Reviews

Rottschaefer, William A. The Biology and Psychology of Moral Agency
Mccutcheon, Russell T. Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia
Drengson, Alan The Practice of Technology: Exploring Technology,Ecophilosophy, and Spiritual Disciplines for Vital Links
Burrell, David B. and Mcginn, Bernard (eds.) God and Creation: An Ecumenical Symposium     

Analog scale,magnitude estimation,and person trade‐off as measures of health utility: biases and their correction

Subjects judged the disutility of health conditions (e.g. blindness) using one of them (e.g. blindness+deafness) as a standard, using three elicitation methods: analog scale (AS, how bad is blindness compared to blindness+deafness?); magnitude estimation (ME, blindness+deafness is how many times as bad as blindness?); and person trade‐off (PTO, how many people cured of blindness is as good as 10 people cured of blindness+deafness?). ME disutilities of the less bad condition were smallest, and AS was highest. Interleaving PTO with ME made PTO more like ME. AS disutilities were inconsistent with direct judgments of differences between pairs of conditions. ME and PTO judgments were internally inconsistent: e.g. the disutility of one‐eye‐blindness relative to blindness+deafness was larger than predicted from comparison of each to blindness. Consistency training reduced inconsistency, increased agreement between AS and PTO, and transferred from one method to the other. The results support the use of consistency checks in utility elicitation. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Determining the implementation order of a general plan by using a multicriteria method

We describe a real-life application of a new multicriteria method in the context of assisting the decision-making for a general plan in the municipality of Kirkkonummi in Uusimaa, Finland. At the time our group started working on the problem, a proposal for an overall plan had already been completed, but the order in which different regional parts of the plan should be implemented needed to be considered based on the environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedure. The EIA procedure generated a large amount of data about the different impacts of the alternatives. For this group decision making problem we developed the SMAA-3 decision support method which does not require any explicit preference information from the decision makers during the procedure. The uncertainty of the basic data is modelled using ELECTRE III-type pseudo-criteria with preference and indifference thresholds. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Time complexity and consistency issues in using the AHP for making group decisions

Two different ways of using the AHP in making group decisions are compared and evaluated. The first method combines different experts’ opinions before applying an eigenvalue method to obtain final weights for decision alternatives. The second, in contrast, derives each expert's rating for the decision alternatives before combining them. Both methods take into account the relative importance of different experts in making decisions. Comparison and evaluation of these two methods are made by using two criteria: time complexity and consistency indices. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the use of these two methods, and results of a mathematical simulation are presented for comparing the time complexity in different-sized problems. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application of GIS and multicriteria evaluation in locating sustainable boundary between the tunari National Park and Cochabamba City (Bolivia)

Increased population growth and urbanization, has caused increase in demand for land around the city of Cochabamba, which has led to encroachment into the National Park and the construction of illegal settlements. This has created a number of problems, some of which are the direct consequences of the new settlements in the ‘Tunari’ foothills. These settlements constitute a threat to the environment and people because of their location in flood risk and aquifer recharge areas. In response to this problem the city authorities are considering relocating the boundary between the National Park and the city. This study has focused on the design and evaluation of alternative locations for a sustainable boundary between the north of ‘Cochabamba City’ and the southern boundary of the ‘Tunari National Park’. In this process, a rational and systematic approach of collaborative‐decision‐making, supported by geographical information systems (GIS) and multicriteria evaluation (MCE) has been employed and evaluated. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Power Relations and Group Aggregation in the Multiplicative AHP and SMART

The relative power of the members in a group of decision makers can be incorporated in the multiplicative AHP via power coefficients in the logarithmic least squares whereby we analyse the pairwise comparison matrices. When each decision maker judges every pair of alternatives under each of the criteria, aggregation over the criteria and over the decision makers proceeds via a sequence of geometric-mean calculations which can be carried out in any order, at least with predetermined criterion weights and power coefficients. Hence, since we preserve the rank order of the alternatives, we avoid a deficiency of the original AHP. We also consider SMART, an additive method which is logarithmically related to the multiplicative AHP so that power relations can easily be incorporated in it. Finally, in order to illustrate the proposed model, we analyse a generalized version of the well-known example of Belton and Gear as well as the power relations between member countries of the European Community. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Multi-Crit. Decis. Anal. 6 : 155–165 (1997) No. of Figures: 0. No. of Tables: 6. No. of References: 23.     

