Thesis (M.A.)--University of West Florida, 2006. / Title from title page of source document. Document formatted into pages; contains 85 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, August, 2008. / Abstract only has been uploaded to OhioLINK. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 151-160)

In this dissertation I study how different cognitive constraints affect individuals' belief formation process, and the consequences of these constraints on behavior. In the first chapter I present laboratory experiments designed to test whether subjects' inability to perform more rounds of iterated deletion of dominated strategies is due to cognitive limitations, or to higher order beliefs about the rationality of others. I propose three alternative explanations for why subjects might not be doing more iterations of dominance reasoning. First, they might have problems computing iterated best responses, even when doing so does not require higher order beliefs. Second, subjects might face limitations in their ability to generate higher order beliefs. Finally, subjects' behavior might not be limited by cognitive limitations, but rather justified by their beliefs about what others will play. I design two experiments in order to test these hypothesis. Findings from the first experiment suggest that most subjects' strategies (about 66%) are not the result of their inability to compute iterated best responses. I then run a second experiment, finding that about 70% of the subjects' behavior come from limitations in their ability to iterate best responses and generate higher order beliefs at the same time, while for the other 30% their strategies are a best response to higher order beliefs that others are not rational. In the second chapter I study whether a Sender in a Bayesian Persuasion setting (Kamenica and Gentzkow, 2011) can benefit from behavioral biases in the way Receivers update their beliefs, by choosing how to communicate information. I present three experiments in order to test this hypothesis, finding that Receivers tend to overestimate the probability of a state of the world after receiving signals that are more likely in that state. Because of this bias, Senders' gains from persuasion can be increased by ``muddling the water'' and making it hard for Receivers to find the correct posteriors. This contradicts the theoretical result that states that communicating using signal structures is equivalent to communicating which posteriors these structures induce. Through analysis of the data and robustness experiments, I am able to discard social preferences or low incentives as driving my results, leaving base-rate neglect as a more likely explanation. The final chapter studies whether sensory bottlenecks, as oppose to purely computational cognitive constraints, are important factors affecting subjects' inference in an experiment that mimics financial markets. We show that providing redundant visual and auditory cues about the liquidity of a stock significantly improves performance, corroborating previous findings in neuroscience of multi-sensory integration, which could have policy implications in economically relevant situation.

Introduction. Crises of faith are major cognitive gaps. This investigation discerns the function of information use in responding to crises of faith in addition to exploring the information-related context of the LDS church. Mormons are thought to have an especially difficult time disaffiliating from their religion yet depend heavily on information seeking and use for their decision to do so. Method. Narrative analysis of 34 episodes of the Mormon Stories podcast that delineate church members’ crises of faith. Episodes were transcribed and coded for analysis. Analysis. Qualitative analysis was performed on the data to uncover the applicability of Chatman’s theories of small worlds and information poverty to the LDS church as well as to reveal the sense-making process involved in a faith crisis. Results. It was possible to see elements of small worlds and information poverty in Mormonism. Information was found to be used in response to faith crises. Conclusion. The LDS church operates an extremely closed information environment which hinders members’ information seeking on church matters. Ex-Mormons use information in response to crisis by factising new knowledge in addition to deciding to disaffiliate from the faith or from religion in general. This is a two years Master’s thesis in Library and Information Science. / Introduktion. Individers tvivel om deras religiösa identitet är svåröverkomliga kognitiva klyftor. Den här uppsatsen utreder informationsanvändningens roll i bemötandet av tvivel. Ytterliga utforskas Mormonkyrkans informationskontext. Mormoner anses ha det speciellt svårt att lämna sin religion men är högst beroende av informationssökning- och användning inför deras beslut. Metod. Narrativ analys av 34 avsnitt av podcasten Mormon Stories som behandlar medlemmars tvivel om sin tro. Avsnitt transkriberades samt kodades inför analysen. Analys. Källmaterialet analyserades med kvalitativa metoder för att skönja om Chatmans teorier om small worlds och information poverty kan appliceras till Mormonkyrkan. Utöver detta analyserades tvivlens gång med Dervins teori om sense-making. Resultat. Aspekter av small worlds och information poverty kunde urskiljas inom Mormonkyrkan. Medlemmarna använde information för att både bemöta och lösa frågor kring tvivel. Slutsats. Mormonkyrkan företar sig en extremt konservativ syn på information vilket som hindrar medlemmars informationssökning. Före detta mormoner använder information för att hantera sin kris genom att skapa nya fakta om världen samt genom att ta beslutet att avsäga sig medlemskap eller religiositet i allmänhet.

