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Plausibility matters: a challenge to Gilbert’s “Spinozan” account of belief formation
Get PDFMost of the claims we encounter in real life can be assigned some degree of plausibility, even if they are new to us. On Gilbert’s (1991) influential account of belief formation, whereby understanding a sentence implies representing it as true, all new propositions are initially accepted, before any assessment of their veracity. As a result, plausibility cannot have any role in initial belief formation on this account. In order to isolate belief formation experimentally, Gilbert et al. (1990) employed a dual-task design: if a secondary task disrupts participants’ evaluation of novel claims presented to them, then the initial encoding should be all there is, and if that initial encoding consistently renders claims ‘true’ (even where participants were told in the learning phase that the claims they had seen were false), then Gilbert’s account is confirmed. In this pre-registered study, we replicate one of Gilbert et al.’s (1990) seminal studies (“The Hopi Language Experiment”) while additionally introducing a plausibility variable. Our results show that Gilbert’s ‘truth bias’ does not hold for implausible statements — instead, initial encoding seemingly renders implausible statements ‘false’. As alternative explanations of this finding that would be compatible with Gilbert’s account can be ruled out, it questions Gilbert’s account
Le Moustérien du Zagros : le panorama depuis la grotte de Shanidar. The Zagros Mousterian : the view from Shanidar Cave
Get PDFLe Moustérien du Zagros est un complexe lithique techno-typologique du Paléolithique moyen trouvé dans les montagnes du Zagros, en Irak et en Iran. Il est associé à des restes squelettiques de Néandertaliens dans quatre sites archéologiques, dont le plus célèbre est la grotte de Shanidar. Sa chronologie pose problème, mais tout porte à croire que les Néandertaliens étaient présents dans la région du Zagros depuis le début du dernier interglaciaire, il y a environ 130 000 ans, jusqu'à environ 40 000 ans avant le présent (40 ka). Les assemblages microfauniques et les paléosols indiquent que les Néandertaliens ont visité la grotte de Shanidar sous des conditions environnementales largement similaires aux conditions actuelles, principalement pendant les phases humides du stade isotopique 5 (MIS 5) et puis pendant de brèves améliorations climatiques pendant le MIS 4 et MIS 3, vraisemblablement corrélées avec les événements de Dansgaard–Oeschger. Les occupations moustériennes en altitude suggèrent également une présence néandertalienne alors que les conditions climatiques n'étaient pas très différentes des conditions actuelles. Tout porte à croire que le moustérien du Zagros représente les activités saisonnières de petits groupes de fourrageurs néandertaliens, très mobiles et dispersés, reliés par des réseaux socio-culturels.
The Zagros Mousterian is a Middle Palaeolithic techno-typological lithic complex, found down the length of the Zagros mountain range in Iraq and Iran. It is associated with Neanderthal skeletal remains at four sites, most famously Shanidar Cave. Dating is problematic, but the indications are that Neanderthals with this cultural apparatus were present in the Zagros region from the beginning of the last interglacial (Marine Isotope Stage 5e) c.130,000 years ago through to c. 40,000 years ago during the last glacial. The humid deciduous woodland of MIS 5 was replaced by increasingly dry steppe in MIS 4 and MIS 3. Microfaunal assemblages and palaeosoils indicate that Neanderthals visited Shanidar Cave when environmental conditions were broadly similar to those of today, primarily in the humid phases of MIS 5 and then during brief climatic ameliorations in MIS 4 and MIS 3 that may correlate with Dansgaard-Oescheger events. Caves with Mousterian occupations at high altitudes suggest that they, too, were used by Neanderthals when conditions were not dissimilar to those of today. The indications are that the Zagros Mousterian represents the seasonal activities of highly mobile small and dispersed groups of Neanderthal foragers connected in social networks of shared cultural values and/or norms
Jews and Muslims in Europe: between discourse and experience
No full textThis Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion contributes cases of encounters, diversities and distances to an emerging Jewish-Muslim Studies field. The scholarly essays address both discourses about and lived experiences of minorities in contemporary French, German and UK cities. The authors explore how particular modes of governance and secularism shape individual and collective identities while new technologies re-make interfaith encounters. This volume shows that Middle Eastern and North African pasts and presents weigh on European realities, examines how the pull of Jewish intellectual history is felt by a new generation of Muslim scholars and activists, and uncovers how Orthodox communities negotiate living side by side
The psychology of diversity and its implications for workplace (in)equality: looking back at the last decade and forward to the next
