The Role of Racial Discrimination in the Economic Value of Education Among Urban,Low-Income Latina/o Youth: Ethnic Identity and Gender as Moderators

The present study used resilience theory to explore relationships among perceived racial discrimination, ethnic identity, gender, and economic value of education (EVE) among urban, low‐income, Latina/o youth. It was expected that racial discrimination would predict poorer perceptions of the EVE among Latina/o adolescents. Ethnic identity was hypothesized to buffer the negative effect of racial discrimination on Latina/o students’ EVE. The participants in this study were 396 urban, low‐income Latina/o high school students from a large, Midwestern city who completed surveys in both 9th‐ and 10th‐grade. Structural equation modeling was used to test the relationships among racial discrimination, ethnic identity, and EVE. Results supported a protective model of resilience. Specifically, ethnic identity served as a protective factor by buffering the negative effect of perceived racial discrimination on EVE for male participants. The present study is the first to examine ethnic identity as a buffer of racial discrimination on EVE among Latina/o high school students. Future directions and implications are discussed.     

Social values influence the adequacy conditions of scientific theories: beyond inductive risk

The ‘death of evidence’ issue in Canada raises the spectre of politicized science, and thus the question of what role social values may have in science and how this meshes with objectivity and evidence. I first criticize philosophical accounts that have to separate different steps of research to restrict the influence of social and other non-epistemic values. A prominent account that social values may play a role even in the context of theory acceptance is the argument from inductive risk. It maintains that the more severe the social consequences of erroneously accepting a theory would be, the more evidence is needed before the theory may be accepted. However, an implication of this position is that increasing evidence makes the impact of social values converge to zero; and I argue for a stronger role for social values. On this position, social values (together with epistemic values and other empirical considerations) may determine a theory’s conditions of adequacy, which among other things can include considerations about what makes a scientific account unbiased and complete. I illustrate this based on recent theories of human evolution and the social behaviour of non-human primates, where some of the social values implicated are feminist values. While many philosophical accounts (both arguments from inductive risk and from underdetermination) conceptualize the relevance of social values in terms of making inferences from evidence, I argue for the need for a broader philosophical framework, which is also motivated by issues pertaining to scientific explanation.     

Fighting ability influences mate value in late adolescent men

Several studies have demonstrated the relationship between handgrip strength (HGS) and fighting ability in men, which is a relevant trait for intrasexual competition to increase the probability of obtaining a mate. However, few studies have determined a relationship between fighting ability and men’s self-perceived capacity to find, attract and retain a mate. This capacity is a complex compound of several traits that evolutionary psychology has called mate value. In the present study, in a population of late adolescent men from Chile (M ± SD = 16.94 ± .89 years), we explored the relationship between fighting ability, estimated by both HGS and a self-perceived fighting ability questionnaire, and mate value, assessed with a self-perceived mate value components questionnaire. The results show a strong influence of fighting ability on mate value. This influence affects the subscales of “views from the opposite sex”, “sociality” and “relationship history”. However, we did not find an effect on the subscales of “wealth”, “parenting” or “fear to failure”. The relationship between mate value and fighting ability indicates that fighting ability is a relevant component in understanding men’s reproductive behaviour, including intrasexual competition and intersexual selection. This effect was observed in adolescents, who have less mating experience than adults.     

Religion,reason and non-directive teaching: a reply to Trevor Cooling

In other work I have argued that decisions about what to teach directively and what non-directively should be governed by an epistemic criterion. Trevor Cooling has recently advanced some objections to my defence and application of the epistemic criterion and proposed an alternative to it. Here I reply to his objections and comment on his proposed alternative.     

Luck,Knowledge, and “Mere” Coincidence

There are good reasons for pursuing a theory of knowledge by way of understanding the connection between knowledge and luck. Not surprisingly, then, there has been a burgeoning of interest in “luck theories” of knowledge as well as in theories of luck in general. Unfortunately, “luck” proves to be as recalcitrant an analysandum as “knows.” While it is well worth pursuing a general theory of luck despite these difficulties, our theory of knowledge might be made more manageable if we could find a more restricted notion that captured the core phenomena of luck that are relevant to whether or not someone knows. This essay makes the attempt to delineate such a notion, called “mere coincidence.”     

