Caretaking stability in the early life environment supports neurobehavioral development, while instability and neglect constitute adverse environments that can alter maturational processes. Research in humans suggests that different types of early life adversity can have differential effects on caretaker relationships and later cognitive and social development; however, identifying mechanistic underpinnings will require animal models with translational validity. Two common rodent models, maternal separation and limited bedding, influence the mother-infant relationship during a critical window of development. We hypothesized that these paradigms (...) may affect the development of communication strategies on the part of the pup. Ultrasonic vocalizations are a care-eliciting mechanism and ethologically relevant response to stressors in the rat pup. USV emission rates and acoustic parameters change throughout early development, presenting the opportunity to define developmental milestones in USVs that would reflect neurobehavioral aberrations if disrupted. This study investigated the effects of MS or LB on the dam-pup relationship by quantifying pup USVs, maternal behavior, and the relationship between the two. First, we used a generalized additive model approach to establish typical developmental trajectories of USV acoustic properties and determine windows of change in MS or LB rearing. Additionally, we quantified maternal behaviors and the predictability of maternal care sequences using an entropy rate calculation. MS and LB each shifted the developmental trajectories of USV acoustic parameters and call types in a sex-specific manner. MS more often impacted male USVs, while LB impacted female USVs. MS dams spent more time passive nursing, and LB dams spent more time on the nest. The predictability of maternal care was associated with the rate of USV emissions exclusively in females. Taken together, findings demonstrate sex- and model-specific effects of rearing environments on a novel developmental trajectory involving the mother-infant relationship, facilitating the translation of animal ELA paradigms to assess later-life consequences. (shrink)

College cheating is prevalent, with rates ranging widely from 9 to 95% (Whitley, 1998). Research has been exclusively conducted with enrolled college students. This study examined the prevalence of cheating in a sample of college alumni, who risk less in disclosing academic dishonesty than current students. A total of 273 alumni reported on their prevalence and perceived severity of 19 cheating behaviors. The vast majority of participants (81.7%) report having engaged in some form of cheating during their undergraduate career. The (...) most common forms of cheating were “copying from another student's assignment” and “allowing others to copy from your assignment.” More students reported cheating in classes for their major than other classes. Males and females cheated at the same rates in classes for their major, and males reported higher rates of cheating than females in nonmajor classes. Respondents reported that their top reasons for cheating were “lack of time” and “to help a friend.”. (shrink)

We used a retrospective survey to model the patterns of appraisal, motivation, and coping that uniquely correspond with 12 positive emotions (affection/love, amusement, awe, challenge/det...

Previous research has identified different moral judgments in liberals and conservatives. While both care about harm/fairness (‘individualizing’ foundations), conservatives emphasize in-group/authority/purity (‘binding’ foundations) more than liberals. Thus, some argue that conservatives have a more complex morality. We suggest an alternative view—that consistent with conservatism as ‘motivated social cognition’, binding foundation activation satisfies psychological needs for social structure/security/certainty. Accordingly, we found that students who were dispositionally threat-sensitive showed stronger binding foundation activation, and that conservatives are more dispositionally threat-sensitive than liberals. We (...) also found that in a heightened threat situation liberals (especially social liberals) showed increased binding foundation activation. These results support the view that the binding foundations function differently in our moral cognition than the individualizing foundations. (shrink)

We applaud Gasper for reviewing five approaches to operationalizing neutral states. To supplement Gasper’s important contribution, we express the five neutral conditions at the appraisal lev...

An instructor's decision to drop an exam score and to assign a penalty to all class members because no one was willing to identify students who allegedly cheated is described, including how the class members felt about the incident. For the most part, students held the cheaters responsible for their penalties. The instructor received only slightly lower student evaluations, as compared to the 2 other courses she taught that year.

