Measurement of readiness to reduce driving speed: a pilot study

Speeding is a preventable risky behavior that contributes to risk of accident. Readiness to change reflects an individual's recognition of and desire to change behavior. No measure to identify readiness to change has yet been validated for speeding. The Readiness to Change Questionnaire appraises readiness to change drinking behavior. The questionnaire was adapted to speeding and its psychometric properties examined. Participants (N = 112) completed the questionnaire and reported their usual driving speed. A clear component structure and acceptable internal consistency and test-retest reliability were found. Convergent validity was indicated by an association between higher readiness to change and lower driving speed. Results support the questionnaire's potential as a measure of readiness to change speeding, and advance research into the role of motivation in speeding behavior.     

Kin recognition loss following anesthesia in beetle larvae (Aleochara bilineata, Coleoptera, Staphylinidae)

Kin recognition is a complex cognitive process, where an individual should detect a phenotypic cue and compare it to an internal template, which might be genetically determined (i.e., innate or acquired). Kin recognition mechanisms will depend on whether previous encounters with kin are possible or not to form the individual internal template. When relatives have never met before, kin recognition is supposed to rely on recognition alleles (which allows the innate recognition of relatives bearing them), or on self-referent phenotype matching (the individual has formed a template using its own phenotype and recognizes as kin individuals which match it closely enough). Although self-referent phenotype matching is in theory the more likely explanation, it has not been possible so far to exclude experimentally the recognition alleles’ hypothesis. Here, we report that kin recognition in the solitary parasitoid larvae of Aleochara bilineata (Coleoptera; Staphylinidae) is suppressed following carbon dioxide anesthesia or chill-coma, both treatments known to cause a temporary amnesia. Treated larvae superparasitize indifferently hosts parasitized either by siblings or by non-kin larvae, while untreated larvae avoid hosts occupied by siblings. The two types of anesthesia thus suppress kin recognition, but their global effect on larvae is different. Chill-coma suppresses the ability to distinguish parasitized from unparasitized hosts and reduces parasitism rate, suggesting an aspecific impairment of sensory receptors or cognition. However, carbon dioxide narcosis only impairs kin recognition, strongly suggesting that an intact memory is necessary for kin recognition to take place. Although this study does not address the recognition alleles’ hypothesis per se, our results strongly support a self-referent phenotype matching mechanism. On the whole, kin recognition in A. bilineata larvae is effective through short-term memory, because it is affected by amnesic treatments.     

Normativity in the Philosophy of Science

This paper analyzes what it means for philosophy of science to be normative. It argues that normativity is a multifaceted phenomenon rather than a general feature that a philosophical theory either has or lacks. It analyzes the normativity of philosophy of science by articulating three ways in which a philosophical theory can be normative. Methodological normativity arises from normative assumptions that philosophers make when they select, interpret, evaluate, and mutually adjust relevant empirical information, on which they base their philosophical theories. Object normativity emerges from the fact that the object of philosophical theorizing can itself be normative, such as when philosophers discuss epistemic norms in science. Metanormativity arises from the kind of claims that a philosophical theory contains, such as normative claims about science as it should be. Distinguishing these three kinds of normativity gives rise to a nuanced and illuminating view of how philosophy of science can be normative.     

If structured propositions are logical procedures then how are procedures individuated?

This paper deals with two issues. First, it identifies structured propositions with logical procedures. Second, it considers various rigorous definitions of the granularity of procedures, hence also of structured propositions, and comes out in favour of one of them. As for the first point, structured propositions are explicated as algorithmically structured procedures. I show that these procedures are structured wholes that are assigned to expressions as their meanings, and their constituents are sub-procedures occurring in executed mode (as opposed to displayed mode). Moreover, procedures are not mere aggregates of their parts; rather, procedural constituents mutually interact. As for the second point, there is no universal criterion of the structural isomorphism of meanings, hence of co-hyperintensionality, hence of synonymy for every kind of language. The positive result I present is an ordered set of rigorously defined criteria of fine-grained individuation in terms of the structure of procedures. Hence procedural semantics provides a solution to the problem of the granularity of co-hyperintensionality.

