Interdependence of Stress Processes Among African American Family Members: Influence of HIV Serostatus and a New Infant

This study makes a theoretical contribution to stress process research by using a systemic approach to contextualize individual outcomes within the framework of other family members' experience. Utilizing a mixed model approach, indicators of the stress process of urban low-income HIV + African American recent mothers were found to affect the psychological distress and perceived adequacy of coping of multiple other family members. These relationships were found to be strongest proximal to birth and to be exacerbated by HIV infection. Social support to the mother was found to have differential effects depending on whether it was from the immediate family or outside sources. HIV infection of the recent mother was found to affect family members both through relationships of the mother's stress process and through their own coping responses.     

What Kind of Narcissist Are You?

We are all narcissists, and necessarily so, since healthy narcissism is one of the main routes available to us for nourishing and protecting ourselves. Like all personality traits, narcissism is dimensional. For our own good, and for that of those whose lives we touch, it is useful to know what kind of narcissist we are, and to what effect. When my own narcissism was tweaked by an event that left most people relatively nonplussed, I examined the implications of this psychic insult. I looked to the contents of my narcissistic mirror, asking who and what had contributed to that template. After this analysis, I was able to see more clearly and concretely how helpful the concept of narcissism can be when trying to understand both normal and pathological behavior.     

The Impact of Incentive Compensation on the Salesperson's Work Habits: An Economic Model

Abstract

This paper provides a theoretical framework for assessing the likely impact of variations in the remuneration level on a salesperson's income and sales. It is shown how salespeople who display various behavioral responses to financial incentives should have different sets of values for two observable and measurable elasticities e_i and es (elasticities of income and sales with respect to remuneration). The behavioral responses to financial incentives under consideration are: Salespersons are (1) money sensitive, (2) unresponsive to financial incentives, (3) leisure sensitive, (4) income satisfiers, and (5) “irrational”. The theory can be applied by observing and measuring the two elasticities e_i and e_s, and then inferring salespeople's work habits. The theory is consistent with some empirical data. Practical and normative implications for sales force motivation, compensation plan design, and recruiting are discussed.     

Primary dendrite arm spacing during transient directional solidification of Al alloys with low redistribution coefficients

Particular analytical expressions based on a curve fitting on numerical results for primary dendritic growth have been proposed in the literature to encompass binary alloy systems whose redistribution coefficient (k ₀) approaches zero. To date, these expressions have not been checked against experimental results of transient solidification. The present study developed a comparative analysis between the theoretical predictions furnished by such expressions and results from transient solidification experiments with low k ₀ aluminum alloys. The analysis has shown that the proposed approach generally describes the primary dendritic spacing during solidification of Al–Sn alloys which are characterized by very low k ₀ values as well as by very large solidification ranges.     

Event centrality of positive and negative autobiographical memories to identity and life story across cultures

The aim of this study was to investigate whether cultural differences exist in event centrality, emotional distress and well-being in a total of 565 adults above age 40 from Mexico, Greenland, China and Denmark. Participants completed questionnaires to determine their level of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression symptoms, and of life satisfaction. They also completed event centrality scales for their most positive and most negative life events. Across cultures, participants rated positive events as more central to their identity and life stories, compared with negative events. Furthermore, participants with higher levels of emotional distress rated negative events as more central to their identity and life story, compared with participants with lower scores. However, a converse pattern was not found for positive events. Finally, participants with higher scores of life satisfaction tended to rate positive events as more central and negative events as less central to their identity and life story, compared with participants with lower scores. It is concluded that across cultures, positive events are considered more central to identity and life story than negative events and that event centrality ratings tend to be affected in similar ways by higher versus lower levels of emotional distress or well-being.     

Wittgenstein and Nonsense: Psychologism,Kantianism, and the Habitus

This paper is a critical examination of Wittgenstein's view of the limits of intelligibility. In it I criticize standard analytic readings of Wittgenstein as an advocate of transcendental or behaviourist theses in epistemology; and I propose an alternative interpretation of Wittgenstein's view as a social contextualism that transcends the false dichotomy between Kantianism and psychologism. I argue that this social contextualism is strikingly similar to the social account of epistemic practices developed by Pierre Bourdieu. Through a comparison between Wittgenstein's and Bourdieu's view and an analysis of the notion of habitus , I try to show how social contextualism can account for the distinction between sense and nonsense without falling into transcendental constructivism or social behaviourism.     

Student-Driven Courses on the Social and Ecological Responsibilities of Engineers

A group of engineering students at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany, designed a course on engineering ethics. The core element of the developed Blue Engineering course are self-contained teaching-units, “building blocks”. These building blocks typically cover one complex topic and make use of various teaching methods using moderators who lead discussions, rather than experts who lecture. Consequently, the students themselves started to offer the credited course to their fellow students who take an active role in further developing the course themselves.     

Diagnostic colours contribute to the early stages of scene categorization: Behavioural and neurophysiological evidence

We examined the effects of colour cues on the express categorization of natural scenes. Using a go/no-go paradigm sensitive to fast recognition processes, we measured early event-related potential (ERP) correlates of scene categorization to elucidate the processing stage at which colour contributes to scene recognition. Observers were presented with scenes belonging to four colour-diagnostic categories (desert, forest, canyon and coastline). Scenes were presented in one of three forms: Diagnostically coloured, nondiagnostically coloured, or greyscale images. In a verification task, observers were instructed to respond whenever the presented stimulus matched a previously presented category name. Reaction times and accuracy were optimal when the stimuli were presented as their original diagnostically coloured version, followed by their greyscale version, and lastly by their nondiagostically coloured version. These effects were mirrored in the early (i.e., 150 ms following stimulus onset) ERP frontal correlates. Their onset was delayed for greyscale scenes compared to diagnostically coloured scenes, and for nondiagnostically coloured scenes compared to the other two conditions. Frontal ERP amplitudes also decreased for greyscale and nondiagnostically coloured scenes. Together, the results suggest that diagnostic colours are part of the scene gist responsible for express scene categorization.