IN PRAISE OF A LOGIC OF DEFINITIONS THAT TOLERATES Ω‐INCONSISTENCY

I argue that a general logic of definitions must tolerate ω‐inconsistency. I present a semantical scheme, , under which some definitions imply ω‐inconsistent sets of sentences. I draw attention to attractive features of this scheme, and I argue that yields the minimal general logic of definitions. I conclude that any acceptable general logic should permit definitions that generate ω‐inconsistency. This conclusion gains support from the application of to the theory of truth.     

政策执行偏差严重程度对公众地方政府责任判断的影响机制

为探讨地方政府政策执行偏差严重程度对公众地方政府责任判断的影响机制。采用问卷法对728名社会公众进行调查,结果显示：（1）公众地方政府有意性判断和公众地方政府可控归因中介了政策执行偏差严重程度与公众地方政府责任判断之间的关系。（2）政策执行偏差严重程度还通过公众地方政府有意性判断→公众地方政府可控归因的中介链作用于公众地方政府道德责任判断。并对研究的实践启示进行了讨论。     

汉语声调水平映射规则的内隐学习及其长度迁移效应

内隐学习领域关注的重要问题是被试能够习得何种结构及其相应的学习机制。远距离规则的研究为澄清这一问题提供了新的视角。现有研究已证实被试能够内隐地习得并迁移固定长度的远距离规则。按照内隐学习抽象性的观点,如果被试习得的是远距离的抽象规则本身,那么迁移也同时会发生在不同长度的材料上。因此,研究以独特的汉语声调水平映射规则为材料,通过对表面特征与底层规则之间的分离操作,探讨声调水平映射规则的内隐习得和长度迁移,结果表明被试不仅能够习得这一规则,还能够将该规则灵活迁移到不同长度的材料上,进一步为内隐学习的抽象性特点和无限性的学习机制提供强有力的新证据。     

Does Exposure to Stereotype‐Disconfirming Politicians Reduce the Effect of Stereotypes on Voting? Evidence From Seven Plagiarism Scandals in Germany

We examine whether exposure to several salient counterexamples reduces the effect of stereotypes on voting. By taking advantage of a series of seven plagiarism scandals in Germany—a country with high regard for academic credentials where academic titles (Dr. and Prof.) get printed on ballot papers—we test whether the tendency to vote for candidates with a doctor's title decreased in the wake of the scandals. Using cross‐sectional and longitudinal estimators and controlling for a large range of potential confounders, we find that the electoral advantage of candidates with a doctor's title shrinks from a good half of a percentage point before the scandals down to a third after the scandals. In line with a subtyping hypothesis, the reduction is stronger for candidates from traditional middle‐class parties (i.e., the parties of the politicians who were implicated in the scandals). Neither of these effects turns out to be strong enough to reach statistical significance, however. We conclude that seven negative examples in one legislative term had no noticeable effect on the tendency to select candidates based on academic titles. Our study provides a rare opportunity to test the effect of stereotype‐disconfirming information on electoral behavior. Our results contribute to a literature demonstrating the resilience of stereotypes to disconfirming information. They also suggest that plagiarism affairs are unlikely to reduce electoral incentives for politicians to obtain a fake doctorate.     

UNDERSTANDING PARENTING STRESS AND CHILDREN'S BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS AMONG HOMELESS,SUBSTANCE‐ABUSING MOTHERS

This article tested a model of parenting stress as a mediator between maternal depressive symptoms, emotion regulation, and child behavior problems using a sample of homeless, substance‐abusing mothers. Participants were 119 homeless mothers (ages 18–24 years) and their young children (ages 0–6 years). Mothers responded to questions about their depressive symptoms, emotion regulation, parenting stress, and child behavior problems. A path analysis showed that maternal depressive symptoms were positively associated with child behavior problems through increased parenting stress whereas maternal cognitive reappraisal was negatively associated with child behavior problems through decreased parenting stress. Moreover, maternal expressive suppression was negatively related to child externalizing problems. Findings support the parenting stress theory and highlight maternal parenting stress as a mechanism associated with homeless children's mental health risk. This study has significant implications for understanding the parenting processes underlying child's resilience in the context of homelessness and maternal substance use.     

