This book introduces Robert Corrington’s “ecstatic naturalism,” a new perspective in understanding “sacred” nature and naturalism, and explores what can be done with this philosophical thought. This is an excellent resource for scholars of Continental philosophy, philosophy of religion, and American pragmatism.

In six experiments, we investigated the role of resource valence in intergenerational attitudes and allocations. We found that, compared to benefits, allocating burdens intergenerationally increased concern with one’s legacy, heightened ethical concerns, intensified moral emotions (e.g., guilt, shame), and led to feelings of greater responsibility for and affinity with future generations. We argue that, because of greater concern with legacies and the associated moral implications of one’s decisions, allocating burdens leads to greater intergenerational generosity as compared to benefits. Our data (...) provide support for this effect across a range of contexts. Our results also indicate that the differential effect of benefits versus burdens in intergenerational contexts depends on the presence of two important structural characteristics that help enact concerns about legacies, including (1) future impact of decisions, and (2) a self-other tradeoff. Overall, our findings highlight how considering resource valence brings to the fore a number of key psychological characteristics of intergenerational decisions—especially as they relate to legacies and ethics. (shrink)

Tuberculosis (TB) is a potentially fatal infectious disease that, in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ), inequitably affects Asian, Pacific, Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African (MELAA), and Māori people. Medical research involving genome sequencing of TB samples enables more nuanced understanding of disease strains and their transmission. This could inform highly specific health interventions. However, the collection and management of TB isolate samples for research are currently informed by monocultural biomedical models often lacking key ethical considerations. Drawing on a qualitative kaupapa (...) Māori–consistent study, this paper reports on preliminary discussions with groups of Māori, Pacific, and Afghan people in NZ, whose communities have been harmed by TB and TB stigma. Participants’ discussions highlight key concerns and meanings that ought to inform the development of guidelines and a more robust consultative process for the governance of how TB isolate samples are collected and used both retrospectively and in future research. We argue for ethical processes to be culturally nuanced and community-generated, flexible and meaningful, and situated in relation to the physical and symbolic effects of TB. We discuss the significance of Indigenous data sovereignty, rights, and kāwanatanga (governorship) in shaping a multicultural data sovereignty model. (shrink)

Pezdek and Lam [Pezdek, K. & Lam, S. . What research paradigms have cognitive psychologists used to study “False memory,” and what are the implications of these choices? Consciousness and Cognition] claim that the majority of research into false memories has been misguided. Specifically, they charge that false memory scientists have been misusing the term “false memory,” relying on the wrong methodologies to study false memories, and misapplying false memory research to real world situations. We review each of these claims (...) and highlight the problems with them. We conclude that several types of false memory research have advanced our knowledge of autobiographical and recovered memories, and that future research will continue to make significant contributions to how we understand memory and memory errors. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In this article, we review and build on intergenerational and behavioral ethics research to consider how the motive to build a lasting legacy can impact ethical behavior in intergenerational decision making. We discuss how people can utilize their relationships to organizations to craft their legacies. Further, we elucidate how the legacy motive can enhance business ethics, incorporating theory and empirical findings from research on intergenerational decision making, generativity, and terror management theory to develop the legacy construct and to outline the (...) psychological underpinnings of motivations to leave a positive legacy. We discuss the ways in which legacies can provide a link between life-meaning and pro-social motivation, and we consider the ways in which individuals’ social environments can moderate the intensity of the legacy motive and can impact legacy-building behavior by determining the types of legacies that are valued. Finally, we highlight the implications of these ideas for ethical behavior and sustainable decision making in business contexts. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

This book challenges the usual introductions to the study of law. It argues that law is inherently political and reflects the interests of the few even while presenting itself as neutral. It considers law as ideology and as politics, and critically assesses its contribution to the creation and maintenance of a globalised and capitalist world. The clarity of the arguments is admirably suited to provoking discussions of the role of law in our contemporary world. The third edition provides contemporary examples (...) to sustain the arguments in their relevance to the 21st century. The book includes an analysis of the common sense of law; the use of anthropological examples to gain external perspectives of our use and understanding of law; a consideration of central legal concepts, such as order, rules, property, dispute resolution, legitimation and the rule of law; an examination of the role of law in women's subordination; and finally a critique of the effect of our understanding of law upon the wider world. This book is ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate students reading law. (shrink)