The Need for Justification

Some series can go on indefinitely, others cannot, and epistemologists want to know in which class to place epistemic chains. Is it sensible or nonsensical to speak of a proposition or belief that is justified by another proposition or belief, ad infinitum? In large part the answer depends on what we mean by “justification.” Epistemologists have failed to find a definition on which everybody agrees, and some have even advised us to stop looking altogether. In spite of this, the present essay submits a few candidate definitions. It argues that, although not giving the final word, these candidates tell us something about the possibility of infinite epistemic chains. And it shows that they can short‐circuit a debate about doxastic justification.     

When actions speak volumes: The role of inferences about moral character in outrage over racial bigotry

Inferences about moral character may often drive outrage over symbolic acts of racial bigotry. Study 1 demonstrates a theoretically predicted dissociation between moral evaluations of an act and the person who carries out the act. Although Americans regarded the private use of a racial slur as a less blameworthy act than physical assault, use of a slur was perceived as a clearer indicator of poor moral character. Study 2 highlights the dynamic interplay between moral judgments of acts and persons, demonstrating that first making person judgments can bias subsequent act judgments. Privately defacing a picture of Martin Luther King, Jr. led to greater moral condemnation of the agent than of the act itself only when the behavior was evaluated first. When Americans first made character judgments, symbolically defacing a picture of the civil rights leader was significantly more likely to be perceived as an immoral act. These studies support a person‐centered account of outrage over bigotry and demonstrate that moral evaluations of acts and persons converge and diverge under theoretically meaningful circumstances. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Governance Processes and Change Within Organizational Participants of Multi-sectoral Community Health Care Alliances: The Mediating Role of Vision,Mission, Strategy Agreement and Perceived Alliance Value

Multi-sectoral community health care alliances are organizations that bring together individuals and organizations from different industry sectors to work collaboratively on improving the health and health care in local communities. Long-term success and sustainability of alliances are dependent on their ability to galvanize participants to take action within their ‘home’ organizations and institutionalize the vision, goals, and programs within participating organizations and the broader community. The purpose of this study was to investigate two mechanisms by which alliance leadership and management processes may promote such changes within organizations participating in alliances. The findings of the study suggest that, despite modest levels of change undertaken by participating organizations, more positive perceptions of alliance leadership, decision making, and conflict management were associated with a greater likelihood of participating organizations making changes as a result of their participation in the alliance, in part by promoting greater vision, mission, and strategy agreement and higher levels of perceived value. Leadership processes had a stronger relationship with change within participating organizations than decision-making style and conflict management processes. Open-ended responses by participants indicated that participating organizations most often incorporated new measures or goals into their existing portfolio of strategic plans and activities in response to alliance participation.     

Predictability influences whether outcomes are processed in terms of original or relative values

Previous studies have provided insights into the representations of original and relative values and the influence of predictability on decision making. However, whether the predictability of outcomes can influence the processing manner of outcomes (i.e. whether the outcomes are processed in terms of original or relative values) is still unknown. To investigate this issue, we had participants perform a monetary decision task which resulted in two outcomes with the same relative values but different original values in either a predictable or unpredictable condition, while recording event-related potentials (ERP). ERP results showed that the outcome processing in the unpredictable condition elicited more positive deflections in the time window of 300–500 ms (P300) than did those in the predictable condition. More importantly, the outcome with high original value elicited a greater P300 component than did that with low original value in the unpredictable condition even though these two outcomes had the same relative values, while in the predictable condition no significant difference was observed between ERPs elicited by the two outcomes even though their original values were different. These results suggest that the outcomes might be processed in terms of relative values in the predictable condition but original values in the unpredictable condition.