社会认同理论视野下的社会认同威胁

社会认同威胁是指,在社会比较的情况下,由于群体地位的差异,某一群体的个体在认知、情感上,对自我、所属群体身份的不承认,而产生的一种心理上的疏离感和剥夺感、自卑感。社会认同威胁的结果包括3类：脱离群体、改变群体的状态、接受消极的社会认同结果。外显“社会威胁”的测量方法以问卷调查为主。测量“社会威胁”的内隐方法则以心脏血压和平均动脉血压作为测量指标。社会认同威胁的实验研究将群体分化为内群体和外群体,操纵群体地位的差异,通过模拟社会游戏来了解群体的社会认同威胁及其生理反应。未来的研究将重点关注下述问题：对社会认同威胁概念的建构、跨文化研究及其内隐过程的分析     

具有类属知识性的思维:群体区别判断过程中的复杂性、有效性、有用性和实质性

类属性思维(stereotypes)在一定的程度上是对群体区别正确反映的类属信仰.类属性思维比我们一般假想的更为复杂.首先,我们在本论文中探讨了在立体性的类属性思维EPA理论框架之下的多维度,即类属性思维的三维度:评估、激活和准确度.同时还特别讨论了类属性思维与具体集体共识的表征特点的图腾信仰之间的密切关系.其次,对于作为人类信仰一部分的类属性思维准确性莫衷一是的研究,我们进行了全面综述,并且本文还仔细考查文化类属性思维,个体类属性思维,个体与群体的判断,准确性评判的标准,和原分析的数据等等,同时进一步表明类属性思维和客观现实性有密不可分的关系.最后,我们指出类属性思维对解释群体和民族的区别非常重要,特别是人的感知的实质性寓于实在的客观群体本身(“感知的同一性”).我们认为,类属性思维的过程,对于高度的实体性和感知的实质性的群体来说,具有深刻影响,况且群体或部落(民族)的图腾也是其群体或民族的实体性的外在表现.尽管我们不可能解决同类属性思维的过程有关的所有争论,但我们所强调的观点是:类属性思维是人类相互影响和生存的有效类属性识别.     

Corralling the Ingroup: Deviant Derogation and Perception of Group Variability

ABSTRACT

Two experiments investigated the relationship between the evaluation of a deviant group member and the perceived group variability among participants with varying degrees of ingroup identification. In Experiment 1 (N?=?79) ingroup identification was negatively associated with perceived ingroup variability following the presentation of a deviant ingroup member. This relationship was mediated by ratings of the deviant: the stronger the identification, the more negatively the deviant was evaluated, and the more homogeneous the ingroup was perceived. These effects were replicated in Experiment 2 (N?=?169), which also showed that there was no association between ingroup identification and the representation of the outgroup following exposure to a deviant outgroup member. The findings suggest that deviant derogation may serve to isolate undesirable members from the rest of the ingroup and protect the group's identity.     

Revisiting ‘What works for whom?’: A qualitative framework for evaluating clinical effectiveness in child psychotherapy

This paper describes a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of child psychotherapy used by child psychotherapists in an inner city Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). The Hopes and Expectations for Treatment Approach (HETA) involves using the assessment for psychotherapy that normally precedes treatment to derive a baseline from which to generate a set of hopes/expectations as regards the effects of the treatment on the part of parents and the psychotherapist, to be revisited one year after the start of the psychotherapy and/or at its completion. The Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire, for parents and schools, was also administered before and after the treatment. The characteristics of the first 30 children referred for psychotherapy over a particular time period are described. Of the first 15 children in this group to complete one year of individual psychotherapy, all showed change or significant change in the areas concerning parents' and therapists' hopes at the end-of-year review, as rated by parents and psychotherapists. A case of a child with conduct disorder is used to describe how the assessment generated a psychoanalytic formulation, how the therapist's understanding was fed back to the parents, and how the parents' and therapist's hopes and expectations were derived and recorded. This case illustrates powerfully the impact of trauma in the parents' backgrounds on the internal world of the child, and how the method provides a useful bridge between parent and child work. Feedback from the psychotherapists, the parents and the referrers using the framework is reviewed, and in conclusion the paper argues for the framework's value in promoting good practice in the treatment and management of complex cases and in enhancing awareness of the nature and scope of the psychotherapy process.