We examined the hypothesis that boredom is likely to occur when opportunity costs are high; that is, when there is a high potential value of engaging in activities other than the researcher-assigne...

Conditions of low and high perceived control often lead to boredom, albeit for different reasons. Whereas, high perceived control may be experienced as boring because the situation lacks challenge, low perceived control may be experienced as boring because the situation precludes effective engagement. In two experiments we test this proposed quadratic relationship. In the first experiment we had participants play different versions of the children's game “rock-paper-scissors” in which they arbitrarily won or lost. Despite having only dichotomous conditions, participants reported (...) experiencing a broad range of levels of perceived control. Consistent with our predictions, boredom was highest at low and high levels of perceived control. Experiment 2 tested the notion that the mere prospect of gaining control may mitigate boredom. Participants given to believe that they could gain control over the game of rock, paper, scissors were less bored than those who believed there was no possibility of winning at greater than chance levels. This suggests that beliefs concerning prospective control, rather than a given level of perceived control per se, may predict engagement and boredom. (shrink)

Boredom has been characterized as a crisis of meaning, a failure of attention, and a call to action. Yet as a self-regulatory signal writ-large, we are still left with the question of what makes any given boredom episode meaningless, disengaging, or a prompt to act. We propose that boredom is an affective signal that we have deviated from an optimal (‘Goldilocks’) zone of cognitive engagement. Such deviations may be due to a perceived lack of meaning, arise as a consequence of (...) struggles we are experiencing in attending to a task, or be interpreted as a blunt call to find something different to engage with. Thus, the key to understanding boredom lies in its role in keeping us cognitively engaged. -/- . (shrink)

To explore how model building adapts to changing environments, we had participants play “rock-paper-scissors” against a computer that played a frequency bias or a player-dependent bias and then switched. Participants demonstrated their use of prior experience in how quickly they recognized and exploited changes in the computer's play strategy; in general, the more similar the strategies, the more efficient the updating. These findings inform our understanding of previously reported updating impairments in right-brain damaged patients.

Self-control is critical for successful participation and performance in sports and therefore has attracted considerable research interest. Yet, knowledge about self-control remains surprisingly incomplete and inconsistent. Here, we draw attention to boredom as an experience that likely plays an important role in sports and exercise (e.g., exercise can be perceived as boring but can also be used to alleviate boredom). Specifically, we argue that studying boredom in the context of sports and exercise will also advance our understanding of self-control as (...) a reward-based choice. We demonstrate this by discussing evidence for links between self-control and boredom and by highlighting the role boredom plays for guiding goal-directed behavior. As such, boredom is likely to interact with self-control in affecting sports performance and exercise participation. We close by highlighting several promising routes for integrating self-control and boredom research in the context of sports performance and exercise behavior. (shrink)

Boredom proneness has been linked to various forms of cognitive and affective dysregulation including poor self-control and mind-wandering, as well as depression and aggression. As such, understanding boredom and the associated cognitive and affective components of the experience, represents an important first step in combatting the consequences of boredom for psychological well-being. We surveyed 1928 undergraduate students on measures of boredom proneness, self-control, MW, depression and aggression to investigate how these constructs were related. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that self-control operated (...) as a strong negative predictor of boredom proneness. Finally, when controlling for age and self-control, we observed large decreases in the magnitudes of the relationships between boredom proneness and our other measures of interest. Together, these results imply a strong relationship between boredom proneness and cognitive and affective dysregulation, and show that individual levels of self-control can account for the lion’s share of variance in the relationships between boredom, cognition, and affect. (shrink)

Media multitasking entails simultaneously engaging in multiple tasks when at least one of the tasks involves media. Across two studies, we investigated one potential trigger of media multitasking, state boredom, and its relation to media multitasking. To this end, we manipulated participants’ levels of state boredom using video mood inductions prior to administering an attention-demanding 2-back task during which participants could media multitask by playing a task-irrelevant video. We also examined whether trait boredom proneness was associated media multitasking. We found (...) no direct evidence that state boredom leads to media multitasking. However, trait boredom proneness correlated with greater amounts of media multitasking in Experiment 1, but not in Experiment 2. Surprisingly, in both experiments, post-task ratings of state boredom were equivalent across conditions, alerting us to the short-lived effects of video mood inductions and the boring nature of cognitive tasks. (shrink)

Based on the results of open ended interviews with managers in a variety of organizational positions, moral questions encountered in everyday managerial life are described. These involve transactions with employees, peers and superiors, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. It is suggested that managers identify transactions as involving personal moral concern when they believe that a moral standard has a bearing on the situation and when they experience themselves as having the power to affect the transaction. This is the first in (...) a research series of three papers. (shrink)