Get PDFIn this British Psychological Society (BPS) landmark paper, we employ an evidence synthesis approach to review the broad range of diversity research published in BPS journals between 2011 and 2021. By focusing on research that inves- tigates stereotypes associated with, and discrimination to- wards, minority and minoritized groups, we seek to provide readers with a better understanding of the dynamics of a diverse workforce and, going forward, to facilitate the ef- forts of the psychology research community towards build- ing a body of work that meaningfully addresses workplace inequalities. We thematically analyse and synthesize 25 ar- ticles, which fall into four interconnected themes: identity development and management; negative stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination; working in a diverse team; and the broader organizational environment. Highlighting key strengths of this work and areas for future development, we note the absence of overarching theoretical debates and discussions that might facilitate the development of an on- going narrative across diversity-related research published within BPS journals. We outline a future research agenda to bridge methodological divides and to connect with diversity literatures in related disciplines such as human resource de- velopment (HRD), human resource management (HRM), and organization studies. In so doing, we advocate for psychologists to move beyond a solely individualistic per- spective and instead recognize and account for the context within which diversity-related processes take place
Future teleworking inclinations post-COVID-19: examining the role of teleworking conditions and perceived productivity
Get PDFOrganisations have implemented intensive home-based teleworking in response to global COVID-19 lockdowns and other pandemic-related restrictions. Financial pressures are driving organisations to continue intensive teleworking after the pandemic. Understanding employees’ teleworking inclinations post COVID-19, and how these inclinations are influenced by different factors, is important to ensure any future, more permanent changes to teleworking policies are sustainable for both employees and organisations. This study, therefore, investigated the relationships between the context of home-based teleworking during the pandemic (pandemic-teleworking conditions), productivity perceptions during home-based teleworking, and employees’ future teleworking inclinations (FTI) beyond the pandemic. Specifically, the study examined whether pandemic-teleworking conditions related to the job, and the physical and social environments at home, influenced employees’ FTI, and if perceptions of improved or reduced productivity mediated these relationships. Data were collected during April and May 2020 with a cross-sectional online survey of teleworkers (n = 184) in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and other countries during the first COVID-19 lockdowns. Reported FTI were mixed. Most participants (61%) reported wanting to telework more post-pandemic compared to before the pandemic; however, 18% wanted to telework less. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that some teleworking conditions (job demands and work privacy fit) were positively associated with FTI. Other teleworking conditions (specifically, job change, job control, home office adequacy, and childcare) were not associated with FTI. Perceived changes in productivity mediated the relationship between work privacy fit and FTI. Findings highlight the role of work privacy fit and job demands in influencing pandemic productivity perceptions and teleworking inclinations post-pandemic. Results raise questions about the suitability and sustainability of home-based teleworking for all staff. As organisations plan to increase the proportion of teleworking post-pandemic, this study suggests there is a need to support employees who perceived their productivity to be poor while home-working during the pandemic
Unique dynamic profiles of social attention in autistic females
Get PDFBackground:
Social attention affords learning opportunities across development and may contribute to individual differences in developmental trajectories, such as between male and female individuals, and in neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism.
Methods:
Using eye-tracking, we measured social attention in a large cohort of autistic (n=123) and non-autistic females (n=107), and autistic (n=330) and non-autistic males (n=204), aged 6-30 years. Using mixed Growth Curve Analysis, we modelled sex and diagnostic effects on the temporal dynamics of proportional looking time to three types of social stimuli (lean-static, naturalistic-static, naturalistic-dynamic), and examined the link between individual differences and dimensional social and non-social autistic traits in autistic females and males.
Results:
In the lean-static stimulus, average face-looking was higher in females than males in both autistic and non-autistic groups. Differences in the dynamic pattern of face-looking were seen in autistic vs. non-autistic females, but not males, with face-looking peaking later in the trial in autistic females. In the naturalistic-dynamic stimulus, average face-looking was higher in females than males of both groups; changes in the dynamic pattern of face looking were seen in autistic vs. non-autistic males, but not females, with a steeper peak in non-autistic males. Lower average face-looking was associated with higher observer-measured autistic characteristics in autistic females, but not in males.
