Approaching Environmental Sustainability: Perceptions of Self-Efficacy and Changeability

This paper describes a model focused on the role of self-efficacy and belief in changeability of behavior in motivating environmentally sustainable behavior. The model was tested in two studies. The first study found that participants who had greater self-efficacy for sustainability behavior and a greater belief in their changeability of sustainability behavior had a higher level of approach motivation toward sustainability behavior and reported more such actual behavior. The second study investigated the effect of brief interventions intended to increase perception of self-efficacy for sustainability-related purchasing and changeability of sustainability-related purchasing. The intervention that focused on enhancing self-efficacy for making sustainability-related purchases had the strongest impact on intention to purchase. These findings have implications for interventions intended to change behavior related to environmental sustainability.     

Testing the status-legitimacy hypothesis: A multilevel modeling approach to the perception of legitimacy in income distribution in 36 nations

The status-legitimacy hypothesis was tested by analyzing cross-national data about social inequality. Several indicators were used as indexes of social advantage: social class, personal income, and self-position in the social hierarchy. Moreover, inequality and freedom in nations, as indexed by Gini and by the human freedom index, were considered. Results from 36 nations worldwide showed no support for the status-legitimacy hypothesis. The perception that income distribution was fair tended to increase as social advantage increased. Moreover, national context increased the difference between advantaged and disadvantaged people in the perception of social fairness: Contrary to the status-legitimacy hypothesis, disadvantaged people were more likely than advantaged people to perceive income distribution as too large, and this difference increased in nations with greater freedom and equality. The implications for the status-legitimacy hypothesis are discussed.     

Problems for Mainstream Evidentialism

Evidentialism says that a subject S’s justification is entirely determined by S’s evidence. The plausibility of evidentialism depends on (1) what kind of entities constitute a subject S’s evidence and (2) what one takes the support relation to consist in. Conee and Feldman’s mainstream evidentialism (ME) incorporates a psychologist answer to (1) and an explanationist answer to (2). ME naturally accommodates perceptual justification. However, it does not accommodate intuitive cases of inferential justification. In the second part of the paper, I consider and reject a reply based on a refined explanationist theory of the support relation proposed by K McCain.     

Why are conservatives happier than liberals? Comparing different explanations based on system justification,multiple group membership,and positive adjustment

This study examined the relation between conservatism and life satisfaction. Analyses based on data from a representative German survey (ALLBUS 2010) revealed a positive relation between conservatism and self‐reported life satisfaction, thus supporting prior claims of this link. Different accounts have been proposed for this relationship, suggesting system justification, positive adjustment, or multiple group membership as potential mediators. Going beyond prior research, this study allowed for a comparison between these different mechanisms. Analyses revealed that system justification and one of the three examined constructs related to positive adjustment (i.e., religiosity) were significant mediators of the positive relationship between political conservatism and life satisfaction. Comparable results were obtained after controlling for a number of sociodemographic variables. The present findings indicate (i) that conservatives report to be more satisfied with their lives than liberals and (ii) that this difference is in part due to conservatives' system justification and religiosity.     

A wearable vibrotactile biofeedback system improves balance control of healthy young adults following perturbations from quiet stance

Maintaining postural equilibrium requires fast reactions and constant adjustments of the center of mass (CoM) position to prevent falls, especially when there is a sudden perturbation of the support surface. During this study, a newly developed wearable feedback system provided immediate vibrotactile clues to users based on plantar force measurement, in an attempt to reduce reaction time and CoM displacement in response to a perturbation of the floor. Ten healthy young adults participated in this study. They stood on a support surface, which suddenly moved in one of four horizontal directions (forward, backward, left and right), with the biofeedback system turned on or off. The testing sequence of the four perturbation directions and the two system conditions (turned on or off) was randomized. The resulting reaction time and CoM displacement were analysed. Results showed that the vibrotactile feedback system significantly improved balance control during translational perturbations. The positive results of this preliminary study highlight the potential of a plantar force measurement based biofeedback system in improving balance under perturbations of the support surface. Future system optimizations could facilitate its application in fall prevention in real life conditions, such as standing in buses or trains that suddenly decelerate or accelerate.     

The motivational properties of hope in goal striving

We argue that hope is not an expectancy based on beliefs about pathways to desired goals and personal capacities to act on them, but an experience of the mere possibility of a desired outcome. We propose that in the latter sense, hope has unique motivational consequences for goal striving. Specifically, we predicted that hope buffers against the detrimental impact of negative feedback on goal-progress. The results of the two studies confirmed this prediction. In Study 1, we measured participants’ hopes of attaining a weight-loss goal. In Study 2, we induced hope at solving an unsolvable mathematical puzzle. In both studies, receiving negative feedback on goal-progress resulted in lower levels of success (Study 1) and persistence (Study 2) in goal-striving, but not for participants who experienced hope. We discuss the role of hope as an affective mechanism that functions to regulate energy expenditure in goal-striving.     

Experiences,Seemings, and Perceptual Justification

Several philosophers have distinguished between three distinct mental states that play a role in visual recognition: experiences, propositional seemings, and beliefs. I clarify and offer some reasons for drawing this three-fold distinction, and I consider its epistemological implications. Some philosophers have held that propositional seemings always confer prima facie justification, regardless of a particular seeming's relation to experience. I add to criticisms of this view in the literature by arguing that it fails to solve a version of the ‘problem of the speckled hen’. A more promising view holds that propositional seemings confer justification only when appropriately related to experiences. I offer advice for developing such an account.     

The mirror reflects both ways: Action influences perception of others

Substantial evidence links perception of others’ bodies and mental representation of the observer’s own body; however, the overwhelming majority of this evidence is unidirectional, showing influence from perception to action. It has been proposed that the influence also runs from action to perception, but to date the evidence is scant. Here we report that ordinary motor actions performed by the subject affect concurrent psychophysical judgments of human-body stimuli. Subjects remained unaware of the connection between the action and the main task. The results show that perception can change as a result of the observer’s ongoing actions.     

Three attempts to replicate the behavioral sunk-cost effect: a note on cunha and caldieraro (2009)

Cunha and Caldieraro (2009) investigated whether sunk-cost effects, which are well documented in hypothetical situations involving monetary investments, also occur in choice situations with purely behavioral investments. Their results suggest that decision makers indeed fall prey to behavioral sunk-cost effects under certain circumstances. I have been unable to replicate their pattern of results in three separate investigations. In these studies, I attempted to recover the effect using two other behavioral effort manipulations in addition to the manipulation used by Cunha and Caldieraro. This failure to replicate the pattern of results calls into question the robustness of the initial findings.     

山东东周鼎簋制度初论——以中原地区为参照

鼎簋制度作为社会存在的一种反映,是一个动态的概念,把用鼎规格普遍、有序的提升归结为僭越有形而上学之嫌。春秋中期至战国中期,中原高级墓葬一般随葬数套列鼎,是鼎簋制度的套鼎时期,也是鼎簋制度的高峰期。以往多认为战国中晚期是鼎簋制度的瓦解、崩溃时期,实际上,这一时期随葬列鼎的现象仍然普遍存在,鼎簋制度并没有瓦解,其瓦解期应在秦汉。由于历史、地理等原因,山东地区的鼎簋制度与中原地区存在较大差异:一是山东多数地区没有严格推行鼎簋制度;二是山东地区鼎簋制度的基础较为薄弱,瓦解现象出现较早,瓦解速度也较快;三是春秋中晚期至战国早、中期普遍流行于中原的套鼎现象,山东地区基本没有发现。