Do humans prefer altruistic mates? Testing a link between sexual selection and altruism towards non‐relatives

Humans are often seen as unusual in displaying altruistic behaviour towards non‐relatives. Here we outline and test a hypothesis that human altruistic traits evolved as a result of sexual selection. We develop a psychometric scale to measure mate preference towards altruistic traits (the MPAT scale). We then seek evidence of whether mate choice on the basis of altruistic traits is present and find it in one study (N=170 couples). We also predict that a stronger female MPAT, as measured by responses to the MPAT scale, will be expressed – a result found in all three studies (Ns=380, 340, and 398). Both sets of results are consistent with the hypothesized link between human altruism towards non‐relatives and sexual selection.     

The impossibility of incommensurable values

Many recent attacks on consequentialism and several defenses of pluralism have relied on arguments for the incommensurability of value. Such arguments have, generally, turned on empirical appeals to aspects of our everyday experience of value conflict. My intention, largely, is to bypass these arguments and turn instead to a discussion of the conceptual apparatus needed to make the claim that values are incommensurable. After delineating what it would mean for values to be incommensurable, I give an a priori argument that such is impossible. It is widely accepted that value is conceptually tied to desire. I argue that, more specifically, it is proportional to merited desire strength. This connection gives one a metric of all value if there is any such thing. This metric entails that value is a complete ordering over all states of affairs, or, in other words, that value is commensurable.     

Fictionalism and the attitudes

This paper distinguishes revolutionary fictionalism from other forms of fictionalism and also from other philosophical views. The paper takes fictionalism about mathematical objects and fictionalism about scientific unobservables as illustrations. The paper evaluates arguments that purport to show that this form of fictionalism is incoherent on the grounds that there is no tenable distinction between believing a sentence and taking the fictionalist's distinctive attitude to that sentence. The argument that fictionalism about mathematics is ‘comically immodest’ is also evaluated. In place of those arguments, an argument against fictionalism about abstract objects of any kind is presented in the last section. This argument takes the form of a trilemma against the fictionalist.

A critique and comparison of two scales from fifteen years of studying compulsive buying

Compulsive buying is an important construct in marketing that has far-reaching personal and social implications. The profile of the adult compulsive buyer in the literature is based largely on the 1992 Faber and O'Guinn Compulsive Buying Scale. A second compulsive buying scale by Edwards has also been used but sparingly. Empirical research conducted over that past 15 years with these two scales shows that, although both scales were designed to measure compulsive buying, the two appear to be different operationalizations of the construct. The present review raises several psychometric issues about both scales. Their robustness is crucial to a clear understanding of the antecedents and consequences of compulsive buying. Directions for research are added.     

The boundaries between attachment and personality: Localized versus generalized effects in daily social interaction

A diary study examined the effects of romantic attachment (avoidance, anxiety) and autonomous and sociotropic personality on levels of sociability within social interactions across relational contexts (N = 89 undergraduates). As expected, the effects of domain-specific romantic attachment avoidance and anxiety on sociability were localized to social interactions with romantic partners, whereas the effects of autonomy and sociotropy were generalized across relational contexts (i.e., across social interactions with romantic partners, family members, friends, and acquaintances/others). Furthermore, the effects of both autonomy and sociotropy on sociability were partially mediated by domain-specific attachment in domain-congruent (romantic) but not domain-incongruent (non-romantic) relational contexts: romantic avoidance partially mediated the effects of autonomy on sociability toward romantic partners, whereas romantic anxiety partially mediated the effects of sociotropy. These results suggest that autonomy and sociotropy summarize global regularities in relational responding that correspond to those described by attachment avoidance and anxiety—although (unlike attachment) they do so across relational contexts. Domain-specific attachment representations, in contrast, govern responding within context-congruent domains and act as a mechanism through which personality guides social interaction within these domains.     

