The Strange Situation procedure was developed by Ainsworth two decades agoas a means of assessing the security of infant-parent attachment. Users of the procedureclaim that it provides a way of determining whether the infant has developed species-appropriate adaptive behavior as a result of rearing in an evolutionary appropriate context, characterized by a sensitively responsive parent. Only when the parent behaves in the sensitive, species-appropriate fashion is the baby said to behave in the adaptive or secure fashion. Furthermore, when infants are (...) observed repeatedly in the Strange Situation,the pattern of behavior is said to be highly similar, and this pattern is said to predict the infants' future behavior in a diverse array of contexts. After an exhaustive review of the literature, it is shown that these popular claims are empirically unsupported in their strong form, and that the interpretations in terms of biological adaptationare misguided. There is little reliable evidence about the specific dimensions of parental behavior that affect Strange Situation behavior, although there does appear to be some relationship between these constructs. Temporal stability in security of attachment ishigh only when there is stability in family and caretaking circumstances. Likewise, patterns of Strange Situation behavior only have substantial predictive validity in similarly stable families. Implications for future research and theorizing — particularly as they relate to the use of evolutionary biology in psychological theory — are discussed. (shrink)

Systems theory holds that emotional responses derive from the continuous, mutual interaction between multiple neurobiological and behavioral systems associated with emotion as they are contextually embedded. Developmental systems theory portrays these systems as becoming progressively integrated as they mature. From this perspective, regulatory processes are incorporated into emotion throughout the course of emotional development. This article examines the implications of developmental systems theory in understanding the association between emotion and emotion regulation, enlisting the functionalist orientation of contemporary emotions theory, a (...) broad portrayal of emotion regulatory influences, and attention to the role of context in the management of emotion. (shrink)

Carroll Izard’s theoretical and research contributions to the study of early socioemotional development are profiled. His studies of early emotional expression and the formulations of differential emotions theory have stimulated contemporary inquiry into the organization of early emotional life, the developmental processes by which distinct feelings and facial expressions become progressively concordant, and how the emotional expressions of others become imbued with emotion meaning. His work on emotion, attachment, and emotion–cognition relations has contributed to contemporary study of the emotional bases (...) of attachment organization and the development of the internal working models associated with attachment security. Because of Izard’s contributions, developmental emotions research is theoretically richer, and emotion has a more central place in our understanding of development and motivation. (shrink)

Tomasello's moral psychology of obligation would be developmentally deepened by greater attention to early experiences of cooperation and shared social agency between parents and infants, evolved to promote infant survival. They provide a foundation for developing understanding of the mutual obligations of close relationships that contribute to growing collaborative skills, fairness expectations, and fidelity to social norms.

Relational experiences shape emergent social understanding, and two influences deserve particular attention. First, parent-child conversation about shared experiences incorporates both implicit and explicit information about mental states that catalyzes the social construction of understanding, especially in juxtaposition with the child's direct experience. Second, emotion infuses the contexts and cognitions about social experiences that provoke the child's constructivist efforts.

The idea of an ideological war between science and religion, Thompson argues, is founded on a mistake. But this does not mean that there is nothing at stake. For behind the ill-conceived conflict lie complex issues about the nature of mind, consciousness, experience, subjectivity, quality, value, and the like, all of which need to be disentangled and assessed in their own right. Outgrowing Materialism leads the reader through a sequence of five “Worlds,” each of which offers a distinct way (...) of understanding (or failing to understand) these issues, and where God might belong (or not). Writing accessibly, but with a sharp eye for detail, Thompson sheds new light on the familiar territory of materialism, dualism, and structural realism, and evaluates the growing attraction of the multiverse. He argues that dualism mechanized the material world; then materialism exorcised the mental “ghost” from the machine; and finally, this machine is evaporating into pure mathematics. Outgrowing Materialism is half of Ten Ways to Weave the World: Matter, Mind, and God. The sequel, Embodying Mind, discusses five “Worlds” that precede and follow those discussed here. However, Outgrowing Materialism stands in its own right as a critique of the modern science v. religion dilemma. (shrink)

The essays in this collection step back to ask: Do the complex components of Dennett's work on intentionality, consciousness, evolution, and ethics themselves ...

