THE DISJUNCTION EFFECT IN CHOICE UNDER UNCERTAINTY

Abstract —One of the basic axioms of the rational theory of decision under uncertainty IS Savage's (1954) sure-thing principle (STP) It states that if prospect x is preferred to y knowing that Event A occurred, and if x IS preferred to y knowing that A did not occur, then x should be preferred to y even when it is not known whether A occurred We present examples in which the decision maker has good reasons for accepting x if A occurs, and different reasons for accepting X if A does not occur Not knowing whether or not A occurs, however, the decision maker may lack a clear reason for accepting X and may opt for another option We suggest that, in the presence of uncertainty, people are often reluctant to think through the implications of each outcome and, as a result, may violate STP This interpretation is supported by the observation that STP is satisfied when people are made aware of their preferences given each outcome     

Pains and gains: a study of forced terminations

The forced termination of psychoanalysis, such as occurs when the analyst makes a geographic move, uniquely disrupts the analytic setting. This paper recounts the author's experience of terminating a full-time private practice of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy for such a move. The limited literature on the subject is reviewed with a focus on the use of technical variation in the forced termination situation. The author delineates three areas of interaction with patients where technical variation proved in her experience to be of value: dealing with countertransference and counter-reaction, providing information about the move, and the consideration and process of referral for continued therapy. As opposed to what would be predicted from a classical psychoanalytic perspective, the use of such technical maneuvers seemed to facilitate rather than impede analytic work. These variations in technique served at crucial times to maintain the analytic alliance, to preserve the patient's capacity to recognize and make use of transference, and to provide avenues for resolving past traumas in the transference and the actual loss of the analyst. The concept of the analyst as a new or useable object is proposed as providing a theoretical framework for understanding these observations.     

Police,courts, and corrections: Experiences of procedural injustice among Black adults

Racial disparities and a corresponding lack of trust have been documented within the criminal legal system. In response, criminal legal system actors have sought to strengthen the legitimacy of their agencies. However, legitimizing these agencies can be problematic. Some argue that the current criminal legal system continues the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow as Blacks are disproportionately policed and incarcerated. As a framework, procedural injustice can offer a unique backdrop and interrogate ways in which the criminal legal system engages in delegitimizing actions that provoke noncompliance and enable social control. Using a procedural injustice lens, this study examines how justice-involved Black adults experience mistreatment by justice system actors. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 84 Black adults in Newark and Cleveland. Study findings offer a comprehensive account of how participants experience procedural injustice as arrestees, defendants, and incarcerated persons. More specifically, participant narratives describe deliberately antagonistic, abusive, and dehumanizing treatment by justice-system agents—often depicted as racially motivated. Participant accounts also describe this mistreatment as occurring in a context of coercion and powerlessness and as being institutionally sanctioned. Implications for the preservation of racial hierarchies, research, practice, and community psychology are discussed.     

Similarity of schematic faces: A test of

In this study we obtained direct and comparative judgments of the dissimilarity between schematic faces varying on three binary attributes. These data were used to test the hypothesis that the overall dissimilarity between faces can be decomposed (in an ordinal sense) into three additive components, one for each attribute. The hypothesis was strongly confirmed by both the direct and the comparative judgments. The study illustrates the possible usefulness of the measurement-theoretic analysis of simple combination mies for psychological dimensions.     

Self-concept in Profoundly Deaf Adolescent Pupils

This study compares the concept of self of profoundly deaf adolescents with that of their hearing companions of the same age. The technique originally designed by Khun and Portland was used: “Who am I?” The chief results indicate on the one hand some significant differences between the hearing and the deaf, and on the other hand the difficulties of the latter in defining themselves as deaf. However, it is necessary to point out that the few references to hearing deficiency do not carry a negative connotation. These data are interpreted in the framework of the educational conditions of the country in which integration is a general mode of schooling and frequently the deaf pupil has no opportunity to have class or school companions who are also deaf. It concludes with some considerations of an educational nature about the future lines of research in which a greater variety of educational and social conditions could be taken into account.     

Signifying harassment: Communication,ambiguity and power

This essay reports on phenomenological research conducted with people who describe having been harassed, having been accused of harassment, and/or having mediated or adjudicated harassment disputes. The authors review recent legal conceptions of sexual harassment and articulate a methodology for analyzing individual narrative accounts. The analysis of six selected interviews (three alleged harassers and three declared harassees) depicts how, through discourse with others, persons in ambiguous cases of harassment come to perceive themselves as harassers or harasseesgradually, how intention is inferred from conductcontingently, and how perceptions and expressions are often reified as certainties in the effort to secure some sense of justiceinstitutionally.Many people have been involved with this project since its inception, and most wish to remain anonymous. We would like to thank all participants, colleagues, students, and critics for their contributions and expressions of interest. We would especially like to acknowledge Thomas Pace and Richard Lanigan for their teaching, friendship and support, and Frances Chaput Waksler for her helpful comments. An earlier version of this paper was presented to The Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences, Boston MA, USA, October 1992.     

Personality differences between established and less-established male and female creative artists

Past research on personality constructs of creative individuals has focused on men rather than women and has neglected the essentially social aspect of being considered creative. Therefore, personality variables of 60 male and 60 female creative artists were described using the California Psychological Inventory (CPI). Male and female groups were further divided equally into two subgroups reflecting a difference in degree of social acceptance of their work. Relationships between the four groups were explored by multiple discriminant analysis. The major conclusion noted was that creative females tend to be more like their creative male counterparts, in terms of CPI scale variation, than are males and females in general.     

On the reciprocity of proximity relations

The degree of reciprocity of a proximity order is the proportion, P(1), of elements for which the closest neighbor relation is symmetric, and the R value of each element is its rank in the proximity order from its closest neighbor. Assuming a random sampling of points, we show that Euclidean n-spaces produce a very high degree of reciprocity, $\text{P(1) ≥}\text{1}\text{2}$, and correspondingly low R values, E(R) ≤ 2, for all n. The same bounds also apply to homogeneous graphs, in which the same number of edges meet at every node. Much less reciprocity and higher R values, however, can be attained in finite tree models and in the contrast model in which the “distance” between objects is a linear function of the numbers of their common and distinctive features.