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societal-level analyses. At the individual-level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub-dimensions and two sets of values dimensions (collectivism and individualism; openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence). At the societal-level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective (...) autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each society, we report the Cronbach’s α statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency (reliability) as well as report interrater agreement (IRA) analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country values. We also examined whether societal development level is related to systematic variation in the measurement and importance of values. Thus, the contributions of our evaluation of the SVS values dimensions are two-fold. First, we identify the SVS dimensions that have cross-culturally internally reliable structures and within-society agreement for business professionals. Second, we report the society cultural values scores developed from the twenty-first century data that can be used as macro-level predictors in multilevel and single-level international business research. (shrink)

Doctored images can cause people to believe in and remember experiences that never occurred, yet the underlying mechanism responsible are not well understood. How does compelling false evidence distort autobiographical memory? Subjects were filmed observing and copying a Research Assistant performing simple actions, then they returned 2 days later for a memory test. Before taking the test, subjects viewed video-clips of simple actions, including actions that they neither observed nor performed earlier. We varied the format of the video-clips between-subjects to (...) tap into the source-monitoring mechanisms responsible for the ‘doctored-evidence effect.’ The distribution of belief and memory distortions across conditions suggests that at least two mechanisms are involved: doctored images create an illusion of familiarity, and also enhance the perceived credibility of false suggestions. These findings offer insight into how external evidence influences source-monitoring. (shrink)

We address the controversy in the literature concerning the definition of holobionts and the apparent constraints on their evolution using concepts from community population genetics. The genetics of holobionts, consisting of a host and diverse microbial symbionts, has been neglected in many discussions of the topic, and, where it has been discussed, a gene-centric, species-centric view, based in genomic conflict, has been predominant. Because coevolution takes place between traits or genes in two or more species and not, strictly speaking, between (...) species, it may affect some traits but not others in either host or symbiont. Moreover, when interacting species pairs are embedded in a larger community, indirect ecological effects can alter the expected pairwise dynamics. Mode of symbiont transmission and the degree of host inbreeding both affect the extent of microbial mixing across host lineages and thereby the degree to which selection on one trait of either partner affects other aspects of a holobiont phenotype. We discuss several potential defining criteria for holobionts using community genetics and population genetics models, suggesting their application and limitations. Using community genetics models, we show how conflict between genomes can be self-limiting, while cooperation and mutualism tend to be self-accelerating. It is likely that this bias in the evolutionary dynamics of interaction between hosts and symbionts is an important feature of holobionts. This bias in the evolutionary dynamic could contribute to explaining the absence of cheaters from natural mutualisms, although cheaters are predicted by gene-centered conflict theory to cause the evolutionary instability of mutualisms. Additionally, it may help explain the more frequent origin of mutualisms from parasitic than from free-living systems, an evolutionary trajectory opposite to that predicted by genome conflict theory. (shrink)

Taking Parenting Public makes a compelling case that parenting has become dangerously undervalued in America today. It calls for a new investment—both personal and public—into the work of raising children and argues that we are all "stockholders" in the next generation. With a foreword by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West, Taking Parenting Public crosses boundaries to bring together thinkers from diverse fields spanning the political spectrum. It features contributions from distinguished experts in economics, political science, public policy, child development, (...) public health, history, and the media. While recent books have focused on working mothers or absent fathers, Taking Parenting Public is the first volume to take a comprehensive look at the common struggles of parents. These essays go beyond the usual chest-beating about busy parents torn between work and family demands to suggest bold solutions. Instead of the typical call for "parent replacement"—more child care, more after school programs and more mentors—the contributors offer fresh strategies for "parent replenishment," ways to put mothers and fathers back into the lives of their children not only as economic providers, but also as emotional and moral providers. (shrink)