Religion has traditionally provided the individual with a sense of meaning, belonging and comfort, and is commonly assumed to provide a basis for sound mental health and general well-being. Empirical research supporting this notion has, however, been less than convincing. / Master of Science

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M.A. (Philosophy) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

The aim of the current investigation is the development and validation of an Interbeing Identity Scale (IIS)—used to measure the integration of an individual’s fundamental sense of identity with all other beings, nature, and the cosmos. The study further investigates the association between scores on the IIS and 1) profiles of consciousness exploration practices and 2) psychological outcomes (mental health, positive psychology and relational ethics). Interbeing is a term coined by Thich Nhat Hanh which describes all beings as unique and yet one. Interbeing identity refers to a sense of personhood rooted in beliefs, experiences, and behaviors aligned with an awareness of interbeing. The IIS was constructed to measure interbeing identity as reflected in an individual’s sense of non-dual relationship to nature, the universe, and other beings. The scale was developed as a concise metric, amenable to administration in applied contexts. Scale items were generated and refined with input from monks of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Blue Cliff monastery, and from researchers and clinicians. Content validity, internal structure, and reliability were assessed via expert surveys, content validity analysis, cognitive interviewing, convergent validity analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis. The data indicates that: 1) the IIS is a valid and reliable measure of interbeing identity and 2) may be useful to assess identity transformation occasioned by spiritual, consciousness based, and/or clinical intervention.

This qualitative research study explored perceptions of academic resilience among teachers and twelfth grade adolescent girls. Specifically, how students and teachers believe teachers promote academic resilience in students, the characteristics of academically resilient students according to students and teachers, and the characteristics of academically non-resilient students according to teachers. The relationship between the general comments made during student focus group sessions and the students' responses on the Locus of Control (LOC) survey were analyzed. Qualitative data were collected including teacher interviews, student focus groups, Implicit Theories of Intelligence Scales for teachers and students as well as the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Survey for students. Findings indicated that teachers and students both reported teachers who were flexible and provided extra help sessions for students promoted academic resilience. It also was reported by teachers and students that developing personal relationships with students helped to promote academic resilience. Teachers and students reported similar characteristics of academically resilient students. Characteristic behaviors of academic resilient students were identified as having ambition or being motivated to be successful. Having a positive attitude and having the ability to be reflective also were identified as characteristic of academic resilience. Finally, teachers and students agreed that having a strong internal locus of control is characteristic of academic resilience. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The ability to change one's beliefs in a rational manner is one of many facets of the abilities of an intelligent agent. Central to any investigation of belief change is the notion of an epistemic state. This dissertation is mainly concerned with three issues involving epistemic states: 1. How should an epistemic state be represented? 2. How does an agent use an epistemic state to perform belief change? 3. How does an agent arrive at a particular epistemic state? With regard to the first question, note that there are many different methods for constructing belief change operations. We argue that semantic constructions involving ordered pairs, each consisting of a set of beliefs and an ordering on the set of "possible worlds" (or equivalently, on the set of basic independent bits of information) are, in an important sense, more fundamental. Our answer to the second question provides indirect support for the use of semantic structures. We show how well-known belief change operations and related structures can be modelled semantically. Furthermore, we introduce new forms of belief change related operations and structures which are all defined, and motivated, in terms of such semantic representational formalisms. These include a framework for unifying belief revision and nonmonotonic reasoning, new versions of entrenchment orderings on beliefs, novel approaches to withdrawal operations, and an expanded view of iterated belief change. The third question is. one which has not received much attention in the belief change literature. We propose to extract extra-logical information from the formal representation of an agent's set of beliefs, which can then be used in the construction of epistemic state. his proposal is just a first approximation, although it seems to have the potential for developing into a full-fledged theory. / Computing / D.Phil.(Computer Science)