Analysis of the creation of 'emptiness', of 'nothingness', in certain types of psychosis

Some psychotic patients manage to create nothingness and emptiness thanks to the amount of work their ego accomplishes. That is the paradox we find in schizophrenic patients, their ego is simultaneously weak and powerful. When we analyse how this nothingness/emptiness is created, we enter into a strange world in which the patient's ego is, in part, defective and fragmented; his or her thinking apparatus, capacity for perceiving and feeling are under attack. Yet this same ego can call on intellectual ability, imagination and tremendous energy in order to create a highly complex structure, thanks to which the psychotic individual manages to create a kind of para-organization of space by splitting 'nothingness' (the space between representations) and 'density' (a compact magma made up of many different highly-condensed representations). Both nothingness and density may give the impression that the patient is 'nowhere to be found' and therefore impossible to analyse. In this paper, I shall describe these mechanisms as they appear in the clinical material of a female psychotic patient.     

Learning, risk attitude and hot stoves in restless bandit problems

This research examines decisions from experience in restless bandit problems. Two experiments revealed four main effects. (1) Risk neutrality: the typical participant did not learn to become risk averse, a contradiction of the hot stove effect. (2) Sensitivity to the transition probabilities that govern the Markov process. (3) Positive recency: the probability of a risky choice being repeated was higher after a win than after a loss. (4) Inertia: the probability of a risky choice being repeated following a loss was higher than the probability of a risky choice after a safe choice. These results can be described with a simple contingent sampler model, which assumes that choices are made based on small samples of experiences contingent on the current state.     

Naming and Diagonalization, from Cantor to Godel to Kleene

We trace self-reference phenomena to the possibility of namingfunctions by names that belong to the domain over which thefunctions are defined. A naming system is a structure of theform (D, type( ),{ }), where D is a non-empty set; for everya D, which is a name of a k-ary function, {a}: D^k D is thefunction named by a, and type(a) is the type of a, which tellsus if a is a name and, if it is, the arity of the named function.Under quite general conditions we get a fixed point theorem,whose special cases include the fixed point theorem underlyingGödel's proof, Kleene's recursion theorem and many othertheorems of this nature, including the solution to simultaneousfixed point equations. Partial functions are accommodated byincluding "undefined" values; we investigate different systemsarising out of different ways of dealing with them. Many-sortednaming systems are suggested as a natural approach to generalcomputatability with many data types over arbitrary structures.The first part of the paper is a historical reconstruction ofthe way Gödel probably derived his proof from Cantor'sdiagonalization, through the semantic version of Richard. Theincompleteness proof–including the fixed point construction–resultfrom a natural line of thought, thereby dispelling the appearanceof a "magic trick". The analysis goes on to show how Kleene'srecursion theorem is obtained along the same lines.     

The Train Paradox

When two omnipotent beings are randomly and sequentially selecting positive integers, the being who selects second is almost certain to select a larger number. I then use the relativity of simultaneity to create a paradox by having omnipotent beings select positive integers in different orders for different observers.

班级环境如何影响受欺负者的适应？健康环境悖论及其发生机制

“健康环境悖论”是指在受欺负水平相对较低的环境中,受欺负个体有更多的适应问题。通过梳理相关实证研究,本文从人际与认知两大方面分析健康环境悖论的发生机制。人际机制强调健康环境会影响同伴群体对于受欺负者的态度和受欺负者的友谊,这些不良的人际关系进一步加剧受欺负者的适应困难。认知机制认为健康环境会通过向上的社会比较和消极归因方式,影响受欺负者的适应问题。最后,我们讨论了中国文化背景下“健康环境悖论”的适用性问题、未来研究的发展方向和对于干预实践的建议。     

Is luck on my side? Optimism,pessimism, and ambiguity aversion

The influences of optimism and pessimism on ambiguity aversion were investigated in two tasks that manipulated the presence or absence of a potentially competitive experimenter. A total of 112 participants chose which option—ambiguous or known-risk—they preferred in the two slightly differing Ellsberg urns tasks. Optimism was measured using the Extended Life Orientation Test (ELOT). Highly optimistic people showed significantly less ambiguity aversion than less optimistic people when information was given that the number of balls was randomly determined. This pattern was present but less pronounced in the condition when the composition of the ambiguous urn could be interpreted as being influenced (rigged) by the experimenter. Pessimism was uninfluential. Perceptions of the situation, especially the degree of trust in the experimenter, were significantly influenced by the participants' optimism. People who do not have highly optimistic personalities tend to shy away from choosing ambiguous options. When ambiguity is clear, and trust issues are removed, people's optimistic outlook influences their degree of ambiguity aversion and thus their decisions.     

