Paranormal belief and errors of probabilistic reasoning: The role of constituent conditional relatedness in believers' susceptibility to the conjunction fallacy

The present study examines the extent to which stronger belief in either extrasensory perception, psychokinesis or life-after-death is associated with a proneness to making conjunction errors (CEs). One hundred and sixty members of the UK public read eight hypothetical scenarios and for each estimated the likelihood that two constituent events alone plus their conjunction would occur. The impact of paranormal belief plus constituents’ conditional relatedness type, estimates of the subjectively less likely and more likely constituents plus relevant interaction terms tested via three Generalized Linear Mixed Models. General qualification levels were controlled for. As expected, stronger PK beliefs and depiction of a positively conditionally related (verses conditionally unrelated) constituent pairs predicted higher CE generation. ESP and LAD beliefs had no impact with, surprisingly, higher estimates of the less likely constituent predicting fewer - not more - CEs. Theoretical implications, methodological issues and ideas for future research are discussed.     

Psychics,aliens, or experience? Using the Anomalistic Belief Scale to examine the relationship between type of belief and probabilistic reasoning

A growing body of research has shown people who hold anomalistic (e.g., paranormal) beliefs may differ from nonbelievers in their propensity to make probabilistic reasoning errors. The current study explored the relationship between these beliefs and performance through the development of a new measure of anomalistic belief, called the Anomalistic Belief Scale (ABS). One key feature of the ABS is that it includes a balance of both experiential and theoretical belief items. Another aim of the study was to use the ABS to investigate the relationship between belief and probabilistic reasoning errors on conjunction fallacy tasks. As expected, results showed there was a relationship between anomalistic belief and propensity to commit the conjunction fallacy. Importantly, regression analyses on the factors that make up the ABS showed that the relationship between anomalistic belief and probabilistic reasoning occurred only for beliefs about having experienced anomalistic phenomena, and not for theoretical anomalistic beliefs.     

关于健康观认知构造的中日比较研究

本研究的目的是揭示大学生关于健康观的认知构造,并对中日大学生健康观的认知构造进行比较。通过对收集到的日常生活的健康观数据进行处理,制成了一个包含50个项目的问卷,然后对收集到的儿8名日本大学生和81名中国大学生的数据进行了因子分析,得到了健康观认知构造的五个因子,即“自律性”(因子Ⅰ)、“主观自我”(因子Ⅱ)、“身体因素”(因子Ⅲ)、“心理因素”(因子Ⅳ)、“健康习惯”(因子Ⅴ)。中日学生的健康观认知结构在Ⅰ、Ⅲ、Ⅳ因子上存在差异。     

A Sequent Formulation of Conditional Logic Based on Belief Change Operations

Peter Gärdenfors has developed a semantics for conditional logic, based on the operations of expansion and revision applied to states of information. The account amounts to a formalisation of the Ramsey test for conditionals. A conditional A > B is declared accepted in a state of information K if B is accepted in the state of information which is the result of revising K with respect to A. While Gärdenfors's account takes the truth-functional part of the logic as given, the present paper proposes a semantics entirely based on epistemic states and operations on these states. The semantics is accompanied by a syntactic treatment of conditional logic which is formally similar to Gentzen's sequent formulation of natural deduction rules. Three of David Lewis's systems of conditional logic are represented. The formulations are attractive by virtue of their transparency and simplicity.     

Genocidalism

This is an attempt to develop a more complete understanding of ``genocidalism of commission,' or the genocidal use of ``genocide,' defined stipulatively as ``the energetic attributions of ``genocide' in less than clear cases without considering available and convincing opposing evidence and argumentation.' Genocidalism is a widespread phenomenon regarding the discourse on international affairs in the advanced, liberal societies of the West, embedding a ``normative divide' between the ways of attending to domestic (national) concerns and ways of attending to international issues. I argue that genocidalism is morally wrong, explore its likely causes, and suggest possible ways of getting rid of this hateful practice. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

心理健康素质测评系统·中国成年人生活信念量表的编制

本研究的目的是编制适合中国社会文化特点的生活信念量表。通过搜集整理已有相关文献,并考虑《心理健康素质测评系统》的整体结构,确定了该量表的合理性和可控性两维度的理论构想。通过参考国外同类量表项目以及在心理学专家中征集项目的方式形成初始量表,并通过预测筛选确定量表的最终项目。测试结果表明,生活信念量表具有较高的重测信度、内部一致性信度和较高的结构效度、内容效度、聚合效度以及同时效度。结论：生活信念量表具备令人满意的心理测量学特征,可以被用来评估中国成年人的生活信念。     

General belief in a just world and resilience: Evidence from a collectivistic culture

Previous research showed that in the individualistic culture, adults endorse the personal more than the general belief in a just world (PBJW vs. GBJW). Comparatively little is known about the prevalence character and adaptive functions of GBJW, especially in the collectivistic culture. We conducted three surveys among the Chinese adults and adolescents. We found that (1) Chinese adults and adolescents endorsed more GBJW than PBJW; (2) Adult survivors with high exposure to post‐earthquake trauma and adolescents in the poverty‐stricken area maintained high GBJW, with relatively lower PBJW. (3) GBJW predicted the psychological resilience in all the three samples independent of PBJW. The results imply that in contrast to populations from the individualistic culture, people from the collectivistic culture endorse a robust GBJW, which allows them to resiliently confront harsh realities. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Levels of modality for BDI Logic

The use of rational agents for modelling real world problems has both been heavily investigated and become well accepted, with BDI (Beliefs, Desires, and Intentions) Logic being a widely used architecture to represent and reason about rational agency. However, in the real world, we often have to deal with different levels of confidence in the beliefs we hold, desires we have, and intentions that we commit to. This paper extends our previous framework that integrated qualitative levels of beliefs, desires, and intentions into BDI Logic. We describe an expanded set of axioms and properties of the extended logic. We present a modular structure for the semantics which involves a non-normal Kripke type semantics that may be used for other agent systems. Further, we demonstrate the usefulness of our framework with a scheduling task example.     

An analytic tableau calculus for a temporalised belief logic

A tableau is a refutation-based decision procedure for a related logic, and is among the most popular proof procedures for modal logics. In this paper, we present a labelled tableau calculus for a temporalised belief logic called TML⁺, which is obtained by adding a linear-time temporal logic onto a belief logic by the temporalisation method of Finger and Gabbay. We first establish the soundness and the completeness of the labelled tableau calculus based on the soundness and completeness results of its constituent logics. We then sketch a resolution-type proof procedure that complements the tableau calculus and also propose a model checking algorithm for TML⁺ based on the recent results for model checking procedures for temporalised logics. TML⁺ is suitable for formalising trust and agent beliefs and reasoning about their evolution for agent-based systems. Based on the logic TML⁺, the proposed labelled tableau calculus could be used for analysis, design and verification of agent-based systems operating in dynamic environments.     

Thinking about representations: the case of opaque contexts

To address the question of whether young children are differentially sensitive to referential opacity, an advanced Theory of Mind skill, we assessed 4-, 6-, and 8-year-olds on three types of opaque contexts: epistemic, quotational, and intentional. Children’s performance improved as a function of age and varied significantly by opacity type. Performance was best for epistemic opacity (using the verb “know”) and poorest for intentional opacity (using “mean to”), with quotational opacity (using “said”) falling in-between. Importantly, the current results suggest that children’s sensitivity to referential opacity is not an all-or-nothing competence but rather one that varies across the contexts examined. Possible reasons for this variability are discussed.