Epistemic Certainty Research Articles

Deepening the Relationship Between the Need for Epistemic Certainty and People’s Compliance with Social Power: The Moderating Role of Work Unit Tightness

The present paper builds on previous research exploring the relationship between the need for cognitive closure (NCC) and employees’ compliance with harsh social power to propose a moderating role of perceived tightness within a work unit in organizational settings. Specifically, the study aimed to test the cross-level interaction between NCC and the perceived work unit tightness in fostering employee compliance with harsh power. Using a convenience sampling method, we enrolled 290 employees from pre-existing work units in Italian organizations in a cross-sectional study. We obtained employee scores on the NCC scale, willingness to comply with harsh social power tactics, and ratings of their perceived work unit tightness. Multilevel modeling was applied to test cross-level interaction. The model revealed a positive effect of NCC on the willingness to comply with harsh social power tactics when employees perceived their unit culture as tight. This study advances previous research by showing the role of tight culture in shaping the relationship between NCC and power compliance.

Request for confirmation sequences in British and American English

Abstract This article presents the quantitative findings from a comparative study of request for confirmation (RfC) sequences in British English (BE) and American English (AE). The study is part of a large-scale cross-linguistic research project on RfCs in ten languages. RfCs put forward a proposition about which the speaker claims some knowledge but for which they seek (dis)confirmation from an informed co-participant. The article examines linguistic resources for building RfCs and their responses in the two English varieties. RfCs are analyzed with regard to their syntactic design, polarity, modulation, inference marking, connectives, question tags, and the prosodic design of confirmables and potential question tags. Responses to RfCs are analyzed with regard to response type, the use, type and position of response tokens, (non-)minimal responses in turns with a response token, response prefacing, and repeat responses. BE and AE are found to resemble each other closely in most categories. A major exception is their prosodic design, however. Specifically, the preference for the final pitch pattern of RfCs differs markedly in the two varieties: BE shows a strong preference for final falling pitch; AE shows a preference for final rising pitch. This suggests that the two varieties have routinized distinct intonation patterns for expressing epistemic (un)certainty in RfCs.

Epistemic modality in American presidential discourse

This research examines the exploitation of epistemic modality markers in political discourse. This research inspects modal auxiliaries and semi-modals use in four speeches addressed by Obama at the annual United Nations General Assembly during his second period as a President of America. Applying both qualitative and quantitative methods, this research is in an attempt to accomplish the whole investigation dealing with explorative and quantification of epistemic modality in Obama’s political discourse. The data were taken from Obama’s speeches from 2013 to 2016 at the United Nations General Assembly. The findings demonstrate that 471 modality markers were found in Obama’s speeches and he frequently delivered epistemic probability with 189 cases or 40.2% modal auxiliaries and semi-modals. Epistemic certainty and possibility were found in 125 cases or 26.6% and in 157 cases or 33.2%. The highest degree of epistemic modality, epistemic certainty, is expressed by employing must, have to, need to, cannot, could not, and may not. Modal should, will, would, be going to, and ought to express epistemic probability and modal can, could, may, might, and be able to are exploited to express the lowest degree of epistemic modality, epistemic possibility. The higher epistemic modality markers involved in a proposition indicate the higher confidence of evaluation and judgment asserted based on the speaker’s knowledge, belief, and evidence. In contrast, the lower epistemic modality markers found indicate lower confidence in the evaluation and judgment of the proposition.

Tipping the Scales of Psychological Reactance: A Closer Look at Imperative Language and the Role of Epistemic Certainty

Psychological reactance is a key construct in persuasion, but experimental inductions often confound imperative language with epistemically certain language (i.e., language that belies grounds for doubt). Two online experiments examine the effects of each language type on indicators of psychological reactance across two scientific contexts. In Study 1 ( N = 274), imperative language increased felt anger and perceived threat to freedom, while epistemically certain language did not. In Study 2 ( N = 402), epistemically uncertain language attenuated felt anger and perceived threat to freedom. Findings offer theoretical and practical insight into the effects of each language type on resistance to persuasion.

The Impact of the Need for Cognitive Closure on Attitudes toward Women as Managers and the Sequential Mediating Role of Belief in a Just World and Gender Essentialism.

This research investigated the relation between the need for cognitive closure (i.e., a desire for epistemic certainty) and attitudes toward women as managers among men and women. In a cross-sectional study (total N = 241) collected in Italy, we found that need for cognitive closure, controlling for participants' gender, was related to having more prejudice toward women leaders. Furthermore, the results revealed that the positive relation between the need for cognitive closure and negative attitudes toward women as managers was sequentially mediated by belief in a just world (i.e., the belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get and other people do not) and gender essentialism (i.e., the belief that women and men are distinctly, immutably, and naturally different, and thus have complementary skills to bring to the workplace). We suggest that men and women who are characterized by a need for cognitive closure are more sensitive to stereotypes of women as being incompatible with leadership roles. Either priming a low need for cognitive closure or providing contrary stereotypes could obviate the effect on beliefs in a just world and in gender essentialism that impedes progress towards greater gender equality in the workplace.

