Appraisal and coping strategy use in victims of school bullying

The aims of the paper are to examine the factor structure of a coping measure that is directly comparable with the adult literature; to examine the content of pupils' threat and challenge appraisals concerning bullying; and to examine the relationships between appraisals and coping strategy use within the victims of school bullying. Halstead et al.'s Revised Ways of Coping Checklist can be used to measure coping amongst child and adolescent victims of bullying. Furthermore, including appraisal variables improves our understanding of individual differences between victims' coping strategy choices

Illegitimate Values, Confirmation Bias, and Mandevillian Cognition in Science

In the philosophy of science, it is a common proposal that values are illegitimate in science and should be counteracted whenever they drive inquiry to the confirmation of predetermined conclusions. Drawing on recent cognitive scientific research on human reasoning and confirmation bias, I argue that this view should be rejected. Advocates of it have overlooked that values that drive inquiry to the confirmation of predetermined conclusions can contribute to the reliability of scientific inquiry at the group level even when they negatively affect an individual’s cognition. This casts doubt on the proposal that such values should always be illegitimate in science. It also suggests that advocates of that proposal assume a narrow, individualistic account of science that threatens to undermine their own project of ensuring reliable belief formation in science

An Expectancy-Value Approach to Determinants of Trust

An Expectancy-Value model was used to test various attributes of trustworthiness, as determinants of people’s trust in 5 Swedish organizations (public and commercial). Trust was conceptualized as an attitude, dependent on respondents’ beliefs about and evaluations of the organization with respect to these attributes. A survey was sent out to a sample representative of the Swedish population (response rate: 55.5%; N = 347). It was found that the Expectancy-Value Model was powerful in explaining trust in 3 organizations. However, it was also found that a model including only values as predictors of trust was more powerful in explaining trust in 2 organizations: the Swedish Government and advertising firms. The phenomenon of double denial (Sjöberg & Montgomery, 1999) was very strong, which could be an important explanation of these findings. It is discussed whether double denial could be caused by trust ratings based on ideologies (e.g., political or general anti-business) subscribed to and emotional reactions, rather than analytical evaluations of an organization.trust; attitude; organizations; expectancy-value

Irrelevant Cultural Influences on Belief

Recent work in psychology on ‘cultural cognition’ suggests that our cultural background drives our attitudes towards a range of politically contentious issues in science such as global warming. This work is part of a more general attempt to investigate the ways in which our wants, wishes and desires impact on our assessments of information, events and theories. Put crudely, the idea is that we conform our assessments of the evidence for and against scientific theories with clear political relevance to our pre-existing political beliefs and convictions. In this paper I explore the epistemological consequences of cultural cognition. What does it mean for the rationality of our beliefs about issues such as global warming? I argue for an unsettling conclusion. Not only are those on the ‘political right’ who reject the scientific consensus on issues like global warming unjustified in doing so, some of those on the ‘political left’ who accept the consensus are also unjustified in doing so. I finish by addressing the practical implications of my conclusions

Orronic Pain: A Study of Treatment Outcome as it Relates to Coping Behaviors, Assertiveness, Spiritual Well-Being, and MMPI Scores

This study evaluated chronic pain patients in an attempt to predict treatment outcome. Forty-one volunteer patients completed a Patient History Questionnaire, The Ways of Coping (WOC), The Interpersonal Behavior Survey (!BS), The Spiritual Well-Being Inventory (SWB) , and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). Each of these instruments were used to predict treatment outcome as measured by items from the Pain Treatment Outcome Questionnaire including Functional Activity Level, Use of Analgesic Medications, Subjective Pain Rating, and Return to Work. Linear regression statistics were used to determine which of the independent variables successfully predicted treatment outcome. Number of Months Since Last Worked predicted Post Treatment Return to Work and was the strongest of all the predictive variables. Functional Activity Level predicted Post Treatment Functional Activity Level. Spiritual Well-Being predicted Post Treatment reduction of Medication Use. Problem Focused Coping, from the Ways of Coping predicted Post Treatment reduction of Subjective Pain. Elevations on the MMPI D, Pd, Male and conversion V scales all predicted for a failure to reduce Post Treatment Use of Analgesic Medications. Elevations on the MMPI Mf scale predicted for Post Treatment Return to Work. All of the following variables failed to significantly predict any of the treatment outcome variables: The Ways of Coping Emotion Focused Coping, Religious Coping, the MMPI manipulative reaction profile (Hs, D, Pd, Ma), the Interpersonal Behavior Survey General Assertiveness scale, and Frequency of Church Attendance. This study was approached from a cognitive phenomenological perspective which integrated the work of Lazarus and Moos. Developing training for return to work and increasing chaplaincy programs in Pain Treatment Centers are practical applications of these findings

Epistemic Sentimentalism and Epistemic Reason-Responsiveness

Epistemic Sentimentalism is the view that emotional experiences such as fear and guilt are a source of immediate justification for evaluative beliefs. For example, guilt can sometimes immediately justify a subject’s belief that they have done something wrong. In this paper I focus on a family of objections to Epistemic Sentimentalism that all take as a premise the claim that emotions possess a normative property that is apparently antithetical to it: epistemic reason-responsiveness, i.e., emotions have evidential bases and justifications can be demanded of them. I respond to these objections whilst granting that emotions are reason-responsive. This is not only dialectically significant vis-à-vis the prospects for Epistemic Sentimentalism, but also supports a broader claim about the compatibility of a mental item’s being reason-responsive and its being a generative source of epistemic justification

Coping Strategies Adopted by Regular Undergraduate International Students in Southern Ghana Universities on Their Adjustment Needs

The study investigated the coping strategies adopted by regular undergraduate international students of the universities in southern Ghana on their adjustment needs.  The descriptive design of the quantitative research approach was employed for the study. The research instrument used to elicit responses was a questionnaire. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage) and inferential statistics (Independent samples t-test and Kruskal-Wallis H test). The findings showed that there was no significant difference in the coping strategies on the adjustment needs of undergraduate regular international students based on both gender and age.  It was recommended, among other things, that policy makers and management of the universities must take into account the reality of the adjustment needs of regular undergraduate international students and consider effective ways of making their stay in southern Ghana’s universities less stressful. Keywords: coping strategies, adjustment needs, international students, emotions, gender DOI: 10.7176/JEP/14-10-03 Publication date: April 30th 202