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People's Understanding (people + understanding)
Selected AbstractsStrategies in Human Nonmonotonic ReasoningCOMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, Issue 3 2000Marilyn Ford Although humans seem adept at drawing nonmonotonic conclusions, the nonmonotonic reasoning systems that researchers develop are complex and do not function with such ease. This paper explores people's reasoning processes in nonmonotonic problems. To avoid the problem of people's conclusions being based on knowledge rather than on some reasoning process, we developed a scenario about life on another planet. Problems were chosen to allow the systematic study of people's understanding of strict and nonstrict rules and their interactions. We found that people had great difficulty reasoning and we identified a number of negative factors influencing their reasoning. We also identified three positive factors which, if used consistently, would yield rational and coherent reasoning,but no subject achieved total consistency. (Another possible positive factor, specificity, was considered but we found no evidence for its use.) It is concluded that nonmonotonic reasoning is hard. When people need to reason in a domain where they have no preconceived ideas, the foundation for their reasoning is neither coherent nor rational. They do not use a nonmonotonic reasoning system that would work regardless of content. Thus, nonmonotonic reasoning systems that researchers develop are expected to do more reasoning than humans actually do! [source] Distinguishing the effects of beliefs and preconditions: the folk psychology of goals and actionsEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 6 2005Ann Boonzaier Two studies examined lay people's understanding of goals and intentional actions, which are key concepts in folk psychology. The studies show how predictions of goals and actions are affected by actors' beliefs about their abilities and their actual possession of the preconditions required for the actions. In some conditions, the beliefs and the preconditions were contradictory. Actors' beliefs about their abilities shaped observers' goal ascriptions, whereas actual preconditions dominated predictions about action accomplishment. Participants judged the relationship between goals and actions to be stronger when preconditions were present. Participants judged that neither beliefs nor preconditions were necessary for the actor to have action fantasies. These studies clarify how folk psychological concepts of desires, beliefs, and preconditions relate to each other and how they relate to attributions of goals and actions. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] "If a girl doesn't say ,no',": young men, rape and claims of ,insufficient knowledge'JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2008Rachael O'Byrne Abstract Most psychological theories of rape tend to stress factors internal to both rapists and their victims in accounting for the phenomenon. Unlike such theories, social psychological and feminist accounts have drawn attention to social and cultural factors as productive of rape, and have criticized psychological accounts on the grounds that they often serve, paradoxically, to cement pre-existing ,common-sense'. In this paper we examine the ways in which young Australian men draw upon widely culturally shared accounts, or interpretative repertoires, of rape to exculpate rapists. In particular, we discuss the reliance placed on a ,lay' version of Tannen's 1992 ,miscommunication model' of (acquaintance) rape and detail the use of this account,the claim that rape is a consequence of men's ,not knowing',as a device to accomplish exculpation. Implications of our methods for capturing young people's understanding of sexual coercion, rape and consent, and for the design of ,rape prevention' programmes, are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The Ethics of Genetic Research of IntelligenceBIOETHICS, Issue 1 2000Michael J. Reiss Should research on the possible genetic components of human intelligence be carried out? I first try to provide some general guidelines as to whether any particular piece of research should be undertaken and then consider the specific example of the ethics of genetic research on intelligence. The history of the debate on intelligence does not make one very optimistic that the fruits of such research would be used wisely. However, there are indications that people's understanding of the nature of inheritance may be improving and it could be that such research might have significant benefits. It is worth remembering than the condition phenylketonuria, a genetic disease in any useful sense of the term, and one that leads to mental retardation (i.e. very low intelligence), is now wholly preventable, and indeed very largely prevented, through environmental intervention. [source] Gender and Personality Differences in Self- and Other Ratings of Business IntelligenceBRITISH JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2005Adrian Furnham This paper is concerned with people's understanding of, and self-estimation on, various new ,business intelligences' and aims to examine whether these estimates were systematically related to personality dimensions. A total of 184 adult working participants completed a three-part questionnaire that measured their ,big five' personality traits (NEO-FFI), various beliefs about intelligence and also their own and their boss's estimated overall IQ score and scores on eight multiple business intelligences. Males rated their overall IQ as well as their cognitive, creative and political intelligence as significantly higher than females. Females rated their boss's overall, emotional and organizational IQ significantly higher than did male participants. Participants believed they had higher emotional, but lower political, organizational and network intelligence than their boss. Regressions indicated that only one of the eight estimated business intelligences (cognitive intelligence) was related to overall (total, general) estimated intelligence in self, boss or boss's boss. Regressing the big-five personality factors onto each of the self-estimates showed openness-to-experience was positively, and agreeableness negatively, related to most of the estimates. Those who had taken an intelligence test tended to giver higher self-estimates on overall intelligence. Implications of these results for business life are considered. [source] Beliefs and beyond: what can we learn from qualitative studies of lay people's understandings of cancer risk?HEALTH