An assessment of Dennett's philosophy by various philosophers. Includes Dennett's responses.

What kind of knowledge is medical knowledge? Can medicine be explained scientifically? Is disease a scientific concept, or do explanations of disease depend on values? What is ‘evidence-based’ medicine? Are advances in neuroscience bringing us closer to a scientific understanding of the mind? The nature of medicine raises fundamental questions about explanation, causation, knowledge and ontology – questions that are central to philosophy as well as medicine. In this book Paul R. Thompson and Ross E. G. Upshur introduce (...) the fundamental issues in philosophy of medicine for those coming to the subject for the first time. They introduce and explain the following key topics: Understanding the physician-patient relationship: the phenomenology of the medical encounter. Models and theories in biology and medicine: what role do theories play in medicine? Are they similar to scientific theories? Randomised controlled trials: can scientific experiments be replicated in clinical medicine? What are the philosophical criticisms levelled at RCTs? The concept of evidence in medical research: what do we mean by ‘Evidence-based medicine?’ Should all medicine be based on evidence? Causation in medicine What do advances in neuroscience reveal about the relationship between mind and body? Defining health and disease: are explanations of disease objective or do they depend on values? Evolutionary medicine: what is the role of evolutionary biology in understanding medicine? Is it relevant? Extensive use of empirical examples and case studies is made throughout the book. These include debates about smoking and cancer, the use of placebos in randomised controlled trials and controversies about research into the causes of HIV and autism. This is an indispendable introduction to those teaching philosophy of medicine and philosophy of science. (shrink)

The thought of G. W. F. Hegel has had a deep and lasting influence on a wide range of philosophical, political, religious, aesthetic, cultural and scientific movements. But, despite the far-reaching importance of Hegel's thought, there is often a great deal of confusion about what he actually said or believed. This is an invaluable introduction for philosophical beginners and a useful reference source for more advanced scholars and researchers.

Background Planning for the next pandemic influenza outbreak is underway in hospitals across the world. The global SARS experience has taught us that ethical frameworks to guide decision-making may help to reduce collateral damage and increase trust and solidarity within and between health care organisations. Good pandemic planning requires reflection on values because science alone cannot tell us how to prepare for a public health crisis. Discussion In this paper, we present an ethical framework for pandemic influenza planning. The ethical (...) framework was developed with expertise from clinical, organisational and public health ethics and validated through a stakeholder engagement process. The ethical framework includes both substantive and procedural elements for ethical pandemic influenza planning. The incorporation of ethics into pandemic planning can be helped by senior hospital administrators sponsoring its use, by having stakeholders vet the framework, and by designing or identifying decision review processes. We discuss the merits and limits of an applied ethical framework for hospital decision-making, as well as the robustness of the framework. Summary The need for reflection on the ethical issues raised by the spectre of a pandemic influenza outbreak is great. Our efforts to address the normative aspects of pandemic planning in hospitals have generated interest from other hospitals and from the governmental sector. The framework will require re-evaluation and refinement and we hope that this paper will generate feedback on how to make it even more robust. (shrink)