By Name and by Nature: Two Stories of People Named Unattractive in Daoist and Rabbinic Literature

Abstract: As part of a growing interest in comparing ancient Chinese and Jewish texts, this article examines two stories that share a theme of an unattractive person who is named according to their appearance. The Daoist story in the Zhuangzi describes Uglyface Tuo whose hideous looks did not deter women from adoring him and rulers admiring him for his administrative skill. A rabbinic story from the Babylonian Talmud ( b . Nedarim 66b) recounts the story of a homely wife whose husband compelled her to show something pretty about her to a rabbi. Zhuangzi's story thwarts any expectations for correlation between external appearances and internal substance, while the name continues to suggest a correlation between a label and content, defying a single approach. Within the Daoist tradition, and especially in Zhuangzi's thought, this seems to be the point, arguing against epistemic certainty. In the strikingly different Talmudic story, the aptly named person is a woman whose features do not elicit attraction. The correlation of her name and her appearance remains the defining similarity between the narratives. It is this consistency that holds the key to the narrative's resolution: her apposite name holds the power to restore order in the world, an order which her ugliness seems to threaten. The comparison between the two stories allows to enhance their contradictory lessons. The essay concludes by highlighting the benefits of cross-cultural research between these distant fields of study.

The captain of my soul: Self-determination and need-satisfaction help manage death-related cognition, anxiety, and well-being.

The present research tested the idea that a self-determined orientation may help people manage death-related thoughts and anxieties, and mitigate the effects of death awareness on well-being. Seven studies (N = 3,331), using a diversity of measures and manipulations, were consistent with that idea. First, mortality salience (vs. other topic primes) increased death-thought accessibility, but not if participants had high need-satisfaction (Study 1, n = 160; Study 2, n = 216) or were prompted to recall self-determined experiences (Study 3, n = 188). Second, need-satisfaction was associated with reduced death anxiety (Study 4a, n = 301; Study 4b, n = 1,848), and priming self-determined concepts eliminated the effect of mortality salience on death anxiety (Study 5, n = 119). Third, heightened death-thought accessibility was related to lower satisfaction with life (Study 6, n = 271) and happiness (Study 7, n = 228), but not among those with high need-satisfaction. Supplemental analyses suggested the effects of need-satisfaction were not due to associations with affect (Studies 1, 6, 7), epistemic certainty (ideological dogmatism, Study 4a), or mindfulness (Studies 5b and 6); need-satisfaction mitigated the effects of existential concern via self-esteem but not via growth orientation (Study 4b) nor due to its relationship with Openness (Studies 6 and 7). Together, these findings suggest a self-determined orientation can help buffer existential concern and buoy well-being and point to a potential existential protective function beyond its known growth-oriented functions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

At the roots of Allport’s “prejudice-prone personality”: The impact of need for cognitive closure on prejudice towards different outgroups and the mediating role of binding moral foundations

In line with the seminal ideas on the “prejudice-prone personality” provided by Allport (1954) in the book The Nature of Prejudice, various studies have highlighted the association between individuals’ high need for cognitive closure (NCC) and prejudice towards various outgroups. Nonetheless, evidence on the invariance of individuals’ prejudice towards different outgroups is still missing. Study 1 and Study 2 aimed to provide evidence that individuals with high NCC display similar levels of prejudice towards different outgroups (i.e., people of a different race; people of a different religion; immigrants; people who speak a different language; people with a different sexual orientation), expressed in terms of desired social distance. Besides this, and based on the “group-centrism hypothesis” positing the role of groups as sources of epistemic certainty and stability of knowledge, Study 2 tackled the process underlying the relation between NCC and invariance of prejudice towards different outgroups by testing the mediational role of binding moral foundations. Evidence from both studies supported the hypothesis that individuals with high NCC display prejudice towards different outgroups to the same extent and that binding moral foundations mediate this relationship. Implications of these findings with reference to interventions aimed to hinder prejudice towards outgroups will be discussed.

