Differentiating crisis incidents: A replication study using the action systems model

Crisis incidents are volatile situations that can pose significant risk to those involved and to law enforcement. The idiosyncratic conditions that lead to such incidents, as well as their volatility, often militate against consistent explanatory models. However, the application of overarching paradigms, such as the action systems model, has shown some promise in imposing order in the domain. Recent research has successfully differentiated crisis incidents into the four distinct modes of the action systems model: conservative, adaptive, integrative, and expressive. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to replicate this recent study using 242 cases from the United States, Ireland, Canada, and Sweden. Data analysis involves smallest space analyses and constrained multidimensional scaling. Although the results supported the underlying structure of original proposed behavioural model, there are a few deviances. These differences along with the potential influence of cultural variations, offence variable selection, the type of incident, and the sample under scrutiny are discussed. It is evident that there remain several challenges, and further research is required, prior to developing a unified framework.     

Toward a contemporary quantitative model of punishment

A direct‐suppression, or subtractive, model of punishment has been supported as the qualitatively and quantitatively superior matching law‐based punishment model (Critchfield, Paletz, MacAleese, & Newland, 2003; de Villiers, 1980; Farley, 1980). However, this conclusion was made without testing the model against its predecessors, including the original (Herrnstein, 1961) and generalized (Baum, 1974) matching laws, which have different numbers of parameters. To rectify this issue, we reanalyzed a set of data collected by Critchfield et al. (2003) using information theoretic model selection criteria. We found that the most advanced version of the direct‐suppression model (Critchfield et al., 2003) does not convincingly outperform the generalized matching law, an account that does not include punishment rates in its prediction of behavior allocation. We hypothesize that this failure to outperform the generalized matching law is due to significant theoretical shortcomings in model development. To address these shortcomings, we present a list of requirements that all punishment models should satisfy. The requirements include formal statements of flexibility, efficiency, and adherence to theory. We compare all past punishment models to the items on this list through algebraic arguments and model selection criteria. None of the models presented in the literature thus far meets all of the requirements.     

The Option for Life

In today's Anthropocene, the reality of our growing global population, with its requirement of and strain upon the natural world, and our grave projected ecological outlook pose new challenges for Christian ethicists. How can both people and the earth flourish? Discussed within the context of theological and secular reflections on natural law, this article proposes one answer to such a question through a recasting of the human right to nature by way of a deep and wide understanding of vocation. Using Luther as a prototype who demonstrates the innate value of all life forms and offers an innovative working concept of vocation, it is here shown how an emphasis on vocation, when extended ecologically, can promote the option of life for all.     

A common representational system governed by Weber's law: nonverbal numerical similarity judgments in 6-year-olds and rhesus macaques

This study compared nonverbal numerical processing in 6-year-olds with that in nonhuman animals using a numerical bisection task. In the study, 16 children were trained on a delayed match-to-sample paradigm to match exemplars of two anchor numerosities. Children were then required to indicate whether a sample intermediate to the anchor values was closer to the small anchor value or the large anchor value. For two sets of anchor values with the same ratio, the probability of choosing the larger anchor value increased systematically with sample number, and the psychometric functions superimposed when plotted on a logarithmic scale. The psychometric functions produced by the children also superimposed with the psychometric functions produced by rhesus monkeys in an analogous previous experiment. These examples of superimposition demonstrate that nonverbal number representations, even in children who have acquired the verbal counting system, are modulated by Weber's law.     

Torture and judgments of guilt

Although torture can establish guilt through confession, how are judgments of guilt made when tortured suspects do not confess? We suggest that perceived guilt is based inappropriately upon how much pain suspects appear to suffer during torture. Two psychological theories provide competing predictions about the link between pain and perceived blame: cognitive dissonance, which links pain to blame, and moral typecasting, which links pain to innocence. We hypothesized that dissonance might characterize the relationship between torture and blame for those close to the torture, while moral typecasting might characterize this relationship for those more distant from it. Accordingly, this experiment placed participants into one of two different roles in which people may be exposed to torture. Participants in the proximal role of prison staffer saw suffering torture victims as relatively more guilty, while participants in the relatively distant role of a radio listener saw suffering victims as more innocent.     

“Counting” serially presented stimuli by human and nonhuman primates and pigeons

Much of Stewart Hulse's career was spent analyzing how animals can extract patterned information from sequences of stimuli. Yet an additional form of information contained in a sequence may be the number of times different elements occurred. Experiments that required numerical discrimination between different stimulus items presented in sequence are analyzed for primates and pigeons. It is shown that a model based on magnitude discrimination can account well for data from human and nonhuman primate experiments. Similar experiments carried out with pigeons showed a strong recency effect not found with primates. The pigeon data are modeled successfully, however, by assuming that representations of events decay as other events are presented.     

Rate, Probability and Matching: Comments on ��The Identities Hidden in the Matching Laws, and Their Uses�� by David Thorne

David Thorne's (2010) article, “The Identities Hidden In The Matching Laws, And Their Uses” performs a valuable service in pointing out alternative expressions of matching. However, some identities tend to obscure rather than illuminate empirical relationships. Three such problematic instances are discussed: interresponse time as a function of interval and ratio schedule parameters; probability equality as implying rate matching; the apparent simplicity of probabilistic functions, as opposed to response rate functions, of reinforcement rate.     

On Luo Congyan’s Ethics

Luo Congyan put forward the idea that benevolence is the substance while righteousness is its function, which placed the intrinsic value of human beings on a more fundamental position and affirmed the unity of benevolent principle and universal norms from the perspective of the relationship between substance and function. The unity of benevolence and righteousness involves the connection between value and norms, and the latter relate to the relationship between morality and law in the broader sense. On the basis of the idea of using both benevolence and righteousness, Luo Congyan examined the relationship between morality and law. Corresponding to the emphasis on the role of both law and political power, Luo Congyan concerned himself with how to establish rational interpersonal relationships in various ways. Furthermore, Luo Congyan emphasized the significance of behavior in everyday life, while he affirmed that the universal principle should be followed. In this way, he developed the earlier Confucian thought. Translated from Studies in Ethics by Xiao Mo