Every day, thousands of polls, surveys, and rating scales are employed to elicit the attitudes of humankind. Given the ubiquitous use of these instruments, it seems we ought to have firm answers to what is measured by them, but unfortunately we do not. To help remedy this situation, we present a novel approach to investigate the nature of attitudes. We created a self-transforming paper survey of moral opinions, covering both foundational principles, and current dilemmas hotly debated in the media. This (...) survey used a magic trick to expose participants to a reversal of their previously stated attitudes, allowing us to record whether they were prepared to endorse and argue for the opposite view of what they had stated only moments ago. The result showed that the majority of the reversals remained undetected, and a full 69% of the participants failed to detect at least one of two changes. In addition, participants often constructed coherent and unequivocal arguments supporting the opposite of their original position. These results suggest a dramatic potential for flexibility in our moral attitudes, and indicates a clear role for self-attribution and post-hoc rationalization in attitude formation and change. (shrink)

Political candidates often believe they must focus their campaign efforts on a small number of swing voters open for ideological change. Based on the wisdom of opinion polls, this might seem like a good idea. But do most voters really hold their political attitudes so firmly that they are unreceptive to persuasion? We tested this premise during the most recent general election in Sweden, in which a left- and a right-wing coalition were locked in a close race. We asked our (...) participants to state their voter intention, and presented them with a political survey of wedge issues between the two coalitions. Using a sleight-of-hand we then altered their replies to place them in the opposite political camp, and invited them to reason about their attitudes on the manipulated issues. Finally, we summarized their survey score, and asked for their voter intention again. The results showed that no more than 22% of the manipulated replies were detected, and that a full 92% of the participants accepted and endorsed our altered political survey score. Furthermore, the final voter intention question indicated that as many as 48% (69.2%) were willing to consider a left-right coalition shift. This can be contrasted with the established polls tracking the Swedish election, which registered maximally 10% voters open for a swing. Our results indicate that political attitudes and partisan divisions can be far more flexible than what is assumed by the polls, and that people can reason about the factual issues of the campaign with considerable openness to change. (shrink)

The emergence of private authority has become a feature of the post-Cold War world. The contributors to this volume examine the implications of this erosion of the power of the state for global governance. They analyse actors as diverse as financial institutions, multinational corporations, religious terrorists and organised criminals. The themes of the book relate directly to debates concerning globalization and the role of international law, and will be of interest to scholars and students of international relations, politics, sociology and (...) law. (shrink)

This review provides a current perspective on the insertion of genes into plants. Some of the knowledge on the structure and control of plant genes gained recently from genetic engineering approaches is described, together with developments that can be expected to emerge from further exploitation of gene transfer techniques.

In this paper I defend the compossibility of presentism and time travel from two objections. One objection is that the presentist’s model of time leaves nowhere to travel to; the second objection attempts to equate presentist time travel with suicide. After targeting some misplaced scrutiny of the first objection, I show that presentists have the resources to account for the facts that make for time travel on the traditional Lewisian view. In light of this ability, I argue that both of (...) the objections fail. (shrink)

To what extent is the scientist's endeavor qua scientist influenced by his philosophic image of himself? A preliminary and partial answer to this question is suggested by a study of eight physiological thinkers of the second half of the eighteenth century, a period during which biology was much influenced by the scientific and philosophical ideas of Isaac Newton. At this time, physiologists invoked certain "principles," "properties," and "powers" which were deemed useful as explanatory devices, even though they could not themselves (...) be explained. The use of these devices in physiology was often defended in terms of their supposed similarity to devices used in mathematics and Newtonian physics. The results of this practice are considered critically, partly in the light of current studies of scientific explanation. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPrior research on attention bias in anxious youth, often utilising a visual dot probe task, has yielded inconsistent findings, which may be due to how bias is assessed and/or variability in the phenomenon. The present study utilises eye gaze tracking to assess attention bias in socially anxious adolescents, and explores several methodological and within-subject factors that may contribute to variability in attention bias. Attention bias to threat was measured in forty-two treatment-seeking adolescents diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder. Bias scores toward (...) emotional stimuli and bias scores away from emotional stimuli were explored. Bias scores changed between vigilance and avoidance within individuals and over the course of stimulus presentation. These differences were not associated with participant characteristics nor with self-reported social anxiety symptoms. However, clinician rated severity of social anxiety, explained a signific... (shrink)