A Psychological Perspective on Folk Moral Objectivism is a thoroughly researched interdisciplinary exploration of the critical role metaethical beliefs play in the way morality functions. Whether or not people are "moral objectivists" is something that deserves much more empirical attention than it has thus far received, not only because it bears upon philosophical claims, but because it is a critical piece of the puzzle of human morality. This book aims to facilitate incorporating the study of metaethical beliefs into existing research (...) programs by providing a roadmap through the theoretical and empirical landscape as it currently exists and evaluating the methodological approaches used thus far. In doing so, it summarizes the key findings-both in terms of metaethical beliefs, and their correlates, causes, and consequences-that have emerged, and explores the value of this area of study for anyone interested in the development, function, causes, and/or consequences of morality. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue S1, Page S21-S23, March‐April 2022.

In the first book on the development of John Dewey's ethical thought, Jennifer Welchman revises the prevalent interpretation of his ethics. Her clear and engaging account traces the history of Dewey's distinctive moral philosophy from its roots in idealism during the 1890s through the pragmatist approach of his 1922 work, Human Nature and Conduct. Central to the development of Dewey's ethics was his lifelong conviction that the realms of science and morals, facts and values were reconcilable. This conviction, Welchman (...) demonstrates, drove Dewey to reject the orthodox ethics of his day in favor of radical alternatives?first absolute idealism and later pragmatism. She reveals how Dewey came to adopt and subsequently to modify idealist ethics of self-realization. Welchman then explores the transformations in Dewey's conception of science that exploded the fragile truce between fact and value that he had negotiated as an idealist. Finally, she examines how Dewey developed his own instrumentalist accounts of moral value, conduct, and character that culminated in his best-known work of ethics, Human Nature and Conduct. (shrink)

I maintain that an account of knowledge how to do something – an account which might be supposed to uncover ‘the nature’ of such knowledge – can't be got by considering what linguists tell us is expressed in ascriptions of knowing how. Attention must be paid to the knowledge that is actually being exercised when someone is doing something. I criticize some claims about ascriptions of knowledge-how which derive from contemporary syntactic and semantic theory. I argue that these claims can (...) no more provide an understanding of what it is to intend to do something than of what it is to know how to do something. Philosophy, not linguistics, must be the source of such understanding. (shrink)

Book synopsis: The thirteen specially-commissioned essays in this volume are written by philosophers at the forefront of feminist scholarship, and are designed to provide an accessible and stimulating guide to a philosophical literature that has seen massive expansion in recent years. Ranging from history of philosophy through metaphysics to philosophy of science, they encompass all the core subject areas commonly taught in anglophone undergraduate and graduate philosophy courses, offering both an overview of and a contribution to the relevant debates. Together (...) they testify to the intellectual value of feminism as a radicalizing energy internal to philosophical inquiry. This volume will be essential reading for any student or teacher of philosophy who is curious about the place of feminism in their subject. (shrink)

Little attention has been paid in academic dishonesty literature to empirically testing the effectiveness of different instructor communication strategies to minimize cheating. Using a quasi-experimental design, we compared the effectiveness of instructor fear appeals and moral appeals on student cheating-related attitudes and behavior. Cheating was most strongly associated with neutralizing attitudes in the moral appeal condition. Also, the relationship between observation of others cheating and self-reported cheating behaviors was stronger in both treatment conditions than in the control condition. Although a (...) trend toward less cheating in the treatment conditions was evident, it did not attain statistical significance. (shrink)

While the subjective experience of insight during problem solving is a common occurrence, an understanding of the processes leading to solution remains relatively uncertain. The goal of this study was to investigate the restructuring patterns underlying solution of a creative problem, and how providing cues to solution may alter the process. Results show that both providing cues to solution and analyzing problem solving performance on an aggregate level may result in restructuring patterns that appear incremental. Analysis of performance on an (...) individual level provides evidence for insight-like solution patterns. However, no evidence is found for a relationship between an individual’s restructuring pattern and their subjective experience of insight during problem solving. (shrink)