A recurrent theme in eukaryotic genome regulation stipulates that the properties of DNA are strongly influenced by the nucleoprotein complex into which it is assembled. Methylation of cytosine residues in vertebrate genomes has been implicated in influencing the assembly of locally repressive chromatin architecture. Current models suggest that covalent modification of DNA results in heritable, long‐term transcriptional silencing. In October of 2003, two manuscripts1,2 were published that challenge important aspects of this model, suggesting that modulation of both DNA methylation itself, (...) as well as the machinery implicated in its interpretation, are involved in acute gene regulation. BioEssays 26:217–220, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The old story and the new story -- Have we changed the story? part 1 -- Have we changed the story? part 2 -- Why do we need the new story? -- Some questions in the new story -- Navigating the stories -- Boats and airplanes : a brief digression -- Three questions about God -- Is God angry? -- Is God angry? part 2 -- A small digression about judgment -- Is God distant? part 1 -- Is God distant? (...) part 2 -- Is God distant? part 3 -- Is God distant? part 4 -- Is God a bully? part 1 -- Is God a bully? part 2 -- Is God a bully? part 3 -- A short word on exclusivity -- The path of wisdom -- The eclipse of doctrine -- Ethos versus doctrine -- Where to begin? (shrink)

The US populace appears to be increasingly polarized on partisan lines. Political fissures bifurcate the country even on empirical matters like vaccine safety and anthropogenic climate change. There now exists an ever-expanding interdisciplinary research program in which theorists attempt to explain increases in political polarization and myriad other phenomena collected under the “post-truth” heading by appeal to social-epistemic structures, like echo chambers and epistemic bubbles, that affect the flow and uptake of information in various communities. In this paper, I critically (...) analyze C. Thi Nguyen’s important and popular analysis of echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. As I demonstrate, the explanatory mechanisms on which Nguyen focuses are, arguably, overly cognitive and obscure significant effects of social-epistemic structures on our affective lives. The broader lesson to draw from my discussion is the following: commonly used expressions intended to refer to social-epistemic problems, like “political polarization”, possess no univocal definition across theorists, and various ways of making the terms precise are differentially successful in characterizing verifiable phenomena. Theorizing about social-epistemic structures should be responsive to relevant empirical work on various phenomena that we have good reason to believe constitute real and substantive problems that result from the flow and uptake of information. (shrink)

People frequently report that their thought has, at times, a vocal character. Thinking commonly appears to be accompanied or constituted by silently ‘talking’ to oneself in inner speech. In this paper, I argue that inner speech ‘utterances’ can constitute occurrent propositional attitudes, e.g., occurrent judgments, suppositions, etc., and, thereby, we can consciously reason through tokening a series of inner speech utterances in working memory. As I demonstrate, the functional role a mental state plays in working memory is determined in a (...) flexible and context sensitive manner by metacognitive monitoring and control procedures. An inner speech utterance functions as an occurrent judgment (and, thus, as a premise, lemma, or conclusion in a line of conscious reasoning) when it is experienced with a level of certainty that exceeds one’s threshold of confidence for acceptance. In virtue of an agent experiencing an inner speech utterance with a sufficient level of certainty, the utterance plays the functional role of an occurrent judgment through, e.g., terminating inquiry and causing overt actions (like overtly asserting the words rehearsed in inner speech). (shrink)

Current management of people with prolonged disorders of consciousness is failing patients, families and society. The causes include a general lack of concern, knowledge and expertise; a legal and professional framework which impedes timely and appropriate decision-making and/or enactment of the decision; and the exclusive focus on the patient, with no legitimate means to consider the broader consequences of healthcare decisions. This article argues that a clinical pathway based on the principles of the English Mental Capacity Act 2005 and using (...) time-limited treatment trials could greatly improve patient management and reduce stress on families. There needs to be early and continuing use of formal best interests meetings, starting between 7 and 21 days after onset of unconsciousness. The treatment options need to evolve as the clinical state and prognosis becomes more certain. A formal discussion of treatment withdrawal should occur when the upper bound of predicted recovery falls below a level the patient would have considered acceptable, and it should always be discussed when the condition is considered permanent. Any decision to stop treatment should be contingent on a formal second opinion from an independent expert who should review the clinical situation and expected prognosis, but not the best interests decision. The article also asks how, if at all, the adverse effects on the family and the resource implications of long-term care of people left in a prolonged state of unconsciousness should be incorporated in the process. (shrink)

From 1945 on for two decades, Father William Wade was Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at St. Louis University. This volume, a recovery of his own 1935 Ph.D dissertation, was originally written under the direction of Vernon J. Bourke, later himself a renowned interpreter of both St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. In his dissertation, Wade displays deep understanding of relationships between Greek and medieval thought as well as of the different influences of Plato and Aristotle by (...) way of Augustine and Thomas. (shrink)

The author has had a lifelong interest in design and its application. In this book he shows how the perceptions about the nature of the universe inform the art of their times, for example the form and fluidity of primitive art or the crystalline order of Islamic patterns.

