Edward Royzman - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Edward Royzman
Theory & Psychology, 2000
ABSTRACT The paper critically examines the inferential logic underlying Mill's methods of... more ABSTRACT The paper critically examines the inferential logic underlying Mill's methods of agreement and difference as it is applied in present-day behavioral science where the methods in question are embodied in the socalled `treatment-control random design' (Mayo, 1996). The reputed goal of the design is to be able to arrive at judgments of sufficient causation (e.g. `X is a sufficient cause of [condition for] Y'). This is accomplished by `neutralizing' the influence of the extraneous variables inherent in a particular (experimental) set of conditions by way of creating another (control) set of conditions which is identical to the experimental prototype in every way except for one element (the independent variable). Any difference between the effects of the two sets (the experimental effect) is, then, said to reflect or be a product of the independent variable in question. As I argue, the above-mentioned inference is rooted in the generally tacit assumption of effect independence, that is, the view that the `extraneous' and the `independent variable' components comprising the experimental condition end up exerting completely separate or isolated effects on the dependent variable under consideration. It is argued that the said assumption, given both the inherent conceivability and the empirical ubiquity of various interaction effects, has no logical foundation and, thus, cannot be affirmed with any degree of certainty. The non-acceptance of the assumption calls into question the logical viability of clinical process research.
Review of General Psychology, 2003
Page 1. I Know, You Know: Epistemic Egocentrism in Children and Adults Edward B. Royzman Solomo... more Page 1. I Know, You Know: Epistemic Egocentrism in Children and Adults Edward B. Royzman Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, University of Pennsylvania Kimberly Wright Cassidy Bryn Mawr College Jonathan Baron University of Pennsylvania ...
Social Justice Research, 2002
We presented subjects pairs of hypothetical scenarios. The action in each scenario harmed some pe... more We presented subjects pairs of hypothetical scenarios. The action in each scenario harmed some people in order to aid others. In one member of the pair, the harm was a direct result of the action. In the other member, it was an indirect byproduct. Subjects preferred the indirect harm to the direct harm. This result could not be fully explained in terms of differences in judgments about which option was more active, more intentional, more likely to cause harm, or more subject to the disapproval of others. Taken together, these findings provide evidence for a new bias in judgment, a tendency to favor indirectly harmful options over directly harmful alternatives, irrespective of the associated outcomes, intentions, or selfpresentational concerns. We speculate that this bias could originate from the use of a typical but somewhat unreliable property of harmful acts, their directness, as a cue to moral evaluation. We discuss the implications of the bias for a range of social issues, including the distinction between passive and active euthanasia, legal deterrence, and the rhetoric of affirmative action.
Cognition, 2009
In this paper, we offer an overview and a critique of the existing theories of the moral-conventi... more In this paper, we offer an overview and a critique of the existing theories of the moral-conventional distinction, with emphasis on Nichols's [Nichols, S. (2002). Norms with feeling: Towards a psychological account of moral judgment. Cognition, 84, 221-236] neo-sentimentalist approach. After discussing some distinctive features of Nichols's (2002) thesis and situating it within the context of his predecessors' work [Blair, R. (1995). A cognitive developmental approach to morality: Investigating the psychopath. Cognition, 57, 1-29; Turiel, E. (1983). The development of social knowledge: Morality and convention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press], we review a number of arguments and findings within the developmental literature that, collectively, pose a serious challenge to the proposition that emotion is indispensable for or plays a substantial contributory role in the construction of the moral domain. Furthermore, we report two studies whose results contravene those of Nichols's (2002) Experiments 1 and 2 (the empirical basis for his "norms with feelings" hypothesis), while favoring a version of Turiel's (1983) harm-based approach instead.
Review of General Psychology, 2003
Page 1. I Know, You Know: Epistemic Egocentrism in Children and Adults Edward B. Royzman Solomo... more Page 1. I Know, You Know: Epistemic Egocentrism in Children and Adults Edward B. Royzman Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, University of Pennsylvania Kimberly Wright Cassidy Bryn Mawr College Jonathan Baron University of Pennsylvania ...
Cognition & Emotion, 2010
Positive events are more common (more tokens), but negative events are more differentiated (more ... more Positive events are more common (more tokens), but negative events are more differentiated (more types). These observations and asymmetries about the world are consistent with a number of features or biases favouring positive adjectives that have been shown for English. Compared to their opposites, positive adjectives in English are more likely to be unmarked, negated into their opposite, define the entire negative to positive dimension, and occur first in conjunctions with their negative opposite. In this paper we document that these biases have considerable generality, appearing in all or almost all of 20 natural languages. The greater differentiation of negative states is illustrated here by the demonstration that five common nouns describing negative states in English (disgust, risk, sympathy, accident, murderer) have equivalents in most or all of the 20 languages surveyed, but the opposite of these nouns is not lexicalised in most of the 20 languages.