Background: Concern has been growing in the academic literature and popular media about the licensing, introduction and adoption of surgical devices before full effectiveness and safety evidence is available to inform clinical practice. Our research will seek empirical survey evidence about the roles, responsibilities, and information and policy needs of the key stakeholders in the introduction into clinical practice of new surgical devices for pelvic floor surgery, in terms of the underlying ethical principals involved in the economic decision-making process, using (...) the example of pelvic floor procedures.Methods/DesignOur study involves three linked case studies using, as examples, selected pelvic floor surgery devices representing Health Canada device safety risk classes: low, medium and high risk. Data collection will focus on stakeholder roles and responsibilities, information and policy needs, and perceptions of those of other key stakeholders, in seeking and using evidence about new surgical devices when licensing and adopting them into practice. For each class of device, interviews will be used to seek the opinions of stakeholders. The following stakeholders and ethical and economic principles provide the theoretical framework for the study:Stakeholders - federal regulatory body, device manufacturers, clinicians, patients, health care institutions, provincial health departments, and professional societies. Clinical settings in two centres (in different provinces) will be included.Ethics - beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, justice.Economics - scarcity of resources, choices, opportunity costs.For each class of device, responses will be analysed to compare and contrast between stakeholders. Applied ethics and economic theory, analysis and critical interpretation will be used to further illuminate the case study material.DiscussionThe significance of our research in this new area of ethics will lie in providing recommendations for regulatory bodies, device manufacturers, clinicians, health care institutions, policy makers and professional societies, to ensure surgical patients receive sufficient information before providing consent for pelvic floor surgery. In addition, we shall provide a wealth of information for future study in other areas of surgery and clinical management, and provide suggestions for changes to health policy. (shrink)

This special issue is devoted to highlighting thinkers who have been overlooked within business ethics and who have important contributions to make to our field. We make the case that, as scholars of a hybrid discipline that also aims to address important issues of business practice, we need to look continually for new sources of insight and wisdom that can both enrich our discourse and improve our ability to generate ideas that have a positive impact on business practice. In this (...) introductory essay, we discuss our rationale for creating this special issue, summarize the articles contained within, and close with thoughts on its significance for the field going forward. (shrink)

I examine the metaphysical issue of the nature of color. I argue that there are two distinct ranges of colors, namely, physical colors, which are disjunctive monadic physical properties of physical objects, and mental colors, which are properties of neural processes. ;A pair of claims provide the motivation for subjectivist and dispositionalist proposals about the nature of color, proposals which I reject. The first claim holds that a description of colors according to our ordinary experience of color provides a specification (...) of some aspects of the nature of color. The second holds that our ordinary experience of color provides access to the nature of color. ;In chapter 1, I argue that visual experiences have mental colors, neural properties which importantly determine our color categories. However, I reject C. L. Hardin's and James A. McGilvray's arguments for the subjectivist claim that the colors we attribute to physical objects are mental colors. ;In chapter 2, I show that Paul A. Boghossian and J. David Velleman's arguments in support of subjectivism rely on the assumption that visual experience provides unqualified access to the nature of color. I argue, however, that objections to their projectivism about color perception provide strong reasons to reject subjectivism as well as their assumption that visual experience provides unqualified access to the nature of color. ;In chapters 3 and 4, I examine Mark Johnston's and Christopher Peacocke's dispositionalist proposals about the nature of physical colors, which are founded on the claim that ordinary visual experience provides access to an aspect of the nature of color. I undercut dispositionalism by rejecting their arguments for the claim that ordinary visual experience provides such access. ;In chapter 5, I show that Evan Thompson's proposal that the colors of objects are relations between properties of perceivers and objects assumes that a description of color according to our ordinary experience specifies some aspects of the nature of color. I reject this assumption by distinguishing between mental color and physical color. I conclude that rather than specifying the nature of color, descriptions of colors according to our ordinary experience merely serve to fix the reference of color terms. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has drawn attention to John Rawls’s concern with stability—a concern that, as Rawls himself notes, motivated Part III of A Theory of Justice and some of the more important changes of his political turn. For Rawls, the possibility of achieving ‘stability for the right reasons’ depends on citizens possessing sufficient moral motivation. I argue, however, that the moral psychology Rawls develops to show how such motivation would be cultivated and sustained does not cohere with his specific descriptions of (...) ‘pluralist ’ doctrines. Considering Rawls’s claims that ‘most’ citizens—both in contemporary liberal democracies and in the well-ordered society—possess such doctrines, this incompatibility threatens to undermine his stability arguments. Despite the enormous importance of pluralist doctrines and the potential difficulties they pose for Rawls’s project, remarkably little attention has been paid to them. By critically examining these difficulties, the article begins to address this oversight. (shrink)

