Learning from Levinas: A Response

In this paper I explore the question of how toapproach the writings of Emmanuel Levinas fromthe point of view of education. I argue thatLevinas has challenged the modern conception ofsubjectivity which underpins modern education.Instead of providing a new conception ofsubjectivity, his work should be understood asan attempt to account for the awakening of theuniqueness of the subject in ethical terms. Thecentral idea is that we come into presencethrough responding, through taking up – or notdenying – the undeniable responsibility whichprecedes our subjectivity. Levinas not onlyprovides us with a new way to `understand'subjectivity. `Responding' also suggests a wayto approach Levinas's writings that goes beyondthe simple application of his `truths' toeducational practice. Levinas's writingschallenge their reader to articulate a unique,unprecedented response. It is argued that thepapers to which this paper is a response alldisplay this approach to Levinas's writings. Itis further argued that `responding' is not onlya way to read Levinas, but ultimately a way tothink about education itself. To learn (fromLevinas) is to respond (to Levinas).     

Return of fear after retrospective inferences about the absence of an unconditioned stimulus during extinction

We examined whether the effect of an extinction phase can be influenced retrospectively by information about the cause of the absence of the unconditioned stimulus (US) during that phase. Participants were subjected to a differential fear conditioning procedure, followed by an extinction procedure. Afterwards, half of the participants were presented with information about a technical failure, which explained why the US had been absent during the extinction phase. The other participants received information that was unrelated to the US. During a subsequent presentation of the target conditioned stimulus (CS), only the former group of participants showed renewed anticipatory skin conductance responding and a return of US expectancy. The results are in accordance with a propositional account of associative learning and highlight the importance of retrospective reasoning as a cause of relapse after exposure therapy.     

Overclaiming as a measure of faking

Researchers have recently asserted that popular measures of response distortion (i.e., socially desirable responding scales) lack construct validity (i.e., measure traits rather than test faking) and that applicant faking on personality tests remains a serious concern ( [Griffith and Peterson, 2008] and [Holden, 2008]). Thus, although researchers and human resource (HR) selection specialists have been attempting to find measures which readily capture individual differences in faking that increase personality test validity, to date such attempts have rarely, if ever succeeded. The current study, however, finds that the overclaiming technique captures individual differences in faking and subsequently increases personality test score validity via suppressing unwanted error variance in personality test scores. Implications of this research on the overclaiming technique for improving HR selection decisions are illustrated and discussed.     

Faking on a situational judgment test in a medical school selection setting: Effect of different scoring methods?

We examined the occurrence of faking on a rating situational judgment test (SJT) by comparing SJT scores and response styles of the same individuals across two naturally occurring situations. An SJT for medical school selection was administered twice to the same group of applicants (N = 317) under low‐stakes (T1) and high‐stakes (T2) circumstances. The SJT was scored using three different methods that were differentially affected by response tendencies. Applicants used significantly more extreme responding on T2 than T1. Faking (higher SJT score on T2) was only observed for scoring methods that controlled for response tendencies. Scoring methods that do not control for response tendencies introduce systematic error into the SJT score, which may lead to inaccurate conclusions about the existence of faking.     

On correctly responding to all decisive reasons we have

Benjamin Kiesewetter has recently provided an argument to the effect that necessarily, if one has decisive reason to φ, then one has sufficient reason to believe that she herself has decisive reason to φ. If sound, this argument has important implications for several debates in contemporary normative philosophy. I argue that the main premise in the argument is problematic and should be rejected. According to this premise (PRR), necessarily, one can respond correctly to all the decisive reasons one has. I show that PRR is confronted with counterexamples and presupposes an implausible commensurability of all kinds of reasons. If so, the conclusion in Kiesewetter’s argument doesn’t follow. I also discuss further implications of my objections to PRR for a specific family of ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ principles and ability constraints on reasons, and the consequences that these could have for a number of contemporary debates in normative philosophy.     

