The behavioral immune system: Current concerns and future directions

The behavioral immune system is a motivational system that helps minimize infection risk by changing cognition, affect, and behavior in ways that promote pathogen avoidance. In the current paper, we review foundational concepts of the behavioral immune system and provide a brief summary of recent social psychological research on this topic. Next, we highlight current conceptual and empirical limitations of this work and delineate important questions that have the potential to drive major advances in the field. These questions include predicting the ontological development of the behavioral immune system, specifying the relationship between this system and the physiological immune system, and distinguishing conditions that elicit direct effects of situational pathogen threats versus effects that occur only in interaction with dispositional disease concerns. This discussion highlights significant challenges and underexplored topics to be addressed by the next generation of behavioral immune system research.     

自恋双面性与行为系统的关系：性别的调节作用

为探索不同自恋得分的个体对奖赏与惩罚的敏感性及性别在其中的作用,本研究采用钦佩–竞争自恋问卷(NARQ)、BIS/BAS量表在483名在校大学生中进行调查。对数据进行共同方法偏差检验、相关分析以及基于多元回归的调节效应检验,结果发现：(1)钦佩性自恋与行为趋近系统存在显著正相关,与行为抑制系统存在显著负相关;(2)竞争性自恋与行为抑制系统存在显著正相关,而与行为趋近系统的相关不显著;(3)性别在自恋双面性与行为系统之间起调节作用。结果表明,女性自恋双面性得分越高,对奖赏和惩罚均越敏感;在男性被试中未表现出这种模式。     

Application of a behavioral theory of motivation to the concepts of anxiety and impulsivity

Gray's model has been employed in attempts to formulate theories concerning the processes underlying various types of psychopathology. In the most direct application of his model, the dominant mood is assumed to reflect the strength of the underlying motivational system—i.e., strong anxiety with a strong behavioral inhibition system (BIS), strong positive affect with a strong behavioral activation system (BAS). This approach would predict strong anxiety to be associated with a dominance of passive avoidance and extinction and, similarly, strong positive affect with a dominance of impulsivity and other approach behaviors.The present paper has argued that these expectations are based on an implicit assumption that equally stressful environments are encountered—an assumption that would be undermined by individual differences in the very motivational systems under consideration. Examination of the approach-avoidance conflict paradigm supported the argument that, at least in the case of anxiety, one should not expect a strong association between behavior and motivational states. In particular, a weak behavioral inhibition system or strong behavioral activation system is likely to facilitate anxiety-producing impulsive behavior, whereas a strong behavioral inhibition system or weak behavioral activation system may facilitate anxiety-reducing cautious behavior. Other factors were also thought to promote independence of affective states and behavioral traits across individuals.On this argument, trait anxiety conceptualized as resulting from a strong BIS may not be highly correlated with frequent anxiety. Stating this another way, the behavioral correlates of a dominant BIS may be relatively independent of a trait involving a dominance of anxious mood. Using Tellegen's (1985) discussion of self-report measures of mood and personality traits, it was proposed that the trait factor of Constraint may be more strongly associated with behavioral consequences of the BAS and BIS, whereas the Negative Emotionality dimension is largely unrelated to the behavioral effects of the BIS. Since Negative Emotionality corresponds to the traditional anxiety/neuroticism factor, this proposal differs from the customary assumptions about the alignment of Gray's motivational systems and personality traits. The personality trait of Positive Emotionality (cf. extraversion) may be associated with individual differences in the strength of the BAS, with both affective and behavioral components. Thus, the hypothesis of motivational-behavioral uncoupling offers an alternative to the usual intepretations of the three major dimensions seen in most personality inventories. Unfortunately, it remains unclear as to how well the three major personality traits (Positive Emotionality, Negative Emotionality, and Constraint) are aligned with the hypothesized underlying motivational dimensions, and any hypotheses must be seen as extremely tentative.Finally, the question of the validity of self-report measures was discussed briefly. Of greatest interest is the possibility that a subset of subjects are unable to accurately report their emotional states, and that methods are available for identifying these individuals. If so, the validity of these self-report measures may be significantly improved, facilitating research on anxiety and impulsivity.     

