Douglass Residential College

About: Douglass Residential College is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Cognitive development & Experimental psychology. The organization has 119 authors who have published 124 publications receiving 4707 citations. The organization is also known as: New Jersey College for Women & Douglass College.

Prejudice and the Unfinished Mind: A New Look at an Old Failing

Abstract: Three approaches to the nature of human rationality are considered: Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky on decision making, David Hume on causation, and Peter Strawson on morality. All are seen as deploring the state of rational thought and despairing of the human capacity for logic. Their implicit model of the perfectly rational human is explored with the help of Mr. Spock and found to be of doubtful value considered in terms of evolutionary survival, where "prejudgment" is essential to decision making under stress. The glimmerings of this insight are found in Hume's "therapeutic" solution to his existential dilemma, and a general argument is made-with the help of side glances at prototype theory, linguistics, categorical thinking, and archetypes-that rationality cannot be equated with "logic" as generally understood but rather consists of a series of pragmatic prejudgments of reality that have stood the test of natural selection. This leads to a reconstruction of the idea of "prejudice" from a negative to a mildly positive attribute, with examples drawn from Charles Lamb and Paul Robeson, and hence to the conclusion that prejudice is not a warpedform of thought but that thought is a particular form of prejudice.

Current Status of Formal Operations Research

Abstract: Following a brief overview of developments in the study of formal operations thought since 1972, research in several active areas is reviewed and some speculations concerning future research direction