This essay explicates a structural theory of the historical evolution of world-systems. Rather than using societies as the unit of analysis the authors use intersocietal interaction networks (world-systems). This enables them to take theoretical account of the systemic development processes that are regional and inter-regional in scope and to formulate a more powerful theory that explains how thousands of egalitarian small-scale world-systems evolved, expanded and merged to become the hierarchical and global world-system of today.

The ability to recognise others’ emotions from nonverbal cues is measured with performance-based tests and has many positive correlates. Although researchers have...

Delivering high quality genomics-informed care to patients requires accurate test results whose clinical implications are understood. While other actors, including state agencies, professional organizations, and clinicians, are involved, this article focuses on the extent to which the federal agencies that play the most prominent roles — the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services enforcing CLIA and the FDA — effectively ensure that these elements are met and concludes by suggesting possible ways to improve their oversight of genomic testing.

The collection presents a variety of promising new directions in Royce scholarship from an international group of scholars, including historical reinterpretations, explorations of Royce's ethics of loyalty and religious philosophy, and contemporary applications of his ideas in psychology, the problem of reference, neo-pragmatism, and literary aesthetics.

In the second edition of this groundbreaking text in non-Western philosophy, sixteen experts introduce some of the great philosophical traditions in the world. The essays unveil exciting, sophisticated philosophical traditions that are too often neglected in the western world. The contributors include the leading scholars in their fields, but they write for students coming to these concepts for the first time. Building on revisions and updates to the original, this new edition also considers three philosophical traditions for the first time—Jewish, (...) Buddhist, and South Pacific philosophy. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAlthough attention bias toward threat has been associated with Social Anxiety Disorder, concerns regarding the ability of current measures to detect change in AB following treatm...

The Danish scholar Jan Pinborg made outstanding contributions to our understanding of medieval language study. The papers in this volume clearly demonstrate the wealth of Pinborg's scholarly interests and the extent of his influence.Though centered on medieval theories of grammar and language, the collection ranges in time from the fourth century B.C. to the seventeenth century A.D.; theories of the pronoun, of mental language, of supposition, of figurative expressions and of mereology are among the topics discussed; and the papers deal (...) with both humble anonymous teachers of grammar and with such well-known men as Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Peter of Spain, Roger Bacon, Robert Kilwardby, Thomas Aquinas, Dante, William of Ockham, Domingo de Soto, and Suárez. The papers are in English, German, or French. (shrink)

This paper applies a hybrid Heideggerian-ethnomethodological approach to physiotherapy practice. Unlike previous studies written by and for practitioners, this paper uses my personal experience receiving physical therapy as its point of departure. By combining Heidegger’s [Being and time (trans: Stambaugh J). State University of New York Press, New York 1996] notion of the ‘ontological difference’ with Garfinkel’s (Studies in ethnomethodology, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs 1967) concept of ‘accountability,’ I argue that in physical therapy practice, both client and practitioner actively shape (...) the body into a coherent object for medical intervention. I begin by introducing three key phenomenological concepts, the life-world, the ontological difference, and Heidegger’s critique of subjectivity. I then empirically substantiate these concepts by reviewing classic and recent studies in ethnomethodology. I conclude with my own experience of physical therapy, and demonstrate how both client and practitioner actively constitute the body as a medical and therapeutic object. This is cause for both disability studies and physiotherapy to reconsider some of their core concepts, ‘medicalization’ and ‘client-specific measurement,’ respectively. (shrink)