Gauge invariance of a manifestly covariant relativistic quantum theory with evolution according to an invariant time τ implies the existence of five gauge compensation fields, which we shall call pre-Maxwell fields. A Lagrangian which generates the equations of motion for the matter field (coinciding with the Schrödinger type quantum evolution equation) as well as equations, on a five-dimensional manifold, for the gauge fields, is written. It is shown that τ integration of the equations for the pre-Maxwell fields results in the (...) usual Maxwell equations with conserved current source. The analog of the O (3, 1) symmetry of the usual Maxwell theory is found to be O (3, 2) or O (4, 1), depending on the space-time Fourier spectrum of the field. We argue that the structure that is relevant to the description of radiation in interaction with matter evolving in a timelike sense is that of O (3, 2). The noncovariant form of the field equations is given; there are two fields of electric type and one (divergenceless) magnetic type field. The Noether currents are studied, and some remarks are made on second quantization. (shrink)

Hoping to bring some objectivity to the debate, Ben-Moshe has argued that conscientious objection in medicine should be accommodated based on its concordance with the ‘impartial spectator’, a metaphor for conscience drawn from the writings of Adam Smith. This response finds fault with this account on two fronts: first, that its claim to objectivity is unsubstantiated; second, that it implicitly relies on moral absolutes, despite claiming that conscience is a social construct, thereby calling its coherence and claims into question. Briefly, (...) a traditional account of conscience is then described, before ending with a related thesis for future discussion. (shrink)

The Quest for Happiness Is a Universal Fact. It is a scientific fact, which means we can measure happiness, we can assess it, and we can devise strategies to make ourselves happy and fulfilled human beings. So says Professor Gad Saad, the author of the sensational bestseller The Parasitic Mind and the irrepressible host of The Saad Truth podcast. In this provocative, entertaining, and life-changing new book, he roams through the scientific studies, culls the wisdom of ancient philosophy (...) and religion, and draws on his extraordinary personal experience as a refugee from war-torn Lebanon turned academic celebrity. (shrink)

Reductive physicalists typically accept the causal argument for their view. On this score, Tiehen parts ways with his fellow reductive physicalists. Heretically, he argues that reductive physicalists should reject the causal argument. After presenting Tiehen's challenge, I defend the orthodoxy. Although not myself a reductive physicalist, I show how reductive physicalists can resist this challenge to the causal argument. I conclude with a positive suggestion about how reductive physicalists should use the causal argument.

Every year, unfavorable environmental factors significantly affect crop productivity and threaten food security. Plants are sessile; they cannot move to escape unfavorable environmental conditions, and therefore, they activate a variety of defense pathways. Among them are processes regulated by stress‐associated proteins (SAPs). SAPs have a specific zinc finger domain (A20) at the N‐terminus and either AN1 or C2H2 at the C‐terminus. SAP proteins are involved in many biological processes and in response to various abiotic or biotic constraints. Most SAPs play (...) a role in conferring transgenic stress resistance and are stress‐inducible. The emerging field of SAPs in abiotic or biotic stress response regulation has attracted the attention of researchers. Although SAPs interact with various proteins to perform their functions, the exact mechanisms of these interactions remain incompletely understood. This review aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of SAPs, covering their diversity, structure, expression, and subcellular localization. SAPs play a pivotal role in enabling crosstalk between abiotic and biotic stress signaling pathways, making them essential for developing stress‐tolerant crops without yield penalties. Collectively, understanding the complex regulation of SAPs in stress responses can contribute to enhancing tolerance against various environmental stresses through several techniques such as transgenesis, classical breeding, or gene editing. (shrink)

The chief motivation for epiphenomenalist dualism is its promise to solve dualism’s causal exclusion problem without inducing causal overdetermination or violations of the causal closure of the physical. This paper argues that epiphenomenalist dualism is itself susceptible to an exclusion problem. The problem exploits symmetries of determination and influence generated by a wide class of physical theories. Further, I argue that there is an interference effect between solving epiphenomenalist dualism's exclusion problem and using epiphenomenalist dualism as a solution to the (...) causal exclusion problem. What emerges is an overlooked, empirically-motivated challenge to epiphenomenalist dualism. (shrink)