Thanks for trusting me, parent

Despite an increasing scholarly interest in doctors’ behaviour in online settings, doctors’ epistemic behaviour (i.e. how doctor employs discursive practices to deal with their side and patients’ side knowledge) in online medical consultation (OMC) is still underexplored in research. Drawing on 300 highly rated OMC cases retrieved from dxy.com, a well-known digital health consulting platform in China, this study explores how Chinese pediatricians discursively deploy different types of epistemic behaviour in OMC settings. Data analyses yield three typical types of epistemic behaviour by Chinese pediatricians: strengthening epistemic primacy, mitigating epistemic certainty and showing concerns about parents’ epistemic domain. It is argued that pediatricians conduct epistemic behaviour to win parents’ perceptions of their trustworthiness. The three types of epistemic behaviour are targeted at the three dimensions of trustworthiness – ability, integrity, and benevolence. This study could yield insightful suggestions for online doctors’ strategic choice of discursive practices to promote a trusting doctor–patient relationship and harmonious consulting atmosphere in e-health activities.

Experience in Descartes

ABSTRACT I will focus on Anik Waldow’s reading of Descartes as contributing towards a specific form of human experience and the related capacity for self-determination. I discuss how this notion of experience relates to what is often taken to be the crux of Descartes’s Meditations. I conclude by noting that three elements are central to Waldow’s interpretation: Descartes’s intellectual metaphysical pursuit for epistemic certainty about essences of things, the specific kind of experience of our selves that arises out of the embodied state of the mind revealing ourselves as both active and passive, and a resulting new capacity for self-determination. The moral of Waldow’s reading is that we should not read the Meditations as an account of what the mind is but as an account of what the mind can do and how we can upraise ourselves not as metaphysicians but in our interactions with the world and others.

Can narratives about sovereign debt be generally ideologically suspicious? An exercise in broadening the scope of ideology critique

Can narratives about sovereign debt be generally ideologically suspicious? An exercise in broadening the scope of ideology critique

The epistemic views of rural history teachers on school history as specialised subject knowledge

This study aimed to understand the epistemic views of history teachers on school history as specialised subject of knowledge. This study adopted the qualitative research approach and interpretivism paradigm. I purposively sampled seven professionally qualified history teachers. For data generation, I used card sorting. What emerged was an unquestionable epistemic certainty to which the teachers steadfastly returned. Broadly speaking, to them school history as the specialised subject of knowledge was about past human actions, promoting human rights, critical thinking, and understanding values. In many ways this spoke of a fixed mindset in which the ideas of what school history should be-namely, procedural historical thinking as part of an analytical approach to the subject as found in the CAPS-History document-had limited to no impact. This could be attributed to the fact that the rural teachers who participated in this study had limited opportunities to be exposed to training related to the CAPS-History curriculum. Hence, their knowledge about school history is rooted in their historical, social, political, educational, and economic reality in which historical knowledge, common or general knowledge, political knowledge, generic skills, and character education are key matters.

Certainty and Assertion

It is widely held that assertions are partially governed by an epistemic norm. But what is the epistemic condition set out in the norm? Is it knowledge, truth, belief, or something else? In this paper, I defend a view similar to that of Stanley (2008), according to which the relevant epistemic condition is epistemic certainty, where epistemic certainty (but not knowledge) is context-sensitive. I start by distinguishing epistemic certainty, subjective certainty, and knowledge. Then, I explain why it's much more plausible to think that "certain", rather than "know", is context-sensitive. After that, I respond to an important worry raised by Pritchard, according to which the proposed view is too strong to accommodate our current practice of assertion. I then show that the main linguistic and conversational data advanced in the recent literature in favour of the knowledge condition are best explained by the certainty view. Finally, I offer two principled considerations: the certainty view is the only one compatible with three independently plausible claims and it fits very well with the common thought that knowledge does not entail certainty.

Down the paths to the past habitual: its historical connections with counterfactual pasts, future in the pasts, iteratives and lexical sources in Ancient Greek

Abstract To complement existing synchronic typological studies of the marking strategies of (past) habituality, this paper details the diachronic paths leading to and from past habitual constructions. The rich corpus evidence from the diachrony of Ancient Greek demonstrates at least four source constructions: (1) past counterfactual mood (in optative and indicative), (2) futures in the past, (3) iteratives (with -sk) and (4) lexical sources with semantic affinity to habituality (volition, habit, love). It is argued that the former two acquire habitual meaning through an invited inference of epistemic certainty of the statement by the speaker: what certainly would have happened in the knowable past is implied to be characteristic of the past. The past forms with the so-called iterative -sk (3) suffix follow the cross-linguistically frequent evolution of pluractional constructions through a form of semantic bleaching: past iterative > frequentative > habitual > habitual imperfective. Lexical sources (4) first acquire habitual meaning in the present after which only the more heavily grammaticalized ones receive past habitual usage through semantic bleaching and generalization of usage (as reflected by host class expansions). The paper is concluded with a diachronic map of these paths into habituality and the paths leading from past habituality into other domains such as genericity.

