Effects of midbrain central gray lesions on spontaneous and electrically induced aggression in the rat

Large electrolytic lesions were placed in the midbrain central gray of male rats. Their effects on hypothalamically induced aggression, switch-off behaviour, and locomotion were investigated. A number of these animals were also tested for territorial intermale aggression in order to compare electrically induced and spontaneous aggression. Large lesions resulted in an increase of the current threshold to induce aggression by hypo-thalamic stimulation. Smaller, but still quite large, lesions decreased the threshold current for hypothalamic aggression. After the operation a decrease in the threshold for switch-off was present, both in the experimental and the control group. Current thresholds for locomotion were decreased after the lesions only in the experimental group. Spontaneous aggression was temporarily decreased after the lesion. No indication was found that other behavioural elements of the animal were distorted by the lesion. The parallel between the effects on spontaneous and electrically induced aggression makes it attractive to ascribe a role to the neural circuit of hypothalamus and central gray in territorial aggression. However, even with large lesions the animals were still capable of fighting, hence the central gray is not indispensable. An attempt was made to explain the differential effects that differently sized central gray lesions have on hypothalamic aggression.     

The Santa Fe style in American anthropology: Regional interest,academic initiative,and philanthropic policy in the first two decades of the Laboratory of Anthropology,Inc.

During the 1920s the American Southwest, an area rich in ethnographic and archelogical resources, became an important focus of interest on the part of both eastern academic anthropologists and the Rockefeller philanthropies. Successfully coopting or overriding previously established regional anthropological interests, nationally oriented anthropologists were instrumental in establishing a Laboratory of Anthropology modelled in part on the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. When Rockefeller funding was terminated in the middle 1930s, the Laboratory was left to forage in the economic desert of the depression Southwest and was unable to find either adequate financial support or a clearly defined mission. In 1947, it was incorporated into the State Museum system, where it functions today as a coordinating center for archeological research in the Rio Grande Basin.     

Intersexual aggression and male sexual activity in captive rhesus macaques

Rape has been posited to be an outgrowth of male reproductive strategies. Forced copulations may have evolved as a consequence of the low parental investment made by males in producing and raising offspring. We designed a laboratory experiment which paired rhesus macaque males with females in order to assess the influence of intersexual aggression on male sexual activity. Younger and older adult males had comparable levels of sexual behavior, but younger males were more aggressive towards females than were older males. In addition, females threatened younger males more than older males. Male attacks on females did not result in sexual intercourse. On the contrary, a negative correlation existed between male aggression towards females and male success at achieving intromissions. Female aggression towards males appeared to be an effective tactic which reduced the chances of sexual intercourse. We conclude that intersexual aggression acts either as a mechanism of dominance assertion or as a means to increase spatial distance between individuals. These data do not support the idea that rape in humans has an evolutionary foundation derived from male reproductive strategies.     

Quantitative chromatographic profiling of odours associated with dominance in male laboratory mice

Triads of male NMRI mice were housed together and dominance hierarchies allowed to form. At age 19 weeks the mice were ranked on the basis of wins in spontaneous aggressive encounters, and whole-body volatiles were sampled by the dynamic solvent effect and quantitatively analysed by capillary gas chromatography. At age 26 weeks the mice were again ranked on the basis of wins in aggressive encounters, number of aggressive encounters initiated, and scent marking patterns, and whole-body volatiles were sampled and analysed. Chromatographic odour profile ranks agreed perfectly with aggressive initiator ranks and poorly with encounter winner ranks. Eight components of the whole-body odour were identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry; two of these are known semiochemicals. The results demonstrate that murine semiochemicals are accessible to quantitative analysis at the level of the individual.     

Promoting the underestimated: A vignette study on the importance of the need for affiliation to successful leadership

Research on the relationship of implicit motives and effective leadership emphasises the importance of a socialised need for power, whereas high levels of the need for affiliation are assumed to thwart a leader’s success. In our study, we experimentally analysed the impact of leaders’ socialised need for power and their need for affiliation on perceptions of transformational leadership and various success indicators. Using paper-people vignettes, we contrasted leaders characterised by either motive with those concerned with personalised power or achievement. Results based on N?=?80 employees show that leaders high in socialised power were rated more successful and elicited more identification and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) in followers, and that in most cases this effect was mediated by perceptions of transformational leadership. For all outcomes but OCB, findings remained unchanged when affiliation-motivated leaders were considered. Exploratory analyses contrasting socialised power-motivated and affiliation-motivated leaders show that with regard to attitudinal outcomes affiliation-motivated leaders were, on average, as effective as socialised power-motivated ones.

     

COVID-19 and Religious Ethics

The editors of the JRE solicited short essays on the COVID-19 pandemic from a group of scholars of religious ethics that reflected on how the field might help them make sense of the complex religious, cultural, ethical, and political implications of the pandemic, and on how the pandemic might shape the future of religious ethics.     

Semantic interference in the picture-word interference task: Is there a pre-lexical,conceptual contribution to the effect?

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Picture naming takes longer in the presence of a semantic-categorically related distractor word compared to an unrelated distractor word. This semantic...     

On Chinese receptions and translations of Heidegger’s Dasein

Continental Philosophy Review - The essay examines three major Chinese translations of Heidegger’s Dasein as cizai (此在), yuanzai (緣在) and qinzai...