Religiosity and Secular and Ascetic Deviance

According to the antiascetic hypothesis, religiosity should be strongly related to behaviors that violate ascetic standards (getting drunk and using marijuana), but only weakly related to behaviors that violate social standards (violence and stealing). Using the second wave of the National Study of Youth and Religion, I tested the antiascetic hypothesis using a question about the most important basis for deciding what is morally right or wrong. Contrary to the antiascetic hypothesis, individuals who believe that God's law is the most important for deciding what is morally right or wrong, compared to those who believe that society is the most important, are not less likely to get drunk or use marijuana. Furthermore, for getting drunk and marijuana use, differences in behavior are not the result of different ethical standards (ascetic or social), but rather differences in the willingness to uphold those standards (is it OK to break moral rules).     

Separability of item and person parameters in response time models

This paper discusses two forms of separability of item and person parameters in the context of response time (RT) models. The first is separate sufficiency: the existence of sufficient statistics for the item (person) parameters that do not depend on the person (item) parameters. The second is ranking independence: the likelihood of the item (person) ranking with respect to RTs does not depend on the person (item) parameters. For each form a theorem stating sufficient conditions, is proved. The two forms of separability are shown to include several (special cases of) models from psychometric and biometric literature. Ranking independence imposes no restrictions on the general distribution form, but on its parametrization. An estimation procedure based upon ranks and pseudolikelihood theory is discussed, as well as the relation of ranking independence to the concept of double monotonicity.I am indebted to Wim van der Linden for bringing Thissen's (1983) paper to my notice, and to Martijn Berger, Frans Tan, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier drafts of this paper.     

When More is Better than Less; Three Theories of Psychosis—Projection, Double Bind, and Possession

Three psychological theories of psychosis are described, each of which has standing in psychiatry. Defined by the terms projection, double bind, and possession, they initially appear to have little or nothing in common to explain psychosis, but converge at four points: (1) A high degree of anxiety precipitated by a dilemma or conflict perceived to be unsolvable by the person; (2) the anxiety triggers a shift from one thought or motive in the direction of its opposite, because the original was believed too antagonistic to the wishes of significant others; (3) the opposite, in order to remain opposite, requires that the original thought or motive be forgotten, (4) a singular means to produce and reinforce forgetting is the interposition of psychiatric symptoms. In psychiatry today treatment would fit more consistently with the three theories taken as a whole rather than any one, and a rationale for this viewpoint is elaborated.     

Treating a Chronically Depressed Adolescent Female Using the Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy: A Case Study

A case is presented of an adolescent female with double depression who was treated using the Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy (CBASP). CBASP is designed to teach a social problem-solving procedure called Situational Analysis (SA). Generalized treatment effects were measured through monitoring of diagnostic status, two administrations of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent, weekly administrations of the Child Depression Inventory, and acquisition performance ratings on the SA task. The results showed that CBASP appeared to be an effective treatment. The double depressive disorder remitted, and the patient learned to identify behavioral consequences as well as target and attain her interpersonal goals. CBASP can be effective for adolescents, although modifications of the adult form of the therapy may be necessary.     

The Structure of the Ordinals and the Interpretation of ZF in Double Extension Set Theory

Andrzej Kisielewicz has proposed three systems of double extension set theory of which we have shown two to be inconsistent in an earlier paper. Kisielewicz presented an argument that the remaining system interprets ZF, which is defective: it actually shows that the surviving possibly consistent system of double extension set theory interprets ZF with Separation and Comprehension restricted to ₀ formulas. We show that this system does interpret ZF, using an analysis of the structure of the ordinals.     

The Double Life of Double Effect

The U.S. Supreme Court's majorityopinion in Vacco v. Quill assumes thatthe principle of double effect explains thepermissibility of hastening death in thecontext of ordinary palliative care and inextraordinary cases in which painkilling drugshave failed to relieve especially intractablesuffering and terminal sedation has beenadopted as a last resort. The traditionaldoctrine of double effect, understood asproviding a prohibition on instrumental harmingas opposed to incidental harming or harming asa side effect, must be distinguished from otherways in which the claim that a result is notintended might be offered as part of ajustification for it. Although double effectmight appropriately be invoked as a constrainton ordinary palliative care, it is not clearthat it can be coherently extended to justifysuch practices as terminal sedation. A betterapproach would reconsider double effect'straditional prohibition on hastening death as ameans to relieve suffering in the context ofacute palliative care.     

Learning from the law to address uncertainty in the precautionary principle

Environmentalists have advocated the Precautionary Principle (PP) to help guide public and private decisions about the environment. By contrast, industry and its spokesmen have opposed this. There is not one principle, but many that have been recommended for this purpose. Despite the attractiveness of a core idea in all versions of the principle—that decision-makers should take some precautionary steps to ensure that threats of serious and irreversible damage to the environment and public health do not materialize into harm—even one of the most widely endorsed principles needs considerable specification and refinement before it can be used. Moreover, the PP is an approach or guide to utilizing scientific evidence in social or legal decision-making contexts. In this it does not differ in kind from other approaches to using factual information such as in the law. The law provides some models for different strategies to guide decision-making under uncertainty when factual issues cannot be resolved with certainty. These in turn can help guide the formulation of different versions of PP and help clarify some presuppositions of the principle. Once some plausible versions of PP are articulated, I suggest some applications to existing environmental problems.