Regulation of Negative Affect During Mother–Child Problem-Solving Interactions: Adolescent Depressive Status and Family Processes

Despite recent suggestions that depression can be conceptualized as a disorder of affect regulation, relatively little research has focused on affect regulation skills in depressed individuals. This paper investigated whether depressed adolescents (N = 25) differ from nondepressed adolescents (N 25) on two indices of affect regulation (i.e., duration of negative affective states and reciprocity of maternal negative affect) as well as whether these indices are related to microsocial family interactional processes. Analyses revealed that depressed teens differed from their nondepressed peers with regard to duration of negative affective states but not in their likelihood of reciprocating negative affect. Additionally, indices of adolescent affect regulation were related to family interactional processes. Duration of depressive affect was positively associated with maternal display of facilitative behavior contingent on adolescent depressive behavior. Duration of aggressive behavior was inversely related to maternal problem-solving responses to aggressive behavior. Finally, adolescent reciprocity of maternal depressive and aggressive behaviors was strongly associated with mothers' reciprocity of adolescents' negative affective behavior.     

Other‐Centric Reasoning

This article considers question‐begging's opposite fallacy. Instead of relying on my beliefs for my premises when I should be using my adversary's beliefs, I rely on my adversary's beliefs when I should rely on my own. Just as question‐begging emerges from egocentrism, its opposite emerges from other‐centrism. Stepping into the other person's shoes is an effective strategy for understanding him. But you must return to your own shoes when forming your beliefs. Evidence is agent centered. Other‐centric reasoning is most striking when both parties partake simultaneously. We are then treated to the spectacle of each side using the other's premises to establish its conclusion. These remarkable debates arise regularly when there is open disagreement about whether a right‐conferring relationship has ended. Those who contend the relationship is abrogated will be tempted to stand on the rights persistently credited to them by their adversary.     

Actuarial models for assessing prison violence risk: revisions and extensions of the Risk Assessment Scale for Prison (RASP)

An investigation and extension of the Risk Assessment Scale for Prison (RASP-Potosi), an actuarially derived scale for the assessment of prison violence, was undertaken through a retrospective review of the disciplinary records of the first 12 months of confinement of a cohort of inmates entering the Florida Department of Corrections in 2002 and remaining throughout 2003 (N=14,088). A near replication of the RASP-Potosi and additional analyses based on other weighted logistic regression models were performed on an inmate subsample for whom all information categories were available (n=13,341). Younger age and shorter sentences were associated with increased violent misconduct. Older age, drug conviction, and higher educational attainment were associated with reduced violent misconduct. Regardless of whether the original RASP-Potosi or its progeny were utilized, or the custody level of the inmate sample, the models were modestly successful in predicting prison violence, with the area under the curve (AUC) ranging from .645 to .707.     

Probability of Criminal Acts of Violence: A Test of Jury Predictive Accuracy

The ability of capital juries to accurately predict future prison violence at the sentencing phase of aggravated murder trials was examined through retrospective review of the disciplinary records of 115 male inmates sentenced to either life (n = 65) or death (n = 50) in Oregon from 1985 through 2008, with a mean post‐conviction time at risk of 15.3 years. Violent prison behavior was completely unrelated to predictions made by capital jurors, with bidirectional accuracy simply reflecting the base rate of assaultive misconduct in the group. Rejection of the special issue predicting future violence enjoyed 90% accuracy. Conversely, predictions that future violence was probable had 90% error rates. More than 90% of the assaultive rule violations committed by these offenders resulted in no harm or only minor injuries. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Smartfounding: Four Grades of Resistance to Thought Experiments

Smartfounding is the opposite of “dumbfounding” introduced by Jonathan Haidt’s research on disgust. Dumbfounders have general competence at thought experiment (in contrast to people who lack formal education). However, they are flustered by thought experiments that support repugnant conclusions. Instead of following the supposition wherever it leads, they avoid unsettling implications by adding extraneous information or ignoring stipulated conditions. The dumbfounded commit performance errors, often seeming to regress to the answers of people who lack formal schooling. Smartfounders retain their composure. They practice subversive compliance, obeying the instructions in a way that spoils the aim of the thought experiment. Smartfounders offer a more sophisticated grade of resistance to thought experiment. Whereas the lower grades of resistance are merely fallacious, smartfounding often constitutes a penetrating internal critique of the thought experiment and sometimes of thought experiments in general.

     

We See in the Dark

Do we need light to see? I argue that the black experience of a man in a perfectly dark cave is a representation of an absence of light, not an absence of representation. There is certainly a difference between his perceptual knowledge and that of his blind companion. Only the sighted man can tell whether the cave is dark just by looking. But perhaps he is merely inferring darkness from his failure to see. To get an unambiguous answer, I switch the focus from perceptual knowledge to non‐epistemic seeing. My conclusion is that we see even in the limiting case of absolute darkness – regardless of whether we believe we are seeing. We see little of pratical interest. But in terms of basic information, we see about as much as we do when the lights are on. Depending on what has gone before and after, we may even see ordinary objects.