Rule-Following as Coordination: A Game-Theoretic Approach

Famously, Kripke has argued that the central portion of the Philosophical Investigations describes both a skeptical paradox and its skeptical solution. Solving the paradox involves the element of the community, which determines correctness conditions for rule-following behavior. What do such conditions precisely consist of? Is it accurate to say that there is no fact to the matter of rule following? How are the correctness conditions sustained in the community? My answers to these questions revolve around the idea (cf. P.I. §§198, 199) that a rule is followed insofar as a convention is in place. In particular, I consider the game-theoretic definition of convention offered by David Lewis and I show that it illuminates essential aspects of the communitarian understanding of rule-following. Make the following experiment: say “It’s cold here” and mean “It’s warm here”. Can you do it? Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 1953, §510. I can’t say “it’s cold here” and mean “it’s warm here”—at least, not without a little help from my friends. David Lewis, Convention

What do you mean by european?: spontaneous ingroup projection : evidence from sequential priming

According to the Ingroup Projection Model (Mummendey & Wenzel, 1999), people who belong to a group tend to generalize typical ingroup characteristics to the superordinate category. That is, they project ingroup features onto the inclusive category. As a consequence of this process, the more group members perceive their ingroup as prototypical for the inclusive category the more the attitudes towards an outgroup become negative (Waldzus & Mummendey, 2004). In my dissertation, evidence was found for a “spontaneous ingroup projection”, that is, an association between a superordinate category prime and the ingroup instead of the outgroup prototype. In order to examine the process of ingroup projection at the implicit level, I decided to rely on sequential priming techniques. These techniques have been used in the context of research on implicit stereotyping precisely because they provide strong tests for the existence of an association between two concepts (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000). Specifically, I adapted a procedure from Wittenbrink, Judd and Park (1997). In Experiment 1 (N=95), it has been examined whether there was a spontaneous association between a superordinate category and the ingroup or the outgroup stereotypes. Concretely, it has been tested whether a superordinate category prime, namely European, facilitated the processing of ingroup rather than outgroup stereotypical attributes in two different populations, namely Italian and German undergraduate students. Research rooted in Self-Categorization Theory (Turner et al., 1987) highlighted that what is believed to be true of the ingroup depends on the particular frame of reference participants are embedded. With experiment 2 (N=42), 3 (N=81), and 4 (N=53), my goal was to investigate the process of spontaneous ingroup projection in the absence of an inter-group context and to compare this “solo” situation (i.e., intra-group context) with a situation in which the ingroup is compared with an other group i.e., inter-group context). Interestingly, research shows that stereotyping can be context-sensitive (Wittenbrink, Judd, & Park, 2001). Along similar lines, ingroup stereotypes have been shown to be determined by the frame of reference emerging from the context (Haslam & Turner; 1992). Different from Experiments 2, 3, and 4, in Experiment 5 two different inter- roup contexts were compared (e.g., Germans vs. Italians or Germans vs. British)

Information structure and the accessibility of clausally introduced referents

This paper will examine the role of various factors in affecting the salience, and hence the accessibility to pronominal reference, of entities introduced into a discourse by a full clause. We begin with the premise that the possibility of pronominal reference with it versus that depends on the cognitive status of the referent, in the sense of Gundel, Hedberg and Zacharski (1993). This formulation of the problem provides grounds for an explanation of the data presented above, and provides a framework within which we examine the role of various other factors in promoting the salience of a clausally introduced entity, including the information structure of the utterance in which the entity is introduced. For entities introduced by clausal complements to bridge verbs, we show that the information structure of the utterance introducing the entity has a partial, or one-sided, effect on the salience of the entity. When the complement clause is focal, the salience of the entity depends only on its referential givenness-newness (in the sense of Gundel 1988, 1999b), as we would expect. But when the complement clause is ground material, the salience of an entity introduced by the clause is enhanced. Other factors, including the presuppositionality of factive and interrogative complements, also serve to enhance the salience of entities introduced by complement clauses

Increases in salience of ethnic identity at work: the roles of ethnic assignation and ethnic identification

To better understand how ethnicity is actually experienced within organisations, we examined reported increases in ethnic identity salience at work and responses to such increases. Thirty British black Caribbean graduate employees were interviewed about how and when they experienced their ethnic identity at work. The findings demonstrated that increased salience in ethnic identity was experienced in two key ways: through ‘ethnic assignation’ (a ‘push’ towards ethnic identity) and ‘ethnic identification’ (a ‘pull’ towards ethnic identity). We explore how and when ethnic assignation and ethnic identification occur at work, and their relevance to how workplaces are experienced by this group of minority ethnic employees. The findings suggest the need for further research attention to the dynamic and episodic nature of social identity, including ethnic identity, within organisations, and to the impact of such increases in salience of social identities on behaviour at work