Nietzsche criticizes Stoicism for overstating the significance of its ethical ideal of rational self-sufficiency and for undervaluing pain and passion when pursuing an unconditional acceptance of fate. Apparent affinities between Stoicism and Nietzsche’s philosophy, especially his celebration of self-mastery and his pursuit of amor fati, lead some scholars to conclude that Nietzsche cannot advance these criticisms without contradicting himself. In this article, I narrow the target and scope of Nietzsche’s complaints against Stoicism before showing how they follow from his other (...) philosophic commitments. I suggest that the first line of criticism follows from his denial of teleology and his skepticism toward moral values’ descriptive objectivity. I then suggest that the second line of criticism follows from Nietzsche’s account of overcoming as bestowing contributory value upon pain and suffering. Explaining Nietzsche’s criticisms of Stoicism in this way substantially qualifies similarities between his philosophy and that of Stoicism while absolving him of the charge of inconsistency. (shrink)

The sounds that make up spoken words are heard in a series and must be mapped rapidly onto words in memory because their elements, unlike those of visual words, cannot simultaneously exist or persist in time. Although theories agree that the dynamics of spoken word recognition are important, they differ in how they treat the nature of the competitor set—precisely which words are activated as an auditory word form unfolds in real time. This study used eye tracking to measure the (...) impact over time of word frequency and 2 partially overlapping competitor set definitions: onset density and neighborhood density. Time course measures revealed early and continuous effects of frequency (facilitatory) and on set based similarity (inhibitory). Neighborhood density appears to have early facilitatory effects and late inhibitory effects. The late inhibitory effects are due to differences in the temporal distribution of similarity within neighborhoods. The early facilitatory effects are due to subphonemic cues that inform the listener about word length before the entire word is heard. The results support a new conception of lexical competition neighborhoods in which recognition occurs against a background of activated competitors that changes over time based on fine-grained goodness-of-fit and competition dynamics. (shrink)

The practice of paying research subjects for participating inclinical trials has yet to receive an adequate moral analysis.Dickert and Grady argue for a wage payment model in whichresearch subjects are paid an hourly wage based on that ofunskilled laborers. If we accept this approach, what follows?Norms for just working conditions emerge from workplacelegislation and political theory. All workers, includingpaid research subjects under Dickert and Grady''s analysis,have a right to at least minimum wage, a standard work week,extra pay for overtime hours, (...) a safe workplace, no faultcompensation for work-related injury, and union organization.If we accept that paid research subjects are wage earners likeany other, then the implications for changes to current practiceare substantial. (shrink)

Evidence that confirms a scientific hypothesis is said to be ‘novel’ if it is not discovered until after the hypothesis isconstructed. The philosophical issues surrounding novel confirmation have been well summarized by Campbell and Vinci [1983]. They write that philosophers of science generally agree that when observational evidence supports a theory, the confirmation is much stronger when the evidence is ‘novel’... There are, nevertheless, reasons to be skeptical of this tradition... The notion of novel confirmation is beset with a theoretical (...) puzzle about how the degree of confirmation can change without any change in the evidence, hypothesis, or auxiliary assumptions... There have not yet appeared any obviously satisfactory solutions to these problems Much of the literature on novel confirmation relies on the Bayesian analysis of conditional probabilities. Let H represent a hypothesis, E an event that confirms the hypothesis, and B some relevant background information. Denote by Pr the conditional probability of x given y. There are various plausible measures of the degree of support that E lends to H. Among these are: Degree of support = Pr Degree of support = Pr – Pr Degree of support = Pr – Pr Degree of support = Pr – Pt In the work cited, Campbell and Vinci offer a somewhat more involved Bayesian interpretation. Formula is discussed by Gardner [1981] who points out that under this formulation there can be no role for novelty. 'The function Pr contains no third slot in which to insert a temporal relation between the invention of H and the inventor's learning E. Obviously, then, this relation could not possibly affect E's support of H.' Formula, on the other hand, suggests a role for novelty. Bayes's Theorem allows us to rewrite the formula as Degree of support = Pr x [Pr – 1] We can use 1/Pr as a measure of the novelty of E. Then shows that the degree of support increases with novelty of E. In the paper already cited, Campbell and Vinci discuss shortcomings of this analysis. Formula expresses an alternative offered by Howson [1984]. In that formula, Pr represents the probability of H assuming that only B – {E} is known. This allows for the possibility of non-novel facts generating support for hypotheses. Niiniluoto [1984] argues for a variant along the lines of, in which we account for the possibility that the theorist was unaware that his hypothesis entails E. One problem in deciding among these approaches is that the choice of a definition for the degree of support appears arbitrary. What kind of argument could justify the choice of one definition over another? It is our position that there can be no basis for addressing this question in the absence of an explicit model of the process by which hypotheses are generated. Only in the presence of such a model can the various conditional probabilities be given meaningful interpretations. We provide such models in Sections 1, 2 and 4. The simple model of Section 1, incorporating strong assumptions, yields the conclusion that novelty is irrelevant. When these assumptions are relaxed in the later sections, novelty becomes relevant for a variety of reasons. It is at least potentially the case that scientists have more information about their own abilities than is publicly available, and this information might influence their decisions about whether even to attempt novel prediction. If this is so, then it should be incorporated into the model of hypothesis generation. This requires an explicit discussion of how scientists respond to incentives and how the incentives themselves evolve, which in turn takes us into the realm of economic theory. We have addressed these issues in another paper, written for an audience of economists. The results of this research are summarized in Section 3. (shrink)

