Due to the prevalence, severity, and costs associated with autism spectrum disorders, it has become a public health issue. In response, state governments have adopted ASD-specific private insurance mandates requiring coverage of ASD screening, diagnosis, and treatment. Despite rapid uptake of these laws, differences exist in the type and levels of coverage, especially for allied health services including occupational therapy. We piloted a structured legal research methodology to code ASD insurance mandates that impact allied health service provisions. State private insurance (...) mandates were obtained from WestlawNext. A coding methodology was piloted on 14 states and included variables for age and service limits, treatments covered, and medical necessity. Coding methods were feasible and highly reliable among raters. Ten of 12 states had a coverage mandate, many with specific provisions for allied health providers. A full analysis of all 50 states is warranted to identify provisions affecting allied health providers serving individuals with ASD. (shrink)

For much of their history, the relationship between anthropology and psychology has been well captured by Robert Frost's poem, “Mending Wall,” which ends with the ironic line, “good fences make good neighbors.” The congenial fence was that anthropology studied what people think and psychology studied how people think. Recent research, however, shows that content and process cannot be neatly segregated, because cultural differences in what people think affect how people think. To achieve a deeper understanding of the relation between process (...) and content, research must integrate the methodological insights from both anthropology and psychology. We review previous research and describe new studies in the domain of folk biology which examine the cognitive consequences of different conceptualizations of nature and the place of humans within it. The focus is on cultural differences in framework theories among Native Americans and European American children and adults living in close proximity in rural Wisconsin. Our results show that epistemological orientations affect memory organization, ecological reasoning, and the perceived role of humans in nature. This research also demonstrates that cultural differences in framework theories have implications for understanding intergroup conflict over natural resources and are relevant to efforts to improve science learning, especially among Native American children. (shrink)

In this chapter, we introduce the notion of “moral neuroenhancement,” offering a novel definition as well as spelling out three conditions under which we expect that such neuroenhancement would be most likely to be permissible (or even desirable). Furthermore, we draw a distinction between first-order moral capacities, which we suggest are less promising targets for neurointervention, and second-order moral capacities, which we suggest are more promising. We conclude by discussing concerns that moral neuroenhancement might restrict freedom or otherwise “misfire,” and (...) argue that these concerns are not as damning as they may seem at first. (shrink)

Analysis and case studies show that including different orientations toward the natural world makes for more effective scientific practice and science education.

The underdetermination thesis poses a threat to rational choice of scientific theories. We discuss two arguments for the thesis. One draws its strength from deductivism together with the existence thesis, and the other is defended on the basis of the failure of a reliable inductive method. We adopt a partially subjective/objective pragmatic Bayesian epistemology of science framework, and reject both arguments for the thesis. Thus, in science we are able to reinstate rational choice called into question by the underdetermination thesis.

The paper examines constraints and preferences employed by people in learning decision rules from preclassified examples. Results from four experiments with human subjects were analyzed and compared with artificial intelligence (AI) inductive learning programs. The results showed the people's rule inductions tended to emphasize category validity (probability of some property, given a category) more than cue validity (probability that an entity is a member of a category given that it has some property) to a greater extent than did the AI (...) programs. Although the relative proportions of different rule types (e.g., conjunctive vs. disjunctive) changed across experiments, a single process model provided a good account of the data from each study. These observations are used to argue for describing constraints in terms of processes embodied in models rather than in terms of products or outputs. Thus AI induction programs become candidate psychological process models and results from inductive learning experiments can suggest new algorithms. More generally, the results show that human inductive generalizations tend toward greater specificity than would be expected if conceptual simplicity were the key constraint on inductions. This bias toward specificity may be due to the fact that this criterion both maximizes inferences that may be drawn from category membership and protects rule induction systems from developing over‐generalizations. (shrink)

Ample research demonstrates that parents’ experience-based mental representations of attachment—cognitive models of close relationships—relate to their children’s social-emotional development. However, no research to date has examined how parents’ attachment representations relate to another crucial domain of children’s development: brain development. The present study is the first to integrate the separate literatures on attachment and developmental social cognitive neuroscience to examine the link between mothers’ attachment representations and 3- to 8-year-old children’s brain structure. We hypothesized that mothers’ attachment representations would relate (...) to individual differences in children’s brain structures involved in stress regulation—specifically, amygdala and hippocampal volumes—in part via mothers’ responses to children’s distress. We assessed 52 mothers’ attachment representations and children’s brain structure. Mothers’ secure base script knowledge was significantly related to children’s smaller left amygdala volume but was unrelated to hippocampal volume; we found no indirect links via maternal responses to children’s distress. Exploratory analyses showed associations between mothers’ attachment representations and white matter and thalamus volumes. Together, these preliminary results suggest that mothers’ attachment representations may be linked to the development of children’s neural circuitry related to stress regulation. (shrink)

