Self-control enhancement in children:Ethical and conceptual aspects

Childhood self-control is currently receiving great scientific and public attention because it could predict much of adult’s life success and well-being. Specialized interventions based on findings in social psychology and neuroscience potentially enhance children’s capacity to exercise self-control. This perspective triggers hopes that self-control enhancement allows us to say good-bye for good to potentially unsafe psychopharmacological agents and electronic brain stimulants. This chapter provides an in-depth ethical analysis of pediatric self-control enhancement and points toward a series of serious conceptual and ethical concerns. First, it gives an overview of current psychological as well as neuroscientific research on self-control, and it presents longitudinal studies that emphasize the importance of childhood self-control for adult life success. Second, it critically discusses the concept of self-control presupposed in these approaches and points to crucial limitations. Going beyond an understanding of self-control as a sophisticated means of goal-achievement, i will argue for a comprehensive understanding that takes the inherent normativity of self-controlled behavior seriously. In that context, self-control enhancement appears as not necessarily desirable and occasionally even detrimental. Finally, this chapter questions the notion of childhood implicit in current research and how values typically put on this phase of life could get affected by self-control enhancement. I finish with an exploration of the conditions under which pediatric self-control enhancement is either impermissible, permissible, or maybe obligatory

Quality of scientific articles Qualidade de artigos científicos

The paper discusses the difficulties in judging the quality of scientific manuscripts and describes some common pitfalls that should be avoided when preparing a paper for submission to a peer-reviewed journal. Peer review is an imperfect system, with less than optimal reliability and uncertain validity. However, as it is likely that it will remain as the principal process of screening papers for publication, authors should avoid some common mistakes when preparing a report based on empirical findings of human research. Among these are: excessively long abstracts, extensive use of abbreviations, failure to report results of parsimonious data analyses, and misinterpretation of statistical associations identified in observational studies as causal. Another common problem in many manuscripts is their excessive length, which makes them more difficult to be evaluated or read by the intended readers, if published. The evaluation of papers after their publication with a view towards their inclusion in a systematic review is also discussed. The limitations of the impact factor as a criterion to judge the quality of a paper are reviewed.<br>O artigo discute as dificuldades em julgar a qualidade de manuscritos científicos e descreve algumas das armadilhas comuns que devem ser evitadas ao preparar um artigo para submissão a um periódico. A revisão por pares é um sistema imperfeito, com confiabilidade abaixo da ideal e validade duvidosa. Entretanto, como provavelmente continuará sendo o principal processo de seleção de artigos para publicação, os autores devem evitar alguns erros ao preparar um manuscrito baseado em achados empíricos da pesquisa humana. Entre eles estão: resumos excessivamente longos, amplo uso de abreviações, falha ao relatar resultados de análise de dados parcimoniosa, e interpretação equivocada de associações estatísticas encontradas em estudos observacionais como sendo causais. Outro problema comum em muitos manuscritos é sua excessiva extensão, o que os torna mais difíceis de serem avaliados ou lidos por leitores-alvo, se publicados. Discute-se a avaliação de artigos após sua publicação e inclusão em revisão sistemática. São revisadas as limitações do fator de impacto como um critério para julgar a qualidade de um artigo