Thesis (Ph. D.)--Bob Jones University, 1976. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 219-231).

I defend an understanding of Kant's theory of Geschmacksurteil as detailing an operation of the faculties that does not violate the cognitive structure laid out in the first Critique, even though one would not easily anticipate it from the standpoint of that work, nor would one initially expect aesthetic judgment to be of transcendental interest to Kant. My orientation is primarily epistemological, elaborating the determinations that govern the activity of pure aesthetic judging so as to specify it as a bestimmte type of judgment without transforming it into einem bestimmenden Urteil. I focus on identifying how the logical functions from the table of judgments operate in the pure aesthetic judgment of taste to reveal “the moments to which this power of judgment attends in its reflection” (Critique of the Power of Judgment, §1, 5:203). In the course of doing so, a picture emerges of how the world is not just cognizable in a Kantian framework but also charged with human feeling, acquiring the inexhaustible, inchoate meaningfulness that incites “much thinking” (Critique of the Power of Judgment, §49, 5:315). The universal communicability of aesthetic pleasure serves as the foundation that grounds robust intersubjective relations, enabling genuine connection to others through a shared a priori feeling. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Philosophy / PhD; / Dissertation;

Individuals who are high in psychopathic traits are known to cheat, lie, and manipulate others. One of the factors that may influence this behaviour is interpersonal judgment accuracy and tendency. There is some indication that increased psychopathic traits may be related to the ability to accurately judge the personality traits and emotions of others, and subsequently select individuals with characteristics that make them more vulnerable to manipulation and victimization. Alternatively, psychopathic traits may be related to a tendency to view others as possessing more vulnerable traits in general. The current study explored this topic by examining the relationship between psychopathic traits and the ability to accurately judge others’ personality traits and emotional states, as well the tendency to judge others as being more vulnerable. These relationships were examined in the overall sample as well by sex of judge and target. Male and female undergraduate students (N = 131) completed measures of psychopathic traits and narcissism. They were also asked to complete three tasks: 1) judge the personality traits and emotional states of individuals shown in brief video clips, 2) complete a memory task, select individuals who they would like to get to know better, and judge their vulnerability to being taken advantage of based on viewing photographs and brief written descriptions, and 3) judge brief displays of emotion. Results indicated that higher levels of psychopathic traits were related to enhanced judgment accuracy for certain traits and emotional states, but these relationships often varied depending on sex of judge and target. As well, psychopathic traits appeared to have a stronger relationship with judgment tendency than judgment accuracy, suggesting that individuals who are high in psychopathic traits tend to view others in a more negative light that may make them seem more vulnerable to manipulation. Judgment tendency also varied depending on sex of judge and target. Psychopathic traits showed stronger relationships with both judgment accuracy and tendency than narcissism. The results of the current study highlight the importance of continuing to study male and female psychopathy separately to gain an understanding of how psychopathic traits may manifest differently between the sexes.

The simultaneity judgment (SJ) and temporal order judgment (TOJ) tasks are the two widely used methods for measuring the window of multisensory integration; however, there are some indications that these two tasks involve different cognitive processes and therefore produce unrelated results. The present study measured observers’ visuotactile window of integration using these two tasks in order to examine whether or not SJs and TOJs produce consistent results for this particular pairing of modalities. Experiment 1 revealed no significant correlations between the SJ and TOJ tasks, indicating that they appear to measure distinct processes in visuotactile integration, and in addition showed that both sensory and decisional factors contribute to this difference. These findings were replicated in Experiment 2, which, along with Experiment 3, also showed that the reliability of the SJ and TOJ tasks may in part be responsible for the lack of agreement between these two tasks. A secondary result concerned the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS), which were tactile-leading across all three experiments. This contradicts some of the previous literature in visuotactile integration. Manipulating the spatial distance between the visual and tactile stimulus (Experiment 2) and the certainty of stimulus location (Experiment 3) did not lead to significant changes of the location of the PSS. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Perception often involves the use of more than one sensory modality at the same time; for example, touching an object usually produces sensory signals in the visual and tactile modalities. Since the amount of time needed to transmit and process sensory signals is different among the modalities, the brain allows for a certain time difference between signals of various pairs of modalities that it will consider as coming from one event. Two tasks commonly used to measure these allowable time differences are the simultaneity judgment (SJ) and temporal order judgment (TOJ) tasks. Although they are usually used interchangeably, the present data show that the results from these tasks in the visuotactile pairing of modalities are unrelated, and a major contributing reason appears to be that these tasks are not the most reliable.

