The probability of war in then-crises problem: Modeling new alternatives to Wright's solution

In hisStudy of War, Q. Wright considered a model for the probability of warP during a period ofn crises, and proposed the equationP=1–(1–p) ⁿ , wherep is the probability of war escalating at each individual crisis. This probability measure was formally derived recently by Cioffi-Revilla (1987), using the general theory of political reliability and an interpretation of the n-crises problem as a branching process. Two new, alternate solutions are presented here, one using D. Bernoulli's St. Petersburg Paradox as an analogue, the other based on the logic of conditional probabilities. Analysis shows that, while Wright's solution is robust with regard to the general overall behavior ofp andn, some significant qualitative and quantitative differences emerge from the alternative solutions. In particular,P converges to 1 only in a special case (Wright's) and not generally.C.C.-R. acknowledges support provided by the Merriam Laboratory for Analytic Political Research, the Research Board of the University of Illinois, and grant SES-84-00877 from the U.S. National Science Foundation.     

Strong Boethius’ Thesis and Consequential Implication

The paper studies the relation between systems of modal logic and systems of consequential implication, a non-material form of implication satisfying Aristotle's Thesis (p does not imply not p ) and Weak Boethius' Thesis (if p implies q, then p does not imply not q ). Definitions are given of consequential implication in terms of modal operators and of modal operators in terms of consequential implication. The modal equivalent of Strong Boethius' Thesis (that p implies q implies that p does not imply not q) is identified.     

The role of Canadian school psychologists: Perceptions of a sample from the general public

A sample of 77 subjects responded to a questionnaire designed to collect information about their perceptions of the role of school psychologists. The results indicate that overall the respondents had a fairly accurate sense of what a school psychologist does, although they overestimated the importance of psychotherapy as one of the school psychologist's functions. It is recommended that school psychologists more clearly specify their function when dealing with members of the general public.     

Individual differences in the study of human aggression

Excessive concern for simplicity has often led us to underestimate the complexity of aggression. Over the years, several scales related to aggression have been identified and validated both on adults and on children. Ultimately, two main higher order dimensions, emotional responsivity and proneness to aggression, repeatedly emerged in a series of second-order factor analysis. These dimensions are rather similar to two of the big five factors of personality: neuroticism/emotinal stability and hostility/agreeableness, respectively. Several studies corroborate the plausibility of a higher level bidimensional conceptualization of aggression that, while preserving the heuristic validity of looking for more specific constructs of aggression, can link the field of aggression to the field of personality. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Prosocial foundations of children's academic achievement

The present longitudinal research demonstrates robust contributions of early prosocial behavior to children's developmental trajectories in academic and social domains. Both prosocial and aggressive behaviors in early childhood were tested as predictors of academic achievement and peer relations in adolescence 5 years later. Prosocialness included cooperating, helping, sharing, and consoling, and the measure of antisocial aspects included proneness to verbal and physical aggression. Prosocialness had a strong positive impact on later academic achievement and social preferences, but early aggression had no significant effect on either outcome. The conceptual model accounted for 35% of variance in later academic achievement, and 37% of variance in social preferences. Additional analysis revealed that early academic achievement did not contribute to later academic achievement after controlling for effects of early prosocialness. Possible mediating processes by which prosocialness may affect academic achievement and other socially desirable developmental outcomes are proposed.     

Mental representation of prepositional compounds: evidence from Italian agrammatic patients

The processing of Prepositional compounds (typical Neo-latin noun--noun modifications where a head noun is modified by a prepositional phrase, e.g., mulino a vento, windmill) was preliminarily studied with a group of six agrammatic aphasic patients, and, in more detail, with a further agrammatic patient (MB). Omission was the most frequent error type in naming, whereas in the other tasks (repetition, reading, writing, and completion) errors were mostly substitutions of the target preposition. This happened even with fully lexicalized compound forms, i.e., those forms where the linking preposition is syntactically and semantically opaque. These findings are interpreted in terms of a dual-route theory of lexical access to morphologically complex words.     

Is the unilateral lesion of the left substantia nigra pars compacta sufficient to induce working memory impairment in rats?

Adult male Wistar rats with a substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) lesion induced by intranigral administration of 1 micromol 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) were used as a model of early phase Parkinson's disease (PD). This lesion caused a partial depletion of striatal dopamine (DA). The animals were submitted to a spatial working memory version of the water maze task in which they had to find a hidden (submersed) platform using online-maintained information that the platform remains in the same place during four consecutive trials, but that it is moved to another place every training day. Left, but not right SNc-lesioned rats were impaired in finding the platform in the second trial. This result suggests that the left SNc plays a key role in spatial working memory. Control experiments ruled out the possibility that motor impairment, sensory neglect, and/or impairment in the mental representation of the contralateral spatial environment had affected performance of the SNc-lesioned rats.     

A model of childhood perceived peer harassment: analyses of the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth Data

The authors developed a model of childhood perceived peer harassment, using several personality, peer, and familial characteristics of victims, and tested it with children 10 to 11 years old (N = 3,434) drawn from the Canadian National Survey of Children and Youth, which is a stratified random sample of 22,831 households in Canada. A 3-step analytic procedure with 3 separate subsamples of the children was used to explore psychosocial correlates of peer harassment. Results from the latent variable path analysis (comparative fit index = .90) showed that victims are likely to feel anxious and disliked by their peers. Their parents reported using high levels of control and low levels of warmth with their children and reported high levels of depression and marital conflict themselves. These results are discussed from a social-cognitive perspective.     

Age differences in personality across the adult life span: parallels in five cultures

Both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies in the United States have shown consistent changes between college age and middle adulthood. There appear to be declines in 3 of the 5 major factors of personality--Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness--and increases in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. To examine cross-cultural generalizability of these findings, translations of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory were administered to samples in Germany, Italy, Portugal, Croatia, and South Korea (N = 7,363). Similar patterns of age differences were seen in each country, for both men and women. Common trends were also seen for the more specific traits that define the major factors. Because these nations differ substantially in culture and recent history, results suggest the hypothesis that these are universal maturational changes in adult personality.