The spread of free-market doctrine across the globe is a discouraging sign for the col lective well-being of humanity. Central to the problems posed by modern economy is its inability to rise above the simplistic assumptions of the Enlightenment and its idealistic purification of rationality. The following paper discusses the limitations of modem economy and its unfortunate tendency to ignore and destroy the immaterial values that cannot be contained within its own nar row measures of human well-being. Any adequate reduction (...) in its potential for ulti mate harm will require nothing less than a radical reconsideration of the dispirited and limited western worldview from which it emanated. (shrink)

Human suffering is a complex phenomenon that can manifest physically or psychologically. As the negative valence of affective phenomena, with the positive being pleasure or happiness, human suffering could easily be interpreted as something to avoid. Sartre explored existential aspects of human suffering in Being and Nothingness. Examining each occurrence of the word suffering in that work provides a basis for understanding the roles Sartre assigned to it within the human experience and consequently provides a more nuanced appreciation of this (...) complex phenomenon. An electronic copy of Being and Nothingness was searched for all occurrences of the word suffering (N = 50), tabularized using the Key Word In Context (KWIC) approach at the sentence level, resulting in 40 sentences for thematic analysis. That analysis resulted in 5 themes, showing the complexity of suffering in Sartre’s major philosophical work and suggesting that suffering is quintessentially human, unavoidable, and potentially liberating. (shrink)

We find Stoffregen & Bardy's argument that the senses are united and that specificity exists within the global array compelling. However, this view is not entirely new and research on the development and the origins of perception in infancy, inspired by Gibson's ecological perspective, also supports their claims. The inclusion of this developmental research will strengthen and challenge some of Stoffregen & Bardy's views.

Business management within the United States of America contains unacknowledged, inherent contradictions that constrain individual and collective action, and form barriers against the development of authenticity and solidarity within organizations. The Emersonian themes of conformity, consistency, and knowledge, as developed in his 1841 essay Self-Reliance, were used as constructive points of philosophical inquiry around which to interrogate the theory and praxis of current American business management. The need for such an examination of management is observable in recent social phenomena. Specifically, (...) the great resignation was explored as a potential representative response to dealing with the contradictions between management as currently practiced within the United States and the existential needs of those subjugated by and to its praxis. Philosophy emerges as an effective way to assess the degree to which organizations can achieve their emancipatory potential using the current theory and praxis of business management. (shrink)

Scientific peer reviewers play an integral role in the grant selection process, yet very little has been reported on the levels of participation or the motivations of scientists to take part in peer review. The American Institute of Biological Sciences developed a comprehensive peer review survey that examined the motivations and levels of participation of grant reviewers. The survey was disseminated to 13,091 scientists in AIBS’s proprietary database. Of the 874 respondents, 76% indicated they had reviewed grant applications in the (...) last 3 years; however, the number of reviews was unevenly distributed across this sample. Higher review loads were associated with respondents who had submitted more grant proposals over this time period, some of whom were likely to be study section members for large funding agencies. The most prevalent reason to participate in a review was to give back to the scientific community and the most common reason to decline an invitation to review was lack of time. Interestingly, few suggested that expectation from the funding agency was a motivation to review. Most felt that review participation positively influenced their careers through improving grantsmanship and exposure to new scientific ideas. Of those who reviewed, respondents reported dedicating 2–5% of their total annual work time to grant review and, based on their self-reported maximum review loads, it is estimated they are participating at 56–87% of their capacity, which may have important implications regarding the sustainability of the system. Overall, it is clear that participation in peer review is uneven and in some cases near capacity, and more needs to be done to create new motivations and incentives to increase the future pool of reviewers. (shrink)