Salience-based selection: attentional capture by distractors less salient than the target

Current accounts of attentional capture predict the most salient stimulus to be invariably selected first. However, existing salience and visual search models assume noise in the map computation or selection process. Consequently, they predict the first selection to be stochastically dependent on salience, implying that attention could even be captured first by the second most salient (instead of the most salient) stimulus in the field. Yet, capture by less salient distractors has not been reported and salience-based selection accounts claim that the distractor has to be more salient in order to capture attention. We tested this prediction using an empirical and modeling approach of the visual search distractor paradigm. For the empirical part, we manipulated salience of target and distractor parametrically and measured reaction time interference when a distractor was present compared to absent. Reaction time interference was strongly correlated with distractor salience relative to the target. Moreover, even distractors less salient than the target captured attention, as measured by reaction time interference and oculomotor capture. In the modeling part, we simulated first selection in the distractor paradigm using behavioral measures of salience and considering the time course of selection including noise. We were able to replicate the result pattern we obtained in the empirical part. We conclude that each salience value follows a specific selection time distribution and attentional capture occurs when the selection time distributions of target and distractor overlap. Hence, selection is stochastic in nature and attentional capture occurs with a certain probability depending on relative salience

Salient selves in uncertain futures

We examined possible selves during three distinct periods of uncertainty. Cancer survivors (Study 1a) and survivors’ romantic partners (Study 1b) rated the salience of possible selves in which the cancer did (negative possible self; NPS) and did not (positive possible self; PPS) return. Study 2 mapped PPS and NPS salience throughout the four-month wait for bar exam results. Study 3 experimentally primed possible selves among participants awaiting medical test results. PPS salience correlated positively, and NPS negatively, with indicators of health and well-being, and inducing focus on one’s NPS led to greater negative emotion and worry compared to a PPS induction, but not less positive emotion. These results illustrate the well-being implications of possible selves during periods of uncertainty

Language Shift and Ethnic Identity: Focus on Malaysian Sindhis

This paper focusses on the minority community of the Malaysian Sindhis to show that ethnic and cultural identities can be constructed through means other practices than solely by the heritage languages. The study draws on an open-ended question directed to 79 lady members of the Sindhi community in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The respondents were women aged 50-70 and a friend of a friend helped in obtaining further respondents. This age group was selected as they often met for kitty parties, gambling sessions, and lunch parties. Their one-word responses were recorded and returned to the facilitator helping in data collection. The question was “What do you mean when you say you are a Sindhi?”. Based on the data, we contend that the term ethnicity denotes a subjective sense of community, meaning a shared identity which results in a sense of group solidarity. Identity is rooted in actual cultural practices and experiences

When the reaper becomes a salesman: The influence of terror management on product preferences

The present research investigates how consumer choice is affected by Terror Management Theory’s proposition of Mortality Salience increasing one’s cultural worldview defense and self-esteem striving. The study builds empirically upon prior theorizing by Arndt, Solomon, Kasser and Sheldon (2004). During an experiment, we manipulated Mortality Salience and measured product preferences for conspicuousness and familiarity. Participants primed with death were more likely to choose conspicuous products, corroborating previous research of mortality salience raising materialistic tendencies. In addition, participants showed a tendency to prefer familiar brands. These results are in line with the Terror Management Theory framework

The Heart Wants What It Wants: Effects of Desirability and Body Part Salience on Distance Perceptions (Heath)

Previous research has shown that the desirability of an object influences perceived distance from the object, such that desirable objects are perceived as closer than objects that are not desirable (Balcetis & Dunning, 2010). It has also been suggested that metaphors reflect how our knowledge is represented; so, for example, making the head or heart more salient produces characteristics commonly associated with those body parts (i.e., emotionality for the heart, rationality for the head) (Fetterman & Robinson, 2013). The current study examined the effects of head or heart salience and object desirability on distance perception. We hypothesized that, since common idioms relate the heart to desirability, salience of the heart would cause desirable objects to be perceived as closer than would salience of the head, but there would be no difference between the head and heart conditions when the object was neutral. To test this hypothesis, we conducted two experiments in which participants had their attention drawn to their head or their heart by placing their hand there while making an action-based (haptic) measure of distance to an object. After finding no significant results in Experiment 1, in Experiment 2 a verbal measure of distance perception was added and participants completed a two-minute filler task while touching the assigned body part to strengthen the body part salience effect before estimating distance. Besides replicating Proffitt’s 2006 finding that haptic estimates of environmental features are more accurate than verbal estimates, we found no significant results in Experiment 2