行为免疫系统对个体就医行为倾向的影响

研究首次考察了行为免疫系统与个体就医行为倾向的关系。3个研究一致显示：行为免疫系统特质性激活水平较高的个体更容易对就医持消极态度和延迟就医; 情境性激活行为免疫系统会使得个体更不愿意就医和更倾向于延迟就医; 且行为免疫系统激活对就医态度和就医延迟倾向的影响以对就医感染风险的感知为中介。这支持了进化失配假说, 提示行为免疫系统对现代医学可能缺乏进化的适应性, 并为理解现代人类就医行为提供了新的理论视角。     

Analysis of the catnip reaction: mediation by olfactory system, not vomeronasal organ

Pet owners and behavioral scientists alike are fascinated by unique behavioral reactions that cats show in the presence of catnip. These experiments explored the possibility that the catnip reaction might be triggered by chemosensory stimulation of the vomeronasal organ. In the chewing and mouthing of the catnip source, substances might be dissolved in saliva and transported to the vomeronasal organ. The rolling and rubbing during a catnip reaction might be a sexual response activated by the accessory olfactory system since the system projects to parts of the brain involved in mediation of sexual behavior. However, removal of the vomeronasal organ did not attenuate any of the behavioral reactions to catnip. Olfactory bulbectomy immediately eliminated catnip responding, revealing that the chemosensory stimulus evoking the catnip reaction is undoubtedly mediated through the main olfactory system. Catnip activates behavioral elements associated with several species-specific behaviors, including sniffing and chewing as associated with oral appetitive behavior, rolling and rubbing characteristic of female sexual behavior, batting the catnip source characteristic of play behavior, and a type of kicking associated with predatory behavior. These behavioral reactions occur randomly and intermittently.     

ENSEMBLE RECORDINGS IN AWAKE RATS: ACHIEVING BEHAVIORAL REGULARITY DURING MULTIMODAL STIMULUS PROCESSING AND DISCRIMINATIVE LEARNING

To meet an increasing need to examine the neurophysiological underpinnings of behavior in rats, we developed a behavioral system for studying sensory processing, attention and discrimination learning in rats while recording firing patterns of neurons in one or more brain areas of interest. Because neuronal activity is sensitive to variations in behavior which may confound the identification of neural correlates, a specific aim of the study was to allow rats to sample sensory stimuli under conditions of strong behavioral regularity. Our behavioral system allows multimodal stimulus presentation and is coupled to modules for delivering reinforcement, simultaneous monitoring of behavior and recording of ensembles of well isolated single neurons. Using training protocols for simple and compound discrimination, we validated the behavioral system with a group of 4 rats. Within these tasks, a majority of medial prefrontal neurons showed significant firing‐rate changes correlated to one or more trial events that could not be explained from significant variation in head position. Thus, ensemble recordings can be combined with discriminative learning tasks under conditions of strong behavioral regularity.     

Defining the caregiving system: Toward a theory of caregiving

The purpose of this paper is to present a preliminary framework for conceptualizing the caregiving behavioral system. Following Bowlby (1982), we propose that caregiving is organized within a goal-corrected behavioral system that is reciprocal to attachment. The set-goal of the system is to keep dependent offspring close or safe; its adaptive function is protection of the young. The caregiving system is designed to provide changing levels and forms of protection depending upon the developmental and individual requirements of the young. However, the evolutionary interests of the parent are not entirely overlapping with that of the child because the parent's evolutionary fitness depends on the fitness of all her offspring. Caregiving is one of several motivational systems in the parent. Depending upon circumstances, parents may select from a range of caregiving strategies, which are believed to correspond to the continuum of child attachment relationships (secure, avoidant, ambivalent). The adult caregiving system is believed to be guided by an internal representation or mental model of caregiving. This system has its roots in early attachment—caregiver experiences, but is distinct from them. We suggest that the caregiving representational system becomes consolidated initially in adolescence and undergoes change during the transition to parenthood and as a function of interaction with the child. Once this development is complete, situations of danger and safety should activate the caregiving behavioral system. Under normal circumstances, if the parent's own attachment system is aroused she would appeal to her own attachment figures rather than to the child. However, situations that engender feelings of helplessness in the mother (i.e., which cause her to perceive herself as unable to protect the child) may disorganize or disable the caregiving system on both the behavioral and representational levels.     

Pattern recognition of behavioral events in the nonhuman primate

A computerized pattern recognition system has been developed that is capable of identifying 40 separate spontaneously occurring behavioral acts of the primateMacaca fascicularis. The system, called PROBE (pattern recognition of behavioral events), is described in detail. In its present stage of development, PROBE classifies behavioral activity with a reliability comparable to trained human observers. The potential applications for and improvements to the PROBE system are discussed.     

