The effect of fear in the periphery in binocular rivalry

The perceived dominance of percepts within a rival pair of images can be influenced by emotional content, with emotional images dominating over neutral images. We investigated this effect in the periphery. Rival gratings and (fearful or neutral) face/house pairs were viewed centrally and with the near edge positioned 1 degrees and 4 degrees from the fixation. Both fearful and neutral faces were perceived as dominant for significantly longer than houses, with fearful faces dominating for significantly longer than neutral faces at all three eccentricities. There was no difference between dominances at 1 degrees and 4 degrees eccentricity, and there was no difference in the dominance of the gratings at any eccentricity. Our findings show that face stimuli, and in particular fearful faces, continue to dominate perception in binocular rivalry even when viewed in the periphery.     

The healing relationship: Edmund Pellegrino’s philosophy of the physician–patient encounter

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - In this paper I briefly summarize Pellegrino’s phenomenological analysis of the ethics of the physician–patient relationship. In delineating the...     

Psychological type preferences of female Bible College students in England

A sample of 122 female students attending a Pentecostal Bible College in England completed Form G (Anglicised) of the Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The data demonstrated preferences for extraversion over introversion, for sensing over intuition, for feeling over thinking, and for judging over perceiving. The predominant type was ISFJ (16%), followed by ESFJ (12%). Comparison with the population norms demonstrated an over‐representation of intuitives among this sample of Bible College students.     

Rare male aggression directed toward females in a female‐dominated society: Baiting behavior in the spotted hyena

Spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) are gregarious carnivores. The females are socially dominant to males, and adult males rarely direct aggression toward adult females. This study analyzed all cases in which adult immigrant males behaved aggressively toward adult females in a large population of free‐living hyenas in Kenya, observed for 11 years. Our goals were to describe the conditions under which male attacks on females occur, and address possible adaptive functions. Most aggression directed by adult immigrant males against females occurred when coalitions of two or more males attacked a single adult female, who typically responded by defending herself and fighting back. Male aggression against females frequently occurred at sites of ungulate kills, but males never behaved aggressively toward females over food, and all male attacks on females were unprovoked. Although no mounting or other copulatory behaviors ever occurred during or immediately after an attack, the number of male attacks on females peaked around the time of conception. Daily rates at which males attacked females did not vary with female social rank. However, daily attack rates did vary significantly with female reproductive state, and the highest rates of male attack on females were observed during the two stages of the reproductive cycle during which females were most likely to conceive litters. The adaptive significance of male aggression against females in this species remains unknown, but a tight association between male attacks on females and a female's time of conception provides strong evidence of some role for male aggression in hyena sexual behavior. In particular, our data are consistent with hypotheses suggesting that male aggression toward females in this species either serves to inform females about male fitness or represents sexual harassment. Aggr. Behav. 29:457–474, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Large Costs, Small Benefits: Explaining Trade Dispute Outcomes

The United States frequently engages in negotiations with its trading partners over expanded market access for American firms. Although many of these negotiations involve markets worth millions or even billions of dollars, sometimes government officials bargain long and hard over issues that were never predicted to result in substantial benefits. For example, the United States held negotiations with Japan for more than 30 years over increased market access for American apples. These negotiations were ultimately carried to the highest levels of government, discussed at international conferences, and even ruled on by the World Trade Organization, yet estimates of the potential market for foreign apples never exceeded $15 million. Such protracted negotiations in this sector do not make sense from the perspective of expected utility theory but can be explained by prospect theory. Apple negotiations came to represent a spiral model for both the United States and Japan. As each side viewed its own losses as deepening over the course of negotiations, each became caught in a prospect theory spiral of actions and became willing to take even riskier actions in an attempt to recoup losses.     

Does the covert nature of caring prohibit the development of effective services for young carers?

Almost 3 million children in the UK live in households where at least one family member is affected by chronic illness or disability. A proportion of these children will be young carers. This paper begins with a brief review of the literature relating to young carers. Particular attention is paid to the adoption of a caring role, the'hidden' nature of caring including young people'sreluctance to discuss their caring, the impact of caring on education, and the location and type of services provided.The findings of a small-scale study carried out in Scotland are presented in order to highlight some of the issues raised in the literature. Discussion focuses on the implications for the field of guidance and counselling.     

Compensatory Control: Achieving Order Through the Mind, Our Institutions, and the Heavens

ABSTRACT— We propose that people protect the belief in a controlled, nonrandom world by imbuing their social, physical, and metaphysical environments with order and structure when their sense of personal control is threatened. We demonstrate that when personal control is threatened, people can preserve a sense of order by (a) perceiving patterns in noise or adhering to superstitions and conspiracies, (b) defending the legitimacy of the sociopolitical institutions that offer control, or (c) believing in an interventionist God. We also present evidence that these processes of compensatory control help people cope with the anxiety and discomfort that lacking personal control fuels, that it is lack of personal control specifically and not general threat or negativity that drives these processes, and that these various forms of compensatory control are ultimately substitutable for one another. Our model of compensatory control offers insight into a wide variety of phenomena, from prejudice to the idiosyncratic rituals of professional athletes to societal rituals around weddings, graduations, and funerals.