AbstractOrganizations receive multiple benefits when their members act ethically. Of interest in this study is if the actors receive benefits as well, especially as individuals look to work to fulfill psychological and social needs in addition to economic ones. Specifically, we highlight a series of ongoing ethical practices embodied in professional moral courage and their relationship to actor’s work meaningfulness and life well-being. Drawing on self-determination theory and affective events theory, we explore how exercising professional moral courage in one’s work (...) leads to positive work and life outcomes. Data from 106 administrative staff of non-profit organizations demonstrates the positive benefits of adopting ethical practices at work. Specifically, professional moral courage is found to be significantly related to both work meaningfulness and individual eudaimonic life well-being. Our findings note positive benefits for individuals who incorporate professional moral courage into their daily lives and provide support for organizations seeking to encourage it from their employees; benefits for organizations and employees go beyond just the gains from ethical behavior into other positive psychological processes. Implications for future work that considers both the psychological and normative approaches to meaningful work are discussed. (shrink)

Given the prevalence of social media, a nascent but important area of research is the effect of social media posting on one’s own self. It is possible that an individual’s social media posts may have predictive capacity, especially in relation to health behavior. Researchers have long used concepts from the theory of reasoned action to predict health behaviors. The theory does not account for social media, which may influence or predict health behaviors. The purpose of this study was to test (...) a model including Facebook alcohol displays and constructs from the theory of reasoned action to predict binge drinking. Incoming college freshmen from two schools (312 participants between 18 and 19 years old) were interviewed prior to (T1) and 1 year into college (T2), and their Facebook profiles were evaluated for displayed alcohol content. Path modeling was used to evaluate direct and indirect paths predicting binge drinking. Path analysis suggested that Facebook alcohol displays at T1 directly predict binge drinking at T2, while alcohol attitude both directly and indirectly predicts binge drinking. Based on these results, a preliminary model of social media presentation and action is discussed. (shrink)

There is considerable disagreement about the epistemic value of novel predictive success, i.e. when a scientist predicts an unexpected phenomenon, experiments are conducted, and the prediction proves to be accurate. We survey the field on this question, noting both fully articulated views such as weak and strong predictivism, and more nascent views, such as pluralist reasons for the instrumental value of prediction. By examining the various reasons offered for the value of prediction across a range of inferential contexts , we (...) can see that neither weak nor strong predictivism captures all of the reasons for valuing prediction available. A third path is presented, Pluralist Instrumental Predictivism; PIP for short. (shrink)

Alcohol displays on Facebook are ever present and can be socially desirable for college students. Because problematic drinking is a concern for college students, this research sought to understand how different types of information on a Facebook page influence first year college student likelihood to drink. Telephone interviews were conducted with 338 incoming college freshmen from two large national universities. Data were obtained from a vignette prompt that presented a scenario in which a senior college student’s Facebook profile displayed wall (...) posts, pictures, and status updates that were drinking related or prosocial in nature. Participants were asked to report intention to drink alcohol with that student if they were together at a party. Findings supported the following hypotheses: Wall posts were most influential (the stickiest), followed by pictures, followed by status updates. Findings provide additional empirical support for established online impression formation patterns, and also provide evidence that virtual cues are being ingrained as schemas in interpersonal communication. These results are discussed in relation to the concept of sticky cues in impression formation. (shrink)

Ethics courses are most commonly evaluated using reaction measures. However, little is known about the specific types of reaction data being collected and how these reaction data relate to improvements in trainee performance. Using a sample of 381 ethics training sessions, major reaction data categories were identified. Content and course satisfaction were the most frequently collected types of reaction criteria. Furthermore, content relevance and course satisfaction showed strong, positive relationships with performance criteria, whereas content satisfaction demonstrated a moderate, negative relationship. (...) These results and future directions for ethics training evaluation are discussed. (shrink)

In Bester’s article (2018) challenging the use of the harm principle and advocating sole reliance on the use of a best interest standard (BIS) in pediatric decision-making, we believe that the auth...

