Diminished cooperativeness of psychopaths in a prisoner's dilemma game yields higher rewards

Maladaptive social behavior is one of the defining characteristics of psychopathic personality disorder. Nevertheless, maladaptive social behavior has only rarely been observed among psychopaths in experimentally controlled situations. The authors assessed the behavior of criminal psychopaths from high-security psychiatric hospitals in a computer simulation of a social dilemma situation. The psychopaths showed a markedly higher proneness to competitive (i.e., noncooperative) behavior than did healthy adults from the general population. The odds ratio between defection and being a psychopath was estimated at 7.86 in the sample. The probability to choose selfish instead of cooperative behavior was significantly linked to the following subscales of the Psychopathy Personality Inventory-Revised (S. O. Lilienfeld & M. R. Widows, 2005): rebellious nonconformity, Machiavellian egocentricity, and the total score. On average, the psychopathic participants accumulated higher gain and more strongly exploited their counterpart than did the healthy participants.     

Uncovering an existential barrier to breast self-exam behavior

The present research applies an analysis derived from terror management theory to the health domain of breast examination, and in doing so uncovers previously unrecognized factors that may contribute to women’s reluctance to perform breast self-examinations (BSEs). In Study 1, when concerns about mortality were primed, reminders of human beings’ physical nature (i.e., creatureliness) reduced intentions to conduct BSEs compared to reminders of humans’ uniqueness. In Study 2, women conducted shorter exams on a breast model (an experience found to increase death-thought accessibility) when creatureliness was primed compared to a uniqueness and no essay condition. In Study 3, after a creatureliness prime, women performed shorter BSEs when a placebo did not provide an alternative explanation for their discomfort compared to when it did. Advances for theory and breast self-exam promotion are discussed.     

Neurophilosophical perspectives of neuroimaging in forensic psychiatry—giving way to a paradigm shift?

Forensic psychiatry is concerned with the relationship between psychiatric abnormalities and legal violations and crimes. Due to the lack of available biological criteria, evaluation and therapy in forensic psychiatry have so far been restricted to psychosocial and mental criteria of offenders' personalities. Recent advances in neurosciences allow a closer approach to the neural correlates of personality, moral judgments and decision-making. We propose to discuss the introduction of biological criteria in the field of forensic psychiatry and to establish rules as to what extent such biological criteria will be a better and more reliable choice in judging mentally ill criminals by using all available information that can be obtained by biological means. Psychosocial and subjective criteria in forensic evaluation will be more and more accomplished by biopsychosocial and objective criteria. The responsibility of having committed a criminal act will no longer be exclusively defined by judging free and voluntary decision-making, but rather by brain-behavior relationships. What is often referred to as psychosocially determined mental processes thus could be complemented by estimating the degree of biopsychosocially determined neural processes. We conclude that such a process could contribute to a paradigm shift in forensic psychiatry, which will have profound implications for offenders, forensic psychologists and psychiatrists, the law and society in general.     

The Epsilon Calculus and Herbrand Complexity

Hilbert's ε-calculus is based on an extension of the language of predicate logic by a term-forming operator e _x . Two fundamental results about the ε-calculus, the first and second epsilon theorem, play a rôle similar to that which the cut-elimination theorem plays in sequent calculus. In particular, Herbrand's Theorem is a consequence of the epsilon theorems. The paper investigates the epsilon theorems and the complexity of the elimination procedure underlying their proof, as well as the length of Herbrand disjunctions of existential theorems obtained by this elimination procedure.     

A typology of religious attitudes among young people in Germany

Issues like faith and Church, religion and religiousness are not valued particularly highly among the young. At the same time a search for the meaning of life and an orientation in one’s own behaviour still seem to be significant and transcendent focal points are being sought to deal with these issues. This article questions the value that religion, faith and the Church have for young people on the basis of empirical data. Five types of religious orientation of young people are identified: a churchly Christian type, an autonomously Christian type, a conventionally religious type, an autonomously religious type and, finally, a non‐religious type. The empirical data are taken from a study of about 800 pupils in the Grade 11 (age 16–17 years) from grammar schools (Gymnasien) in Germany.     

The influence of intertrial interval food on extinction and devaluation in chain schedules

The authors exposed pigeons to 2 equal 3-link chains by using variable-interval schedules of reinforcement. An intertrial interval (ITI) bisected by free food separated the chains. After baseline training, the authors presented terminal links in a successive discrimination to devalue 1 terminal link: The authors reinforced responses to 1 terminal link and extinguished responses to the other. The authors then presented full chains in extinction, except that they continued to deliver free food during the midpoint of the ITI. There were 2 principal findings. First, across all extinction conditions, responding decreased but did not extinguish. Second, when extinction testing revealed a terminal link devaluation effect in the 3rd condition, responding to the initial link was affected, but not middle-link responding. Overall, the results suggested that ITI food presentations can exert a substantial effect on responding in 3-link chain schedules, and they appear to influence both the pattern of extinction and devaluation effects.     

From women to objects: Appearance focus, target gender, and perceptions of warmth, morality and competence

Most literally, objectification refers to perceiving a person as an object, and consequently, less than fully human. Research on perceptions of humanness and the stereotype content model suggests that humanness is linked to perceptions of warmth, morality and competence. Merging these insights with objectification theory, we hypothesized that focusing on a woman's, but not a man's, appearance should induce objectification, and thus reduce perceptions of these characteristics. In three studies, females, but not males, were perceived as less competent (Studies 2 and 3) and less warm and moral (Studies 1, 2 and 3) when participants were instructed to focus on their appearance. These findings support our position and help rule out stereotype activation as an alternative explanation to dehumanization. Further, they generalized to targets of different races, familiarity, physical attractiveness and occupational status. Implications for gender inequity and the perpetuation of objectification of women are discussed.     

Death awareness and body–self dualism: A why and how of afterlife belief

Belief in life after death offers potential comfort in the face of inevitable death. However, afterlife belief likely requires not only an awareness of death but also body–self dualism—the perception that the self (e.g., the mind) is distinct from the physical, undeniably mortal, body. In turn, we hypothesized that mortality salience (MS) should heighten afterlife belief only when dualism is facilitated. Study 1 found that MS increased belief for people high, relative to low, in trait mind–body dualism. In Study 2, MS only increased belief when people first wrote about their thoughts and personality, which a pilot study confirmed facilitated dualistic belief, relative to thinking about the physical self. Study 3 used the brain–computer interface technology to induce a dualistic experience: MS increased belief when participants accurately “typed” without the use of their external body (i.e., no hands). Together, these findings support the position that mortality awareness and body–self dualism constitute a “why” and “how” of afterlife belief. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.