Against Taking Linguistic Diversity at "Face Value"

Evans & Levinson (E&L)advocate taking linguistic diversity at "face value". Their argument consists of a list of diverse phenomena, and the assertion that no non-vacuous theory could possibly uncover a meaningful unity underlying them. I argue, with evidence from Tlingit and Warlpiri, that E&L's list itself should not be taken at face value — and that the actual research record already demonstrates unity amidst diversity

Autonomous orientation predicts longevity: New findings from the Nun Study

Objective. Work on longevity has found protective social, cognitive and emotional factors, but to date we have little understanding of the impact of motivational dynamics. Autonomy orientation, or stable patterns of self-regulation, is theorized to be a protective factor for longterm mental and physical health (Ryan & Deci, 2017), and is therefore a prime candidate for examining how stable psychosocial factors are linked to longevity, or life expectancy. Method. Essays written in the 1930s by participants in the Nun Study were coded for indicators of an autonomy orientation. These were selected in line with an extensive theoretical literature based in self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Essays were coded for the propensity for choice in action, susceptibility to pressure, self-reflection, integration of experiences, and parental support for autonomy. These coded variables were used to predict age of death. Results. Using 176 codeable essays provided by now deceased participants, linear regression analyses revealed that choiceful behavior, self-reflection, and parent autonomy support predicted age of death. Participants who demonstrated these stable and beneficial motivational characteristics lived longer. Conclusions. Personality constructs reflecting a healthy form of self-regulation are associated with long-term health. Implications for health interventions are discussed

Civil Discourse in the Classroom: Preparing Students for Academic and Civic Participation

This thesis will explore the importance of civil discourse education. I assert that there is a tremendous need for productive means of disagreement in today’s society, and I propose that the classroom is an ideal setting in which to foster the skills needed for civil discourse. This document features arguments for the need for civil discourse, a detailed definition of it, multiple pedagogical approaches to civil discourse education, and an explanation of the ways in which civil discourse aligns with national- and state-level educational standards. Among this research are also examples of the work of Pierce High School’s English 9 students, who have engaged in instructional methods such as the ones presented. Advisor: Robert Brook

Zen and Creativity

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Enhancing need satisfaction to reduce psychological distress in Syrian refugees

Objective: Becoming a refugee is a potent risk factor for indicators of psychological distress such as depression, generalized stress, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), though research into this vulnerable population has been scant, with even less work focusing on interventions. The current study applied principles from self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2000) to develop and test an intervention aimed at increasing need-satisfying experiences in refugees of Syrian civil unrest. Method: Forty-one refugees who fled Syria during the past 24 months and resettled in Jordan participated in the study and were randomly assigned to receive the intervention or a neutral comparison. Results: The 1-week-long intervention alleviated some of the need frustration likely associated with refugee status, a major aim of the intervention, and also lowered refugees’ self-reported symptoms of depression and generalized stress as compared to the comparison condition, though it did not reduce symptoms of PTSD. Conclusions: Discussion focuses on how these findings speak to the universal importance of need satisfaction for mental health, and how need-satisfying experiences can help buffer against the profound stress of being a refugee. Avenues for longer-term or more intensive interventions that may target more severe outcomes of refugee experiences, such as PTSD symptoms, are also discussed

Re-Weighted Softmax Cross-Entropy to Control Forgetting in Federated Learning

In Federated Learning, a global model is learned by aggregating model updates computed at a set of independent client nodes, to reduce communication costs multiple gradient steps are performed at each node prior to aggregation. A key challenge in this setting is data heterogeneity across clients resulting in differing local objectives which can lead clients to overly minimize their own local objective, diverging from the global solution. We demonstrate that individual client models experience a catastrophic forgetting with respect to data from other clients and propose an efficient approach that modifies the cross-entropy objective on a per-client basis by re-weighting the softmax logits prior to computing the loss. This approach shields classes outside a client's label set from abrupt representation change and we empirically demonstrate it can alleviate client forgetting and provide consistent improvements to standard federated learning algorithms. Our method is particularly beneficial under the most challenging federated learning settings where data heterogeneity is high and client participation in each round is low