EXPECTATIONS, Issue 2 2010Wendy L. Lipworth MBBS PhD Abstract Background, Clinicians and public health professionals are centrally concerned with mediating risk. However, people often resist the risk-related information that is communicated to them by experts, or have their own models of risk that conflict with expert views. Quantitative studies have clearly demonstrated the importance of health beliefs and various cognitive and emotional processes in shaping risk perception. More recently, a growing body of qualitative research has emerged, exploring lay conceptualizations, experiences and constructions of cancer risk. To date, this literature has not been synthesized. Objective, We report the findings of a synthesis of qualitative literature regarding the ways in which lay people construct and experience cancer risk. Design, We identified 87 articles and used the method of ,thematic synthesis' to identify and interpret key concepts from existing studies. Results, Eight analytic categories were developed: (i) perceptions of risk factors; (ii) process of risk perception; (iii) seeking control and taking responsibility (motivational factors); (iv) experiencing cancer directly; (v) constructing risk temporally; (vi) embodying risk; (vii) identifying with risk; and (viii) constructing risk in a social context. Conclusions, Qualitative enquiry can provide us with a rich and nuanced picture of the ways in which people understand, experience and construct risk and how being ,at risk' is managed, and can assist us in our communication with both individual patients and populations. [source] Land and Social Change in a Tanzanian Village 1: Kinyanambo, 1920s,1990JOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 3 2005Elizabeth Daley This article (in two parts) traces the historical development of land tenure in Kinyanambo village, Mufindi District, Tanzania. It suggests a gradual commoditization of land and the evolution of a predominantly individualized land market, processes influenced by the long-term commoditization of agriculture and social reproduction more generally. Local land tenure practices evolved more or less independently of national land tenure policy until 1974, when villagization altered the evolutionary path of local land tenure, marking a fundamental turning point in people's understandings of their land rights. Together with the simultaneous establishment of Mafinga town, it created conditions for the rapid and more spatially concentrated growth of the local population, for urbanization, and for associated changes in livelihoods, land use, and relations between people and land. As a result, and following the economic reforms of the current period of structural adjustment and liberalization, by 2000 Kinyanambo had a deep-rooted, widespread and socially legitimate market in land. [source] Conservation Alliances with Indigenous Peoples of the AmazonCONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 3 2005STEPHAN SCHWARTZMAN The future of Amazonian indigenous reserves is of strategic importance for the fate of biodiversity in the region. We examined the legislation governing resource use on indigenous lands and summarize the history of the Kayapo people's consolidation of their >100,000 km2 territory. Like many Amazonian indigenous peoples, the Kayapo have halted the expansion of the agricultural frontier on their lands but allow selective logging and gold mining. Prospects for long-term conservation and sustainability in these lands depend on indigenous peoples' understandings of their resource base and on available economic alternatives. Although forest conservation is not guaranteed by either tenure security or indigenous knowledge, indigenous societies' relatively egalitarian common-property resource management regimes,along with adequate incentives and long-term partnerships with conservation organizations,can achieve this result. Successful initiatives include Conservation International's long-term project with the A'ukre Kayapo village and incipient large-scale territorial monitoring and control in the Kayapo territory, and the Instituto SocioAmbiental (ISA) 15-year partnership with the peoples of the Xingu Indigenous Park, with projects centered on territorial monitoring and control, education, community organization, and economic alternatives. The recent agreement on ecological restoration of the Xingu River headwaters between ranchers and private companies, indigenous peoples, and environmentalists, brokered by ISA, marks the emergence of an indigenous and conservation alliance of sufficient cohesiveness and legitimacy to negotiate effectively at a regional scale. Resumen:,Las alianzas actuales entre indígenas y organizaciones de conservación en el Amazonas Brasileño han ayudado a obtener el reconocimiento oficial de ,1 millón de km2 en áreas indígenas. El futuro del as reservas indígenas amazónicas es de importancia estratégica para el futuro de la biodiversidad en la región. Examinamos la legislación que rige a la utilización de recursos en zonas indígenas y sintetizamos la historia de la consolidación del territorio > 100,000 km2 de la etnia Kayapo. Como muchos grupos Amazónicos, los Kayapo han detenido la expansión de la frontera agrícola en sus tierras pero permiten actividades madereras y mineras selectivas. Las perspectivas de conservación y sustentabilidad a largo plazo en estas tierras dependen del entendimiento de su base de recursos y de las alternativas económicas disponibles por parte de los grupos indígenas. A pesar de que ni la seguridad en la posesión ni el conocimiento indígena garantizan la conservación de los bosques, los regímenes indígenas de gestión de recursos de propiedad común relativamente igualitarios en conjunto con incentivos adecuados y asociaciones con organizaciones de conservación pueden obtener este resultado. Iniciativas exitosas incluyen el proyecto a largo plazo de Conservation International con el pueblo A'ukre Kayapo y el incipiente monitoreo y control territorial a gran escala en el territorio Kayapo y la asociación durante 15 años del Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) con habitantes del Parque Indígena Xingu, con proyectos enfocados al monitoreo y control territorial, a la educación, a la organización comunitaria y a alternativas económicas. El reciente acuerdo, negociado por ISA, entre rancheros y compañías privadas, grupos indígenas y ambientalistas para la restauración ecológica del Río Xingu marca el surgimiento de una alianza indígena y de conservación con la cohesión y legitimidad suficientes para negociar efectivamente a escala regional. [source] | |||||||||||||