Emotion, 2006
Seven studies tested the hypothesis that compared with sympathy symhedonia (sympathy for another'... more Seven studies tested the hypothesis that compared with sympathy symhedonia (sympathy for another's good fortune) is inherently more contingent on prior emotional attachment to its targets. As predicted, Studies 1-4 found that reported attachment was higher for past episodes of symhedonia than for those of sympathy and that recalled incidence of sympathy exceeded that of symhedonia when the target was a stranger. Study 5 showed that whereas symhedonia was significantly higher for high-versus lowattachment targets sympathy was not. Study 6 found that sympathy is more likely than symhedonia when a relationship is strained. Study 7 found that both sympathy and symhedonia are weaker for nonclose (vs. close) others, but the disparity is significantly smaller for sympathy than for symhedonia.
Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2001
Abstract We hypothesize that there is a general bias, based on both innatepredispositions and exp... more Abstract We hypothesize that there is a general bias, based on both innatepredispositions and experience, in animals and humans, to give greater weight to negative entities (eg, events, objects, personal traits). This is manifested in 4 ways:(a) negative potency ( ...
Motivation and Emotion, 2008
A pilot study and two main studies lent support to the hypothesis that appraisals of consensual s... more A pilot study and two main studies lent support to the hypothesis that appraisals of consensual sibling incest as immoral may directly engender the phenomenological state of oral inhibition (OI), comprised of nausea, gagging, and diminished appetite. More specifically, the findings indicate that (a) OI is a central component of a third-party reaction to sibling incest (significantly more so than anger or fear), (b) that it is produced specifically by the morally proscribed aspect of the incestuous relationship (sex between two individuals with common ancestry), and that (c) it is produced so directly rather than as a by-product of a more immediate emotional response (say, intense anger or fear). Furthermore, Study 2 found equal levels of OI for individuals with and without opposite-sex siblings, indicating that third-party aversion to consensual incest is, most likely, a function of the culturally transmitted information regarding the inherent wrongness of such acts.
Journal for The Theory of Social Behaviour, 2001
Theory & Psychology, 2000
ABSTRACT The paper critically examines the inferential logic underlying Mill's methods of... more ABSTRACT The paper critically examines the inferential logic underlying Mill's methods of agreement and difference as it is applied in present-day behavioral science where the methods in question are embodied in the socalled `treatment-control random design' (Mayo, 1996). The reputed goal of the design is to be able to arrive at judgments of sufficient causation (e.g. `X is a sufficient cause of [condition for] Y'). This is accomplished by `neutralizing' the influence of the extraneous variables inherent in a particular (experimental) set of conditions by way of creating another (control) set of conditions which is identical to the experimental prototype in every way except for one element (the independent variable). Any difference between the effects of the two sets (the experimental effect) is, then, said to reflect or be a product of the independent variable in question. As I argue, the above-mentioned inference is rooted in the generally tacit assumption of effect independence, that is, the view that the `extraneous' and the `independent variable' components comprising the experimental condition end up exerting completely separate or isolated effects on the dependent variable under consideration. It is argued that the said assumption, given both the inherent conceivability and the empirical ubiquity of various interaction effects, has no logical foundation and, thus, cannot be affirmed with any degree of certainty. The non-acceptance of the assumption calls into question the logical viability of clinical process research.
Review of General Psychology, 2003
Page 1. I Know, You Know: Epistemic Egocentrism in Children and Adults Edward B. Royzman Solomo... more Page 1. I Know, You Know: Epistemic Egocentrism in Children and Adults Edward B. Royzman Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, University of Pennsylvania Kimberly Wright Cassidy Bryn Mawr College Jonathan Baron University of Pennsylvania ...
Social Justice Research, 2002
We presented subjects pairs of hypothetical scenarios. The action in each scenario harmed some pe... more We presented subjects pairs of hypothetical scenarios. The action in each scenario harmed some people in order to aid others. In one member of the pair, the harm was a direct result of the action. In the other member, it was an indirect byproduct. Subjects preferred the indirect harm to the direct harm. This result could not be fully explained in terms of differences in judgments about which option was more active, more intentional, more likely to cause harm, or more subject to the disapproval of others. Taken together, these findings provide evidence for a new bias in judgment, a tendency to favor indirectly harmful options over directly harmful alternatives, irrespective of the associated outcomes, intentions, or selfpresentational concerns. We speculate that this bias could originate from the use of a typical but somewhat unreliable property of harmful acts, their directness, as a cue to moral evaluation. We discuss the implications of the bias for a range of social issues, including the distinction between passive and active euthanasia, legal deterrence, and the rhetoric of affirmative action.
