Prenatal testosterone treatment potentiates the aggression‐inhibiting effect of the neurosteroid dehydroepiandrosterone in female mice

The neurosteroid dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) is a powerful inhibitor of aggression in murine models when given for 15 days and potentially may be useful in the management of inappropriate human aggression. Although the biosynthesis and metabolism of DHEA have been described, little is known about the potential effect of the steroidal environment during sexual differentiation on the subsequent response to DHEA. Whether prenatal androgen exposure influences the subsequent response to DHEA was assessed by comparing the effect of DHEA (80 μg/d) on aggression in female offspring where dams were treated with 1, 10, or 100 μg of testosterone (T) on days 15 to 18 of gestation (Experiment I) or that developed in different uterine positions (Experiment II). The results showed that DHEA decreased attack behavior in general and that the 100‐μg prenatal T treatments enhanced the antiaggressive effect of this neurosteroid. Neither the lower doses of exogenously administered T nor the uterine position led to an enhanced response to DHEA. In addition, whether DHEA produced changes in social and nonsocial activities was examined. In the 100‐μg T females, DHEA increased the duration of the former and decreased the frequency and duration of the latter, indicating that it was not a general decrement in behavioral expression that mediated the enhanced response to the antiaggressive effect of DHEA. In the second experiment, DHEA treatment led to increased frequencies of social nonaggressive and nonsocial activities. However, the uterine positions × treatment interactions were not significant, demonstrating that contiguity to male fetuses did not differentially affect the response to DHEA. Aggr. Behav. 27:130–138, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Voicing Voicelessness: On the Poetics of Faith

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Effect of mental imagery on realizing affordances

Using a reaction time experiment, we examined whether imagining a response would lead to an increase in the frequency of its execution. During a pre-test and a post-test, participants had to respond as quickly as possible with either their left or their right hand, as they preferred, to the illumination of one of 17 target positions arrayed in front of them in a semicircle. Between these two phases, participants performed a practice condition. Each of 40 right-handed participants was assigned to one of four groups that differed in their practice condition: One group made only dominant-hand responses to all target locations, two imagery groups imagined dominant hand responses to all target locations, and the last group received a no-practice, control task. One imagery group received instructions emphasizing that imagery has a strong effect; the second group received instructions suggesting that imagery was not effective. The results showed an increased incidence of the practised response for both imagery groups during the post-test. No effect was found for the physical performance group and the control group. The change in performance for the imagery groups was not accompanied by a change in reaction time. The results are discussed in terms of imagining the realization of action possibilities and from a neuropsychological point of view.     

Why safety doesn’t save closure

Knowledge closure is, roughly, the following claim:

For every agent S and propositions P and Q, if S knows P, knows that P implies Q, and believes Q because it is so implied, then S knows Q.     

Cognitive Social Learning Variables and the Characteristics of Leaders1

This study explored the potential of a person × situation approach to identifying the characteristics of leaders in a voluntary community organization. A set of variables based on Mischel's “cognitive social learning variables” was operationalized to provide variables which assess the characteristics of individuals in relation to the specific context in which some emerge as leaders. This set of variables was compared with a larger set of traditional demographic and personality variables. Analyses indicated the approximate statistical comparability of the two sets. Advantages of the cognitive social learning approach for understanding and intervening in leader emergence and development in voluntary community organizations are discussed.     

EAST AND WEST IN THE FACE OF TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE

Abstract. Technological changes affect Western culture in three ways: the ratio between the lifetimes of technologies and the human lifetime is inverted; the three principal realms of human life (the home, the workplace, and leisure activity), as well as political systems, are affected; and the cohesion of the social body is threatened. The impact on Eastern culture is softened by a clearer role assigned to school, the resulting level of education, and the influence of Confucian ethics. However, acculturation will vary among countries, depending on the communication ability in the respective societies and the degree of development of social cellular structures, which are the most able to manage complexity.