Actualist counterpart theory replaces David Lewis’s concrete possible worlds and individuals with ersatz worlds and individuals, but retains counterpart theory about de re modality. While intuitively attractive, this view has been rejected for two main reasons: the problem of indiscernibles and the Humphrey objection. I argue that in insisting that ersatz individuals play the same role as Lewisian individuals, actualists commit the particularist fallacy. The actualist should not require stand-ins for every Lewisian individual. Ersatz individuals should instead be construed as (...) representations of actually existing qualitative ways for individuals to be, or qualitative properties individuals can instantiate. This necessitates changes elsewhere. Non-instrumental uses of Kripke semantics and standard counterpart semantics also require stand-ins for particular non-actual individuals. I argue that the actualist should instead adopt a non-standard counterpart semantics that more clearly illuminates the role that actual properties and relations play in explaining de re possibilities and necessities. The result is an intuitive and forceful reply to both the problem of indiscernibles and the Humphrey objection. (shrink)

What virtues do good stewards typically have and can these virtues move people to be good stewards of nature? Why focus on the virtues of stewards rather than on trying to construct and defend morally obligatory rules to govern human behavior? I argue that benevolence and loyalty are crucial for good stewardship and these virtues can and do motivate people to act as good stewards of nature. Moreover,since it is a matter of dispute whether rational considerations can move us to (...) perform a given act in the absence of disposition to do so, I argue we should try to determine which moral dispositions (if any) will motivate people to be concerned for the environment so that the development of environmentally sensitive character may be encouraged. (shrink)

This paper synthesizes a wide range of literature from sociolinguistics and cognitive psychology, to argue for a central role for the “word” as a vehicle of language variation and change. Three crucially interlinked strands of research are reviewed—the role of context in associative learning, the word-level storage of phonetic and contextual detail, and the phonetic consequences of skewed distributions of words across different contexts. I argue that the human capacity for associative learning, combined with attention to fine-phonetic detail at the (...) level of the word, plays a significant role in predicting a range of subtle but systematically robust observed socioindexical patterns in speech production and perception. (shrink)

California is the global hub for assisted reproductive technology practices, including egg donation. The rise of egg donation in the United States is surprising given the cultural context linking genetics and motherhood and rejecting the commodification of reproduction. Scholars in the hostile worlds camp have grappled with the relationship between intimacy and economics, yet employing this theory to explain the increase in egg donation is unsatisfactory. The concept of relational work, developed by Viviana Zelizer, provides scholars with a robust analytical (...) tool to account for the rise in egg donation. This paper analyzes the relational work of egg donors and fertility center staff. I argue that donors and staff construct an understanding of egg donation that avoids directly challenging the cultural context mentioned above. Analyzing egg donation as a case of relational work demonstrates the need to move beyond the reciprocity/market dichotomy upheld by the hostile worlds framework. (shrink)

Skin-transmitted pathogens have threatened humans since ancient times. We investigated whether skin-transmitted pathogens were a subclass of disgust stimuli that evoked an emotional response that was related to, but distinct from, disgust and fear. We labelled this response “the heebie jeebies”. In Study 1, coding of 76 participants’ experiences of disgust, fear, and the heebie jeebies showed that the heebie jeebies was elicited by unique stimuli which produced skin-crawling sensations and an urge to protect the skin. In Experiment 2,350 participants’ (...) responses to skin-transmitted pathogen, fear-inducing, and disgust-inducing vignettes showed that the vignettes elicited sensations and urges which loaded onto heebie jeebies, fear, and disgust factors, respectively. Experiment 3 largely replicated findings from Experiment 2 using video stimuli. Results are consistent with the notion that skin-transmitted pathogens are a subclass of disgust stimuli which motivate behaviours that are functionally consistent with disgust yet qualitatively distinct. (shrink)