Prospective memory and ageing paradox with event-based tasks: A study of young,young-old,and old-old participants

Research on ageing and prospective memory—remembering to do something in the future—has resulted in paradoxical findings, whereby older adults are often impaired in the laboratory but perform significantly better than younger adults in naturalistic settings. Nevertheless, there are very few studies that have examined prospective memory both in and outside the laboratory using the same sample of young and old participants. Moreover, most naturalistic studies have used time-based tasks, and it is unclear whether the prospective memory and ageing paradox extends to event-based tasks. In this study, 72 young (18–30 years), 79 young-old (61–70 years), and 72 old-old (71–80 years) participants completed several event-based tasks in and outside the laboratory. Results showed that the ageing paradox does exist for event-based tasks but manifests itself differently from that in time-based tasks. Thus, younger adults outperformed old-old participants in two laboratory event-based tasks, but there were no age effects for a naturalistic task completed at home (remembering to write the date and time in the upper left corner of a questionnaire). The young and old-old also did not differ in remembering to retrieve a wristwatch from a pocket at the end of the laboratory session. This indicates that the paradox may be due to differences in ongoing task demands in the lab and everyday life, rather than the location per se. The findings call for a concentrated effort towards a theory of cognitive ageing that identifies the variables that do, or do not, account for this paradox.     

Kant on Acting from Juridical Duty

ABSTRACT

A much debated passage in the Metaphysics of Morals often leads commentators to believe that it is not possible to act from juridical duty. On the one hand, Kant says that all lawgiving includes an incentive ‘which connects a ground to determining choice to this action subjectively with the representation of the law’ (MM: 218). On the other hand, he claims that juridical lawgiving ‘does not include the incentive of duty in the law’ (MM: 219). The first claim seems to entail that agents can perform a juridical duty for the sake of that duty; the second seems to entail that agents cannot perform a juridical duty for the sake of that duty. This paper shows that it is possible to reconcile both passages and to claim that one can act from juridical duty in Kant’s terms. First, it gives an account of what can be called the paradox of juridical duties. Second, it discusses briefly how responses to the paradox remain somewhat unsatisfactory. Finally, it clarifies how agents can act with no other incentive but the actual juridical duty without endangering the Kantian morality-law divide.     

I. Kant after Virtue 1

Maclntyre's refurbishing of Aristotelian ethics aims to restore both intelligibility and rationality to moral discourse. In After Virtue he concentrates on showing how intelligible action requires that lives be led within institutional and cultural traditions. But he does not offer a developed account of practical reason which could provide grounds for seeking some rather than other intelligible continuations of lives and traditions. Despite Maclntyre's criticisms of Kant's ethics, a Kantian account of practical reasoning may complement his account of intelligibility. An appropriate interpretation of Kantian ethics is outlined, which escapes Maclntyre's criticisms, allows both for the universal character of basic moral principles and for the historical variability of intelligible action, and which makes moral worth or virtue the centre of the moral life. The refurbishing of Aristotelian ethics may be achieved by a Kantian completion.     

The adaptation of non‐western and Muslim immigrant adolescents in the Netherlands: An immigrant paradox?

van Geel, M. & Vedder, P. (2010). The adaptation of non‐western and Muslim immigrant adolescents in the Netherlands: An immigrant paradox? Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 398–402. This article addresses the possible existence of an immigrant paradox in a sample of immigrant adolescents attending vocational schools in the Netherlands. An immigrant paradox is the finding that first generation immigrants show a more positive pattern of adaptation than nationals despite poorer economic conditions. Second generation immigrants regress to the nationals in terms of adaptation. A sample of 152 first generation immigrant adolescents, 285 second generation immigrant adolescents and 406 national adolescents completed self‐reports about socio‐economic status, psychological problems, behavioral problems and self‐esteem. The results supported the existence of an immigrant paradox in this sample. This indicates that further assimilation among immigrant adolescents does not necessarily lead to increased well being.