A model of mutual responsiveness in adult romantic relationships is proposed. Behaving responsively in conflict-of-interest situations requires one partner to resist the temptation to be selfish and the other partner to resist the temptation to protect against exploitation. Managing risk and the attendant temptations of self-interest require the…

Comments on an article by Rips et al. L. J. Rips, S. Blok, and G. Newman (2006) proposed that singular concepts, which support the tracing of individual objects across their existence, are governed by a principle of causal continuity. They purported to show that causal continuity is better than existing theories at explaining judgments of the…

Responds to comments made by Rhemtulla and Xu on the current authors' original paper Concepts of individual objects (e.g., a favorite chair or pet) include knowledge that allows people to identify these objects, sometimes after long stretches of time. In an earlier article, the authors set out experimental findings and mathematical modeling to…

The authors address the 4 main points in S. M. Monroe and S. Mineka's comment. First, the authors show that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text rev.; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis includes an etiology and that it is based on a theoretical model with a…

This article considers how people judge the identity of objects (e.g., how people decide that a description of an object at one time, t-sub-0, belongs to the same object as a description of it at another time, t-sub-1). The authors propose a causal continuer model for these judgments, based on an earlier theory by Nozick (1981). According to this…

It is hypothesized that there is a pervasive and fundamental bias in humans' understanding of physical causation: Once the roles of cause and effect are assigned to objects in interactions, people tend to overestimate the strength and importance of the causal object and underestimate that of the effect object in bringing about the outcome. This…

This paper comments on the articles by Cheng and by Novick and Cheng. It has been claimed that the power PC theory reconciles regularity and power theories of causal judgment by showing how contingency information is used for inferences about unobservable causal powers. Under the causal powers theory causal relations are understood as generative…

Traditional accounts of sequential behavior assume that schemas and goals play a causal role in the control of behavior. In contrast, M. Botvinick and D. C. Plaut (see record 2004-12248-005) argued that, at least in routine behavior, schemas and goals are epiphenomenal. The authors evaluate the Botvinick and Plaut account by contrasting the simple…

In S. Kanazawa's (see record 2004-12248-010) evolutionary theory of general intelligence (g), g is presented as a species-typical information-processing mechanism. This conceptualization of g departs radically from the accepted conceptualization of g as a source of individual differences that is manifest in the positive manifold. Kanazawa's theory…

A theory of the lay epistemic process is outlined. An integrative framework is provided that allows consideration of diverse attributional models in common theoretical terms and derivation of the necessary applicability conditions of different such models. (Author/RL)

This article advances a simple conception of test validity: A test is valid for measuring an attribute if (a) the attribute exists and (b) variations in the attribute causally produce variation in the measurement outcomes. This conception is shown to diverge from current validity theory in several respects. In particular, the emphasis in the…

Recently, language has acquired theoretical importance as the medium of causal thinking. A discursive action model of description and attribution is presented that argues that causal attributions can be studied as social acts performed in discourse and not merely as cognitions about social acts that happen to be expressed in conversation. (SLD)

Teacher praise typically does not function as a reinforcer. Rather, it is reactive to and under the control of student behavior. Its effects must be understood using concepts from attribution and social learning/reinforcement theories. (Author/GK)

The authors outline a cognitive and computational account of causal learning in children. They propose that children use specialized cognitive systems that allow them to recover an accurate "causal map" of the world: an abstract, coherent, learned representation of the causal relations among events. This kind of knowledge can be perspicuously…

A model grounded in recent ordinary language philosophy is proposed which postulates that subjects employ counterfactual and contrastive criteria of causal ascription, as unified in the notion of an abnormal condition. Two experiments satisfy the three criteria specified for an adequate test of the abnormal conditions focus model. (Author/LMO)