Though not myself a physicalist, I develop a new argument against antiphysicalist positions that are motivated by zombie arguments. I first identify four general features of phenomenal states that are candidates for non-physical types; these are used to generate different types of zombie. I distinguish two antiphysicalist positions: strict dualism, which posits exactly one general non-physical type, and pluralism, which posits more than one such type. It turns out that zombie arguments threaten strict dualism and some pluralist positions as much (...) as they threaten physicalism—indeed, more so, since such positions need zombies to motivate them as alternatives to physicalism—and that the only pluralist position that escapes zombie arguments has a radically inflated ontology. (shrink)

Following Chalmers, I take the most promising response to the meta-problem to be a realizationist one on which (roughly) consciousness plays a role in realizing the processes that explain why we think that there is a hard problem of consciousness. I favour an interactionist dualist version of realizationism on which experiences are non-physical states that non-redundantly cause problem judgments. This view is subject to the challenges of specifying laws that would enable experiences to cause problem judgments and of explaining why (...) it's not a lucky coincidence that experiences' causal and rational powers converge on problem judgments. I propose a strategy for solving the meta-problem and meeting these challenges. According to it, a fundamental teleological law operates on normative features of experiences in ways that bias experiences towards causing effects that they rationalize, including problem judgments. I conclude by applying the strategy to other luck-avoidance challenges. (shrink)

Räsänen has attempted to make a moral case for permitting some people to change their legal age: if someone considers that their chronological age does not correspond to their emotional age or biological age, and they face age-based discrimination as a result, they may change the legal record of their age. This response considers some of the problems with Räsänen’s paper, including its reliance on equivocation. It concludes that what is billed as a moral argument turns out to be a (...) conflicted case for deception which relies on a nihilistic outlook on reality. (shrink)

In her paper ‘Cosmetic surgery and conscientious objection’, Minerva rightly identifies cosmetic surgery as an interesting test case for the question of conscientious objection in medicine. Her treatment of this important subject, however, seems problematic. It is argued that Minerva's suggestion that a doctor has a prima facie duty to satisfy patient preferences even against his better clinical judgment, which we call Patient Preference Absolutism, must be regarded with scepticism. This is because it overlooks an important distinction regarding autonomy's meaning (...) and place in clinical practice, and it makes obsolete the important concepts of expert clinical judgment and beneficence. Finally, we discuss two ideas which emerge from consideration of cosmetic surgery in relation to conscientious objection. These are the possible analogy between clinical judgment and conscientious objection, and the possible role the goals of medicine can play in defining the scope of conscientious objection. (shrink)

A passive brain–computer interface based upon functional near-infrared spectroscopy brain signals is used for earlier detection of human drowsiness during driving tasks. This BCI modality acquired hemodynamic signals of 13 healthy subjects from the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of the brain. Drowsiness activity is recorded using a continuous-wave fNIRS system and eight channels over the right DPFC. During the experiment, sleep-deprived subjects drove a vehicle in a driving simulator while their cerebral oxygen regulation state was continuously measured. Vector phase analysis (...) was used as a classifier to detect drowsiness state along with sleep stage-based threshold criteria. Extensive training and testing with various feature sets and classifiers are done to justify the adaptation of threshold criteria for any subject without requiring recalibration. Three statistical features along with six VPA features were used. The average accuracies for the five classifiers are 90.9% for discriminant analysis, 92.5% for support vector machines, 92.3% for nearest neighbors, 92.4% for both decision trees, and ensembles over all subjects’ data. Trajectory slopes of CORE vector magnitude and angle: m and m are the best-performing features, along with ensemble classifier with the highest accuracy of 95.3% and minimum computation time of 40 ms. The statistical significance of the results is validated with a p-value of less than 0.05. The proposed passive BCI scheme demonstrates a promising technique for online drowsiness detection using VPA along with sleep stage classification. (shrink)

En este trabajo se sostiene que la teoría del derecho iberoamericana ha malinterpretado la teoría del razonamiento jurídico de Jeremy Waldron, presentándola como una teoría formalista de la adjudicación, y a Waldron como un positivista excluyente. Esto se debe a una lectura sesgada de su teoría del derecho, que se explica, a su vez, por la imagen que el constitucionalismo ha construido en torno a Waldron, como un opositor de Dworkin. Este trabajo muestra que Waldron suscribe a una teoría “dworkiniana” (...) del razonamiento jurídico, la que opera como eslabón entre su teoría de la democracia y su teoría más reciente de la dignidad humana. Ambas cuestiones han sido virtualmente ignoradas por el medio académico hispanoparlante. (shrink)

