Chomsky's "Galilean" Explanatory Style

Chomsky pursues a methodology in linguistics that abstracts from substantial amounts of data about actual language use in a way that has met considerable resistance from many other linguists. He thinks of this method as like that employed by Galileo and later physicists who proposed laws of motion in considerable abstraction from many of the motions we observe in daily life, focusing, for example, not on leaves in the wind, but on frictionless environments that virtually never occur on earth. Thus, Chomsky’s theoretical proposals are supported not by studies of the corpora of actual language use, but often by the intuitions of native speakers; and the relevant intuitions are not about what they think is often or is likely to be said, but rather about what “can’t” be said (so called “negative data”), and about what types of interpretation a sentence can or cannot have. But doesn't this fly in the face of good, commonsensical scientific methodology? Aren’t theories confirmed by greater data, and refuted by data that seem to conflict with them? With regard to this issue, Chomsky (1980) writes: Substantial coverage of data is not a particularly significant result, it can be attained in many ways, and the result is not very informative as to the correctness of the principles employed. It will be more significant if we show that certain far-reaching principles interact to provide an explanation for crucial facts – the crucial nature of these facts deriving from their relation to proposed explanatory theories. (Chomsky 1980, 2) We’ll argue below that Chomsky’s observation here in fact accords with good explanatory practice elsewhere in science, but it does conflict with a traditional methodology in linguistics. In the spirit of the positivism/empiricism of the 1930s, the ‘structuralist’ linguist Leonard Bloomfield (1933, 20) insisted that “the only useful generalizations about language are inductive generalizations”, and linguists for the next several decades tried to specify ‘discovery procedures’, or rules for using a collection of phonetically characterized utterances to induce phonemic, morphemic and – it was hoped – finally syntactic analyses of the target language (see Sampson, 1980, 76ff). Such discovery procedures have fallen by the wayside, but many contemporary linguists would still agree with Bloomfield that linguistics seeks generalizations that both emerge from, and provide good coverage of, the data of language use

Parent Predictors Of Adolescents’ Explanatory Style

The current study tested the prospective relations (6-month lag) between three aspects of the parent-child relationship at Time 1 (T1) and adolescents’ explanatory styles at Time 2 (T2): caregiving behaviors, parents’ explanatory style for their own negative events, and parents’ explanatory style for their children’s negative events. The sample included 129 adolescents aged 11 to 14 years at baseline and their parents. Adolescents reported on their own explanatory style and their parents’ caregiving behaviors; parents self-reported on their caregiving behaviors and their explanatory style for their own and their children’s events. Regression analyses identified maternal acceptance as a significant predictor of T2 adolescents’ explanatory style. Marginal effects emerged for fathers’ psychological control and fathers’ explanatory style for their children’s events. Findings suggest that the ways parents—especially mothers—interact with their children may play a role in adolescents’ cognitive vulnerability to depression

Explanatory Style and Resilience after Sports Failure

International audienceSome athletes habitually explain bad events with causes that are stable in time and global in effect, and explain good events with causes that are unstable and specific. This pessimistic explanatory style constitutes a dispositional risk factor likely to lead to lower expectations of success, to increased anxiety, and to poor achievement. 62 participants (mean age 14 years) performed a basketball dribbling trial and were given false feedback indicating that they had failed. Consistent with prediction, in a second trial, the optimistic participants (N = 22) were less anxious (assessed by heart rate acceleration), more confident, and performed better than pessimistic participants (N = 20). A third group with a neutral explanatory style (N = 20) obtained scores which were between the two other groups

Improving psychological skill in trainee interpreters

The general effects of self-efficacy and explanatory style on performance have been thoroughly researched in the field of psychology. This article is based on Atkinson’s (2012) psychological skill model, which attempts to construct these factors to complement traditional conceptions of interpreter and translator skill, and apply them to interpreter and translator training. This article is a discussion of psychological skill, including factors of self-efficacy, explanatory style, and locus of control, and outlines how self-efficacy and explanatory style can become a focus of interpreter training. Resources to help students conduct self-analysis on their occupational self-efficacy and explanatory style are provided in the appendices, in the form of scales educators can use in their classes. A range of ideas are highlighted to assist students in becoming aware of their psychological skill, and pedagogical suggestions are offered for changing and improving aspects of psychological skill in students

Explanatory Style and Perception of Negative and Positive Daily Events

This study investigated explanatory style and people\u27s perceptions of negative and positive daily events. Explanatory style can be measured by rating causal explanations that people give on three dimensions; internality, stability, and globality. College students wrote stories in response to pictures, using the Thematic Apperceptive Test (TAT), and also completed a 28-day Daily Event Log Questionnaire. It was expected that how people explain good and bad events that happen to them, would be the same whether someone was explaining a personal daily event or explaining a story written in response to a picture. To prove this, it was expected that the two measures would have a high degree of correspondence. To test the hypothesis, the TAT and daily log data were coded for explanatory style using the Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanations (CAVE) technique. Results did not show a high degree of correspondence, suggesting that these two measures might tap different aspects of the explanatory style construct. Interestingly, the range of areas of life that will be affected by the cause (the negative global dimension), was the only discriminator of explanatory style, for both measures. Next, it was explored whether the Daily Event Log Questionnaire could help us understand how people who habitually give certain types of explanations perceive their daily events. Results showed that this new measure had similar results to other explanatory style measures. Also, a significant 3-way interaction between valence of event being explained, x range of areas in life to be affected, x type of explanations habitually given, was found. Findings suggest that daily events add to the explanatory style research, and that more study needs to be done to fully understand their place in the literature

An exploration of defensive pessimism, explanatory style, and expectations in relation to the academic performance of college and university students.