The Big Five personality traits and perceptions of touch to intimate and nonintimate body regions

This investigation tested whether (1) the Big Five personality traits contribute to favorable perceptions of touch from a relational partner, (2) participants’ sex or personality better predicted positive perceptions of touch, and (3) perceptions of touch vary as a function of relationship satisfaction. A total of 305 participants aged 18–69 years completed self-report measures of reactions to touch, personality, and relationship satisfaction. Results showed that agreeableness was a significant predictor of positive perceptions of touch to both intimate and nonintimate body regions. Openness to experience was also a significant predictor in positive perceptions of touch to nonintimate body regions. Overall, personality was a stronger predictor of positive perceptions of touch than either biological sex or relationship satisfaction with the toucher.     

Prime-trial processing demands and their impact on distractor processing in a spatial negative priming task

A spatial negative priming (NP) paradigm was used where trials were presented in pairs, first the 'prime' and then the 'probe', and where participants responded manually to a target's location. In Experiment 1, three prime-trial types were used: distractor-plus-target, predictable distractor-only, and unpredictable distractor-only, with prime-probe trial onset delays of 2, 5 or 10 s (NP longevity). In Experiment 2, the latter two prime-trials were employed with onset delays of 75 and 750 ms (distractor response activation-inhibition sequence). With the exception of the 10 s onset delay, the spatial NP effect data (NP size, longevity, distractor response activation-inhibition sequence) was the same for all three prime-trial types. Thus, the varying processing demands associated with each of the prime-trial types (e.g., selection, intervening response) did not alter prime distractor processing so that they differentially contributed to the spatial NP process. The three prime-trial types can be used interchangeably, within limits, to study the NP process.     

Frequency and nature of rumination in chronic depression: a preliminary study

This study explores the phenomenological experience of rumination in a sample of 22 chronically depressed people and looks at the extent to which it is consistent with theoretical ideas. The findings indicate that, on average, depressed people ruminate about at least two different topics, and that there is wide variability in how long each episode lasts. Rumination is a complex process frequently involving imagery as well as verbal thoughts and is almost invariably associated with multiple emotions. Although there was some evidence for stop rules being involved, most individuals attributed ending a period of rumination to distraction, whether external or internally generated.     

How Risk is Perceived, Constructed and Interpreted by Clients in Clinical Genetics, and the Effects on Decision Making: Systematic Review

As an individual’s understanding of their genetic risk may influence risk management decisions, it is important to understand the ways in which risk is constructed and interpreted. We systematically reviewed the literature, undertaking a narrative synthesis of 59 studies presenting data on the ways in which individuals perceive, construct and interpret their risk, and the subsequent effects. While most studies assessed perceived risk quantitatively, the combined evidence suggests individuals find risk difficult to accurately quantify, with a tendency to overestimate. Rather than being a stand-alone concept, risk is something lived and experienced and the process of constructing risk is complex and influenced by many factors. While evidence of the effects of perceived risk is limited and inconsistent, there is some evidence to suggest high risk estimations may adversely affect health and lead to inappropriate uptake of medical surveillance and preventative measures by some individuals. A more focused approach to research is needed with greater exploration of the ways in which risk is constructed, along with the development of stronger theoretical models, to facilitate effective and patient-centered counseling strategies.     

Contextual memory deficits observed in mice overexpressing small conductance Ca2+-activated K+ type 2 (KCa2.2, SK2) channels are caused by an encoding deficit

Hippocampal-dependent synaptic plasticity and memory are modulated by apamin-sensitive small conductance Ca2+-activated K+ (SK) channels. Transgenic mice overexpressing SK2 channels (SK2+/T mice) exhibit marked deficits in hippocampal memory and synaptic plasticity, as previously reported. Here, we examined whether SK2 overexpression affects the encoding or retention of contextual memory. Compared with wild-type littermates, SK2+/T mice exhibited significantly less context-dependent freezing 10 min and 24 h after conditioning. Interestingly, this contextual memory impairment was eliminated if SK2+/T mice were permitted longer pre-exposure to the conditioning chamber. These data support converging evidence that SK2 channels restrict the encoding of hippocampal memory.