Personal factor effects on authentic leadership

This study explored the relationship between authentic leadership and personal factors of emotional intelligence (EI), personality, cognitive abilities and gender. The convenience sample of respondents included 341 employees, and prospective students in an advanced leadership education programme at a South African Business School. The respondents completed measures on authentic leadership, emotional intelligence, personality and cognitive ability. The data were analysed by applying regression analysis to predict self-perceived authentic leadership from EI, personality attributes, cognitive abilities and gender. Findings suggest that one EI dimension (Self-awareness) and four personality attributes, namely, Emotionally Controlled, Evaluative, Independent Minded, and Adaptable predicted authentic leadership. Authentic leadership is associated with individuals who are seen as credible and aware of how they think and behave. Therefore, such individuals have various self-reflective attributes and advanced emotional capabilities.     

The General Factor of Personality and Character: A Reanalysis

Using data from the Texas Twin Project, it was recently reported that 7 measures of character covaried to the extent that they formed a general factor of character (Tucker-Drob, Briley, Engelhardt, Mann, &; Harden, 2016 Tucker-Drob, E. M., Briley, D. A., Engelhardt, L. E., Mann, F. D., &; Harden, K. P. (2016). Genetically-mediated associations between measures of childhood character and academic achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111, 790–815. doi:10.1037/pspp0000098.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). In turn the relationship between the general factor of character and the Big Five personality traits were examined. It was found that personality was associated with the general factor of character primarily through the traits of conscientiousness and openness. For several reasons we propose that a more accurate interpretation of the data is that a Big Five personality traits form a general factor of personality, and that the relationship between the general character factor and personality is primarily through the general factor of personality. The results lend some support to this contention and are discussed in relation to the growing interest in covariation among multiple personality traits.     

Philosophical Criteria in Whitehead and Rorty

Rorty's aversion to metaphysics is well known, so the extent of his early work on Whitehead might come as a surprise. This article examines the young Rorty's critical assessment of Whitehead to show how it demonstrates the consequences of diverging metaphilosophical orientations. It argues that Rorty's insistence on judging Whitehead's work through an exclusively epistemological frame causes him to miss its more radical existential and epistemic implications. After examining how Rorty and Whitehead operate with different cost‐benefit analyses as to the risks and benefits of speculative philosophy, it suggests that closer attention to the fuller stakes of Whitehead's project shows that his metaphysics are not opposed to the “poeticized” culture that Rorty calls for, one where the distinction between making and finding is no longer metaphysically foundational.     

Molecular Lamarckism: On the Evolution of Human Intelligence

In modern times, Lamarck's view of evolution, based on inheritance of acquired traits has been superseded by neo-Darwinism, based on random DNA mutations. This article begins with a series of observations suggesting that Lamarckian inheritance is in fact operative throughout Nature. I then launch into a discussion of human intelligence that is the most important feature of human evolution that cannot be easily explained by mutational selection. Thus, we are smarter than demanded by our evolutionary experience as hunter-gatherers. The difficulty lies in the inability of neo-Darwinism to satisfactorily answer the following question: How can a large energy-costly set of genes, each member of which has little apparent benefit when first created individually, all gather into a permanent existence within a short time period in each and every member of a small population (that was dispersed and geographically isolated over a huge planet) who had a low reproductive output, a low rate of beneficial mutations, and a low level of genetic contact? The article concludes with a speculative but far-reaching epigenetic theory of intelligence that does not require DNA mutation as the exclusive source of evolutionary change. Instead, cranial feedback relating brain chemistry, as affected by brain activity including education, with the genome. When it comes to the fast rate of evolution, and the dissemination of the intelligence trait worldwide, cranial feedback could make all the difference.     

Extending SME to Handle Large‐Scale Cognitive Modeling

Analogy and similarity are central phenomena in human cognition, involved in processes ranging from visual perception to conceptual change. To capture this centrality requires that a model of comparison must be able to integrate with other processes and handle the size and complexity of the representations required by the tasks being modeled. This paper describes extensions to Structure‐Mapping Engine (SME) since its inception in 1986 that have increased its scope of operation. We first review the basic SME algorithm, describe psychological evidence for SME as a process model, and summarize its role in simulating similarity‐based retrieval and generalization. Then we describe five techniques now incorporated into the SME that have enabled it to tackle large‐scale modeling tasks: (a) Greedy merging rapidly constructs one or more best interpretations of a match in polynomial time: O(n²log(n)); (b) Incremental operation enables mappings to be extended as new information is retrieved or derived about the base or target, to model situations where information in a task is updated over time; (c) Ubiquitous predicates model the varying degrees to which items may suggest alignment; (d) Structural evaluation of analogical inferences models aspects of plausibility judgments; (e) Match filters enable large‐scale task models to communicate constraints to SME to influence the mapping process. We illustrate via examples from published studies how these enable it to capture a broader range of psychological phenomena than before.     