Postmodern critical assessments of Freud’s theory of mourning disavow the idea of grief’s conclusiveness, insisting that mourning is an interminable process or even a transcendental structure of experience. However, such assessments presuppose an ontological orientation toward finitude that avoids the profound speculative implications of the non-finite status of death in the unconscious. In consequence, mourning comes to assume an indefinite, generic status as a condition of experience instead of a resolutely speculative confrontation with the impossible real of infinitude. Freud’s writings (...) evidence his difficulties with this unconscious disjunction of mourning from finitude, but can be elucidated by turning to Hegel’s critical discussion of “infinite grief,” the melancholy apprehension of finitude as a spurious infinity. Hegel’s analysis in turn anticipates Lacan’s elaboration of the death drive as a concept of unconscious transmission. Here, what begins to emerge is a theory of mourning that concerns the speculative inheritance of an immortal object. (shrink)

My point of departure in this essay is Smith’s definition of government. “Civil government,” he writes, “so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.” First I unpack Smith’s definition of government as the protection of the rich against the poor. I argue that, on Smith’s view, this is always part of (...) what government is for. I then turn to the question of what, according to Smith, our governors can do to protect the wealth of the rich from the resentment of the poor. I consider, and reject, the idea that Smith might conceive of education as a means of alleviating the resentment of the poor at their poverty. I then describe how, in his lectures on jurisprudence, Smith refines and develops Hume’s taxonomy of the opinions upon which all government rests. The sense of allegiance to government, according to Smith, is shaped by instinctive deference to natural forms of authority as well as by rational, Whiggish considerations of utility. I argue that it is the principle of authority that provides the feelings of loyalty upon which government chiefly rests. It follows, I suggest, that to the extent that Smith looked to government to protect the property of the rich against the poor, and thereby to maintain the peace and stability of society at large, he cannot have sought to lessen the hold on ordinary people of natural sentiments of deference. In addition, I consider the implications of Smith’s theory of government for the question of his general attitude toward poverty. I argue against the view that Smith has recognizably “liberal,” progressive views of how the poor should be treated. Instead, I locate Smith in the political culture of the Whiggism of his day. (shrink)

Varieties of Narrative Analysis presents a broad spectrum of approaches to the empirical analysis of stories and storytelling. Leading researchers from different disciplines provide richly illustrated discussions of how they actually conduct narrative analysis from their diverse perspectives. The book's chapters focus on different ways of doing data analysis, not data collection, although the two are related in practice. The narrative material presented ranges from media accounts, life stories, and quantitative content analysis, to storytelling occasions, embodiment, emotionality, and narrative's diverse (...) institutional settings. Chapter coverage is comprised of background information, a discussion of methods of analysis, and illustrations of how to interpret narratives. The book is organized into three parts-analyzing stories, analyzing storytelling, and analyzing stories in society. (shrink)