The evolution of modern human life history has involved substantial changes in the overall length of the subadult period, the introduction of a novel early childhood stage, and many changes in the initiation, termination, and character of the other stages. The fossil record is explored for evidence of this evolutionary process, with a special emphasis on middle childhood, which many argue is equivalent to the juvenile stage of African apes. Although the “juvenile” and “middle childhood” stages appear to be the (...) same from a broad comparative perspective, in that they begin with the eruption of the first molar and the achievement of the majority of adult brain size and end with sexual maturity, the detailed differences in the expression of these two stages, and how they relate to the preceding and following stages, suggest that a distinction should be maintained between them to avoid blurring subtle, but important, differences. (shrink)

David Rosenthal's higher-order thought theory is one of the most widely argued for of the higher-order accounts of consciousness. I argue that Rosenthal vacillates between two models of the HOT theory. First, I argue that these models employ different concepts of 'state consciousness'; the two concepts each refer to mental state tokens, but in virtue of different properties. In one model, the concept of 'state consciousness' is more consistent with how the term is typically used, both by philosophers and scientists, (...) and in commonsense usage. This model, however, also has its problems. In the second part of the paper, I develop a modified version of Rosenthal's transitivity principle, thereby avoiding some complications that stem from the original transitivity principle. I suggest that Rosenthal occasionally employs this modified model himself, and that the inconsistency identified in the first section of this paper might really reflect Rosenthal's vacillation between these two versions of the transitivity principle. I offer one explanation for how this equivocation may have occurred. These two versions would result if articulations of the transitivity principle employed the term 'mental state' inconsistently, to refer on some occasions merely to mental state types, and on others, to tokened mental states. I conclude by arguing, contrary to Rosenthal and others, that the theory is not incompatible with view that conscious states are uniquely casual efficacious. (shrink)

Jennifer Uleman on the phenomenology and reality of reason.

The Federal Trade Commission has an important role to play in the governmental oversight of mobile health apps, ensuring consumer protections from unfair and deceptive trade practices and curtailing anti-competitive methods. The FTC’s consumer protection structure and authority is outlined before reviewing the recent FTC enforcement activities taken on behalf of consumers and against developers of mhealth apps. The article concludes with identification of some challenges for the FTC and modest recommendations for strengthening the consumer protections it provides.

Book synopsis: The causal theory of action is widely recognized in the literature of the philosophy of action as the "standard story" of human action and agency—the nearest approximation in the field to a theoretical orthodoxy. This volume brings together leading figures working in action theory today to discuss issues relating to the CTA and its applications, which range from experimental philosophy to moral psychology. Some of the contributors defend the theory while others criticize it; some draw from historical sources (...) while others focus on recent developments; some rely on the tools of analytic philosophy while others cite the latest empirical research on human action. All agree, however, on the centrality of the CTA in the philosophy of action. The contributors first consider metaphysical issues, then reasons-explanations of action, and, finally, new directions for thinking about the CTA. They discuss such topics as the tenability of some alternatives to the CTA; basic causal deviance; the etiology of action ; teleologism and anticausalism; and the compatibility of the CTA with theories of embodied cognition. Two contributors engage in an exchange of views on intentional omissions that stretches over four essays, directly responding to each other in their follow-up essays. As the action -oriented perspective becomes more influential in philosophy of mind and philosophy of cognitive science, this volume offers a long-needed debate over foundational issues. (shrink)

