An extrapolation of Foucault’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Technologies of the Self</Emphasis> to effect positive transformation in the intensivist as teacher and mentor

In critical care medicine, teaching and mentoring practices are extremely important in regard to attracting and retaining young trainees and faculty in this important subspecialty that has a scarcity of needed personnel in the USA. To this end, we argue that Foucault’s Technologies of the Self is critical background reading when endeavoring to effect the positive transformation of faculty into effective teachers and mentors.     

Religious Prosociality and Aggression: It's Real

Individual religiosity relates to prosocial attitudes, behavioral intentions, and behaviors of minimal (no/low cost; limited to in‐group members) prosociality in hypothetical situations. Yet evidence on religious prosociality through other‐oriented, costly helping behavior in real life is still to be documented. Similarly, religiosity relates to cognitive, emotional, and attitudinal components of prejudice toward moral out‐groups. Evidence on real behavior of prejudice is nevertheless still needed. In two experiments using the same measure of religiosity and samples from the same population, religiosity predicted helping, in a real‐life context, of an in‐group member in need (Experiment 1) as well as overt and direct aggression by means of allocating hot sauce to a gay, but not to a neutral, target (Experiment 2). Religious prosociality and aggression are real, concern distinct kinds of targets, and are at the heart of personal religiosity.     

The Relation Between Place Attachment and Management Preferences of Visitors at Remote Coastal Campsites in Western Australia

ABSTRACT

Visitors who exhibit place attachment often demonstrate greater concern regarding how a place is managed. However, the extent to which the dimensions of attachment are related to management preferences has not been sufficiently investigated. Place attachment of visitors to coastal campsites along the southern Ningaloo coastline of northwestern Australia and its relation with management preferences were examined via an onsite survey. The relation was investigated using a suite of routines in the non-parametric multivariate statistics package PRIMER v6, providing the first example of the use of these types of statistical approaches in place research. Place attachment was measured using the dimensions of Place Identity, Place Dependence, and Everybody's Happy (a new, affective-based dimension). Within each dimension, significantly different groups of visitors were identified based on differences in their responses to the place attachment survey items. This was achieved using hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis in conjunction with a Similarity Profile (SIMPROF) test. Subsequent analysis using the BVSTEP procedure showed that the pattern of differences among visitors in their responses to place attachment items produced significant though weak correlations with their level of support for various management actions. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications of the results for future research on place and associated preferences for management actions.     

Effects of 7.5% CO2-Induced Anxiety on Individual Performance During a Group Computer Combat Game

The inhalation of 7.5% CO₂ has been shown to induce cognitive effects similar to anxiety. Sixteen healthy participants (14 male; mean age 25.6 years) inhaled either a mixture of 7.5% CO₂ gas or air while playing a group combat computer game. Participants reported greater feelings of anxiety and fired fewer bullets when inhaling CO₂ compared with air, indicating CO₂-induced anxiety may improve efficiency without task-related decrements. Being able to induce controlled and measured anxiety in group situations by CO₂ inhalation may be a useful technique when evaluating response to stressful situations, such as combat, in simulators or real-life scenarios.     

Visual Perception in Acoustically Deprived and Normally Hearing Children

In the present study an attempt was made to establish if and to what extent auditory deprivation modifies the processes of visual analysis and synthesis. The study included 54 children aged 10–16 years with hearing impairment attending the School and Educational Center for Children with Hearing Impairment in Wroc?aw (group I) and 127 children with normal hearing acuity attending public schools (group II), forming a reference group. Hearing impairment in the children of group I was from 60 to 100 dB. In 9 of these children the hearing impairment was inherited, while in some others it was acquired and resulted from rubella during the mother's pregnancy (5 subjects) or a severe disease course in childhood, for instance cerebral meningitis (4 subjects) and otolaryngologic antibiotic therapy (7 subjects). In the remaining subjects the reason for auditory deprivation was unknown. Hearing impairment, apart from genetically conditioned causes, appeared in the first months or years of life. The general intellectual level of the examined children was similar to that of their control counterparts, which was confirmed by school psychologists during a routine examination. The examination was performed by means of two tests from the Nonverbal Score of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children: Puzzles and Block Design. The children with a hearing deficit generally needed more time to perform the tasks than those with normal hearing. The investigated parameters of visual perception improved in correlation with age, but the dynamics of these changes were different in the two study groups.     