This thesis seeks to provide an overview and examination of the thought of the significant contemporary sociologist, Peter L. Berger. Berger is concerned with the issue of how meaning is constructed in modern, secular, bureaucratic society. Furthermore, this thesis seeks to outline, and trace the development of, Berger's thought. To achieve this the thesis examines Berger's use of the disciplines of the sociology of knowledge and religion, along with contemporary studies in religion and theology. Berger, by linking the function of (...) a theodicy with that of making meaning, allows for theodicies to be conceived of in the broader context of making meaning in contemporary society. As such, a contemporary theodicy needs to include (indeed, it needs to be inclusive, rather than exclusive) such factors as the relationship between self, others, the world, and the transcendent so as to provide some basis for an authentic and meaningful existence. There is a need for a more inclusive theodicy (other than the traditional individualistic type) which has hermeneutic concern for the 'whole' (wholeness of self, wholeness in relationships with others, wholeness with the world/environment, and wholeness with the transcendent). However, this 'wholeness' will not be provided by over-arching, public, structures or systems; it will need to be through chosen, private means which reflect the Post-Modernist situation where 'closure' on a grand scale is unobtainable (Marshall, 1992, pp. 192 -193). Berger's work provides the possibility for this legitimation of a theodicy (or theodicies) which will provide meaning in Post-Enlightenment society. The construction of meaning in contemporary society needs an ability to cope with complexity, it needs to be reasonable, as well as contemporary (to cope with the plurality in modern society), and it is on the way (that is, not given to closure). Therefore any contemporary theodicy, or system of meaning, must be able to be historically concerned (that is, conscious of its origins and open to the future), empirical (that is, open to scrutiny and review), inductive (that is, dealing with concrete reality, not abstract theory), and concerned with people's lived experience. Berger's signals of transcendence allow for the legitimation of this private, deinstitutionalized religion; that is, they legitimate a meaningful theodicy for contemporary humanity. This theodicy, which is able to accommodate the wider view current in modern society provided by the ecological movement, interaction between the various religious traditions, the feminist movement, the reality of multi-culturalism, and the resulting pluralism from the above factors, can provide some basis for a meaningful and authentic existence in contemporary society. The signals of transcendence are able to correlate people's lived experience (their 'natural reality') to a reality which is "in, with and under" that natural reality (Berger, 1992, p. 155). (shrink)

A definitive and authoritative guide to a vibrant and growing discipline in current philosophy, The Bloomsbury Companion to Contemporary Philosophy of Medicine presents an overview of the issues facing contemporary philosophy of medicine, the research methods required to understand them and a trajectory for the discipline's future. -/- Written by world leaders in the discipline, this companion addresses the ontological, epistemic, and methodological challenges facing philosophers of medicine today, from the debate between evidence-based and person-centered medicine, medical humanism, and gender (...) medicine, to traditional issues such as disease, health, and clinical reasoning and decision-making. Practical and forward-looking, it also includes a detailed guide to research sources, a glossary of key terms, and an annotated bibliography, as well as an introductory survey of research methods and discussion of new research directions emerging in response to the rapid changes in modern medicine. -/- “Philosophy needs medicine', Hillel Braude argues, 'to become more relevant'. By showing how modern medicine provides philosophers with a rich source of material for investigating issues facing contemporary society, The Bloomsbury Companion to Contemporary Philosophy of Medicine introduces the opportunities medicine offers philosophers together with the resources and skills required to contribute to contemporary debates and discussions. (shrink)

This article explores the idea that Core Affect provides the emotional quality to any conscious state. Core Affect is the neurophysiological state always accessible as simply feeling good or bad, energized or enervated, even if it is not always the focus of attention. Core Affect, alone or more typically combined with other psychological processes, is found in the experiences of feeling, mood and emotion, including the subjective experiences of fear, anger and other so-called basic emotions which are commonly thought to (...) be raw, primitive, and universal. (shrink)

This book explores how the Hebraic and classical traditions forming our Western heritage combined from about 300 BCE to 300 CE. James Arieti investigates the principal causes of the merger in the common model of God that developed in the Greek philosophical schools, along with its ethical implications, and the shared portrayal in biblical, rabbinic, and postclassical literature of the compassionate warm character that we recognize as a mentsh.

Peirce described himself as a disciple of Berkeley, and described the truth of Berkeleyanism as consisting, in part, of “hinging” all philosophy (or "all coenoscopy") on the concept of sign. This article collects Berkeley’s chief semiotic contributions, and discusses how it may have influenced Peirce’s semiotic.

