Severe Withdrawal (and Recovery)

The problem of how to remove information from an agent's stock of beliefs is of paramount concern in the belief change literature. An inquiring agent may remove beliefs for a variety of reasons: a belief may be called into doubt or the agent may simply wish to entertain other possibilities. In the prominent AGM framework for belief change, upon which the work here is based, one of the three central operations, contraction, addresses this concern (the other two deal with the incorporation of new information). Makinson has generalised this work by introducing the notion of a withdrawal operation. Underlying the account proffered by AGM is the idea of rational belief change. A belief change operation should be guided by certain principles or integrity constraints in order to characterise change by a rational agent. One of the most noted principles within the context of AGM is the Principle of Informational Economy. However, adoption of this principle in its purest form has been rejected by AGM leading to a more relaxed interpretation. In this paper, we argue that this weakening of the Principle of Informational Economy suggests that it is only one of a number of principles which should be taken into account. Furthermore, this weakening points toward a Principle of Indifference. This motivates the introduction of a belief removal operation that we call severe withdrawal. We provide rationality postulates for severe withdrawal and explore its relationship with AGM contraction. Moreover, we furnish possible worlds and epistemic entrenchment semantics for severe withdrawals.     

Why Don't People Change? What Stops Them from Changing? An Integrative Commentary on the Special Issue on Resistance

This commentary discusses the four papers from the vantage point of a cognitive-developmental view. Psychotherapeutic change involving changes in core cognitive structures is seen as threatening an individual's personal sense of identity as well as security and safety needs. Core cognitive constructs are laid down early via the principle of covariation of events and form the basis of our tacit knowledge base. Subsequent changes in this tacit knowledge is difficult because the core cognitive constructs act like a mental filter to screen in confirming data and screen out disconfirming data. Ambiguous stimuli tend to be interpreted on the basis of preexisting cognitive constructs, even when the match between event and interpretation is not ideal. Several suggestions are given for increasing the probability of changes occurring in core cognitive constructs.     

Ethical challenges in a technological environment: The perspective of engineers versus managers

In his article ‘Better Communication Between Engineers and Managers: Some Ways to Prevent Many Ethically Hard Choices’¹ Michael Davis analyzes the causes of the disaster in terms of a communications gap between management and engineers. When the communication between (representatives of) both groups breaks down, the organization is in (moral) trouble. Crucial information gets stuck somewhere in the organization prohibiting a careful discussion and weighing of all (moral) arguments. The resulting judgment has therefore little (moral) quality. In this paper I would like to comment on some of Michael Davis’s interesting and thought-provoking insights and ideas. A company which implements Davis’s recommendations at least shows some sensitivity to organizational moral issues. But it might miss the point that moral trouble can also result from a common understanding between managers and engineers. Organizational members sometimes tend to be myopic with regard to safety issues. This paper:

老虎保护公众意识态度变化研究

本研究以问卷调查的方式对上海市中学生,中医药大学生、和普通公众的老虎保护意识进行了对比调查和纵向调查,以评估国际野生生物保护协会亚洲保护交流项目的“拯救虎虎”公众意识宣传教育活动的效果。     

The Recruitment of Shifting and Inhibition in On‐line Science and Mathematics Tasks

Prior research has investigated the recruitment of inhibition in the use of science/mathematics concepts in tasks that require the rejection of a conflicting, nonscientific initial concept. The present research examines if inhibition is the only EF skill recruited in such tasks and investigates whether shifting is also involved. It also investigates whether inhibition and/or shifting are recruited in tasks in which the use of science/mathematics concepts does not require the rejection of an initial concept, or which require only the use of initial concepts. One hundred and thirty‐three third‐ and fifth‐grade children participated in two inhibition and shifting tasks and two science and mathematics conceptual understanding and conceptual change (CU&C) tasks. All the tasks were on‐line, and performance was measured in accuracy and RTs. The CU&C tasks involved the use of initial concepts and of science/mathematics concepts which required conceptual changes for their initial formation. Only in one of the tasks the use of the science/mathematics concepts required the concurrent rejection of an initial concept. The results confirmed that in this task inhibition was recruited and also showed that the speed of shifting was a significant predictor of performance. Shifting was a significant predictor of performance in all the tasks, regardless of whether they involved science/mathematics or initial concepts. It is argued that shifting is likely to be recruited in complex tasks that require multiple comparisons of stimuli and the entertainment of different perspectives. Inhibition seems to be a more selective cognitive skill likely to be recruited when the use of science/mathematics concepts requires the rejection of a conflicting initial concept.     

