Interethnic Marriages and Relationships of the Tlingits in the Russian–American Period and Their Significance

This article deals with relationships and marriages of the Tlingit with immigrants from the Russian Empire as well as with representatives of other European and non-European peoples during the period when Alaska belonged to the Russian Empire. Matrimonial relations existed in two variants: legal, sanctified by the church, and in the form of permanent extramarital cohabitation or casual relationships. The latter variant absolutely predominated. With this, there was a sharply reflected gender imbalance, since men absolutely predominated among the immigrants, and therefore Tlingit women emerged in the role of marriage partners in the overwhelming majority of cases. A directly opposite pattern was observed in Tlingit contacts with the Athapaskans and to some extent with the Eyak. Matrimonial connections exerted influence on the workings of the Russian colonization, stimulated growth in mixed populations, and facilitated gradual acculturation of the Tlingit, along with contributing to the expansion of their ethnic territory.     

Emotional responses to behavioral economic incentives for health behavior change

Many people aim to change their lifestyle, but have trouble acting on their intentions. Behavioral economic incentives and related emotions can support commitment to personal health goals, but the related emotions remain unexplored. In a regret lottery, winners who do not attain their health goals do not get their prize but receive feedback on what their forgone earnings would have been. This counterfactual feedback should provoke anticipated regret and increase commitment to health goals. We explored which emotions were actually expected upon missing out on a prize due to unsuccessful weight loss and which incentive-characteristics influence their likelihood and intensity. Participants reported their expected emotional response after missing out on a prize in one of 12 randomly presented incentive-scenarios, which varied in incentive type, incentive size and deadline distance. Participants primarily reported feeling disappointment, followed by regret. Regret was expected most when losing a lottery prize (vs. a fixed incentive) and intensified with prize size. Multiple features of the participant and the lottery incentive increase the occurrence and intensity of regret. As such, our findings can be helpful in designing behavioral economic incentives that leverage emotions to support health behavior change.     

The role of sustained attention,maternal sensitivity,and infant temperament in the development of early self-regulation

This study investigated infant predictors of early cognitive and emotional self-regulation from an intrinsic and caregiving environmental perspective. Sustained attention, reactive aspects of infant temperament, and maternal sensitivity were assessed at 10 months (n = 124) and early self-regulation (including executive functions, EF, and emotion regulation) was assessed at 18 months. The results indicated that sustained attention predicted early EF, which provide empirical support for the hierarchical framework of EF development, advocating early attention as a foundation for the development of cognitive self-regulation. Maternal sensitivity and surgency predicted emotion regulation, in that infants of sensitive mothers showed more regulatory behaviours and a longer latency to distress, whereas high levels of surgency predicted low emotion regulation, suggesting both the caregiving environment and temperament as important in the development of self-regulation. Interaction effects suggested high sustained attention to be a protective factor for children of insensitive mothers, in relation to emotion regulation. In addition, high levels of maternal sensitivity seemed to foster development of emotion regulation among children with low to medium levels of sustained attention and/or surgency. In all, our findings point to the importance of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors in infant development of self-regulation.     

Reducing uncertainty to promote appropriate decisions when facing hazardous phenomena at an active volcano

This study investigated a new direction for improving the decision making of populations at risk in the context of uncertain environmental events, such as volcanic hazards. According to the risk as feelings theory and dual process models, situations with certain outcomes do not necessarily require the use of affect heuristics (e.g., experienced feelings, anticipated emotions) as valid information in the decision‐making process. In the case of difficult decisions with moral dilemmas, certainty could even improve decisions. Thus, using an ecological design with various scenarios depicting upcoming volcanic hazards, we examined whether reducing the uncertainty of lethal threat by conveying certainty in an information campaign could influence decision making and promote a better quality of choice (correct application of the recommendations from the competent authorities). We focused specifically on two populations composed of local people living in the vicinity of an active volcano (Tungurahua volcano, Ecuador) and local scientists. We also examined whether a difficult decision involving a moral dilemma (e.g., leaving people behind so as not to jeopardize one's own life) potentiated this effect, compared to a less difficult situation without a dilemma. We demonstrated that, for local people facing a moral dilemma (difficult decision), the reduction of uncertainty of lethal threat involved a better application of the actual recommendations. These outcomes provided perspectives on improving the applications of the recommendations among local populations at risk in the context of a real risk exposure.     

Timing is essential for rapid effects of corticosterone on synaptic potentiation in the mouse hippocampus

Stress facilitates memory formation, but only when the stressor is closely linked to the learning context. These effects are, at least in part, mediated by corticosteroid hormones. Here we demonstrate that corticosterone rapidly facilitates synaptic potentiation in the mouse hippocampal CA1 area when high levels of the hormone and high-frequency stimulation coincide in time, but not when corticosterone is given either before or after repetitive stimulation. This effect could not be blocked by antagonists of the mineralocorticoid receptor and glucocorticoid receptor (spironolactone and RU 38486, respectively). These data provide a biological substrate for the important behavioral observation that stress and corticosteroid hormones can facilitate learning and memory processes.