Many developing and transitional countries have grown faster than advanced countries in the past decade, resulting in a shift in the distribution of world income in their favor. China is now the second largest economy in the world, behind the United States and ahead of Japan. As the relative economic weight of China and several others has come to match or exceed that of the middle-ranking G7 economies, the world economy has shifted from “unipolar” toward “multipolar,” less dominated by the (...) G7. How is this change being translated into changes in authority and influence within multilateral organizations like the G20, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund? Alarm bells are ringing in G7 capitals about G7 loss of influence. According to a WikiLeaks cable from the senior U.S. official for the G20 process, from January 2010, “It is remarkable how closely coordinated the BASIC group of countries [Brazil, South Africa, India, China] have become in international fora, taking turns to impede US/eu initiatives and playing the US and EU off against each other.” This essay suggests that the shift in power is much smaller than the headlines or private alarm bells suggest. The United States remains the dominant state, and the G7 states together continue to exercise primacy, but now more fearfully and defensively. China is split between asserting itself as “the wave of the future” and defending itself as too poor to take on global responsibilities. The combination of G7 defensiveness and emerging states’ jealous guarding of sovereignty produces a spirit of Westphalian assertion in international fora, or “every state for itself.” On the assumption that the world economy is in a transitional period, the article suggests reforms in the G20 and the World Bank that would boost their role and legitimacy as multilateral organizations in a more multipolar world. (shrink)

Conventional models for Social Construction of Technology fail to take into account the prevailing influence of a new technological/social phenomenon-the modern business corporation. Corporate autonomy, power and influence, as exhibited especially since the mid-1970s, has made necessary the consideration of a new concept: the Technological Construction of Society, a novel form of technological determinism which pays due attention to the role of large, publicly-traded, professionally managed business corporations.

Nike. McDonald’s Apple. These companies and many others invest millions of dollars each year protecting that one thing that distinguishes them in the marketplace – a trademark. A company’s trademark is the symbol that allows consumers to know that they are dealing with a particular company. This article addresses the extent to which some companies will go to obtain and protect a trademark. Specifically, it will address the fight between Cisco and Apple over the iPhone trademark, as both companies took (...) questionable steps in the United States and abroad to obtain rights to the iPhone mark. In addition, the basics of trademark law and ethical theories relevant to trademark law will be addressed. (shrink)

People frequently report that, at times, their thought has a vocal character. Thinking commonly appears to be accompanied or constituted by silently ‘talking’ to oneself in inner speech. In this paper, we explore the specifically epistemic role of inner speech in conscious reasoning. A plausible position—but one I argue is ultimately wrong—is that inner speech plays asolelyfacilitative role that is exhausted by (i) serving as the vehicle of representation for conscious reasoning, and/or (ii) allowing one to focus on certain types (...) of objects or relations, e.g., causal relations, abstracta, counterfactuals, etc., or to consciously entertain structured propositional contents that it would be hard (or impossible) to focus on or entertain with representations in other (e.g., imagistic) formats. According to this position, inner speech doesn't figure as a justificatory element in our reasoning or as the partial epistemic basis of our conclusions—it merely facilitates reasoning through (i) and/or (ii). In contrast to the view that inner speech is amerefacilitator, I establish that (outside of potentially playing roles (i) and/or (ii)) the language we use itself serves as a crucial source of information in reasoning. In other words, we reason from propositions about the language we use in inner speech as opposed to exclusively reasoning from the semantic contents of the speech. My conclusion follows from how we use language as a cognitive tool to keep track of information, e.g., the contents of premises, lemmas, previous reasoning results, etc., in reasoning. (shrink)

