[Vision2020] Highly religious people are less motivated by compassion than are non-believers

[Art Deco]

Chasuk expresses skepticism that motivation can be empirically measured.

With respect to the concepts "highly religious" and "compassion" that are
used in the studies which started this thread, there is much room for
skepticism about what is being measured by the results since the
operational definitions for those two concepts are far from precise and are
at variances with some of the ambiguous meanings of these terms in ordinary
language.

However, empirically measuring motivation to the extent that clear
operation definitions are used has been one of the most successful areas of
applied psychology -- with theories with fairly predictable results coming
from many of these experimental areas, particularly in advertising and
training.

If one starts by Googling "measuring motivation" some very interesting and
informative material is available.

Continuing by Googling "measuring X" where X could be replaced by various
emotional and conscious states also produces interesting results.  For
example: measuring compassion.

While it is true, that we cannot observe [read: feel] the exact occurrences
in anyone's consciousness, the ability to predict behavior based on
inferences about conscious states from behaviors and electronic monitoring
is a part of science that shows great emergent progress.

Progress in predicting what people are feeling at a given time by
monitoring brain functions by various means is an area where progress is
being made:  Goggle: electronic monitoring of "conscious states" to begin
to explore what is going on in this area.

Psychology is a relatively young science and deals with very complex
phenomena.  Like many other pioneering endeavors there are many false
starts and bad results.  Rational skepticism is what drives progress here
and elsewhere in science.

But let us not be skeptical to the extent of: "Man will never fly."

w.





On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 11:34 AM, Chasuk <chasuk at gmail.com> wrote:

> There seems to be a bit more aggression here than is warranted. Of
> course, I've been gone for a few years, so maybe things have been
> brewing that I don't know about.
>
> Yes, I expressed skepticism without providing any reasons, which -- as
> Art Deco kindly noted -- any fool can do. However, as I'm sure Art is
> aware, any fool can also express skepticism while providing reasons,
> as can any credulous idiot.
>
> I have no faith when it comes to questions of fact. I mean questions
> of fact in the courtroom sense, in which the claim must be answered
> primarily by reference to facts and evidence. That's a little
> long-winded, so I used the word "skeptical" instead.
>
> I actually should have written, "I'm skeptical that motivation can be
> empirically measured," as it more accurately reflects my actual
> meaning.
>
> Why am I skeptical  that motivation can be empirically measured?
>
> Motivation cannot be observed. It can be inferred from experimental
> results, at least theoretically. When inferring something as
> subjective as the reason that one behaves in a certain way, I can
> fathom no method of avoiding the pollution of these inferences with
> one's own reasons for behaving in that certain way. I'm not saying
> that such methods don't exist, only that it is reasonable that they
> are thorough explicated before I judge them.
>
> These researchers used three experiments to come to their conclusion.
> My alternative suggestion is this: all three experiments seemed to
> concern American adults, and, in America, many Christians mistake the
> phrase "God helps those who help themselves" as a biblical quote. This
> suggests, to me, not that the highly religious are less motivated by
> compassion, but that their compassion is countermanded by their
> allegiance to the faux-Christian virtue of a non-biblical phrase.
>
> =======================================================
>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>               http://www.fsr.net
>          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> =======================================================
>



-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20120503/1b2e6c7e/attachment.html>