Adaptive warning signals adjusted to driver passenger conversation: Impact of system awareness on behavioral adaptations

The study investigated behavioral adaptation caused by warning signals that adaptively support drivers engaged in a passenger conversation. Novel advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) could monitor the driver state to provide warnings adjusted to the driver’s current need for support. While first research indicates positive effects of dynamically adjusting ADAS, the overall safety potential of such adaptive systems remains unclear as little is known about adverse behavioral effects. Occasional inappropriate support due to an incorrect prediction of the current driver state might lead to critical situations when drivers are aware of the adaptive nature of the system and thus rely on the expected system behavior. To better understand behavioral adaptation to dynamically adjusting warnings, 46 participants driving on a test track reacted to two types of warnings (auditory, vibrotactile-auditory) while engaging in driver-passenger conversation or not. In a compensating warning strategy, vibrotactile-auditory warnings were displayed during conversations and auditory warnings in situations without conversation. This strategy was compared to a non-compensating warning strategy in which these assignments were reversed. The impact of behavioral adaptation was measured by considering reactions to simulated failures of these strategies. The role of system awareness for behavioral adaptation was investigated by manipulating awareness of these warning strategies across groups. We found that vibrotactile-auditory warnings reduced the detrimental effects of conversation on reaction times. Crucially, adverse behavioral adaptation was observed whenever an expected vibrotactile-auditory warning was replaced by an auditory warning but this effect was restricted to drivers in the awareness group. The results show that adaptive warning signals optimize the effectiveness of warnings during driver-passenger conversation but adverse behavioral adaptation develops when drivers are aware of the underlying warning strategy. This implies that future adaptive systems are less likely to be associated with behavioral adaptation if the adaptive nature of the system remains unnoticeable to the driver. Our findings could be used for developing and optimizing user-centered ADAS.     

Sick body, vigilant mind: the biological immune system activates the behavioral immune system

Activation of the behavioral immune system has been shown to promote activation of the biological immune system. The current research tested the hypothesis that activation of the biological immune system (as a result of recent illness) promotes activation of the behavioral immune system. Participants who had recently been ill, and had therefore recently experienced activation of their biological immune system, displayed heightened attention to (Study 1) and avoidance of (Study 2) disfigured individuals--cognitive and behavioral processes reflecting activation of the behavioral immune system. These findings shed light on the interactive nature of biological and psychological mechanisms designed to help people overcome the threat of disease.     

An Evaluation of Behavioral Approach in Adults with ADHD

Motivational models emphasizing altered reinforcement sensitivity have been increasingly implicated in etiological accounts of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Overactive behavioral approach tendencies are identified among these motivational models and are addressed within reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST). RST proposes that overactive behavioral approach is associated with over responsiveness to immediately reinforcing stimuli and results from an overactive appetitive motivational subsystem of the brain—the behavioral approach system. The current study tested the hypothesis that behavioral approach would be higher in a clinical sample of adults diagnosed with ADHD relative to a control group. Experimental and self-report measures of behavioral approach were administered. Behavioral approach was higher in the ADHD group across both methods of assessment. Effect size estimates fell within the medium to large range. Implications for how these findings might be incorporated into future ADHD models are discussed.     

Forebrain mechanisms related to internal inhibition and sleep

In experiments performed on cats and monkeys over the past nine years a “forebrain inhibitory system” has been investigated through recording of neurophysiologic, behavioral, reflexive and intracellular parameters. This forebrain system is capable of expressing its inhibitory influences widely throughout the body, and on both somatic and visceral mechanisms. Electrical stimulation within this system has been shown to: a) suppress ongoing behavior, synchronize the EEG and induce the initial stages of sleep. These behavioral effects could be conditioned to indifferent stimuli. Other studies have shown that lesions within this system result in marked alterations in sleep patterns and in behavioral hyperactivity,b) Inhibit remarkably monosynaptic and polysynaptic reflexes in the brain stem and at cervical and lumbosacral levels of the spinal cord.c) Induce hyperpolarizing potentials within motoneurons of the final common path. Cl infusion caused the hyperpolarization to change to depolarization. Studies of the “forebrain inhibitory system” indicate that at least in part it is a descending system involving both multisynaptic (loop) pathways and direct pathways. It is felt that descending circuits from the forebrain to inhibitory centers in the medulla are responsible for the effects observed at the final common paths from stimulation in the forebrain. It has been found that behaviorally, reflexively and intracellularly, the “forebrain inhibitory system” acts generally in opposition to the reticular activating system of the brain stem, and that the achievement of an organism’s overt behavioral patterns depends on the functional state of both systems.     