     

Importation and deprivation factors influencing teacher-targeted aggression among secondary school students in Germany: A multilevel analysis

Relying on an importation and deprivation framework, the study assessed a variety of risk factors associated with self-reported teacher-targeted aggression among ninth grade students (n = 5,673). Using a cross-sectional school survey conducted in one German federal state, two forms of teacher-targeted aggression were assessed: verbal (insulting, threatening, and mocking) and physical (beating and pushing) aggression. Every ninth student reported verbal aggression, while 0.5% of students reported physical aggression against teachers. Multilevel probability models showed that individual importation factors (low self-control, male gender, and exposure to severe parental violence), together with individual deprivation factors (repeated victimization by teachers and low school achievement) play a role in explaining teacher-targeted aggression. The school-level deprivation factor of negative teacher–student relationships was also relevant, whereas low teacher control and attending lower-level schools were unrelated to the perpetration of teacher-targeted aggression. The present study stresses the need to acknowledge the multilevel etiology of teacher-targeted aggression.     

Neuro-Evolutionary Foundations of Infant Minds: From Psychoanalytic Visions of How Primal Emotions Guide Constructions of Human Minds toward Affective Neuroscientific Understanding of Emotions and Their Disorders

ABSTRACT

As Louis Sander understood, human infants are evolutionarily endowed with emotional minds that allow them to experience themselves as affectively vibrant creatures, who seek to be recognized as important players in the world. If so recognized, they experience themselves as positive individuals; if merely neglected as predetermined beings whose affects and intentions do not matter in the long-term construction of their minds, paths toward adult disturbance are paved. The neuroscience of affective processes has been substantively advancing through the use of animal models where the needed detailed experimental work can be conducted. Critical neural networks and neuro-epigenetic brain changes are being documented that provide neuroscientific confirmations for the insights advanced by Sander and his many colleagues. Here we show how the deeply intersubjective, flexible nature of the mother-infant relationship is firmly expressed in the underlying biology of the basic limbic emotional systems. Rather than being deterministic, hard-wired affective switches, these emotional systems (e.g., CARE, PLAY, PANIC, SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, and LUST) are modulated by (and, in turn, modify) the developing relationship between mother and infant. Thus, the nature-nurture debate can be meaningfully reconceptualized as a bio-psycho-social interactive model, in which biology shapes relationships, which, in turn, shape and sometimes radically modify the biology.     

Initiation of joint attention and related visual attention processes in infants with autism spectrum disorder: Literature review

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) represents a group of neurodevelopmental disabilities that can be difficult to identify before the age of 2 or 3 years, the age when the full range of behavioral symptoms has emerged in most cases. Initiation of joint attention is an important developmental function in which impairments are already observable before the second birthday and can predict children’s ASD symptomatology. In the first part of this review, we summarize results pertaining to retrospective studies of initiation of joint attention in children with ASD and prospective studies of infants at high risk for ASD during the first 2 years, when this behavior is becoming more complex in terms of frequency, quality, and variety. We will also discuss the implications of impairments in dyadic engagement, a precursor of joint attention behavior, for the early development of joint attention. Finally, the early development of initiation of joint attention has been related to specific visual attention mechanisms such as social orienting and visual disengagement. In the second part of this review, we provide an overview of the relationship between those visual attention mechanisms and subsequent social-communication impairments. Clinical and research implications of these findings for both early detection and early intervention will be discussed.     

Doing Despite Disliking: Self‐regulatory Strategies in Everyday Aversive Activities

We investigated the self‐regulatory strategies people spontaneously use in their everyday lives to regulate their persistence during aversive activities. In pilot studies (pooled N = 794), we identified self‐regulatory strategies from self‐reports and generated hypotheses about individual differences in trait self‐control predicting their use. Next, deploying ambulatory assessment (N = 264, 1940 reports of aversive/challenging activities), we investigated predictors of the strategies' self‐reported use and effectiveness (trait self‐control and demand types). The popularity of strategies varied across demands. In addition, people higher in trait self‐control were more likely to focus on the positive consequences of a given activity, set goals, and use emotion regulation. Focusing on positive consequences, focusing on negative consequences (of not performing the activity), thinking of the near finish, and emotion regulation increased perceived self‐regulatory success across demands, whereas distracting oneself from the aversive activity decreased it. None of these strategies, however, accounted for the beneficial effects of trait self‐control on perceived self‐regulatory success. Hence, trait self‐control and strategy use appear to represent separate routes to good self‐regulation. By considering trait‐ and process‐approaches these findings promote a more comprehensive understanding of self‐regulatory success and failure during people's daily attempts to regulate their persistence. © 2018 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Panic disorder and depression: A psychodynamic exploration of comorbidity

Eight of twenty-one patients presenting for treatment in an open trial of brief psychodynamic psychotherapy for panic disorder also carried the diagnosis of major depression. For the patients who completed the study, depression remitted as well as panic disorder. The authors highlight psychodynamic factors that they hypothesize may contribute to the significant overlap between panic disorder and depression, and describe three videotaped cases to illustrate these points.