Researchers have studied the concepts of optimism and pessimism as traits, expectations, strategies, and styles of explaining outcomes. Explanatory style and the strategy of defensive pessimism are two of these areas. In general, optimistic explanatory style has been associated with better outcomes including academic performance. Some studies have found that pessimistic explanatory style has been associated with better academic outcomes. One suggestion in the literature was that defensive pessimism might explain the cases where pessimistic explanatory style is associated with better academic outcomes. To evaluate this explanation, the Academic Attributional Style Questionnaire (AASQ, Revised Defensive Pessimism Questionnaire (DPQ), and Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) were administered to 188 undergraduate and graduate students from five colleges and universities. Measures of academic achievement included official course and exam grade as reported by the instructor as well as self-reported GPA. There were no differences in academic performance between groups that made more pessimistic explanations and those who made more optimistic explanations. There were no differences within the group of those with more pessimistic explanatory styles regardless of level of use of defensive pessimism. Explanatory style was associated with expectations for course grade. There were no differences on outcome expectations or efficacy between defensive pessimists and low exam scorers. Defensive pessimism was associated with multiple psychological symptoms as measured by the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI). Further investigation to determine if encouraging a strategy defensive pessimism in those with more pessimistic explanatory styles would lead to improved performance. More research needs to be devoted to the study of the relationships among explanatory style, defensive pessimism, and expectations

From Maltreatment to Outcomes: Examining the Role of Explanations and Expectations as Mediators of the Maltreatment - Outcome Relation in Youth

The relation between explanatory style, expectations, and behavioral outcomes (adaptive and maladaptive) were examined for 46 youth exposed to maltreatment currently in foster care (Mean age = 11.64, SD = 2.54). Youth participants were administered the Children's Attribution Style Questionnaire - Revised and Youth Life Orientation Test; caregivers completed the Behavior Assessment System for Children - 2nd Edition. Results indicated comparatively higher rates of negative mental health outcomes in youth with a history of maltreatment living in foster care compared to children in the general population. Children's expectations were not found to mediate the relation between explanatory style and outcomes (internalizing, externalizing, or adaptive outcomes). The results are contrary to previous research supporting relations between explanatory style, expectations, and behavioral outcomes. Implications of the results for the field are discussed

Pelatihan Berpikir Optimis Untuk Meningkatkan Harga Diri Pada Remaja Di Panti Asuhan

Survei menunjukkan 46% remaja di panti asuhan mengarah pada ciri-ciri harga diri rendah. Remaja di panti menganggap dirinya tidak memiliki pendirian, menjadi sumber masalah bagi lingkungan, terasing dari keluarga, dan mudah menyerah serta mengalami hambatan untuk mengekspresikan emosi negatif.Perasaan dan keyakinan yang kurang menguntungkan seperti ini merupakan salah satu model persepsi umum individu untuk menginterpetasikan kejadian dalam hidupnya yang juga disebut dengan explanatory style. Seligman (1995) menyatakan bahwa explanatory style merupakan inti dari berpikir optimis, sehingga perubahan explanatory style dilakukan dengan memberikan latihan berpikir optimis model ABCDE. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menguji secara empiris pelatihan berpikir optimis untuk meningkatkan harga diri remaja di panti asuhan. Hipotesis yang diajukan adalah pelatihan berpikir optimis dapat meningkatkan harga diri remaja di panti asuhan.Metode penelitian ini menggunakan eksperimen dengan rancangan pretest-posttes control group design. Berdasarkan hasil uji Wilcoxon untuk pretest dan posttest kelompok eksperimen diperoleh kesimpulan bahwa pelatihan berpikir optimis sangat signifikan untuk meningkatkan harga diri remaja di panti asuhan

But Thinking Makes It So: A Curriculum to Build an Optimistic Explanatory Style Leveraging High School Dramatic Arts

An association exists between optimism and emotional, physical and performance benefits that can help protect high school students against depression and strengthen resilience. Learning to change one’s explanatory style is a way to promote optimism. High school drama programs present an opportunity to teach positive psychology skills, such as optimism, to increase the well-being of students. At the same time, these skills offer an opportunity for actors to gain mastery in their craft. This paper proposes a four-class high school drama curriculum that attempts to do both. Curriculums to change explanatory style have already been designed with successful results. The curriculum proposed here adapts these skills to make them useful for actors when analyzing scenes and developing characters. If, “all the world is a stage, and all men and women nearly players”(Shakespeare, 1623, 2.7.142-143), then actors who find the skills useful in their theatrical practice, should experience higher engagement, adoption, and mastery of the explanatory style skills and thus, experience higher well-being