The Role of Emotional Distress Tolerance on Fear Responding in a Heights-Fearful Sample: Perceived Versus Actual Behavior

Emotional distress tolerance (EDT)—or the ability to withstand negative emotional states—is considered a transdiagnostic risk factor for psychopathology. Although EDT is theorized to play a role in anxiety development and maintenance, research aiming to delineate the relationship between anxiety and EDT is lacking. The current study tested whether self-reported EDT predicted self-reported and actual avoidance in the presence of feared stimuli using a heights-fearful sample. Moreover, the study tested whether EDT predicted other in-the-moment fear responses, such as peak anxiety, anxious cognitions, and bodily sensations. Participants (N = 128) completed questionnaires assessing fear of heights, negative affect, anxious cognitions, and bodily sensations, as well as two heights behavioral avoidance tasks (BATs). Results demonstrated that EDT did not predict actual avoidance or other in-the-moment fear responses, except for peak anxiety in one BAT. However, EDT predicted self-reported avoidance of heights beyond fear of heights and negative affect. Taken together, results suggest that perception of ability to tolerate emotional distress predicts perception of avoidance of heights, but not actual avoidance of heights or reactions to heights (with the exception of peak anxiety in one BAT). Given these findings, self-reported EDT may not adequately predict how individuals react in anxiety-provoking situations.     

Equivalence class analysis of responding consistent with the relational frame of opposition

We replicated and extended studies showing that contextual cues for matching stimuli from 2 separate equivalence classes control the same derived relations as contextual cues for opposition frames in RFT studies. We conducted 2 experiments with 6 college students. In Phase 1, they received training in a conditional discrimination AB. Then, they received training for maintaining AB with X1 as context, and for reversing the sample–comparison relations of AB, with X2. In Phase 2, X1 functioned as context for matching same-class stimuli, and X2 functioned as context for matching separate-class stimuli. In Phase 3, X2 controlled the same derived arbitrary relations as cues for opposition frames in RFT studies. This functional equivalence may suggest that X2 functioned as a cue for opposition frames. In Phase 4, participants matched different stimuli with X2 as context, instead of matching most different (opposite) stimuli. In addition, Different, a cue for matching different stimuli, controlled the same derived arbitrary relations as X2. These results are incompatible with X2 being a cue for opposition frames. Contextual control over equivalence and responding by exclusion can explain these outcomes. The implications of these findings for RFT studies on opposition frames are discussed.     

问卷调查中被试不认真作答的控制与识别

问卷调查是心理与教育领域十分常见的数据收集方法, 而被试的不认真作答可能导致问卷数据失真。回顾已有研究发现:(a)不认真作答可以从外在作答模式和内在产生原因两个方向进行定义; (b)不认真作答的常见事前控制方法主要包括降低任务难度以及提高被试作答动机两大类; (c)事后识别方法主要包括嵌入识别量表、作答模式识别、反应时识别三大类。今后的研究中应基于作答机制的研究优化与开发控制方法, 检验作答识别方法的跨情境适用性并开发新方法, 并对局部不认真的识别与处理进行更深入的探讨。     

An emerging local musical voice at Grahamstown Anglican Cathedral: experiments in localisation

This article is an introduction to and analysis of experiments in localisation at Grahamstown Anglican Cathedral. To this end, three songs are presented, each composed or arranged by the junior choristers of the cathedral choir. The method of composition/arrangement is loosely based on experimental workshops conducted by David Dargie in the 1970s and 1980s with people across Southern Africa. The texts and music of the songs are analysed, with the express purpose of determining to what extent Southern African cultures have interacted with western cultures. A method of categorisation, derived from models developed by Huib Schippers and Akin Euba, is used to determine the depth of cultural contact. The author finds that in two of the songs there is evidence of creative and meaningful mingling of local and western cultures. The third song, being simply an arrangement of a local song, is more obviously Southern African, although it too shows influence of western harmonic conventions, albeit more superficially.