Moral Luck and Liability Lotteries

Adversaries of Moral Luck (AMLs) are at pains to explain why wrongdoers are liable to bear burdens (punishment, compensation etc.) which are related to the harm they cause, because the consequences of what we do are a matter of luck. One attempt to solve this problem suggests that wrongdoers who cause more harm are liable to bear a greater burden not because they are more blameworthy but rather because they get the short straw in a liability lottery (represented by the apparently indeterminate causal process). In this paper I argue that this attempt fails on several grounds. Apart from the fact that it is hard to see how the implementation of liability lotteries can be motivated and the fact that such scheme presupposes a political order (whereas the notion of liability does not seem to presuppose one), detaching liability from the outcomes of a culpable action undermines whichever justifications there were for imposing liability in the first place. Moreover, relying on the determination of the causal process as a good indication of the wrongdoer’s degree of culpability is mistaken, because the luck brought about through the causal process is not necessarily the only element involved in cases of harmful conduct which lies beyond the wrongdoers’ control.     

Teachers' Epistemic Authority: Perceptions of Students and Teachers

The present study examines students' perception of the teacher's role as epistemic authorities, that is, a source of determinative influence on the formation of individuals' knowledge, from three perspectives. First, it examines 7th and 10th graders' perception of their teachers as epistemic authorities. The results showed that a teacher's subject matter, as well as students' age and gender, influence perception of him/her as an epistemic authority. In addition, interest in the subject matter was found to be an important predictor of students' perception. The second part focuses on teachers' self-perceptions as epistemic authorities. The results indicated that teachers' personal efficacy is the most powerful predictor of their self-perception. Finally, the study compares students' perceptions of teachers as epistemic authorities, teachers' self-perceptions in these terms and teachers' perceptions of how their students perceive them. Two main findings showed the following: (a) teachers perceive themselves as being more of an epistemic authority than their students consider them; (b) teachers believe that students perceive them as being more of an epistemic authority than the students actually think.     

Women’s oral sex behaviors and risk of partner infidelity

Pham and Shackelford (2013a) documented that men at greater risk of their partner’s infidelity reported greater interest in and spent more time performing oral sex on their partner. The current study is an extension of their study to a female sample. We recruited 200 women to investigate whether women’s oral sex behaviors are related to the risk of their partner’s infidelity. The results indicate that women at greater risk of partner infidelity did not report more interest in, or spend more time performing, oral sex on their partner. Additionally, the relationships between partner infidelity risk and interest in, and time spent, performing oral sex were greater for men than women. We discuss limitations of this research and discuss explanations for the results.     

Cognitive impairment in dementia: correlations with atrophy and cerebrovascular disease quantified by magnetic resonance imaging

This project assessed the contributions of atrophy and cerebrovascular disease (CVD) to cognitive impairment in dementia. Ten individuals with clinically diagnosed pure VaD were age-, sex-, and education-matched to individuals with AD. All participants underwent neuropsychological testing and MRI which were processed to generate quantitative indices of atrophy and CVD. A linear regression, including thalamic lesion and vCSF volumes, predicted cognitive status (R2 = .74; p < .0005). Three VaD subgroups were identified: thalamic lesion (n = 4), hippocampal infarcts (n = 3), and other (n = 3). In participants without thalamic lesion, vCSF predicted general cognition (R2 = .48), hippocampal atrophy predicted memory impairment (R2 = .33), and white matter lesions predicted executive dysfunction (R2 = .48). Both atrophy and CVD burden correlated highly with cognitive impairment and should be simultaneously assessed in studies of brain-behaviour relations in dementia.     

Variety‐Seeking and Perceived Expertise

People often infer expertise from the choice of unique, rare, or sophisticated options. But might mere variety‐seeking also serve as a signal of expertise, and if so, how? Six studies show that the relationship between variety‐seeking and perceived expertise is not unidirectional and depends on the perceiver's own level of expertise. Category experts perceive lower variety‐seeking as indicative of discernment, which in turn increases perceived expertise in that category. Consequently, experts choose less variety to portray themselves as experts. In contrast, novices perceive high variety‐seeking as indicative of category breadth knowledge, which in turn increases their perception of category expertise. Consequently, novices choose more variety to portray themselves as experts. The findings make novel theoretical contributions to research on variety‐seeking, consumer expertise, and social perception, as well as practical contributions for marketers of product assortments and bundles.     

Dyadic Listening in Teams: Social Relations Model

Listening has powerful organizational consequences. However, studies of listening have typically focused on individual level processes. Alternatively, we hypothesized that perceptions of listening quality are inherently dyadic, positively reciprocated in dyads, and are correlated positively with intimacy, speaking ability, and helping-organizational-citizenship behavior, at the dyadic level. In two studies, teammates rated each other on listening and intimacy; in one, they also rated speaking ability, and helping-organizational-citizenship behavior, totaling 324 and 526 dyadic ratings, respectively. In both studies, social relations modeling suggested that the dyad level explained over 40 percent of the variance in both listening and intimacy, and yielded the predicted positive dyadic reciprocities. Furthermore, as predicted, listening perceptions correlated with intimacy, speaking ability, and helping behavior as reported by other workers, primarily at the dyadic level. Moreover, rating of listening, but not of speaking, by one dyad member, predicted intimacy reported by the other dyad member, and that intimacy, in turn, predicted helping-organizational-citizenship behavior. Counterintuitively, listening quality is more a product of the unique combination of employees than an individual difference construct. We conclude that perceived listening, but not perceived speaking, appears to be the glue that binds teammates to each other dyadically, and consequently affects helping.