既不同于花园路径模型,又不同于制约满意理论的权变的理论。阅读中遇到兼类词时,读者能立即为其指派句法角色。这种指派过程既可以利用概率制约信息,也可以在句法分析原则指导下进行。句法分析原则是否起作用,取决于概率制约信息的制约强度     

自由飞行下冲突告警对管制员冲突探测绩效的影响

自由飞行是未来空中交通管理系统的设计理念, 会影响管制员的飞行冲突探测绩效, 为其提供自动化的冲突告警是主要的应对思路。已有研究主要围绕冲突告警的通道类型、可靠性、提前呈现时间等单一属性展开, 发现冲突告警的通道类型、可靠性对管制员冲突探测绩效的影响与传统的自动化研究结果存在不一致之处。指出未来在实验中纳入冲突化解任务, 进行冲突告警多属性的整合研究, 有助于解释这些不一致之处、为冲突告警的设计提供更有效的指导。