Plant production is diverse in the Asir region, and there are many methods of analysis. Perhaps factor analysis is one of the most important statistical methods through which productive power can be measured in various geographical regions. In this study, factor analysis was used to measure the developments of plant production in the agricultural sector in the Asir region, Saudi Arabia. The factor analysis showed the presence of three main factors that together explained about %86.55 of the total variation in (...) the development of plant production in the governorates of the Asir region. The study showed three mathematical algorithms that can measure the development of plant production in the Asir region according to the three main factors: First factor equation λ1=44.250%=-0.521*X_1 0.810*X_2+0.78*X_3+0.842*X_4+0.755*X_5 Second factor equation λ2=24.960%-0.228*X_1+0.352*X_2+0.936*X_3-0.226*X_4-0.380*X_5 The third factor equation λ3=17.344%0.796*X_1+0.291*X_2+0.104*X_3+0.339*X_4-0.153*X_5 -The study classified the governorates of the Asir region, based on the results of the analysis, into three groups, according to negative and positive 0.933-0.975 and includes Bisha - Abha - Ahad Rafaida - Khamis Mushait - in Al-Furn - Al-Barak, while the second group represents the category of 0.897-0.548 and includes the governorates of Mahayel, Asir - Tanmomah - Al-Namas - Tathleeth. The third group includes the category of 0.255--0234 and includes the governorates Sarat Ubaidah - Al-Majadra and Bariq - Tareeb - Dhahran Al-Janoub and Al-Harajah - Rijal Almaa. (shrink)

Interactionists hold that minds are non-physical objects that interact with brains. The neural discernment problem for interactionism is that of explaining how non-physical minds produce behavior and cognition by exercising different causal powers over physiologically similar neurons. This paper sharpens the neural discernment problem and proposes two interactionist models of mind-brain interaction that solve it. One model avoids overdetermination while the other respects the causal closure of the physical domain.

Respect for Autonomy has been a mainstay of medical ethics since its enshrinement as one of the four principles of biomedical ethics by Beauchamp and Childress’ in the late 1970s. This paper traces the development of this modern concept from Antiquity to the present day, paying attention to its Enlightenment origins in Kant and Rousseau. The rapid C20th developments of bioethics and RFA are then considered in the context of the post-war period and American socio-political thought. The validity and utility (...) of the RFA are discussed in light of this philosophical-historical account. It is concluded that it is not necessary to embrace an ethic of autonomy in order to guard patients from coercion or paternalism, and that, on the contrary, the dominance of autonomy threatens to undermine those very things which have helped doctors come to view and respect their patients as persons. (shrink)

This paper argues that healthcare aims at the good of health, that this pursuit of the good necessitates conscience, and that conscience is required in every practical judgement, including clinical...

Debate persists over the place of conscience in medicine. Some argue for the complete exclusion of conscientious objection, while others claim an absolute right of refusal. This paper proposes that claims of conscientious objection can and should be permitted if they concern kinds of actions which fall outside of the normative standard of medicine, which is the pursuit of health. Medical practice which meets this criterion we call medicine qua medicine. If conscientious refusal concerns something consonant with the health-restoring aims (...) of medicine, it entails a desertion of professional duty. If, however, it relates to something other than medicine qua medicine, it can rightly be refused. It thus becomes possible to test instances of conscientious objection to determine their validity, and thereby conserve both the principle of conscientious objection and define its scope. This test of conscience prevents arbitrary discrimination, and preserves doctors’ agency. It is a theoretical razor rooted in the pra... (shrink)

Michael Dummett presents a modus tollens argument against a Wittgensteinian conception of meaning. In a series of papers, Dummett claims that Wittgensteinian considerations entail strict finitism. However, by a “sorites argument”, Dummett argues that strict finitism is incoherent and therefore questions these Wittgensteinian considerations.In this paper, I will argue that Dummett’s sorites argument fails to undermine strict finitism. I will claim that the argument is based on two questionable assumptions regarding some strict finitist sets of natural numbers. It will be (...) shown that strict finitism entails none of these assumptions. Hence, the argument does not prove that the view is internally incoherent, and consequently, Dummett fails to undermine the Wittgensteinian conception of meaning. (shrink)