Abstract Most discussions of risk are developed in broadly consequentialist terms, focusing on the outcomes of risks as such. This paper will provide an alternative account of risk from a virtue ethical perspective, shifting the focus to the decision to take the risk. Making ethical decisions about risk is, we will argue, not fundamentally about the actual chain of events that the decision sets in process, but about the reasonableness of the decision to take the risk in the first place. (...) A virtue ethical account of risk is needed because the notion of the ‘reasonableness’ of the decision to take the risk is affected by the complexity of the moral status of particular instances of risk-taking and the risk-taker’s responsiveness to these contextual features. The very idea of ‘reasonable risk’ welcomes judgments about the nature of the risk itself, raises questions about complicity, culpability and responsibility, while at its heart, involves a judgement about the justification of risk which unavoidably focuses our attention on the character of the individuals involved in risk making decisions. Keywords: Risk; ethics; morality; responsibility; virtue; choice; reasons . (shrink)

Three experiments investigated reasoners' beliefs about causal powers; that is, their beliefs about the capacity of a putative cause to produce a given effect. Covariation-based theories (e.g., Cheng, 1997; Kelley, 1973; Novick & Cheng, 2004) posit that beliefs in causal power are represented in terms of the degree of covariation between the cause and its effect; covariation is defined in terms of the degree to which the effect occurs in the presence of the cause, and fails tooccur in the absence (...) of the cause. To test the degree to which beliefs incausal power are reflected in beliefs about covariation information, participants in three experiments rated their beliefs that putative causes have the capacity to produce a given effect (i.e., possess the causal power to produce an effect) as well as their beliefs regarding the degree to which the putative cause and effectcovary. A strong positive correlation was discovered between participants' beliefs in causal power and their beliefs that the effect occurs in the presence of the cause. However, no direct relationship was found between participants' beliefs in causal power and their belief that the effect will fail tooccur in the absence of the cause. These findings were replicated using bothwithin- (Experiments 1 and 3) and between-subject designs (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, we extended these analyses to measures of familiarity, imageability, and detailedness of the representation. We found that participants' beliefs in causal power were strongly associated with familiarity, and imageability, but not the perceived detailedness of the cause and effect relationship. These data provide support for a multidimensional account of causal knowledge whereby people's representations of causation include, but are not limited to, the covariation, familiarity, and imageability of cause and effect relationships. (shrink)

BackgroundSchool based running programmes, such as The Daily Mile™, positively impact pupils’ physical health, however, there is limited evidence on psychological health. Additionally, current evidence is mostly limited to examining the acute impact. The present study examined the longer term impact of running programmes on pupil cognition, wellbeing, and fitness.MethodData from 6,908 school pupils, who were participating in a citizen science project, was examined. Class teachers provided information about participation in school based running programmes. Participants completed computer-based tasks of inhibition, (...) verbal and visual-spatial working memory, as well as the Children’s Feeling scale and Felt arousal scale to determine subjective wellbeing. A multistage 20-m shuttle run test was used to estimate fitness.ResultsFrom our total sample of 6,908 school pupils, 474 participants had been taking part in a running programme for 3 months); and 5,430 did not take part in a running programme. The Longer Term participation group had higher fitness levels than both other groups and this remained significant when adjusted for age, sex and SES. Moderated regression analysis found that for the Shorter Term participation group, higher shuttle distance was associated with better visual-spatial working memory. Effect sizes were small though.ConclusionWe identified small and selective positive impact of participation in school based running programmes on fitness and cognition. While no long term benefit was identified for cognition or wellbeing, the impact on fitness and short term benefit suggest schools should consider participation. (shrink)

Members of Division 28 generally appear to agree that empirical demonstrations provide the most valid basis for building the sciences of psychopharmacology, neuropharmacology, and neurochemistry. This article discusses some of the beliefs, interests and concerns among members of Division 28. 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

Teachers White and Thompson allowed students to explore the primary-source readings from several philosophers in a 5th grade course called Apogee. The essay is written with a focus on Patience and other virtues.

Teachers White and Thompson allowed students to explore the primary-source readings from several philosophers in a 5th grade course called Apogee. The essay is written with a focus on Patience and other virtues.