论《周易参同契》的“变形而仙”说

魏伯阳所撰《周易参同契》是运用《周易》原理来支撑金丹之道的滥觞。它以《周易》的变易原理作为道教神仙存在学说的理论基础,通过论说"物性可变",进而说明人也可变。人通过服炼金丹能够变化自己的身体而为神仙之体,即"変形而仙",从而可以超越生死。"变形而仙"思想并非《参同契》独创,而是有所本的。这一思想对后世道教产生了巨大而深远的影响,如葛洪、陶弘景、沈汾等人皆明显继承了《参同契》的"变形而仙"说。     

组织变革背景下团队主动性的结构与测量

旨在探索组织变革背景下团队主动性行为的结构,并开发出相应的测量工具。首先对20家企业的27位高管进行了深度访谈,然后按照扎根理论思路对获取资料进行细致分析,探索团队主动性的结构,再按照严格的心理测量学程序开发团队主动性的测量问卷,并以来自60家企业的70个团队（共292位成员）为对象进行了测验。研究发现：团队主动性的主要维度包括群策、协作和适应。经过探索性因素分析和验证性因素分析,结果表明测量工具有着良好的信度和构思效度。     

Birth cohort changes in Chinese adolescents' mental health

In China, rapid economic growth and increasing social problems constitute two basic characteristics of contemporary social change. During the process of dramatic social change, an emerging question is how adolescents' mental health has changed across birth cohorts. The present paper reviews four studies of crosstemporal meta-analysis conducted by us. By meta-analysis of previous literature, we examined changes in mean scores on mental health measures over time (from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s). It was found that since the early 1990s, Chinese adolescents' mental health deteriorated across birth cohorts, shown in increased scores on the negative indicators of mental health (e.g. mental problems, anxiety, and depression), whereas self-esteem as a positive trait decreased. The dropping trend in Chinese adolescents' mental health could be attributed to social change, especially increasing social problems. Therefore, adequate attention must be paid to potential influences of social change on individuals' psychological development.     

Detection of a change in photorealism1

The perceived degree of photorealism is interpreted as reflecting the artificialness or naturalness of images. Natural images (real‐scene photographs) are images with high degrees of naturalness, while artificial images (e.g., paintings) are images with low degrees of naturalness. Alternatively, natural images are images with low degrees of artificialness, while artificial images are images with high degrees of artificialness. We attempted to disambiguate these two interpretations of the perception of photorealism by using a change‐blindness paradigm. Participants observed an image sequence showing a gradual transformation from a natural image to an artificial image or vice versa, and reported changes they noticed. More participants reported noticing changes in photorealism for the natural‐to‐artificial transformations than for the opposite transformations. This asymmetry indicates that disappearing naturalness was detected more readily than emerging naturalness, or alternatively, emerging artificialness was detected more readily than disappearing artificialness. The results for the control conditions showed that the emergence of visual information was detected more readily than the disappearance. These results suggest that the perception of photorealism should be considered as the perception of artificialness.     

A Business Model for Managing System Change Through Strategic Financing and Performance Indicators: A Case Study

This article describes how a system of care operated by a county government agency used a fiscal crisis as the opportunity to reform its children's system. A cross-system response to the crisis is outlined that includes a system of care framework coupled with a business model, inter-departmental collaboration and leadership, the use of strategic reinvestment strategies, and a quality improvement system that focuses on key indicators. Implementation of the system change is described with a specific focus on cross-system entry points, financing strategies that re-allocate funds from deep-end programs to community-based services, and management oversight through the use of performance indicators to monitor and support effectiveness. This article examines the results of the system change, including the diversion of youth from system penetration, the reduction in residential treatment bed days, the re-allocation of these savings to community-based services, and the outcomes of children who were diverted from residential care and served in the community. The article offers a number of recommendations for other communities contemplating system change.