I explore two views about the relationship between spatial experience and spatial reality: spatial functionalism and spatial presentationalism. Roughly, spatial functionalism claims that the instantiated spatial properties are those playing a certain causal role in producing spatial experience while spatial presentationalism claims that the instantiated spatial properties include those presented in spatial experience. I argue that each view, in its own way, leads to an ontologically inflationary form of primitivism: whereas spatial functionalism leads to primitivism about phenomenal representation, spatial presentationalism (...) leads to primitivism about spatial properties. I conclude by discussing how to adjudicate between spatial functionalism and spatial presentationalism. (shrink)

This paper examines the ethical foundations of the Islamic financial industry which is strongly criticized for its similarity with conventional finance. In this paper, we argue that this criticism is based on the consequentialist reasoning. The deontological considerations are largely ignored when the focus is on aggregate returns and associated product features. We build an economic model which allows us to examine the implementation of deontological rules in the Islamic financial products along with examining their consequences. We show that the (...) market forces may cause the returns and the attributes of Islamic financial products to converge with conventional finance even though the industry may be adhering to the Islamic deontological rules. We build a model to show that there may exist ‘Epsilon States’ where the deontological rules are followed by the Islamic finance industry, but their impact is not significant. We argue that the source of these ‘Epsilon States’ could be either moral uncertainty or costly monitoring. The presence of these ‘Epsilon States’ enable Islamic financial institutions with weak ethical commitments to create financial products where the deontological rules are followed, but their impact remains insignificant. (shrink)

Interactionists hold that non-spatial objects causally interact with physical objects. Interactionists have traditionally grappled with the puzzle of how such interaction is possible. More recently, Jaegwon Kim has presented interactionists with a more daunting threat: the pairing argument, which purports to refute interactionism by showing that non-spatial objects cannot stand in causal relations. After reviewing that argument, I develop a challenge to it on behalf of the interactionist. The challenge poses a dilemma: roughly, either haecceities exist or they do not. (...) I argue that the pairing argument fails in either case. While the challenge does not explain exactly how the pairing argument goes wrong, it shows that the argument fails. The challenge also explains the difficulty in pinpointing the pairing argument’s failure: exactly how the pairing argument fails depends on difficult issues concerning the nature of objects. (shrink)

The conventional historical account of the concept of brain death credits developments and discoveries of the twentieth century with its inception, emphasizing the role of technological developments and professional conferences, notably the 1968 Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death. This essay argues that the French physician Eugène Bouchut anticipated the concept of brain death as early as 1846. Correspondence with Bouchut’s understanding of brain death and one important contemporary concept of brain (...) death is established then contrasted with current trends of defining death as the death of the brain. The philosophical factors that influenced Bouchut and the later developments of concepts of brain death are considered, with special reference to mechanistic philosophy and vitalism. (shrink)

In this paper we examine some of the economic and ethical consequences of different credit market regulations, including usury laws, complete prohibition of interest and providing ease to the borrower upon default. The references to these credit market regulations can be found in many religious and moral philosophy texts. We first examine the effectiveness of these regulations in deterring exploitative lending by developing a model that shows lending can be regulated through either act-based or harm-based regulations. We show that act-based (...) regulations which comprise usury laws and complete prohibition of interest deter lenders more than harm-based regulations which constitute bankruptcy laws. We then analyze that while the regulations may deter certain forms of lending behavior, they may also create certain externalities by contributing towards inequity and societal risk. We propose that a regulator’s choice of implementing credit market regulations maybe dependent on her ethical commitment towards growth and reduction of inequity. We suggest the usury laws are more ethical than bankruptcy laws; however, discouraging the use of debt contracts through prohibition of interest and encouraging the use of risk sharing contracts maybe the most ethical way to regulate the credit markets. (shrink)

This paper defends the view that discovering that our universe is fine-tuned should make us more confident that other universes exist. My defense exploits a distinction between ideal and non-ideal evidential support. I use that distinction in concert with a simple model to disarm the most influential objection—the this-universe objection—to the view that fine-tuning supports the existence of other universes. However, the simple model fails to capture some important features of our epistemic situation with respect to fine-tuning. To capture these (...) features, I introduce a more sophisticated model. I then use the more sophisticated model to show that, even once those complicating factors are taken into account, fine-tuning should boost our confidence in the existence of other universes. (shrink)

Why conscience matters is a landmark in the literature on conscientious objection in healthcare. In it, Xavier Symons, bioethicist and postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University, makes the...