Action‐semantic and syntactic deficits in subjects at risk for Huntington's disease

Frontostriatal networks play critical roles in grounding action semantics and syntactic skills. Indeed, their atrophy distinctively disrupts both domains, as observed in patients with Huntington's disease (HD) and Parkinson's disease, even during early disease stages. However, frontostriatal degeneration in these conditions may begin up to 15 years before the onset of clinical symptoms, opening avenues for pre‐clinical detection via sensitive tasks. Such a mission is particularly critical in HD, given that patients’ children have 50% chances of inheriting the disease. Against this background, we assessed whether deficits in the above‐mentioned domains emerge in subjects at risk to develop HD. We administered tasks tapping action semantics, object semantics, and two forms of syntactic processing to 18 patients with HD, 19 asymptomatic first‐degree relatives, and sociodemographically matched controls for each group. The patients evinced significant deficits in all tasks, but only those in the two target domains were independent of overall cognitive state. More crucially, relative to controls, the asymptomatic relatives were selectively impaired in action semantics and in the more complex syntactic task, with both patterns emerging irrespective of the subjects’ overall cognitive state. Our findings highlight the relevance of these dysfunctions as potential prodromal biomarkers of HD. Moreover, they offer theoretical insights into the differential contributions of frontostriatal hubs to both domains while paving the way for innovations in diagnostic procedures.     

Increasing the salience of fluency cues does not reduce the recognition memory impairment in Alzheimer's disease!

In Alzheimer's disease (AD), it is now well established that recollection is impaired from the beginning of the disease, whereas findings are less clear concerning familiarity. One of the most important mechanisms underlying familiarity is the sense of familiarity driven by processing fluency. In this study, we attempted to attenuate recognition memory deficits in AD by maximizing the salience of fluency cues in two conditions of a recognition memory task. In one condition, targets and foils have been created from the same pool of letters (Overlap condition). In a second condition, targets and foils have been derived from two separate pools of letters (No‐Overlap condition), promoting the use of letter‐driven visual and phonetic fluency. Targets and foils were low‐frequency words. The memory tasks were performed by 15 patients with AD and 16 healthy controls. Both groups improved their memory performance in the No‐Overlap condition compared to the Overlap condition. Patients with AD were able to use fluency cues during recognition memory as older adults did, but this did not allow to compensate for dysfunction of recognition memory processes.     

Behavioural Consistency Within the Prisoner's Dilemma Game: The Role of Personality and Situation

Mixed‐motive games represent situations that confront people with a conflict between cooperative and non‐cooperative alternatives. Despite this common basis, recent research has shown that the consistency of people's choices across different mixed‐motive games is rather low. The present research examined behavioural consistency within the same mixed‐motive game, by presenting participants with a series of one‐shot Prisoner's Dilemma Games. Across this set of games, payoffs were manipulated in order to intensify or weaken the conflict between self and the other party while maintaining the game's underlying structure. Our findings indicate that significant differences in choice behaviour are observed as a function of both situational (i.e. manipulations of the Prisoner's Dilemma Game's payoff structure) and personality differences (i.e. individual differences in personality and motivational traits). Moreover, our included situational variables and personality features did not interact with each other and were about equally impactful in shaping cooperation. Crucially, however, despite the significant behavioural differences across game variants, considerable consistency in choices was found as well, which suggests that the game's motivational basis reliably impacts choice behaviour in spite of situational and personality variations. We discuss implications for theorizing on mixed‐motive situations and elaborate on the question how cooperation can be promoted. © 2018 European Association of Personality Psychology     

CLIMATE CHANGE,LAUDATO SI', CREATION SPIRITUALITY,AND THE NOBILITY OF THE SCIENTIST'S VOCATION

This exploration into spirituality and climate change employs the “four paths” of the creation spirituality tradition. The author recognizes those paths in the rich teachings of Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Si' and applies them in considering the nobility of the scientist's vocation. Premodern thinkers often resisted any split between science and religion. The author then lays out the basic archetypes for recognizing the sacredness of creation, namely, the Cosmic Christ (Christianity); the Buddha Nature (Buddhism); the Image of God (Judaism); the “Primordial Man” (Hinduism), as well as the premodern universal teaching of “God as Beauty.” He addresses the subject of evil which deserves serious attention in the face of the realities posed by climate change and the resistance to addressing them. In the concluding section, the author speaks of a new Order of the Sacred Earth that was launched in fall 2017 to gather persons of whatever spiritual tradition or none to devote themselves to preserving Mother Earth.