Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the psychometric properties and factorial structure of the Schema Mode Inventory for Eating Disorders (SMI-ED) in a disordered eating population. Method: 573 participants with disordered eating patterns as measured by the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) completed the 190-item adapted version of the Schema Mode Inventory (SMI). The new SMI-ED was developed by clinicians/researchers specializing in the treatment of eating disorders, through combining items from the original SMI with a set of (...) additional questions specifically representative of the eating disorder population. Psychometric testing included Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and internal consistency (Cronbach’s α). Multivariate Analyses of Covariance (MANCOVA) was also run to test statistical differences between the EDE-Q subscales on the SMI-ED modes, while controlling for possible confounding variables. Results: Factorial analysis confirmed an acceptable sixteen-related-factors solution for the SMI-ED, thus providing preliminary evidence for the adequate validity of the new measure based on internal structure. Concurrent validity was also established through moderate to high correlations on the modes most relevant to eating disorders with EDE-Q subscales. This study represents the first step in creating a psychometrically sound instrument for measuring schema modes in eating disorders, and provides greater insight into the relevant schema modes within this population. Conclusion: This research represents an important preliminary step toward understanding and labeling the schema mode model for this clinical group. Findings from the psychometric evaluation of SMI-ED suggest that this is a useful tool which may further assist in the measurement and conceptualization of schema modes in this population. (shrink)

This paper studies the effects of social comparison on risk taking behavior. In our theoretical framework, decision makers evaluate the consequences of their choices relative to both their own and their peers’ conditions. We test experimentally whether the position in the social ranking affects risk attitudes. Subjects interact in a simulated workplace environment where they perform a work task, receive possibly different wages, and then undertake a risky decision that may produce an extra gain. We find that social comparison matters (...) for risk attitudes. Subjects are more risk averse in the presence of small social gain than social loss. In addition, risk aversion is decreasing in the size of the social gain. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

Bazzocchi disposes the text of the Tractatus in a user-friendly manner, exactly as Wittgenstein's decimals advise. This discloses the logical form of the book by distinct reading units, linked into a fashioned hierarchical tree. The text becomes much clearer and every reader can enjoy, finally, its formal and literary qualities.

This paper investigates continuities and changes in the definition of sickle cell disease in 1950s Brazil, taking into account that diseases have a history and are recognized as such according to the knowledge and perceptions available in a certain historical period and specific location. In the post-war era, new diagnostic tools, inheritance theories and, in particular, discussions on the concepts of race and racial relations, both nationally and internationally, were changing previous racialist and racist views. Nonetheless, the Brazilian medical interpretations (...) of sickle cell disease continued to racialize it and even use deep-rooted racist formulations to explain its symptoms or the existence of the disease. It is argued that the celebration of racial mixture and racial democracy might have concealed racist presumptions biasing the study of sickle cell disease. Although race as a biological concept gradually gave way to other genetic expressions, in Brazilian medical papers on sickle cell disease, race continued to influence the interpretation of the disease, along with the persistence of concepts of heredity through blood mixture. (shrink)

This paper investigates continuities and changes in the definition of sickle cell disease in 1950s Brazil, taking into account that diseases have a history and are recognized as such according to the knowledge and perceptions available in a certain historical period and specific location. In the post-war era, new diagnostic tools, inheritance theories and, in particular, discussions on the concepts of race and racial relations, both nationally and internationally, were changing previous racialist and racist views. Nonetheless, the Brazilian medical interpretations (...) of sickle cell disease continued to racialize it and even use deep-rooted racist formulations to explain its symptoms or the existence of the disease. It is argued that the celebration of racial mixture and racial democracy might have concealed racist presumptions biasing the study of sickle cell disease. Although race as a biological concept gradually gave way to other genetic expressions, in Brazilian medical papers on sickle cell disease, race continued to influence the interpretation of the disease, along with the persistence of concepts of heredity through blood mixture. (shrink)