Balance as Credibility? How Presenting One- vs. Two-Sided Messages Affects Ratings of Scientists’ and Politicians’ Trustworthiness

ABSTRACT Public and private decision-making on health problems relies on scientific evidence. However, scientific knowledge includes uncertainty, as does knowledge about COVID-19. In an experimental study, we tested how the trustworthiness (on the three dimensions expertise, integrity, and benevolence) of a source of information (either a scientist or a politician), was affected when messages were either two-sided (including arguments pro and contra the effectiveness of mask-wearing) or one-sided (only pro arguments). Results showed that scientists were ascribed more expertise and integrity compared to politicians, and both sources were ascribed more expertise when they gave two-sided (instead of one-sided) information. Moreover, trustworthiness ratings on all three dimensions were affected by participants’ prior topic attitudes and epistemic certainty beliefs. These findings underline that when a source provides two-sided information, this may increase people’s willingness to trust that source. To use this strategy most effectively in health communication, more research should be done on how many and what types of counterarguments to include.

The Sceptical Muslim

AbstractMany Muslims take the position that religious doubts constitute a serious problem for anyone who regards himself or herself as a Muslim, arguing that such a predicament may even result in apostasy. According to this position, the main problem with a Muslim who harbours religious doubts, a ‘Sceptical Muslim’, is that he or she is culpable for failing to respond appropriately to epistemic certainty about fundamental Islamic doctrine, primarily the existence of God and the Prophethood of Muhammad. I shall argue that, contrary to what many Muslims have asserted, the position of the ‘Sceptical Muslim’ is a viable one in an Islamic context.

Laclau’s New Postmodern Radicalism: Politics, Democracy, and the Epistemology of Certainty

ABSTRACT A timeless critique holds that the radical is animated by a deep sense of certainty that leads to the worst excesses. By distinguishing essentialist and non-essentialist forms of radicalism, Ernesto Laclau offers a “coalitional” form of radicalism that, in effect, responds to this critique. Laclau deconstructs classical forms of radicalism, such as Marxism, to show how one can use some of their formal components, such as dichotomic rhetoric and a notion of utopia, without assuming that their particular content (e.g., the figure of the proletarian or the socialist utopia) entails the permanent abolition of oppression. Laclau’s radicalism enables political actors to build their own radical front by politicizing and creating linkages between issues. Laclau thus avoids the epistemic certainty of classical radicalisms. However, in the interest of politically effective radicalism, he deploys a localized form of certainty that has an ambivalent potential for intolerance and violence.

The final particle uè in Longxi Qiang: A marker of realis and stance

This paper explores the nature of the final particle uè in Longxi Qiang, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in China. Previous studies have briefly described the uses of sentence final particles in ‘tail-head’ construction in Qiang varieties such as Longxi, Ronghong, and Puxi Qiang. Other studies indicate that the distribution of uè is not restricted to ‘tail-head’ construction. More features of the Qiang language are found by analyzing the uses of uè in narratives and conversations. First, the absence and presence of uè reflect the realis and irrealis distinction. The Qiang language lacks grammatical tense, but uè serves as a temporal reference to distinguish future and non-future. The choices of the final particle and person marker do not depend on aspect, but rather the realistic status of the events. Second, the use of uè signals the interlocutor's/narrator's evaluation from a third-party perspective, as well as his/her strong epistemic certainty or personal viewpoint regarding an entity or proposition.

Education and Knowledge

In this paper, I challenge a traditional assumption concerning the nature and aims of education. According to epistemic infallibilism, propositional knowledge requires epistemic certainty. Though some philosophers accept infallibilism, others consider it implausible because it does not recognize ordinary cases of supposed knowledge. On this objection, we possess many items of propositional knowledge, notwithstanding the fallibleness of these items. Infallibilism is inconsistent with such items and thus considered unwarranted. I articulate this kind of objection to infallibilism as it concerns education. I then offer a cumulative case defense of infallibilism and evaluate that defense. This examination suggests that much of what we commonly consider as education does not provide knowledge, and therefore that the traditional assumption is incorrect. My paper has interdisciplinary interests with respect to epistemology, philosophy of education, philosophy of science, and pedagogical practice.

Natives with a need for cognitive closure can approve of immigrants’ economic effect when they trust pro-immigrant epistemic authorities

ABSTRACT Previous research on the need for cognitive closure (NFC), or the desire for epistemic certainty, has consistently found that it is associated with negative attitudes toward immigrants, among other outgroups, potentially because they represent agents of change and/or due to a general preference for perceived stability and certainty associated with right-wing politics. However, as individuals with this need theoretically prefer stable and certain knowledge, independent of the specific content, it is also possible that these individuals could have positive attitudes toward immigrants when they are provided with a positive source of information to which they can metaphorically “close” upon. In two studies (n = 397), controlling for participants’ political orientation, we found that individuals with an NFC were more likely to accept immigrants when their positive effect was endorsed by an epistemic authority (Study 1), but only when they trusted this source (Study 2).