Cremation has substantial practical benefits. Not only is it much cheaper than traditional burial, but it also comes without its ecological burden. Despite this, we argue that cremation is an inadequate way of disposing of the dead because it entails the destruction of community memory, and, by extension, community and individual identity. It deprives the living of these benefits, while also treating the dead in way which goes against common intuitions about personhood, anthropology and respect for the will of the (...) deceased. Death is perhaps one of the most important subjects in philosophy, and by marginalising it through cremation and related practices, we deprive ourselves of its didactic and social uses. The case we make against cremation is not absolute, but we hope it succeeds in casting doubt on the presumed neutrality of cremation. Our essay is under three heads: we consider the practical benefits of cremation; we reconsider the value of cremation in light of what it deprives individuals and communities of and; we analyse the significance of the corpse in regard to cremation. (shrink)

Conscientious Objection (CO) has become a highly contested topic in the bioethics literature and public policy. However, when CO is discussed, it is almost universally referred to as a single entity. Reality reveals a more nuanced picture. Healthcare professionals may object to a given action on numerous grounds. They may oppose an action because of its ends, its means, or because of factors that lay outside of both ends and means. Our paper develops a taxonomy of CO, which makes it (...) possible to describe the refusals of healthcare professional with greater finesse. The application of this development will potentially allow for greater subtlety in public policy and academic discussions – some species of CO could be permitted while others could be prohibited. (shrink)

Experiences tend to be followed by states for which they provide normative reasons. Such harmonious correlations cry out for explanation. Theories that answer or diminish these cries thereby achieve an advantage over theories that do neither. I argue that the main lines of response to these cries that are available to biological theorists—theorists who hold (roughly) that conscious subjects are generally biological entities—are problematic. And I argue that panpsychism—which holds (roughly) that conscious subjects are ubiquitous in nature—provides an attractive response (...) to these explanatory cries. Taken together, these considerations underwrite a kind of ‘psychophysical fine-tuning’ argument in support of panpsychism, one that is reminiscent of cosmological fine-tuning arguments in favor of multiverse hypotheses. (shrink)

As ever more advanced digital systems are created, it becomes increasingly likely that some of these systems will be digital minds, i.e. digital subjects of experience. With digital minds comes the risk of digital suffering. The problem of digital suffering is that of mitigating this risk. We argue that the problem of digital suffering is a high stakes moral problem and that formidable epistemic obstacles stand in the way of solving it. We then propose a strategy for solving it: Access (...) Monitor Prevent (AMP). AMP uses a ‘dancing qualia’ argument to link the functional states of certain digital systems to their experiences—this yields epistemic access to digital minds. With that access, we can prevent digital suffering by only creating advanced digital systems that we have such access to, monitoring their functional profiles, and preventing them from entering states with functional markers of suffering. After introducing and motivating AMP, we confront limitations it faces and identify some options for overcoming them. We argue that AMP fits especially well with—and so provides a moral reason to prioritize—one approach to creating such systems: whole brain emulation. We also contend that taking other paths to digital minds would be morally risky. (shrink)

Natural law is probably the most misrepresented and, therefore, unfairly dismissed ethical theory. If current academic ethics were a battlefield, it would be littered with the felled strawmen alleg...

Protecting the environment and its natural resources is an issue of great importance at the local and global levels. The phenomenon of environmental pollution resulting from the work of oil companies is one of the dangerous phenomena facing the environment in Iraq in general, and the environment of Kirkuk Governorate in particular, as the latter is considered one of the governorates rich in mineral resources, especially oil, as it contains six oil fields, and it contains the largest oil field in (...) Iraq. Estimates indicate that it produces (40%) of the total Iraqi oil, so it suffers from a significant increase in the proportions of toxic and environmentally polluting gases resulting from the work of these companies in it. The work of oil companies from exploration, extraction and refining oil will naturally result in the emission of many gases that are highly toxic, dangerous and harmful to human health. The most important of these gases are carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, hydrocarbon compounds, hydrogen sulfide and other gases that pollute the environment, which has resulted in the spread and increase in the number of patients with respiratory diseases in a clear and increasing manner in the governorate. This increase in environmental costs falls on society as a whole, so it was necessary to identify and measure environmental costs from the society’s point of view and work to re-charge them to oil companies by applying the environmental tax. (shrink)

