DIRECTED ACTION AND ANIMAL COMMUNICATION

Human action theory, with its emphasis on intentions and reasons, does little to enhance our understanding of the actions of nonhuman animals. Many animal (and human) actions are directed to objects in the world, including other animals. The notion of directedness can be analysed without attributing intentions or reasons to the agent. An action is directed to object X if and only if: (1) the agent singles out X, either by orientation or by selective performance of the action in the presence of X; (2) the agent recognizes X as a suitable object; and (3) the goal of the action is that X should be in a certain relation to the agent or to some other object. The goal of an action is not necessarily attributable to the agent as the agent's goal in acting. Moreover, an agent can have a goal in acting without understanding how the action achieves the goal. The usefulness of the concept of directed action in the study of animal communication is illustrated with examples from the recent ethological literature.     

Courtyards,Balconies and Roofs

During the 1920s and early 1930s, Jews were conspicuous in Iraqi civic life and initially played a prominent role in building the new state, including the further development of the commercial, postal and judicial system, thus entering the state bourgeoisie of civil servants that was being formed in those early years. This study will focus on the interplay of tradition (and Jewish orthopraxy) with Jewish modernities: the latter are reflected both in the biographical circumstances of family members, and features of life inside a Jewish house in the Christian quarter of Baghdad. This study records Baghdadi Jewish domestic modernization, along with the retention of traditional architectural features, and the ways in which these processes were expressed spatially in this single Jewish household.     

Avoidance Behavior Following Terror Event Exposure: Effects of Perceived Life Threat and Jewish Religious Coping

The current research was designed to examine associations of perceived life threat (PLT) and religious coping with the development of avoidance behavior following terror event exposure. Based upon the terror management theory (TMT), we hypothesized that religious coping, through its effect on religious beliefs as a meaning system, would moderate the impact of threat, as expressed in PLT, on an individual's reaction to terror event exposure, as manifested in avoidance behavior. Participants were 591 Israeli Jewish students who were vicariously or directly exposed to a terror event in the past. We report a significant interaction between PLT and negative religious coping. PLT was positively associated with avoidance behavior but this relationship was more profound among persons who reported high negative religious coping. Secular students reported higher rates of avoidance behavior and negative religious coping and were more likely than religious students to report intrapersonal religious conflict. Our findings suggest that terror event exposure is associated with an elevated sense of threat, which is, at least in part, associated with a weakening of prior religious beliefs.