Follow Your Heart: Could Psychophysiology Be Associated with Political Discussion Network Homogeneity?

Most Americans are sorted into social networks that are largely politically homogeneous. A large body of political science research has explored the behavioral implications of being embedded in a politically homogeneous or heterogeneous network, but substantially less attention has been given to explaining why some people find themselves in politically homogeneous or heterogeneous social networks. In this article, we explore the psychological and physiological underpinnings of political network homogeneity. We use social network data from an original survey of 129 undergraduates paired with lab experimental evidence that measures individuals' physiological reactivity to an anticipated political discussion. Using our original survey and a separate nationally representative survey, we find suggestive evidence that individuals who are more socially anxious are more likely to share partisanship with their social network ties. Moreover, we find that individuals who experienced a greater increase in heart rate when anticipating a political discussion were more likely to be in homogeneous discussion networks, but we do not find a relationship between electrodermal activity and network homogeneity. Aversion to psychological and physiological discomfort induced by political discussions could contribute to social polarization in the American public.     

Wanting HIV Is ‘Such a Hot Choice’: Exploring Bugchasers’ Fluid Identities and Online Engagements

ABSTRACT

Bugchasers are gay men who fetishize HIV infection and use the internet to discuss their fetish. Previous research considered bugchasers’ online engagements as proof of their sexual identities. This paper contests that view the through the exploration of three cases: Scott, a committed bugchaser; Marvin, who uses the internet as ‘bugchasing entertainment’ but is not a bugchaser; and Milo, whose bugchasing feelings are blurry and evolving. All three men use the internet in diverse significant ways from pure entertainment to it being a key part of their daily life. In presenting and analysing these three cases, this paper complicates identity-based assumptions of bugchasing, and presents ways in which gay men engage with social media in the pursuit of sexual pleasure.     

Relative time in dangerous and safe places influences one-way avoidance learning in the rat

This paper reports three experiments on one-way avoidance learning in rats which examined the effect of time spent in the safe and dangerous compartments on acquisition, maintenance, and extinction of avoidance. In Experiment 1 time spent in safety was manipulated, and time spent in danger was held constant. Animals spending more time in safety needed fewer trials to reach the acquisition criteria and more trials to reach the extinction criteria; both effects became stronger as the required criteria for acquisition and extinction were increased. In Experiment 2 time spent in safety/danger was manipulated while holding the intertrial interval constant. Groups simultaneously spending more time in safety and less time in danger again needed fewer trials to reach the learning criteria. In Experiment 3 time spent in danger was manipulated, whereas time spent in safety was held constant. Groups spending less time in danger needed fewer trials to reach the learning criteria. These results indicate that the magnitude of the reinforcement or incentive value of the safety compartment is not a linear function of absolute time spent therein, but a function of the ratio between the length of time spent in safety and in danger.     

The Reality Principle: Fanonian Undoing,Unlearning, and Decentering: A Discussion of “Fanon’s Vision of Embodied Racism for Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice”

This response argues that attention to the ideological misattunements in psychoanalytic work helps us move beyond the symbolic—and that which it hides—into the real, material implications for our patients. By discussing Waverley’s hyper-corporality especially in relation to Knoblauch, his White analyst, we can mark a real vs. symbolic recognition of the expansiveness of Whiteness and the ways in which it aims to recenter itself in our theory, practice, and training. More specifically, using Knoblauch’s (this issue) moving account of a moment of “misrecognition,” this response takes up the ways in which Whiteness materializes an ideological apparition that aims to invert the visible-invisible spectrum.     

Longitudinal Relationships Between Positive Affect,Loneliness, and Suicide Ideation: Age‐Specific Factors in a General Population

The aims of this study were to analyze whether positive and negative affect, social support, and loneliness are factors longitudinally related to suicide ideation in the general population in different age groups. A total of 2,392 individuals from a nationally representative sample of the Spanish general population were evaluated in 2011–2012 and in 2014–2015. After including relevant control variables in the analyses, lower positive affect was prospectively related to ideation in 18‐ to 59‐year‐old individuals, whereas feelings of loneliness were related to ideation in 60‐year‐and‐older individuals. Social support was not associated with suicide ideation in any age group. These results are in line with the need for age‐tailored suicide prevention programs. The present findings might also suggest that health care professionals should consider feelings of loneliness rather than social support to assess the presence of suicide ideation in older people.     

Kant's Ethics and Duties to Oneself

Abstract: This paper investigates the nature and foundation of duties to oneself in Kant's moral theory. Duties to oneself embody the requirement of the formula of humanity that agents respect rational nature in them-selves as well as in others. So understood, duties to oneself are not subject to the sorts of conceptual objections often raised against duties to oneself; nor do these duties support objections that Kant's moral theory is overly demanding or produces agents who are preoccupied with their own virtue. Duties to oneself emerge as an essential and compelling part of Kant's moral theory.