Whether the food movement is most likely to transform the food system through ‘alternative’ or ‘oppositional’ initiatives has been the focus of considerable scholarly debate. Alternative initiatives are widespread but risk reinforcing the conventional food system by supporting neoliberal discourse and governance mechanisms, including localism, consumer choice, entrepreneurialism and self-help. While oppositional initiatives such as political advocacy have the potential for system-wide change, the current neoliberal political and ideological context dominant in Canada poses difficulties for initiatives that explicitly oppose the (...) conventional food system. As such, some argue that the food movement requires convergence between alternative and oppositional initiatives. In this paper, we investigate convergence using survey results from 143 food movement organizations in four Canadian provinces. Results based on cluster analysis and descriptive statistics on organizational discourse, activities and visions of sustainable food systems demonstrate convergence around neoliberal discourse and governance mechanisms. Localism and consumer education characteristics are particularly prominent, with a majority of respondents describing their organizations as ‘local’, engaging in consumer education activities, and stating the importance of consumer education activities, indicating convergence around alternative, rather than oppositional, initiatives. While convergence around these discourse and strategies may limit the transformative potential of the food system when interpreted as neoliberalisation of the movement, such a reading does not demonstrate their full potential, as survey results also indicate trends of transformative visions of change and political engagement, particularly at the municipal level. This research demonstrates that the movement can work simultaneously within, and opposed to, the conventional food system, and provides understanding of both neoliberal leanings and the politics of the possible of the food movement. (shrink)

Thomson that the mother would not be morally obliged to consent to the surgery. At any rate, if she refused, she would not have killed the foetus. ...

Timothy Murphy argues in his article “In Defense of Irreligious Bioethics” (2012) that the role of religion in normative bioethics should be limited and that a viable means for limiting its role (o...

This essay extends Robin DiAngelo’s concept of white fragility in two directions. First, we outline an additional cause of white fragility. The lack of proper terminology available to discuss race-based situations creates a semantic false dichotomy, which often results in an inability to discuss issues of racism in a way that is likely to have positive consequences, either for interpersonal relationships or for social and political change. Second, we argue that white fragility, with its semantic foundations, has serious consequences for (...) racial justice. It perpetuates the mass incarceration of black Americans, and undergirds the knowledge gap and subsequent wealth gap. The result of these racial injustices, which are maintained partially through white fragility, is that black Americans do not live in a democracy; they neither occupy positions of social and political power, nor have the ability to obtain power or directly impact who does obtain power. (shrink)

James Frederick Ferrier developed his philosophy from a common sense background. However, his rejection of common sense philosophy in particular and Enlightenment philosophy in general results in the development of a system of idealism. In his series of lectures ‘An Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness - Parts I to VII’, which appeared in Blackwoods Magazine (1838–39), he outlines the problem with modern philosophy and argues that philosophy should follow a new direction. In his view, the most peculiar and interesting (...) aspect of humanity is consciousness. He contends that the attempt to develop a ‘science of man’ is impossible because it transforms a person into an object of study and thereby fails to capture the most distinctive aspect of humanity, namely, consciousness. According to Ferrier, philosophy should be an extension of consciousness itself; it is: ‘consciousness sublimed’. This paper will outline the central arguments in ‘An Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness’ and show that an early example of British idealism was not only developed out of the common sense tradition but shares with common sense philosophy a focus on the immediate evidence of consciousness, placing the relationship between thought and world at the centre of philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In considering the hopeful rhetoric that pervades the “nothing but” psychopharmacological approaches to depression—a contemporary version of what William James calls medical materialism—this article argues that only a thorough-going pluralist account of hope is a hope worth wanting. Medical materialist hope is better conceptualized as a variation of optimism, which assumes a single universe that is already the best of all possible universes, and thereby only promotes optimization of the status quo, rather than encourage a wider undertaking of a (...) variety of experiments in living. A pluralist hope, as opposed to optimism, cannot logically infer what the future will bring from a reigning scientific model of the brain. Rather, a pluralist hope is a passionate belief that a not-yet unimagined, and therefore indeterminate, future will meliorate current human ills should humans strenuously work toward achieving it. (shrink)

The Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic is affecting many areas of life and has led to major changes in undergraduate medical education. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, high mental burden of medical students has frequently been reported in the literature. Additional pandemic-specific stressors could exacerbate this situation. This study aimed to assess mental health outcomes among medical students during the first semester after the COVID-19 outbreak and perception of the students on how the learning environment has changed. In May 2020, we (...) conducted a cross-sectional survey among undergraduate medical students at a large medical school in Germany. The survey included validated mental health instruments and self-developed items to examine the perception of the study situation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Open-ended questions were analyzed by conventional content analyses. The response rate was 59.2%. Overall, 61.9% of the students reported distress levels above the cutoff. Year 1 students reported significantly higher levels of distress, anxiety and depression than students during their second to fourth year of studies. 48.3% of the students indicated a decrease in their study motivation since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic with significant differences between study years. The binary logistic regression model showed that male gender, being in study year 2, higher distress scores and higher symptoms of depression were significantly associated with a higher likelihood for experiencing serious worries. In the open-ended questions on current concerns related to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their studies, students most frequently reported concerns about missing relevant practical learning experience, difficulties with self-regulated learning and self motivation as well as study-related worries. Year 4 students reported significantly more worries about the lack of practical training than students from study years 1 to 3. Analysis of gender differences showed that female students reported more frequently diverse worries. In contrast, female students shared more frequently helpful strategies in all the categories compared to male students. Our findings suggest that medical students experience significant levels of distress and mental burden during the COVID-19 pandemic and highlight the need for ongoing psychological and educational support for medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic and after. (shrink)

Economists often consult multiple models in order to combat model uncertainty in the face of misspecification. By examining modeling practices at the Bank of England, this paper identifies an important, but underappreciated modeling procedure. Sometimes an idealized model is manipulated to reproduce the results from another distinct auxiliary model, ones which it could not produce on its own. However, this procedure does not involve making the original model “more realistic,” insofar as this means adding in additional causal factors. This suggests (...) that there are ways to make models more representationally adequate that do not involve de-idealization in the straightforward sense. (shrink)

When considering the impact of stigmatization on society, we tend to think of one aspect of stigmatization while ignoring another. Drawing from historical and fictional cases, I argue that acts of stigmatization can be direct or indirect. Acts of direct stigmatization are acts taken by individuals or groups against an entity, while acts of indirect stigmatization are the specific acts taken by potential targets of stigmatization to prevent themselves from becoming victims of direct stigmatization. If we want a full understanding (...) of the impact that stigmatization has on society, then we need to consider the impact of both direct and indirect acts of stigmatization. (shrink)

Hagaman describes and analyzes a psychological and philosophical exercise exploring the ‘mind versus body’ issue through a series of illustrations submitted by elementary school students.

This essay brings Critical Whiteness Studies into liberationist Christian ethics in order to analyze white Protestant responses to the 1969 Black Manifesto, which demanded reparations from white churches. The essay's primary argument is that the absence of a sense of white moral agency among white Protestants manifested itself in behaviors and rhetoric that ensured whiteness went unacknowledged, which caused Protestant responses to the Manifesto to fail. A related argument is that white behavior and rhetoric were particularly dramatic because of the (...) call for reparations. Reparations assume that race is a material relationship in which there has been a perpetrator and a victim, rendering the acknowledgment of white agency unavoidable. This essay thus analyzes several ways in which whites can be seen turning away from white selves, turning a scrutinizing gaze instead to Black selves and, in the process, absenting white agency from the work of racial justice. (shrink)

One of six commentaries on “Obesity: Chasing an Elusive Epidemic,” by Daniel Callahan, from the January‐February 2013 issue.

Simone de Beauvoir's philosophical views arguably have more in common with those of Maurice Merleau‐Ponty than of any other philosopher and vice versa. And yet, resonances and dissonances between their oeuvres remain underexplored in the scholarly literature, especially in regard to the content of their respective ontologies. This chapter addresses this gap by developing an ontological interpretation of Beauvoir's concept of flesh as she employs it in The Second Sex. Following a metaphysical line of thinking from their early publications to (...) their later work, it is suggested that Beauvoir's ontological notion of flesh is markedly akin to the one proposed by Merleau‐Ponty in The Visible and the Invisible. (shrink)