Exploring urban students' constructions about school, work, race, and ethnicity

This qualitative study is an exploration of 32 urban high school students' narratives about the connection between school, work, and societal expectations of their future success related to their racial and ethnic background. The sample varied along 2 contextual dimensions: participation in a psychoeducational intervention (Tools for Tomorrow) and developmental status (i.e., half the sample were 9th-grade students and the other half were 12th-grade students). Using consensual qualitative research, the narratives revealed 3 major domains: future orientation; students' perceptions of society's expectations based on race and ethnicity; and students' perception of the role of their race and ethnicity in future success. Results reveal that the majority of students endorse a connection between school and work, believe that society holds low expectations for them based on their racial and ethnic background, and cannot predict their future success based on their background.     

Migration Flows and Quality of Life in a Metropolitan Area: the Case of Barcelona-Spain

The phenomenon of human migration is certainly not new and it has been studied from a variety of perspectives. Yet, the attention on human migration and its determinant has not been fading over time as confirmed by recent contributions (see for instance Cushing and Poot 2004 and Rebhun and Raveh 2006). In this paper we combine the recent theoretical contributions by Douglas (1997) and Wall (2001) with the methodological advancements of Guimarães et al. (2000, 2003) to model inter-municipal migration flows in the Barcelona area. In order to do that, we employ two different types of count models, i.e. the Poisson and negative binomial and compare the estimations obtained. Our results show that, even after controlling for the traditional migration factors, QoL (measured with a Composite Index which includes numerous aspects and also using a list of individual variables) is an important determinant of short distance migration movements in the Barcelona area.     

Consequences of brain tumour resection on emotion recognition

Emotion processing impairments are common in patients undergoing brain surgery for fronto-temporal tumour resection, with potential consequences on social interactions. However, evidence is controversial concerning side and site of lesions causing such deficits. This study investigates visual and auditory emotion recognition in brain tumour patients with the aim of clarifying which lesion sites are related to impairments in emotion processing from different modalities. Thirty-four patients were evaluated, before and after surgery, on facial expression and emotional prosody recognition; voxel-based lesion–symptom mapping (VLSM) analyses were performed on patients’ post-surgery MRI images. Results showed that patients’ performance decreased after surgery in both visual and auditory modalities, but, in general, recovered 3 months after surgery. In facial expression recognition, left brain-damaged patients showed greater post-surgery deterioration than right brain-damaged ones, whose performance specifically decreased for sadness and fear. VLSM analysis revealed two segregated areas in the left hemisphere accounting for post-surgery scores for happy (fronto-temporo-insular region) and surprised (middle frontal gyrus and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus) facial expressions. Our findings demonstrate that surgical removal of tumours in the fronto-temporal region produces impairment in facial emotion recognition with an overall recovery at 3 months, suggesting a partially different representation of positive and negative emotions in the left and right hemispheres for visually – but not auditory – presented emotions; moreover, we show that deficits in specific expression recognition are associated with discrete lesion locations.     

Training improves inhibitory control in water rescue dogs

Animal Cognition - Inhibitory control is a collection of several processes that are aimed to refrain from any impulsive response in the subject during inappropriate situations. Evidence suggests...     

Evaluation of Symptoms and Alexithymia in Psychiatric Patients: A Naturalistic Longitudinal Study in a Day Hospital

This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of a time-limited (10 months), combined individual and group treatment in a Day Hospital (DH) setting. Participants (N = 73) completed measures of general symptoms and alexithymia. We hypothesized improvements in these symptoms at the end of the overall therapeutic treatment. Results showed significant improvement in ability to identify and describe emotions and feelings, and in general symptoms. Differences in age and personality disorders were found at the end of the treatment: younger patients had less difficulty in identifying emotions, and psychotic patients have higher difficulty to describe feelings compared to patients with personality disorders. Furthermore, patients with schizophrenia had lower pathological symptoms compared to patients with mood disorders. This naturalistic longitudinal study demonstrates that DH treatments in group setting increase the patient‘s ability to symbolize and to connect their symptoms to thought and emotions.     