This dissertation does not argue for a particular theory of realism. It seeks to clear the ground for such a theory by clarifying the distinction between realism and reality. Realism is not reality. 'Realism' stands for theories that describe reality and how it exists mind-independently. I argue that much recent writing on realism misses the import of this distinction and proceeds "anti-philosophically." While some statements refer uncontroversially to an accepted state of affairs, others amplify, vouchsafe, or explain a philosophical compunction (...) about the received notion of reality. Philosophy consists, in accounting for what one does, says exists, or knows. So, the mere acceptance of the supposed "facts" is anti-philosophical. ;Philosophy should accept at least some "facts." But it has to rise above first order obviousness in order to dismiss or accept received views. The effort to proceed "antiphilosophically," insists that some statements or material be accepted uncritically or neutrally as explaining or settling important philosophical issues without philosophical assistance. ;Accordingly, I reject Devitt's "proposal" that we can "settle the realism issue before any epistemic or semantic issue" . Issues of reference cant help but pertain to settling that "Tokens of most current common-sense and scientific objects objectively exist independently of the mental" . The "constructivist turn" in realism holds that "realism" describes mind-independent entities, but not in a way that is itself independent of knowledge or meaning. Realism and much else, including our "facts," is "constructed" ; reality isn't. Hence, I also reject John Searle's attempt to "construct" all of social reality from non-social or "brute" reality alone. It is only by the social that we know the "non-social." I reject Michael Dummett's theory that the theory of meaning "underlies" metaphysics. Regardless, statements still refer to entities, without which they mean nothing. I favor Hilary Putnam's attempt to reject metaphysical realism despite his leanings toward idealism and a "limit concept" of reason and truth. Finally, I argue that Rorty's arguments for the "pointlessness" of realist and antirealist discussion are self-contradictory and nearly irrelevant. (shrink)

An historical survey of Thomas Kuhn's 1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, charting the development of this influential work throughout Kuhn's career and exploring the continuing impact of Kuhn on the philosophy of science.

Papers presented at a conference held at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, in Apr. 2006.

The lack of concrete guidance provided by managerial moral standards and the ambiguity of the expectations they create are discussed in terms of the moral stress experienced by many managers. It is argued that requisite clarity and feelings of obligation with respect to moral standards derive ultimately from public discussion of moral issues within organizations and from shared public agreement about appropriate behavior. Suggestions are made about ways in which the moral dimension of an organization's culture can be more effectively (...) managed. This is the third in a research series of three papers. (shrink)

Scientific explanation is an important goal of scientific practise. Philosophers have proposed a striking diversity of seemingly incompatible accounts of explanation, from deductive-nomological to statistical relevance, unification, pragmatic, causal-mechanical, mechanistic, causal intervention, asymptotic, and model-based accounts. In this dissertation I apply two novel methods to reexamine our evidence about scientific explanation in practise and thereby address the fragmentation of philosophical accounts. I start by collecting a data set of 781 articles from one year of the journal Science. Using automated text (...) mining techniques I measure the frequency and distribution of several groups of philosophically interesting words, such as "explain", "cause", "evidence", "theory", "law", "mechanism", and "model". I show that "explain" words are much more common in scientific writing than in other genres, occurring in roughly half of all articles, and that their use is very often qualified or negated. These results about the use of words complement traditional conceptual analysis. Next I use random samples from the data set to develop a large number of small case studies across a wide range of scientific disciplines. I use a sample of "explain" sentences to develop and defend a new general philosophical account of scientific explanation, and then test my account against a larger set of randomly sampled sentences and abstracts. Five coarse categories can classify the explanans and explananda of my cases: data, entities, kinds, models, and theories. The pair of the categories of the explanans and explanandum indicates the "form" of an explanation. The explain-relation supports counterfactual reasoning about the dependence of qualities of the explanandum on qualities of the explanans. But for each form there is a different "core relation" between explanans and explanandum that supports the explain-relation. Causation, modelling, and argument are the core relations for different forms of scientific explanation between different categories of explanans and explananda. This flexibility allows me to resolve some of the fragmentation in the philosophical literature. I provide empirical evidence to show that my general philosophical account successfully describes a wide range of scientific practise across a large number of scientific disciplines. (shrink)

Nobel Prize-winning economist James Mirrlees is one of the world's leading figures in welfare, development, and public sector economics. This volume brings together for the first time published and unpublished but seminal work in these key areas, and will be a very useful source for anyone looking for a comprehensive picture of Mirrlees' contribution to the subject.

From the start, Americans were wrestling with the proper connections between "private and public felicity." On its face, the first line of the First Amendment to the Constitution seems to settle the issue: "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Thomas Jefferson declared that this provision "buil[t] a wall of separation between church and state." While the proscription against meddling with religion originally applied only to the national government, the Fourteenth Amendment (...) extended the Constitution—and, in theory, Jefferson's wall—to the state governments. But the Constitution is just the start of the story. America's boisterous, protean religious life sends waves of fervor breaking against Jefferson's wall. Religious fervor provokes moralistic attitudes that filter through American politics. This paper examines the reach of this moralizing effect with a glance at two very unlikely—that is, apparently secular—policy domains: health care and jails. (shrink)