Most jurisdictions require a patient to consent to any medical intervention. Clinicians ask a patient, ‘Given the pain and distress associated with our intervention and the predicted likelihood of this best-case outcome, do you want to accept the treatment?’ When a patient is incapable of deciding, clinicians may ask people who know the patient to say what the patient would decide; this is substituted judgement. In contrast, asking the same people to say how the person would make the decision is (...) substituted interests.1 The UK Mental Capacity Act 2005 uses the latter approach, and my comments appertain to that approach. When a patient lacks capacity, the question facing clinicians is, ‘Given the likely outcome of this treatment plan for the patient’s life in the long term, would the patient decide to accept the plan?’ This answer depends on the patient’s wishes, values and other factors they would use when deciding. The proposed development of an algorithm involves the following:2. (shrink)

This research examines the association between attitudes on cheating and cognitive moral development. In this research, we use Rest's (1979a) Defining Issues Test, the Attitudes on Honesty Scale (Authors) and Academic Integrity Index (Authors); the last two are adaptations of the DIT. A total of 220 students from three universities participated in the study (66 psychology majors and 154 business majors). The data indicate that 66.4 percent of the students reported that they cheated in high school, college, or both high (...) school and college. Psychology majors scored higher than business majors on both the Defining Issues Test (Rest, 1979a) and the Attitudes on Honesty Scale (AHS, Authors). Using factor analysis, we found significant associations between students' ratings of the importance considerations present in the three cheating scenarios and their estimates of whether cheating would occur (i.e., the Academic Integrity Index). Finally, using logistic regression, we found that the scores on the Attitudes on Honesty Scale and Academic Integrity Index associate with the self-reported cheating behavior of college students. (shrink)

In light of recent social psychological literature, I expand Miranda Fricker’s important notion of testimonial injustice. A fair portion of Fricker’s account rests on an older paradigm of stereotype and prejudice. Given recent empirical work, I argue for what I dub prescriptive credibility deficits in which a backlash effect leads to the assignment of a diminished level of credibility to persons who act in counter-stereotypic manners, thereby flouting prescriptive stereotypes. The notion of a prescriptive credibility deficit is not merely an (...) interesting conceptual addendum that can be appended to Fricker’s theory without need for further emendation. I develop the wider implications of prescriptive credibility deficits and argue that they pose a challenge to Fricker’s conception of the function of credibility assignments in conversational exchange and how a virtuous listener should respond to the potential threat of a prejudicial stereotype affecting her credibility assignments. (shrink)

Background and aimsExcessive pain during medical procedures is a worldwide medical problem. Most scald burns occur in children under 6, who are often undermedicated. Adjunctive Virtual Reality distraction has been shown to reduce pain in children aged 6–17, but little is known about VR analgesia in young children. This study tests whether desktop VR can reduce the just noticeable pressure pain of children aged 2–10.MethodsA within-subject repeated measures design was used. With treatment order randomized, each healthy volunteer pediatric participant underwent (...) brief cutaneous pressure stimuli under three conditions: no distraction, a verbal color naming task, and a large TV-based desktop VR distraction. A hand-held Wagner pressure pain stimulation device was used to generate just noticeable pain sensations. Participants indicated when a steadily increasing non-painful pressure stimulus first turned into a painful pressure sensation.ResultsA total of 40 healthy children participated. Compared to the no distraction condition, the 40 children showed significant VR analgesia, t = 9.83, p < 0.001, SD = 6.24. VR was also significantly more effective at reducing pain sensitivity vs. an auditory color naming task, t = 5.42, p < 0.001, SD = 5.94. The subset of children aged 2–5 showed significant reductions in pain during VR. Children under 6 showed greater sensitivity to pain during no distraction than children aged 6–10.ConclusionDuring no distraction, children under 6 years old were significantly more sensitive to pain than children aged 6–10. Virtual reality significantly reduced the “just noticeable” pressure pain sensitivity of children in both age groups. (shrink)

A new view on the human tradition of apocalypse, from the rise of Homo sapiens to the climate instability of our present, and a look at how the new tools of archaeology reveal these upheavals as moments that created the world we live in, and continue to offer surprising opportunities for radical change.