Phenomenological futures in dispute: Emmanuel Levinas,Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy

This discussion consists of five sections, beginning with a pair of citations marking up a politics of inclusion, and exclusion in philosophical discussion. The second section, focusing on the first part of this essay's title, ‘Phenomenological futures in dispute’, locates three inflections of the notion of the future, in the context of an encounter between phenomenology and Marxism. The third section proposes two rewritings of the subtitle, in terms of thematics, as opposed to using proper names as indices for theoretical orientations. The first rewriting retrieves Heidegger's notions of tradition, as both transmission and inheritance. This opens up a givenness of a futural horizon to alternating versions of futures; the second rewriting then offers modes of evaluating these alternating futures, in a contestation between a patriarchal, a differentiated, and a neutral mode of transmission. A fourth section raises some further questions of methodology, indicating the manner in which a rethinking of religion and of theology returns within phenomenology. In an inconclusive summary, the paper returns to the point of departure, the first version of a relation of non-relation, in a disputed connection to be set out between philosophy, a politics of exclusion, and psychoanalytical accounts of political investment. The paper seeks to locate a relation of non-relation, both in the failed encounters between Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy, with respect to phenomenology and its futures, and in the re-emergence, as non-relation, of the formative function within phenomenology of religious precursors, preconditions and commitments.     

On the influence of affective states on intuitive coherence judgements

Recent research has shown that coherence judgements of semantically related word triads are facilitated by a subtle positive response triggered by their increased fluency of processing. Such positive affective response serves as a cue indicating semantic coherence. However, we argue that the fluency of processing is not the only source of affective response that can influence intuitive judgements. The present study investigated differential influences of mood and affective valence of solution words on intuitive coherence judgements. We show that affective cues resulting from processing fluency can be strengthened or weakened by inducing positive or negative affective response through the activation of solutions to semantically coherent triads. Also, mood is shown to impact the breadth of activated associations therefore affecting not only judgements of semantic coherence but also solvability of word triads. We discuss the implications of our findings for how people might form intuitive judgements of semantic coherence.     

Performance in auditory and visual emotional stroop tasks: a comparison of older and younger adults

Research has shown age-related declines in the cognitive ability to inhibit irrelevant information. Thirty-six younger adults (mean age = 22 years) and 36 older adults (mean age = 74 years) performed 2 versions of an emotional Stroop task. In one, they made lexical decisions to emotion words spoken in 1 of several tones of voice. Latencies were longer for test words spoken in an incongruent tone of voice, but only for older adults. In another, words were displayed on a computer screen in a colored font, and participants quickly named the font color. Latencies were longer for test words high on arousal, but only for older adults. Results are discussed in terms of inhibitory cognitive processes, attention, and theories of emotional development.     

Editors can lead researchers to confidence intervals, but can't make them think: statistical reform lessons from medicine

Since the mid-1980s, confidence intervals (CIs) have been standard in medical journals. We sought lessons for psychology from medicine's experience with statistical reform by investigating two attempts by Kenneth Rothman to change statistical practices. We examined 594 American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) articles published between 1982 and 2000 and 110 Epidemiology articles published in 1990 and 2000. Rothman's editorial instruction to report CIs and not p values was largely effective: In AJPH, sole reliance on p values dropped from 63% to 5%, and CI reporting rose from 10% to 54%; Epidemiology showed even stronger compliance. However, compliance was superficial: Very few authors referred to CIs when discussing results. The results of our survey support what other research has indicated: Editorial policy alone is not a sufficient mechanism for statistical reform. Achieving substantial, desirable change will require further guidance regarding use and interpretation of CIs and appropriate effect size measures. Necessary steps will include studying researchers' understanding of CIs, improving education, and developing empirically justified recommendations for improved statistical practice.     

The Impact of the Built Environment on Children’s School Conduct Grades: The Role of Diversity of Use in a Hispanic Neighborhood

A population-based study examined the relationship between diversity of use of the built environment and teacher reports of children’s grades. Diversity of use of the built environment (i.e., proportion of a block that is residential, institutional, commercial and vacant) was assessed for all 403 city blocks in East Little Havana, Miami—a Hispanic neighborhood. Cluster analysis identified three block-types, based on diversity of use: Residential, Mixed-Use, and Commercial. Cross-classified hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine the impact of diversity of use, school, gender, and year-in-school on academic and conduct grades for 2857 public school children who lived in these blocks. Contrary to popular belief, mixed-use blocks were associated with optimal outcomes. Specifically, follow-up analyses found that a youth living on a residential block had a 74% greater odds of being in the lowest 10% of conduct grades (conduct GPA <2.17) than a youth living on a mixed-use block. In fact, an analysis of the population attributable fraction suggests that if the risk associated with residential blocks could be reduced to the level of risk associated with mixed-use blocks, a 38% reduction in Conduct GPAs <2.17 could be achieved in the total population. These findings suggest that public policy targeting the built environment may be a mechanism for community-based interventions to enhance children’s classroom conduct, and potentially related sequelae.