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published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Psychology / Master / Master of Philosophy

Confidence in a belief is a feeling about the probability of the correctness of the belief. Research has shown that subjects tend to be overconfident in the correctness of their beliefs when that confidence is measured against the actual probability of the belief being correct. Further research has indicated the importance of the amount, relevance, and source of background information on the degree of confidence expressed in a belief. Phillips and Wright (1977) have proposed a three stage model for how confidence in a belief is evaluated and transformed into a confidence response. This research examined how the amount and relevance of information pertaining to a belief influenced the subject's confidence in the belief, and the plausibility of the Phillips and Wright confidence response model. Subjects were presented information about a hypothetical individual and were asked to indicate true or false that the profiled individual was from a particular occupation group, and their confidence in their true/false response. Profile information varied from high to low relevance for the occupation decision, and in the amount of information presented. Subject response times were measured, once the profile had been read and removed, from the presentation of the occupation statement to the subjects true/false response. Subjects indicated greatest confidence when the maximum amount of highly relevant information was presented. Further, information relevance alone produced a significant change in confidence, while the amount of information did not. The prediction of the Phillips and Wright model of greatest response times with subject expressions of moderate confidence was not supported. Instead, subjects responded most quickly when most confident and slowest when least confident. Information relevance was negatively related to response time while the amount of information was positively related to response time.

Doctor of Education / Department of Educational Leadership / Jeffrey Zacharakis / Abstract Public educational leaders are being scrutinized because of scandals that range from embezzlement, cheating on high stake exams for future bonuses, to viewing pornography on school technology. The need for ethical leadership by the superintendent along with moral judgment on decision-making is reflected in the foundation of public educational organizations. The purpose of this quantitative research study is to explore the stage of moral judgment among public school superintendents when faced with moral dilemmas. Also, this research explores whether there is an association between certain demographic variables (enrollment, gender, salary, age, ethical training, total years experience as an administrator, years as a superintendent, highest degree, and place or work,) and moral judgment of the superintendent. The primary question guiding this study is: In the states of Kansas and Nebraska, what is the stage of moral judgment of superintendents when making decisions pertaining to moral dilemmas? The population chosen for this study is the public school superintendents in Kansas and Nebraska. The superintendents completed an online Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT2) questionnaire to assess their cognitive moral development score called the N2 index. The DIT2 is based upon Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. The secondary objective is to examine the relationship between moral judgment and demographic variables. The data were analyzed using ANOVA, t test, Mann Whitney U, Kruskal Wallis, and stepwise regression. The researcher sent the online DIT2 instrument electronically to all 514 superintendents. Of the 514 superintendents, 129 completed enough of the survey. Out of the 129, four participants did not provide any demographic data, which brought the total to 125 participants. The superintendents mean N2 index score was 32.28. This put them at the same level of upper high school and first and second year undergraduate students (Bebeau & Thoma, 2003). Using ANOVA to analyze the data from this study indicates that enrollment size and gender significantly influenced superintendents’ stage of moral judgment. Stepwise regression analysis was then indicated that salary was also significantly associated with moral judgment of superintendents. The other variables - years of experience as an administrator, age, ethical training, years as superintendent, highest educational degree and place of work - provided no statistically significant influence on the moral judgment of superintendents. From this study’s findings, recommendations are offered to strengthen educational leadership and moral judgment of school superintendents.

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