Cognition, 2009
In this paper, we offer an overview and a critique of the existing theories of the moral-conventi... more In this paper, we offer an overview and a critique of the existing theories of the moral-conventional distinction, with emphasis on Nichols's [Nichols, S. (2002). Norms with feeling: Towards a psychological account of moral judgment. Cognition, 84, 221-236] neo-sentimentalist approach. After discussing some distinctive features of Nichols's (2002) thesis and situating it within the context of his predecessors' work [Blair, R. (1995). A cognitive developmental approach to morality: Investigating the psychopath. Cognition, 57, 1-29; Turiel, E. (1983). The development of social knowledge: Morality and convention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press], we review a number of arguments and findings within the developmental literature that, collectively, pose a serious challenge to the proposition that emotion is indispensable for or plays a substantial contributory role in the construction of the moral domain. Furthermore, we report two studies whose results contravene those of Nichols's (2002) Experiments 1 and 2 (the empirical basis for his "norms with feelings" hypothesis), while favoring a version of Turiel's (1983) harm-based approach instead.
Review of General Psychology, 2003
Page 1. I Know, You Know: Epistemic Egocentrism in Children and Adults Edward B. Royzman Solomo... more Page 1. I Know, You Know: Epistemic Egocentrism in Children and Adults Edward B. Royzman Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, University of Pennsylvania Kimberly Wright Cassidy Bryn Mawr College Jonathan Baron University of Pennsylvania ...
Cognition & Emotion, 2010
Positive events are more common (more tokens), but negative events are more differentiated (more ... more Positive events are more common (more tokens), but negative events are more differentiated (more types). These observations and asymmetries about the world are consistent with a number of features or biases favouring positive adjectives that have been shown for English. Compared to their opposites, positive adjectives in English are more likely to be unmarked, negated into their opposite, define the entire negative to positive dimension, and occur first in conjunctions with their negative opposite. In this paper we document that these biases have considerable generality, appearing in all or almost all of 20 natural languages. The greater differentiation of negative states is illustrated here by the demonstration that five common nouns describing negative states in English (disgust, risk, sympathy, accident, murderer) have equivalents in most or all of the 20 languages surveyed, but the opposite of these nouns is not lexicalised in most of the 20 languages.
Emotion, 2006
Seven studies tested the hypothesis that compared with sympathy symhedonia (sympathy for another'... more Seven studies tested the hypothesis that compared with sympathy symhedonia (sympathy for another's good fortune) is inherently more contingent on prior emotional attachment to its targets. As predicted, Studies 1-4 found that reported attachment was higher for past episodes of symhedonia than for those of sympathy and that recalled incidence of sympathy exceeded that of symhedonia when the target was a stranger. Study 5 showed that whereas symhedonia was significantly higher for high-versus lowattachment targets sympathy was not. Study 6 found that sympathy is more likely than symhedonia when a relationship is strained. Study 7 found that both sympathy and symhedonia are weaker for nonclose (vs. close) others, but the disparity is significantly smaller for sympathy than for symhedonia.
Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2001
Abstract We hypothesize that there is a general bias, based on both innatepredispositions and exp... more Abstract We hypothesize that there is a general bias, based on both innatepredispositions and experience, in animals and humans, to give greater weight to negative entities (eg, events, objects, personal traits). This is manifested in 4 ways:(a) negative potency ( ...
Motivation and Emotion, 2008
A pilot study and two main studies lent support to the hypothesis that appraisals of consensual s... more A pilot study and two main studies lent support to the hypothesis that appraisals of consensual sibling incest as immoral may directly engender the phenomenological state of oral inhibition (OI), comprised of nausea, gagging, and diminished appetite. More specifically, the findings indicate that (a) OI is a central component of a third-party reaction to sibling incest (significantly more so than anger or fear), (b) that it is produced specifically by the morally proscribed aspect of the incestuous relationship (sex between two individuals with common ancestry), and that (c) it is produced so directly rather than as a by-product of a more immediate emotional response (say, intense anger or fear). Furthermore, Study 2 found equal levels of OI for individuals with and without opposite-sex siblings, indicating that third-party aversion to consensual incest is, most likely, a function of the culturally transmitted information regarding the inherent wrongness of such acts.
Journal for The Theory of Social Behaviour, 2001