Ordinary Objects and Series‐Style Answers to the Special Composition Question

The special composition question asks, roughly, under what conditions composition occurs. The common sense view is that composition only occurs among some things and that all and only ‘ordinary objects’ exist. Peter van Inwagen has marshaled a devastating argument against this view. The common sense view appears to commit one to giving what van Inwagen calls a ‘series‐style answer’ to the special composition question, but van Inwagen argues that series‐style answers are impossible because they are inconsistent with the transitivity of parthood. In what follows I answer this objection in addition to other, less troubling objections raised by van Inwagen.     

Flexible Work Arrangements Availability and their Relationship with Work‐to‐Family Conflict,Job Satisfaction,and Turnover Intentions: A Comparison of Three Country Clusters

The present study explored the availability of flexible work arrangements (FWA) and their relationship with manager outcomes of job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and work‐to‐family conflict (WFC) across country clusters. We used individualism and collectivism to explain differences in FWA availability across Latin American, Anglo, and Asian clusters. Managers from the Anglo cluster were more likely to report working in organisations that offer FWA compared to managers from other clusters. For Anglo managers, flextime was the only FWA that had significant favorable relationships with the outcome variables. For Latin Americans, part‐time work negatively related with turnover intentions and strain‐based WFC. For Asians, flextime was unrelated to time‐based WFC, and telecommuting was positively associated with strain‐based WFC. The clusters did not moderate the compressed work week and outcome relationships. Implications for practitioners adopting FWA practices across cultures are discussed.     

One-person and two-person conceptions of attachment and their implications for psychoanalytic thought

There has been increasing interest among analysts in the possibilities of enriching psychoanalytic thought through fuller incorporation of attachment theory and research. This paper offers a clinical illustration of the ways in which attention to an attachment perspective can lead to novel and useful ways of addressing the patient’s issues. It also presents a number of cautions that it is necessary to be alert to if attachment thinking is to achieve its full potential in advancing psychoanalytic thought and practice. Conceptions of attachment and approaches to its study and clinical use actually vary quite substantially. Some are more one-person, static, and categorical. Others are more two-person, dynamic, and focused on the process whereby attachment patterns develop and are maintained over time. This paper explores the distinction between these two versions of attachment theory and research with two aims in mind – first, to refine our understanding of the potential role that attachment thinking can play in advancing the psychoanalytic paradigm; second, to utilize the insights achieved through examining the attachment paradigm to consider some broader issues in the construction of psychoanalytic theory more generally and its relational variant in particular.     

Experiencing Range in an Electric Vehicle: Understanding Psychological Barriers

Range of electric vehicles (EVs) has long been considered a major barrier in acceptance of electric mobility. We examined the nature of how range is experienced in an EV and whether variables from other adaptation contexts, notably stress, have explanatory power for inter‐individual differences in what we term comfortable range. Forty EVs were leased to a sample of users for a 6‐month field study. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of range experiences were performed, including regression analyses to examine the role of stress‐buffering personality traits and coping skills in comfortable range. Users appraised range as a resource to which they could successfully adapt and that satisfied most of their daily mobility needs. However, indicators were found that suggested suboptimal range utilisation. Stress‐buffering personality traits (control beliefs, ambiguity tolerance) and coping skills (subjective range competence, daily range practice) were found to play a substantial role in comfortable range. Hence, it may be possible to overcome perceived range barriers with the assistance of psychological interventions such as information, training, and interface design. Providing drivers with a reliable usable range may be more important than enhancing maximal range in an electric mobility system.     

Reply to Krellenstein on Parallel Computation

I recently argued that the position in the philosophy of mind called functionalism is undermined by the importance of recent work on parallel computation (Thagard, 1986). In reply, Krellenstein (1987) contends that parallelism does not have the philosophical significance I claimed for it. Although his contentions are plausible if one focuses on what is in principle computationally possible, they fail if one looks at real problems.     

A Cylindrical Model of Communication Behavior in Crisis Negotiations

This article integrates existing theoretical perspectives on message content and negotiator motivation to formulate a comprehensive definitional model of the interrelationships among communication behaviors in crisis negotiation. A sample of 189 nuclear dialogue spans were transcribed from 9 resolved cases of hostage negotiation and each utterance coded at the level of thought units across 41 behavioral variables. Results of a nonmetric, multidimensional scaling solution provided clear support for the hypothesized cylindrical structure of communication behavior, revealing 3 dominant levels of suspect‐negotiator interaction (Avoidance, Distributive, Integrative). At each level of the structure, interactions were found to modulate around 3 thematic styles of communication (Identity, Instrumental, Relational), which reflected the underlying motivational emphasis of individuals' dialogue. Finally, the intensity of communication was found to play a polarizing role in the cylinder, with intense, functionally discrete behaviors occurring toward the boundary of the structure.