Tool use research has suffered from a lack of consistent theoretical frameworks. There is a plethora of tool use definitions and the most widespread ones are so inclusive that the behaviors that fall under them arguably do not have much in common. The situation is aggravated by the prevalence of anecdotes, which have played an undue role in the literature. In order to provide a more rigorous foundation for research and to advance our understanding of the interrelation between tool use (...) and cognition, we suggest the adoption of Fragaszy and Mangalam's (2018) tooling framework, which is characterized by the creation of a body-plus-object system that manages a mechanical interface between tool and surface. Tooling is limited to a narrower suite of behaviors than tool use, which might facilitate its neurocognitive investigation. Indeed, evidence in the literature indicates that tooling has distinct neurocognitive underpinnings not shared by other activities typically classified as tool use, at least in primates. In order to understand the extent of tooling incidences in previous research, we systematically surveyed the comprehensive tool use catalog by Shumaker et al. (2011). We identified 201 tool use submodes, of which only 81 could be classified as tooling, and the majority of the tool use examples across species were poorly supported by evidence. Furthermore, tooling appears to be phylogenetically less widespread than tool use, with the greatest variability found in the primate order. However, in order to confirm these findings and to understand the evolution and neurocognitive mechanisms of tooling, more systematic research will be required in the future, particularly with currently underrepresented taxa. (shrink)

Proximate selfish goals reflect the machinations of more fundamental goals such as self-protection and reproduction. Evolutionary life history theory allows us to make predictions about which goals are prioritized over others, which stimuli release which goals, and how the stages of cognitive processing are selectively influenced to better achieve the aims of those goals.

We assert that audit quality can be improved to the extent that social norms for honesty and responsibility are activated in the auditor. To test this assertion, we use an experimental audit market setting found in the literature and manipulate factors expected to activate honesty and responsibility norms in the auditor. We find that auditor misreporting is reduced when the investor is another participant in the experiment rather than computer simulated, and thus, the interests of third-party investors are salient to (...) the auditor. We also find that auditor misreporting is reduced when the auditor is required to sign-off on the audit report, but only when the investor is another participant in the experiment. Consistent with our underlying theory, we find that pre-experimental measures of sensitivity to honesty and responsibility norms help explain the effects of our manipulated variables. Finally, we find that these measures of social norm sensitivity are associated with the moral judgment that auditor misreporting is unethical. Our study helps explain previous anomalous findings in the literature and answers the call in Blay et al. (J Bus Ethics 2017. doi:10.1007/s10551-016-3286-4) for empirical researchers to use social norm theory to develop stronger tests of moral reasoning in the market for auditing services. (shrink)

Traditional whistleblowing theories have purported that whistleblowers engage in a rational process in determining whether or not to blow the whistle on misconduct. However, stressors inherent to whistleblowing often impede rational thinking and act as a barrier to effective whistleblowing. The negative impact of these stressors on whistleblowing may be made worse depending on who engages in the misconduct: a peer or advisor. In the present study, participants are presented with an ethical scenario where either a peer or advisor engages (...) in misconduct, and positive and the negative consequences of whistleblowing are either directed to the wrongdoer, department, or university. Participant responses to case questions were evaluated for whistleblowing intentions, moral intensity, metacognitive reasoning strategies, and positive and negative, active and passive emotions. Findings indicate that participants were less likely to report the observed misconduct of an advisor compared to a peer. Furthermore, the findings also suggest that when an advisor is the source of misconduct, greater negative affect results. Post-hoc analyses were also conducted examining the differences between those who did and did not intend to blow the whistle under the circumstances of either having to report an advisor or peer. The implications of these findings for understanding the complexities involved in whistleblowing are discussed. (shrink)

Understanding Everyday Life All of sociology necessarily begins with the understanding of everyday life, and all of sociology is directed either to ...

Yarkoni's paper makes an important contribution to psychological research by its insightful analysis of generalizability. We suggest, however, that broadening research practices to include field research and the correlated use of both converging and complementary observations gives reason for optimism.

The effectiveness of information retrieval technology in electronic discovery (E-discovery) has become the subject of judicial rulings and practitioner controversy. The scale and nature of E-discovery tasks, however, has pushed traditional information retrieval evaluation approaches to their limits. This paper reviews the legal and operational context of E-discovery and the approaches to evaluating search technology that have evolved in the research community. It then describes a multi-year effort carried out as part of the Text Retrieval Conference to develop evaluation methods (...) for responsive review tasks in E-discovery. This work has led to new approaches to measuring effectiveness in both batch and interactive frameworks, large data sets, and some surprising results for the recall and precision of Boolean and statistical information retrieval methods. The paper concludes by offering some thoughts about future research in both the legal and technical communities toward the goal of reliable, effective use of information retrieval in E-discovery. (shrink)

This collection of ten original essays was first published in 1977. It engages the 'crisis in sociology' at the most fundamental level of thought and experience. Existential sociology is defined as the study and understanding of all forms of human existence. Without seeking to erect a pristine philosophical sanctuary of its own, Existential Sociology examines and criticizes the underlying philosophical assumptions of previous theories of social science, while elaborating its own approach to human understanding. The contributors are concerned with constructing (...) practical as well as theoretical truths about social life - how we feel, think and act. In contrast to most other sociologies, the emphasis is on the independence and dominance of human feelings over the evaluative and cognitive features of social actions. Students and teachers of sociology and people in related fields interested in the connection between social science and their own subjects will find Existential Sociology useful and absorbing. (shrink)