Working memory – not processing speed – mediates fluid intelligence deficits associated with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a psychological condition characterized by inattention and hyperactivity. Cognitive deficits are commonly observed in ADHD patients, including impaired working memory, processing speed, and fluid intelligence, the three of which are theorized to be closely associated with one another. In this study, we aimed to determine if decreased fluid intelligence was associated with ADHD, and was mediated by deficits in working memory and processing speed. This study tested 142 young adults from the general population on a range of working memory, processing speed, and fluid intelligence tasks, and an ADHD self‐report symptoms questionnaire. Results showed that total and hyperactive ADHD symptoms correlated significantly and negatively with fluid intelligence, but this association was fully mediated by working memory. However, inattentive symptoms were not associated with fluid intelligence. Additionally, processing speed was not associated with ADHD symptoms at all, and was not uniquely predictive of fluid intelligence. The results provide implications for working memory training programs for ADHD patients, and highlight potential differences between the neuropsychological profiles of ADHD subtypes.     

Planet Braitenberg: Experiments in virtual psychology

Braitenberg vehicles are simple robotic platforms, equipped with rudimentary sensor and motor components. Such vehicles have typically featured as part of thought experiments that are intended to show how complex behaviours are apt to emerge from the interaction of inner control mechanisms with aspects of bodily structure and features of the wider (extra-agential) environment. The present paper describes a framework for creating Braitenberg-like vehicles, which is built on top of a widely used and freely available game engine, namely, the Unity game engine. The framework can be used to study the behaviour of virtual vehicles within a multiplicity of virtual environments. All aspects of the vehicle’s design, as well as the wider virtual environment in which the vehicle is situated, can be modified during the design phase, as well as at runtime. The result is a general-purpose simulation capability that is intended to provide the foundation for studies in so-called computational situated cognition—a field of study whose primary objective is to support the computational modelling of cognitive processes associated with the physically-embodied, environmentally-embedded, and materially-extended mind.     

The meaningful-based cognitive architecture model of schizophrenia

In subsymbolic operation of the Meaningful-Based Cognitive Architecture (MBCA) the input sensory vector is propagated through a hierarchy of Hopfield-like Network (HLN) functional groups, is recognized and may associatively trigger in the instinctual core goals module as well as in groups of HLNs arranged as pre-causal and pattern memory, vectors propagated to the output motor group of HLNs which produce an output signal. In full causal symbolic operation, the processed sensory input vector is also propagated to the logic/working memory groups of HLNs, where it can be compared to other vectors in the logic/working memory, and produce various outputs in response. The processed sensory input vector can trigger in the instinctual core goals module intuitive logic, intuitive physics, intuitive psychology and intuitive planning procedural vectors, as well as trigger in the causal group of HLNs learned logic, physics, psychology and planning procedural vectors which are also sent to the logic/working memory groups of HLNs. These circuits can allow the MBCA to act causally on information it has never seen before. An example is given of a Python simulation where the MBCA which is controlling a legged robot causally determines that a shallow whitewater river will cause water damage to itself, while if the MBCA is acting associatively only and never having seen whitewater before and normally crossing shallow rivers, will cross the whitewater river and become damaged. While the MBCA does not attempt to replicate biological systems at the neuronal spiking level, its HLNs and the organization of its HLNs are indeed inspired by biological mammalian minicolumns and mammalian brains. The MBCA model leads to the hypothesis that in the course of hominin evolution, HLNs became co-opted into groups of HLNs providing more extensive working memories with causal abilities, unlike non-hominins. While such co-option of the minicolumns can allow advantageous causal symbolic processing integrated with subsymbolic processing, the order of magnitude of increased complexity required for such organization and operation, created a vulnerability in the human brain to psychosis, which does not occur with significant prevalence in non-humans.     

Individual differences in effective interview design: Factors affecting question choice

Despite the evidence that structured interviews are superior to unstructured interviews, interviewers remain reluctant to use them for personnel selection. The current research replicated and extended recent research examining how individual differences relate to the ability to identify effective interview questions. Question judgments were made across questions that varied substantially in quality and across two different jobs. Across two samples of data, respondents evaluated past behavioral and traditional interview questions more favorably than oddball questions and questions about job‐irrelevant competencies. Furthermore, general mental ability and social aptitude were strongly related to skill in identifying effective interview questions, with results suggesting these traits are associated with customizing questions to specific job contexts.     

中国文化中的智慧结构探析

智慧的德才一体理论将智慧定义为个体在其智力与知识的基础上,经由经验与练习习得的一种德才一体的综合心理素质,主张智慧在本质上是良好品德与聪明才智的合金。基于智慧德才一体理论智慧结构的构想,通过实证方法探析中国文化中的智慧结构,结果表明:智慧是一个多层次、多维度的结构,由二阶二因素一阶六因素构成,两个二阶因素分别是聪明才智与良好品德,六个一阶因素分别是:中常智力、创造思维、渊博知识以及善良动机、善良效果、善良手段。六个因素相辅相成,互为补充。