The Syracuse strains,selectively bred for differences in active avoidance learning,may be models of genetic differences in trait and state anxiety

The derivation of the Syracuse high- and low-avoidance strains is described. The behavioral characterization of the high- and low-avoidance phenotypes is summarized and it is concluded that the SLA/Bru strain is best described as having higher state and trait anxiety than their SHA/Bru counterparts. Although the behavioral covariates of the high- and low avoidance phenotypes are consistent, the covariation of the endocrine system normally thought to be involved in stress, is anomalous. The SLA/Bru rats, which are behaviorally more anxious than the SHA/Bru animals, show hypertrophy of the adrenal glands but reduced synthesis and release of the stress-related corticosterone than the SHA/Bru animals. This dissociation of the behavioral and endocrine measures of anxiety appears to be genetic, since a selective genetic analysis, involving F2 and high and low backcross segregating generations, indicates that both the behavioral and endocrine covariates cosegregate with the avoidance phenotypes. These data suggest that the expected association of behavioral and endocrine measures of anxiety is correlational, not causal.     

Implications of Healthcare Payment Reform for Clinical Psychologists in Medical Settings

Health reform, post the passing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, has highlighted the need to better address critical issues such as primary care, behavioral health, and payment reform. Much of this need is subsequent to robust data showing the seemingly uncontrollable growth of healthcare costs, and the exacerbation of these costs for patients with comorbid behavioral health and medical conditions. There is increasing recognition that incorporating behavioral health in primary care leads to improved outcomes and better care. To address these problems, primary care will play critical roles across the healthcare system, especially in the delivery of behavioral health services. Psychologists are uniquely positioned to take advantage of this propitious moment and can help facilitate the integration of behavioral and primary care by developing competencies in integrated care, training a capable workforce, and advocating for integrated care as the status quo.     

The Effects of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure on Behavior: Rodent and Primate Studies

The use of alcohol by women during pregnancy is a continuing problem. In this review the behavioral effects of prenatal alcohol from animal models are described and related to studies of children and adults with FASD. Studies with monkeys and rodents show that prenatal alcohol exposure adversely affects neonatal orienting, attention and motor maturity, as well as activity level, executive function, response inhibition, and sensory processing later in life. The primate moderate dose behavioral findings fill an important gap between human correlational data and rodent mechanistic research. These animal findings are directly translatable to human findings. Moreover, primate studies that manipulated prenatal alcohol exposure and prenatal stress independently show that prenatal stress exacerbates prenatal alcohol-induced behavioral impairments, underscoring the need to consider stress-induced effects in fetal alcohol research. Studies in rodents and primates show long-term effects of prenatal and developmental alcohol exposure on dopamine system functioning, which could underpin the behavioral effects.     

A software system for real-time control of psychological experiments

This paper describes an all-purpose experimental system, “APES,” for use in a microprocessor-controlled behavioral pharmacology laboratory. APES is an assembly language program that can run on any of the DEC PDP-11 family processors under an RT-11 single-job operating system. Its main purpose is the real-time control of psychological experimentation. The capabilities of the system are: (1) system generation of all operant or Pavlovian conditioning paradigms, (2) collection and storage of both behavioral and physiological data in a machine-readable format for later statistical analysis, and (3) operation that can be accomplished by individuals who have no computer programming experience.     

Case manager: A clinical tool for training residential treatment staff

Various behavioral approaches to institution staff training have appeared in the literature, with some showing that traditional didactic-type instruction or tangible extrinsic reinforcement is not always necessary for effective training. The system described here used principles of modeling and feedback to teach institution staff behavior management skills. In addition, staff were assigned special titles, i.e., “case manager.” Results indicate that this individualized system was associated with improvements in the target behaviors in question, and also increased the amount of time staff properly interacted with assigned residents. Implications are with regard to using this efficient approach as a clinical tool for training staff to be effective behavioral technicians.     

Designing courseware: Prompts from behavioral instruction

Behavior analysis has been at the forefront of instructional design for many years. However, this leadership position is rapidly eroding as teachers, trainers and other educators insist that behavioral instruction is good only for meeting simplistic educational goals. I argue that in order for behavior analysis to continue to influence the field of instructional design, behavior analysts need to help people develop instructional programs that use advanced interactive computer systems and that are based on all the components of behavioral instruction. Therefore, this paper suggests the following strategy. First, it teaches people to select authoring systems that will enable them to design interactive computer programs. Second, in order to improve current authoring systems it provides a set of prompts that integrate the features of behavioral instruction. I claim that the integration of these prompts with an advanced authoring system will facilitate the development of complex, conceptual learning programs and minimize current criticisms of behavioral instruction.     

Interface systems in behavioral research

The methods and criteria to be used for the design of a general interface system are evaluated in the light of the number, variety, and variability of the data points in behavioral experimentation. A simple and flexible interface scheme is presented that should satisfy the needs of a behavioral research laboratory.