Cultural psychological processes underlying workplace remuneration in Japanese and European American contexts

Japan's remuneration systems are moving away from seniority-based pay towards individual performance-based pay. We tested how the latter system works within the Japanese cultural context and whether the operation and functioning of the system reflects general psychological tendencies found in Japan. Japanese (Study 1 n = 197; Study 2 n = 235) and European American (Study 1 n = 201; Study 2 n = 186) participants read vignettes that described workplace success centred on a focal employee and including a team. Participants attributed contribution and rewards (financial and status) to a range of agents and factors with graded levels of focus, from the focal employee having the greatest and luck having the least. In general, we found that Japanese participants attributed greater contribution and reward to less focal agents and factors while European American participants attributed greater contribution and reward to more focal agents, in addition to some specific differences between the tasks and reward types. We discuss implications for more nuanced theorizing of the interaction between institutional systems and psychological processes.     

Thinking disposition,thinking style,and susceptibility to causal illusion predict fake news discriminability

Acceptance of fake news is probably modulated by an intricate interplay of social, cultural, and political factors. In this study, we investigated whether individual-level cognitive factors related to thinking and decision making could influence the tendency to accept fake news. A group of volunteers responded to a COVID19-related fake news discrimination scale as well as to questionnaires assessing their thinking style (reflective vs. intuitive) and thinking disposition (actively open-mindedness). Furthermore, they completed a computerized contingency learning task aimed at measuring their tendency to develop a causal illusion, a cognitive bias leading to perceive causal connections between non-contingent events. More actively open-minded and more reflective individuals presented higher fake news discrimination scores. In addition, those who developed weaker causal illusions in the contingency learning task were also more accurate at differentiating between fake and legitimate news. Actively open-minded thinking was the main contributor in a regression model predicting fake news discrimination.     

Schizophrenia and indeterminacy: The problem of validity

The paper attempts to account for the confusion over the validity of the concept of schizophrenia in terms of two closely related aspects of conceptual indeterminacy. Firstly, it is identified on the basis of a breakdown in intelligibility, but what constitutes such a breakdown is indeterminate. Secondly, the concept sits between the categories of natural disease or illness on the one hand, and character trait or moral failing or gift on the other. This entails an indeterminacy in attempting to define the role that physiological explanation could have. Light may be thrown on the concept by exploring a distinction between a life story in which the schizophrenic condition emerges as the conclusion of the story and a causal process in which the condition is the end result or final consequence.     

Between Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: Examination of Reasons for Academic Study based on the Theory of Internalization

In contrast with the view that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are antagonistic, the view proposed in this article is that they are anchors of a continuous variable. According to the theory set out here, intrinsic motivation develops by means of internalization. This gives rise to four types of motivation: external, introjected, identified, and intrinsic. The main purpose of this study was to construct a scale to measure these four types of motivation for academic achievement and then to examine its validity. The Stepping Motivation Scale, created by the author, was administered to 483 junior high school students. Intercorrelations among the four subscales conformed to a simplex structure, and documented a continuum from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation. To clarify the distinction among the four types of motivation, relevant variables such as causal attributions and coping behaviors in failing situations, beliefs in links between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and teachers' evaluation of students' motivation were related to motivation types. A difference in motivational types was exhibited in the differential patterns of correlations.     

Question-begging and infinite regress

InMetaphysics , Ch. 4, Aristotle speaks of both infinite regress and question-begging, but does not explicitly relate them. We get the impression that he thinks that to use one of these arguments to avoid the other is to jump from the frying-pan into the fire. This relationship is illustrated in terms of the ignorant belief that everything can be proved, and of attempts to prove the Law of Noncontradiction.     

Circular definitions,circular explanations,and infinite regresses

This paper discusses some of the ways in which circular definitions and circular explanations entail or fail to entail infinite regresses. And since not all infinite regresses are vicious, a few criteria of viciousness are examined in order to determine when the entailment of a regress refutes a circular definition or a circular explanation.I would like to thank Professors Robert Tully, Howard Sobel, and Derek Allen for their constructive comments.     

Sex differences in the perceived causal structure of date rape: A preliminary report

The present study examines the perceived causes of date rape by the use of network analysis. The 142 subjects in the study were presented with grids containing 9 causes listed by row and column. They were asked to indicate if they belived there was a causal link between each of the 72 causal pairings. The resulting network placed emphasis on male and female drunkenness, norms of dating, and society's attitude to date rape as distal causes of date rape. Misunderstanding of behavior by men, male attitude that date rape is unimportant, and need by males for dominance were seen as proximal causes. Further networks for each sex were constructed: these showed clear division of opinion on the causes of date rape. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Causal illusion as a cognitive basis of pseudoscientific beliefs

Causal illusion has been proposed as a cognitive mediator of pseudoscientific beliefs. However, previous studies have only tested the association between this cognitive bias and a closely related but different type of unwarranted beliefs, those related to superstition and paranormal phenomena. Participants (n = 225) responded to a novel questionnaire of pseudoscientific beliefs designed for this study. They also completed a contingency learning task in which a possible cause, infusion intake, and a desired effect, headache remission, were actually non-contingent. Volunteers with higher scores on the questionnaire also presented stronger causal illusion effects. These results support the hypothesis that causal illusions might play a fundamental role in the endorsement of pseudoscientific beliefs.     

Causal Responsibility and Rationing in Medicine

The article addresses the issue of rationing health care services, a topic currently being hotly debated in many countries. The author argues that the aspect of causal responsibility ought to play a decisive role in the allocation of limited medical resources. Starting out from Ronald Dworkin's distinction between option luck and brute luck, the appropriate and meaningful uses of the term causal responsibility are clarified first. A discussion of the conditions which might justify giving lower priority to patients whose illnesses are the result of unhealthy behavior, like e.g. alcohol abuse, follows. Causal responsibility is then viewed in the context of private health insurance and the club model of organ donation. It is argued that individuals themselves are basically responsible for their decisions regarding insurance coverage and membership in organ donors' clubs. Causal responsibility is shown to be a more suitable criterion for rationing scarce medical resources than other criteria which might alternatively be considered, such as patients' age.