Dualism holds that experiences are non-physical states that exist alongside physical states. Dualism leads to the postulation of psychophysical laws that generate experiences by operating on certain sorts of physical states. What sorts of physical states? To the limited extent that dualists have addressed this question, they have tended to favor a brain-based approach that locates the physical basis of experience in the head. In contrast, this paper develops an argument for a form of dualism on which experience has a (...) physical basis that reaches out into the world. Specifically, the argument uses a puzzle about spatial experience to support a theory I call _tracking dualism_. On tracking dualism, a psychophysical law generates experiences by operating on complex physical states that involve both brain states and tracking relations that they bear to features of the environment. To develop the argument, I discuss tracking dualism alongside its more familiar physicalist counterpart, the tracking intentionalist theory associated with Dretske, Lycan, and Tye. I conclude by outlining a tracking dualist research agenda. (shrink)

Dualism holds that some mental events are fundamental and non-physical. I develop a prima facie plausible causal argument for dualism. The argument has several significant implications. First, it constitutes a new way of arguing for dualism. Second, it provides dualists with a parity response to causal arguments for physicalism. Third, it transforms the dialectical role of epiphenomenalism. Fourth, it refutes the view that causal considerations prima facie support physicalism but not dualism. After developing the causal argument for dualism and drawing (...) out these implications, I subject the argument to a battery of objections. Some prompt revisions to the argument. Others reveal limitations in scope. It falls out of the discussion that the causal argument for dualism is best used against physicalism as a keystone in a divide and conquer strategy. (shrink)

Some physical theories predict that almost all brains in the universe are Boltzmann brains, i.e. short-lived disembodied brains that are accidentally assembled as a result of thermodynamic or quantum fluctuations. Physicists and philosophers of physics widely regard this proliferation as unacceptable, and so take its prediction as a basis for rejecting these theories. But the putatively unacceptable consequences of this prediction follow only given certain philosophical assumptions. This paper develops a strategy for shielding physical theorizing from the threat of Boltzmann (...) brains. The strategy appeals to a form of phenomenal externalism about the physical basis of consciousness. Given that form of phenomenal externalism, the proliferation of Boltzmann brains turns out to be benign. While the strategy faces a psychophysical fine-tuning problem, it both alleviates cosmological fine-tuning concerns that attend physics-based solutions to Boltzmann brain problems and pays explanatory dividends in connection with time’s arrow. (shrink)

L’ambition de ce dossier est à la fois d’affirmer l’importance de la réception de l’œuvre de Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis durant toute la première moitié du XIXe siècle, et de montrer que, tant dans le domaine philosophique que médical, psychophysiologique plus précisément, la lecture des Rapports du physique et du moral de l’homme a été déterminante pour la construction d’une nouvelle science de l’homme. L’importance de cette réception n’est en soi guère contestable. Rappelons en guise d’illu...

Volume 25, Issue 4, December 2019, Page 374-377.

BackgroundParole officers are one of many actors in the legal system charged with interpreting and enforcing the law. Officers not only assure that parolees under their supervision comply with the terms of their release, but also monitor and control parolees’ criminal behavior. They conduct their jobs through their understanding of their official mandate and make considered and deliberate choices while executing that mandate. However, their experiences as legal actors may impact their implicit cognitions about parolees. This experiment is the first (...) of its kind to examine implicit associations between the self and parolees among actors of the legal system.ObjectiveThe present study examines the implicit cognitive consequences of the quality of the parole officer-parolee relationship from the perspective of the parole officer; specifically, whether parole officers who are reminded of positive experiences with parolees implicitly associate more with the group parolees than those reminded of a negative experience. In addition, we explore the moderating effects of parole officers’ subjective professional orientation and identification.MethodEighty-four New Jersey parole officers participated in the study. First, an experimental manipulation of either a past positive or negative experience was administered via a writing task. Participants then completed an Implicit Association Test to measure associations between the self-concept of parole officers with parolees who are part of the group criminal, followed by measures of professional orientation and identification.ResultsParticipants who were reminded of a positive experience with a parolee exhibited stronger associations between self and the group parolee when compared to those who were reminded of a negative experience. Neither professional orientation nor parole officer group identification were related to implicit associations and did not moderate the effect of the past experience reminder on implicit associations.Conclusion and ImplicationsImplicit cognitions of parole officers may influence their behaviors and interactions with those whom they supervise. Positive reminders affect implicit self-associations with parolees presumably via empathy, which is known to affect the quality of therapeutic and supervision relationships; thus, theoretically, leading to improved outcomes for both officers and parolees. (shrink)