Mixing against culture vs mixing against nature: ontologization of prohibited interethnic relationships

In this paper, we develop the theory of ontologization: Social representations that prevent members of minority and majority groups who are living in contact with each other to mingle. The process of ontologization consists of separating some humans from their own species, and anchoring them in another environment, that of an animal, for example. We propose that underlying the famous slogan “equal but separate” is the social representation of interracial mixing as a “counter‐nature” phenomenon. It is predicted that a sexual relationship between people of different “races” leads to a greater degree of ontologization, and, as such, this miscegenation will be explained in terms of biologistic thinking, like an instinctive nature or atavistic animal impulse. An experiment (N = 360) features the case of a woman who, though already in a stable relationship, is unfaithful to her partner. In a 2×3 factor design, the ethnic‐national identity of this woman (in‐group: Spanish/Italian vs out‐group: Senegalese) and the ethnic‐national identity of her lovers (in‐group: Spanish/Italian vs out‐group: Rumanian vs out‐group: Senegalese) were manipulated. In general, results fit the hypothesis of ontologization in interracial conditions better, rather than the customary in‐group favouritism and/or out‐group discrimination bias. We then go on to discuss the way in which a biologistic way of thinking enables a differentiation at the human level, in terms of culture groups and nature groups, in “races,” so that an interracial sexual relationship is seen as evidence of a wild and irrepressible impulse, which stigmatizes the people involved in these relationships.     

Rules and Self-Rules: Effects of Variation Upon Behavioral Sensitivity to Change

The Psychological Record - Four experiments compared the effects of self-rules and rules, and varied and specific schedules of reinforcement. Participants were first exposed to either several...     

The art of comforting

In the domain of social support, comforting is typically viewed as a form of help focused on providing relief from emotional distress. This specification is in our view insufficient to qualify comforting. Our work aims to provide a conceptual framework for comforting as a social process, by identifying its basic conditions while distinguishing it from other forms of social support such as help and advice. Special emphasis is placed on the role played by empathic sharing in comforting and being comforted. Then we focus on the comforter's perspective, addressing the typical difficulties implied by the comforting task, with special reference to those intrinsic to the task itself and the role played by empathic sharing in coping with such difficulties. We finally discuss the requirements for effective comforting, the view of comforting as a process of favoring the comfortees' reappraisal of their trouble, and the analogy between comforting and therapeutic help.     

Lightness constancy: Ratio invariance and luminance profile

The term simultaneous lightness constancy describes the capacity of the visual system to perceive equal reflecting surfaces as having the same lightness despite lying in different illumination fields. In some cases, however, a lightness constancy failure occurs; that is, equal reflecting surfaces appear different in lightness when differently illuminated. An open question is whether the luminance profile of the illumination edges affects simultaneous lightness constancy even when the ratio invariance property of the illumination edges is preserved. To explore this issue, we ran two experiments by using bipartite illumination displays. Both the luminance profile of an illumination edge and the luminance ratio amplitude between the illumination fields were manipulated. Results revealed that the simultaneous lightness constancy increases when the luminance profile of the illumination edge is gradual (rather than sharp) and homogeneous (rather than inhomogeneous), whereas it decreases when the luminance ratio between the illumination fields is enlarged. The results are interpreted according to the layer decomposition schema, stating that the visual system splits the luminance into perceived lightness and apparent illumination components. We suggest that illumination edges having gradual and homogeneous luminance profiles facilitate the luminance decomposition process, whereas wide luminance ratios impede it.     

The aggression test as a possible taxonomic tool in the Formica rufa group

The intra- and interspecific aggressive behavior of Formica polyctena, a species of the Formica rufa group, was analyzed and quantified both in the laboratory and in the field. This behavior was used as a potential taxonomic tool for gaining a better understanding of the phyletic relationships among the species within the group. No overt aggression was recorded toward members of the same species. To examine interspecific relationships, F. polyctena was first confronted with F. cunicularia, to ascertain its aggressiveness toward a distantly related species. All such encounters led immediately to overt and prolonged attacks with virtually no initial mutual inspection. This suggests that recognition of strangeness of the unrelated species is almost immediate in F. polyctena, as previously observed in F. lugubris and F. rufa toward the same antagonist. Subsequently, F. polyctena was contrasted with F. lugubris and F. rufa (also belonging to the F. rufa group) in order to compare these related species. Fierce attacks accompanied by all the elements of conflict behavior were observed in all encounters. Moreover, the degree of aggression in the field was higher than in laboratory-paired ants, possibly because of a territorial effect. These data and our previous and similar research indicate that the relationships between F. lugubris and F. rufa are closer than between these two species and F. polyctena. In considering different viewpoints on this problem, the validity of the aggression test is discussed and the opportunity to compare levels of aggressiveness among strictly sympatric samples of red wood ant species gathered from the same ecological environment are considered.