This study employs the uses and gratification approach to investigate how different forms of Facebook use are linked to bridging social capital and bonding social capital. A survey of 152 college students was conducted to address research questions and to test hypotheses. Factor analysis identified six unique uses and gratifications: (a) information seeking, (b) entertainment, (c) communication, (d) social relations, (e) escape, and (f) Facebook applications. Findings reveal that intensity of Facebook use and the use of Facebook for social relations (...) are positive predictors of bridging social capital, whereas the use of Facebook for escape is negatively linked to bonding social capital. (shrink)

Many recent studies of norm emergence employ the "prisoner's dilemma" (PD) paradigm, which focuses on the free-rider problem that can block the cooperation required for the emergence of social norms. This paper proposes an expansion of the PD paradigm to include a closely related game termed the "altruist's dilemma" (AD). Whereas egoistic behavior in the PD leads to collectively irrational outcomes, the opposite is the case in the AD: altruistic behavior (e.g., following the Golden Rule) leads to collectively irrational outcomes, (...) whereas egoistic behavior leads to Pareto-optimal outcomes. The analysis shows that PDs can be converted into ADs either by increasing cooperation costs or by diminishing marginal gains from cooperation; therefore ADs are as empirically abundant as PDs. In addition, the analysis shows that altruists are not the only type of actors who fall prey to the AD; egoists can fall into this trap as well if they possess a capacity for interpersonal control. Where group solidarity is defined analytically in terms of the extent of cooperation in both PDs and ADs, this paper presents a model based on rational choice to account for variations in solidarity. According to the proposed analysis, levels of group solidarity depend on the balance in the group between compliant control, which increases cooperation, and oppositional control, which reduces it. That balance, in turn, depends on the allocation of power within the group. (shrink)

The nineteenth century was a turbulent period in the history of the philosophical scrutiny of religion - this volume is an authoritative guide for all who are interested in the debates that took place in this seminal period.

The moral importance of the ‘intention–foresight’ distinction has long been a matter of philosophical controversy, particularly in the context of end-of-life care. Previous empirical research in Australia has suggested that general physicians and surgeons may use analgesic or sedative infusions with ambiguous intentions, their actions sometimes approximating ‘slow euthanasia’. In this paper, we report findings from a qualitative study of 18 Australian palliative care medical specialists, using in-depth interviews to address the use of sedation at the end of life. The (...) majority of subjects were agnostic or atheistic. In contrast to their colleagues in acute medical practice, these Australian palliative care specialists were almost unanimously committed to distinguishing their actions from euthanasia. This commitment appeared to arise principally from the need to maintain a clear professional role, and not obviously from an ideological opposition to euthanasia. While some respondents acknowledged that there are difficult cases that require considered reflection upon one's intention, and where there may be some ‘mental gymnastics,’ the nearly unanimous view was that it is important, even in these difficult cases, to cultivate an intention that focuses exclusively on the relief of symptoms. We present four narratives of ‘terminal’ sedation – cases where sedation was administered in significant doses just before death, and may well have hastened death. Considerable ambiguities of intention were evident in some instances, but the discussion around these clearly exceptional cases illustrates the importance of intention to palliative care specialists in maintaining their professional roles. (shrink)

This is the first article in a two-part series describing subject and family perspectives from the central thalamic deep brain stimulation for the treatment of traumatic brain injury using the Medtronic PC + S first-in-human invasive neurological device trial to achieve cognitive restoration in moderate to severe traumatic brain injury, with subjects who were deemed capable of providing voluntary informed consent. In this article, we report on interviews conducted prior to surgery wherein we asked participants about their experiences recovering from (...) brain injury and their perspectives on study enrollment and participation. We asked how risks and benefits were weighed, what their expectations and fears were, and how decisions were reached about trial participation. We found that informed consent and enrollment decisions are fraught. Subjects and families were often split, with subjects more focused on putative benefits and families concerned about incremental risk. Both subjects and families viewed brain injury as disruptive to personal identity and relationships. As decisions were made about study enrollment, families struggled with recognizing the re-emergent agency of subjects and ceding decision-making authority to subjects who had previously been dependent upon them for protection and guidance. Subjects and family members reported a hope for the relief of cognitive disabilities, improved quality of life, normalization of interpersonal interactions, and a return to work or school as reasons for study participation, along with altruism and a desire to advance science. Despite these aspirations, both subjects and families appreciated the risks of the intervention and did not suffer from a therapeutic misconception. A second essay to be published in the next issue of Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics—Clinical Neuroethics will describe interviews conducted after surgery, the effects of cognitive restoration for subjects, families, and challenges presented to the social structures they will call upon to support them through recovery. This subsequent article will be available online prior to its formal publication in October 2023. (shrink)