Conclusions:
Overall, we found stronger social attention in females to a similar degree in both autistic and non-autistic groups. Nonetheless, the dynamic profiles of social attention differed in different ways in autistic females and males compared to their non-autistic peers, and autistic traits predicted trends of average face-looking in autistic females. These findings support the role of social attention in the emergence of sex-related differences in autistic characteristics, suggesting an avenue to phenotypic stratification
Disordered gaming, loneliness, and family harmony in gamers before and during the COVID-19 pandemic
Get PDFThe aim of this study was to investigate if and how disordered gaming, loneliness, and family relations have changed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic (from 2019 to 2021), and if there were any changes in the association between these variables across three samples of gamers (for each respective year). Samples from 2019, 2020, and 2021 were matched by using propensity score matching across socio-demographic characteristics. The total effective sample comprised 897 gamers (N = 299 per year). These samples were compared in disordered gaming – separately as Gaming Disorder (GD; WHO framework) and Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD; APA framework), loneliness, and family harmony scores with analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs), with age and gender as covariates. Steiger tests were used for correlation differences testing. ANCOVAs showed that while IGD and GD scores have increased significantly during the pandemic years, loneliness and family harmony did not change significantly. However, the correlation differences tests in correlations between IGD/GD and loneliness and family harmony showed that the correlations between both IGD and GD with loneliness as well as poorer family harmony have increased during the pandemic years. This study provides empirical evidence that the well-being of gamers might have been negatively affected during the COVID-19 pandemic. While loneliness and family harmony did not increase, the stronger correlations between gaming and other variables might suggest that gaming may have been used to cope with loneliness and poorer family harmony
Introduction: Locating the Mediterranean
Get PDFIn recent years, the Mediterranean region has reasserted itself in the world: popular uprisings have unsettled long-standing political regimes, economic crises have generated precarity, and nationalist movements have reified some borders while condemning others. The circulation and stagnation of people, ideas, and objects provoked by these events draw attention to regional connections and separations that, in turn, challenge strict geopolitical renderings of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. In considering this resurgence of interest in the Mediterranean, this introduction asks: what role does ‘location’ play in our conception of region and region-formations? What kinds of locations are generated in the contemporary Mediterranean? How do historical, legal, political, and social connections and separations shape the experience of being located somewhere in particular? Furthermore, the introduction explores how, by placing in dialogue diverse approaches and traditions, this collective volume works on two levels at once. First, each contribution posits its own Mediterranean ‘constellation’. Second, the collective volume presents a wider understanding of what historically inclined anthropologists might conceive of as a Mediterranean ‘constellation’. In doing this, the introduction proposes a theoretical apparatus through which we can understand cultural and historical values of region and region-making in and beyond the Mediterranean
A tetrachotomy of ontology-mediated queries with a covering axiom
Get PDFOur concern is the problem of efficiently determining the data complexity of answering queries mediated by descrip- tion logic ontologies and constructing their optimal rewritings to standard database queries. Originated in ontology- based data access and datalog optimisation, this problem is known to be computationally very complex in general, with no explicit syntactic characterisations available. In this article, aiming to understand the fundamental roots of this difficulty, we strip the problem to the bare bones and focus on Boolean conjunctive queries mediated by a simple cov- ering axiom stating that one class is covered by the union of two other classes. We show that, on the one hand, these rudimentary ontology-mediated queries, called disjunctive sirups (or d-sirups), capture many features and difficulties of the general case. For example, answering d-sirups is Π2p-complete for combined complexity and can be in AC0 or L-, NL-, P-, or coNP-complete for data complexity (with the problem of recognising FO-rewritability of d-sirups be- ing 2ExpTime-hard); some d-sirups only have exponential-size resolution proofs, some only double-exponential-size positive existential FO-rewritings and single-exponential-size nonrecursive datalog rewritings. On the other hand, we prove a few partial sufficient and necessary conditions of FO- and (symmetric/linear-) datalog rewritability of d- sirups. Our main technical result is a complete and transparent syntactic AC0 / NL / P / coNP tetrachotomy of d-sirups with disjoint covering classes and a path-shaped Boolean conjunctive query. To obtain this tetrachotomy, we develop new techniques for establishing P- and coNP-hardness of answering non-Horn ontology-mediated queries as well as showing that they can be answered in NL
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