AN INVESTIGATION INTO BELIEF BIASES IN REASONING

This programme of research investigates the effect of belief bias in syllogistic reasoning. Belief bias is conventionally characterised as a non-logical tendency to accept or reject deductive inferences on the basis of belief rather than logical argument. However, some theorists have argued that the effect is weak compared with that of logic and that it arises from misinterpretation of the premises or failure to accept the logical task. Despite the adoption of control s recommended in the recent literature. Experiments 1 to 3 found consistently strong belief bias effects on the syllogistic evaluation task. However, there were equally strong effects of logic and an interaction between the two factors. Verbal protocol analysis revealed some possible misinterpretation of premises. More strikingly, however, it suggested the presence of three different modes of reasoning which were forward, backward or conclusion based and associated respectively with increasing level s of belief bias. Belief bias was not observed in Experiments 4 and 5 which employed similar problem content on the syllogistic construction task. However, in view of findings recently published by other researchers, it appears that more salient beliefs are needed to produce the effect on this type of task. Experiments 6 to 9 investigated the cause of the logic times belief interaction observed here and in earlier published studies: in essence, the effect of belief is stronger on invalid than valid problems. This could be due to misinterpretation of the logical concept of necessity, but extended instruction on logical interpretation failed to eliminate the effect. The findings were more consistent with a selective scrutiny model of belief bias which claims that arguments supporting unbelievable conclusions are more thoroughly analysed than those supporting believable conclusions. This model is discussed with reference to contemporary theories and findings in the psychology of reasoning

The teaching of botany in high schools

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Impurity-induced stabilization of solitons in arrays of parametrically driven nonlinear oscillators

Chains of parametrically driven, damped pendula are known to support soliton-like clusters of in-phase motion which become unstable and seed spatiotemporal chaos for sufficiently large driving amplitudes. We show that the pinning of the soliton on a "long" impurity (a longer pendulum) expands dramatically its stability region whereas "short" defects simply repel solitons producing effective partition of the chain. We also show that defects may spontaneously nucleate solitons.Comment: 4 pages in RevTeX; 7 figures in ps forma

Non-Western small states:activists or survivors?

In this introduction to the collection, we explain its focus on non-Western small states. While the terms ‘non-Western’ and ‘small states’ are problematic – we discuss these problems here – the smallness and non-Westerness of the states studied by the contributing authors set them apart in a way that has attracted little academic attention so far. They allow them to operate with fewer normative and practical constraints than their bigger, Western counterparts; offer them a wide range of (often historically forged) political ties; and force them to draw on a diversity of approaches and strategic thinking, and a creativity, that they are too rarely credited for. Non-Western small states, rather than being mere survivors constrained to the world’s periphery, are better understood as activist states intent on existing. The collection offers a range of analytical keys to make sense of these states and their role in the international scene

Agency, ‘good motherhood’ and ‘a load of mush’: Constructions of baby-led weaning in the press

In this age of ‘intensive motherhood’, new mothers are flooded with information on the best ways in which to raise their children. One of the key issues is infant feeding, in particular, the timing and method of weaning their children onto solid food. This paper examines a new approach called ‘baby-led weaning’ (BLW) in which the child feeds themselves instead of being spoon-fed, that came into popular parenting culture in recent years, considering the ways in which it is represented in National and International newspapers. The media search database Proquest International Newsstand, was searched for ‘baby-led weaning’, producing an eventual sample of 78 articles from a number of countries. The articles were subjected to a critical discursive psychological analysis. The key themes that emerged from the newspapers focused around two main areas; the infant as agentive in their eating behaviours; and, constructions of maternal identities and resisting ‘good motherhood’

Going it alone? North Korea’s adaptability as a small power in a changing world

This article uses small states scholarship to map North Korea’s evolution from a post-colonial small state to a system-influencing state due to its nuclear weapons programme. The framework allows for contributions to: (1) The DPRK literature which in some parts has suggested the future collapse of the state, (2) The small states literature that suggests they can only survive if they integrate larger political and/or economic units, (3) The mainstream IR literature and its dominant realist streak that considers great powers and their will as the main drivers in contemporary world politics

A critical review of smaller state diplomacy

In The Peloponnesian War, Thucydides (1972: 402) highlights the effects of the general, overall weakness of smaller states vis-à-vis larger, more powerful ones in a key passage, where the Athenians remind the Melians that: “… since you know as well as we do that, as the world goes, right is only in question between equals in power. Meanwhile, the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Concerns about the vulnerability of small, weak, isolated states have echoed throughout history: from Thucydides, through the review by Machiavelli (1985) of the risks of inviting great powers to intervene in domestic affairs, through 20th century US-led contemporary political science (Vital, 1971; Handel, 1990) and Commonwealth led scholarship (Commonwealth Secretariat, 1985). In the context of 20th century ‘Balkanization’, the small state could also prove unstable, even hostile and uncooperative, a situation tempting enough to invite the intrusion of more powerful neighbours: a combination, according to Brzezinski (1997: 123-124) of a power vacuum and a corollary power suction2: in the outcome, if the small state is ‘absorbed’, it would be its fault, and its destiny, in the grand scheme of things. In an excellent review of small states in the context of the global politics of development, Payne (2004: 623, 634) concludes that “vulnerabilities rather than opportunities are the most striking consequence of smallness”. It has been recently claimed that, since they cannot defend or represent themselves adequately, small states “lack real independence, which makes them suboptimal participants in the international system” (Hagalin, 2005: 1). There is however, a less notable and acknowledged but more extraordinary strand of argumentation that considers ‘the power of powerlessness’, and the ability of small states to exploit their smaller size in a variety of ways in order to achieve their intended, even if unlikely, policy outcomes. The pursuance of smaller state goals becomes paradoxically acceptable and achievable precisely because such smaller states do not have the power to leverage disputants or pursue their own agenda. A case in point concerns the smallest state of all, the Vatican, whose powers are both unique and ambiguous, but certainly not insignificant (The Economist, 2007). Smaller states have “punched above their weight” (e.g. Edis, 1991); and, intermittently, political scientists confront their “amazing intractability” (e.g. Suhrke, 1973: 508). Henry Kissinger (1982: 172) referred to this stance, with obvious contempt, as “the tyranny of the weak”3. This paper seeks a safe passage through these two, equally reductionist, propositions. It deliberately focuses first on a comparative case analysis of two, distinct ‘small state-big state’ contests drawn from the 1970s, seeking to infer and tease out the conditions that enable smaller ‘Lilliputian’ states (whether often or rarely) to beat their respective Goliaths. The discussion is then taken forward to examine whether similar tactics can work in relation to contemporary concerns with environmental vulnerability, with a focus on two other, small island states. Before that, the semiotics of ‘the small state’ need to be explored, since they are suggestive of the perceptions and expectations that are harboured by decision makers at home and abroad and which tend towards the self-fulfilling prophecy.peer-reviewe