Criticisms of patent laws for technological innovations in the United States reveal a multifaceted milieu of problems centered around the protection of short-term economic gain and individual property rights. In this article, we consider this a conflict between current patent laws and the innovation capabilities of organizations. We propose a solution that enables the company to assure its long-term survival in the face of these restrictions. This presumes that the firm will at least maintain its innovation capacities while preserving the (...) company's ethical values and those of its social environment. We offer a theoretical model that is designed to help managers and policymakers reorient their governance strategies for managing the innovation process, using the “ethics of responsibility,” which establishes the link to individual moral values at the beginning of a governance process as well as the consequences of a decision. Our integrated causal model of ethical innovation for patents is presented and implications for global organizations and possible solutions for patent law process failure are offered. (shrink)

This article integrally analyzes the National Standard of Canada for Organic Agriculture (NSCOA) through the application of philosopher Ken Wilber's Integral model. The results of the analysis determined that the NSCOA is predominantly a one-dimensional (exterior), two quadrant (behaviors and systems) policy. The NSCOA neglects the subjective and intersubjective elements of the Integral model and at best achieves physical sustainability and the physiological/behavioral treatment of livestock. Finally, recommendations are made to incorporate the principles of the Integral model into the workings (...) of the NSCOA. (shrink)

AbstractClimate change is a complex, multilevel challenge with implications of failure unimaginable for current and future generations. However, despite the Paris Agreement supporting the imperative for action in an atmosphere of scientific consensus, organisations are failing to take the decisive action required. We argue that this lack of organisational action needs to be addressed by examining the cognitive foundations of managerial decisions on climate change and sustainability. A systematic review of research on cognition, sensemaking and managerial interpretation where it is (...) linked to climate change or sustainability is presented within this article. The results detail a multilevel analysis highlighting key themes and the core concepts from the literature including factors shaping the cognitive process, to elucidate reasons for inaction and potential for promoting change. Through this research, an integrated model is presented demonstrating the interaction of factors, cognitive processes and outcomes. Based on this analysis, potential reasons for inaction are proposed and countered by three potential solutions linked to leadership, social norms and structural reform. (shrink)

The case of Baby G raises some of the most difficult decisions confronting parents and health-care professionals. Given the context-specific nature of most medical decisions affecting children, the principles and standards of child rights and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child will not clearly articulate the best interests of the child in every situation. A child rights–based approach will, however, provide the factors that must be considered, methods for their analysis, and the procedural safeguards that must surround (...) decision-making related to complex medical situations facing children, families, and providers. This approach can facilitate both.. (shrink)

Prior research examining mate expulsion indicates that women are more likely to expel a mate due to deficits in emotional access while men are more likely to expel a mate due to deficits in sexual access. Prior research highlights the importance of accounting for measurement limitations (e.g., the use of incremental vs. forced-choice measures) when assessing attitudes toward sexual and emotional infidelity; Wade & Brown, 2012; Sagarin et al., 2012). The present research uses conjoint analysis, a novel methodology for (...) controlling several limitations of using continuous self-report measures in mate expulsion research. Participants (N = 181; 128 women) recruited from Bucknell University and several psychology recruitment listservs in the US rated 9 profiles that varied in three potential levels of emotional and sexual accessibility. Men were more likely to want to break up with a partner due to sexual accessibility deficits, whereas women were more likely to want to break up due to emotional accessibility deficits. However, regardless of sex, emotional inaccessibility was more likely to produce mate expulsion. These findings are consistent with prior theory and highlight the need to disentangle emotional accessibility into its constituent in-pair benefits. This research also illustrates the utility of conjoint analysis as a statistical tool for studying how humans resolve trade-offs among competing outcomes during romantic decision-making. (shrink)

Gilligan’s (1982) refinement of Kohlberg’s theory on moral development operates on two theses: (1) females, more so than males, reach moral decisions based on the personalities of the relevant individuals; and (2) female behaviors stemming from moral decisions are based upon “care” and “responsibility for others.” This article accepts the first thesis but argues that the second is incorrect. That is, self-interest—i.e., aiding “blood” kin and/or carefully monitoring reciprocity—rather than “altruism” is argued to be the operant dynamic in forging distaff (...) morality and resultant behavior. Six empirical examples are presented as contraindicative of Gilligan’s second thesis. Finally, it is suggested that selection for the psychological traits of independence and the mastery of subtle social chess yielded ancestral females who had more descendants—us—than did females with alternative profiles. (shrink)