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.     

INFLUENCE OF ASSESSMENT CENTER METHODS ON ASSESSORS'RATINGS

Recently a number of authors have argued persuasively that performance ratings are influenced to a large extent by the way the rater selects, organizes, stores, and recalls information. Although the influence of the rater's cognitive processes on the obtained ratings has been considered in the job-performance evaluation literature, this issue has not been considered in the assessment center literature. The purpose of the present study was to examine how assessment center methods affect the way assessors organize and process assessment center information and affect the ratings they make. Independent groups of assessors underwent one of two methods for evaluating candidates in an assessment center. Data indicated differences in the convergent and discriminant validities and differences in the factor structures of the ratings for the two methods. The pattern of results suggested that the two methods for evaluating assessment center candidates affected the way the assessors organized the assessment center information and affected the obtained ratings. Future research should consider assessment center methods and assessors as sources of variation in assessment center ratings.     

A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF BIOGRAPHICAL SUBGROUPS USING OWENS' DEVELOPMENTAL-INTEGRATIVE MODEL

The study examined the differential validity of 20 male and 14 female biographical subgroups in terms of 12 factor analyzed dimensions of postcollege experience. Owens' Developmental-Integrative Model hypothesizes that different subgroups of individuals with similar within-group early life experiences should exhibit significant differences (between-group) in a wide variety of life experiences. A sample of 1428 first-year college students were statistically grouped into 23 male and 15 female biodata subgroups after completing a standardized 118-item biodata form (Owens, 1968). Seven years later, a 97-item post-college experience inventory obtained scores for 484 of the original subjects on 12 factors of post-college behavior including job satisfaction, transition from college, personal and marital adjustment, and others. Significant univariate and multivariate differences were found between the biodata subgroups across the 7-year period. Implications for the validity of the D-I model are offered.     

Interaction of cognitive and sensorimotor maps of visual space

Studies of saccadic suppression and induced motion have suggested separate representations of visual space for perception and visually guided behavior. Because these methods required stimulus motion, subjects might have confounded motion and position. We separated cognitive and sensorimotor maps without motion of target, background, or eye, with an “induced Roelofs effect”: a target inside an off-center frame appears biased opposite the direction of the frame. A frame displayed to the left of a subject’s center line, for example, will make a target inside the frame appear farther to the right than its actual position. The effect always influences perception, but in half of our subjects it did not influence pointing. Cognitive and sensorimotor maps interacted when the motor response was delayed; all subjects now showed a Roelofs effect for pointing, suggesting that the motor system was being fed from the biased cognitive map. A second experiment showed similar results when subjects made an open-ended cognitive response instead of a five-alternative forced choice. Experiment 3 showed that the results were not due to shifts in subjects’ perception of the felt straight-ahead position. In Experiment 4, subjects pointed to the target and judged its location on the same trial. Both measures showed a Roelofs effect, indicating that each trial was treated as a single event and that the cognitive representation was accessed to localize this event in both response modes.     

Attenuation of Hippocampal 11beta-Hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase Type 1 by Chronic Psychosocial Stress in the Tree Shrew

11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11beta-HSD-1) catalyses the interconversion of active cortisol and corticosterone with inert cortisone and 11-dehydrocorticosterone, thus regulating glucocorticoid access to intracellular receptors. In rats, chronic glucocorticoid excess or stress increases 11beta-HSD-1 in the hippocampus, producing suggestions that it may attenuate the deleterious effects of chronic glucocorticoid excess. However, 11beta-HSD-1 predominantly catalyses 11beta-reduction in the intact liver and hippocampal cells, thus regenerating active glucocorticoids from inert substrate. We studied 11beta-HSD activity in the tissues of male tree shrews following 28 days of sustained psychosocial stress or exogenous administration of cortisol. In the hippocampus, chronic psychosocial stress attenuated 11-HSD-1 activity (69 +/- 9% of control), whereas cortisol alone had no effect. In the liver, both chronic stress and cortisol administration decreased 11beta-HSD-1 activity (47 +/- 11% and 49 +/- 4% fall, resp.). Attenuation of 11beta-HSD-1 within tissues may reflect a homeostatic mechanism designed to minimise the adverse effects of prolonged stress and/or glucocorticoid excess.     

AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE PREDICTORS OF EXECUTIVE CAREER SUCCESS

This study examined the degree to which demographic, human capital, motivational, organizational, and industrylregion variables predicted executive career success. Career success was assumed to comprise objective (pay, ascendancy) and subjective (job satisfaction, career satisfaction) elements. Results obtained from a sample of 1,388 U.S. executives suggested that demographic, human capital, motivational, and organizational variables explained significant variance in objective career success and in career satisfaction. Particularly interesting were findings that educational level, quality, prestige, and degree type all predicted financial success. In contrast, only the motivational and organizational variables explained significant amounts of variance in job satisfaction. These findings suggest that the variables that lead to objective career success often are quite different from those that lead to subjectively defined success.     

Counselling the HIV ‘affected’ individual: A case study

The literature on HIV disease has largely centred on the virus' biological, psychological and social impact on the infected individual. There is, however, an increasing recognition of the impact of this virus and the extent to which it reaches beyond the infected person and affects partners, families, fiend and carers. This focus, from a family systems perspective, on the impact of illness (Rolland, 1994) and death (Walsh & McGoldrick, 1991), attempts to give attention to both the immediate and long tern effects on nuclear and extended family members, whilst the work of Bor, Miller & Goldman (1992) specifically offers a family systems approach to psychotherapy for people affected by HIV. The following case is an illustration of the complex and challenging issues encountered in working with an affected family member and the way in which “a range of feelings depending on the unique meaning of the releationship and its loss for each member and the implications of the death for the family unit” is experienced (Walsh & McGoldrick, 1991).