Physical Attractiveness,Altruism and Cooperation in an Ultimatum Game

Explaining cooperative tendencies through an evolutionary lens has been problematic for theorists. Traditional explanations derive from theories of reciprocity, biological markets, and more recently via partner choice and sexual selection. The sexual selection hypothesis has been tested within game-theoretic frameworks gaining empirical support in explaining the evolution of altruism. Males have been found to be more altruistic towards attractive females. However, previous research has predominantly adopted a design where participants are not engaging with ‘real people’. Instead, participants make decisions when viewing images or hypothetical scenarios without visual cues. The present study aimed to investigate the sexual selection hypothesis using a face-to-face game theoretic framework. One hundred and thirty-eight participants played a 2-round ultimatum game with chocolate coins as the monetary incentive. We find, that physical attractiveness had no influence on generosity and cooperation when participants play a face-to-face ultimatum game. Instead, proposers were fair when allocating stakes, offering an average of half the endowment to responders. This study refutes the link between the sexual selection hypothesis and generosity when playing economic games with real people. Fairness appeared to drive generosity and cooperation.     

A new microswitch to enable a boy with minimal motor behavior to control environmental stimulation with eye blinks

This study assessed whether a boy with profound multiple disabilities and minimal motor behavior would be able to control environmental stimulation using repeated eye blinks with a newly developed microswitch (i.e. an electronically regulated optic sensor mounted on an eyeglasses frame). The study was carried out according to an ABAB design and included a 3 month post‐intervention check. Data showed that the boy had a large increase in the target response (repeated eye blinks) to activate the microswitch and produce environmental stimulation during the B (intervention) phases. This performance was maintained at the post‐intervention check. Practical and developmental implications of the findings were discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Queering colonial power: Sikh resistance in the Ghadr movement

This work contemplates gender, and how it shaped both colonial power and the anticolonial Ghadr movement. I will examine how the Sikhs of the Ghadr movement disrupted, or queered, the colonial gender binary of the ‘loyal Sikh masculine’ and the ‘disloyal Hindu feminine’ and how, despite this, the binary remains intact in Ghadr movement historiography, perpetuating colonial logics. I will then draw upon archival and non-archival texts to gather traces of gender, the ‘feminine,’ and the ‘queer,’ in the Ghadr movement, and in a manner parallel to the movement itself – queer (colonial power) in order to decolonize.     

Culture and the quest for universal principles in moral reasoning

The importance of including cultural perspectives in the study of human cognition has become apparent in recent decades, and the domain of moral reasoning is no exception. The present review focuses on moral cognition, beginning with Kohlberg's model of moral development which relies heavily on people's justifications for their judgments and then shifting to more recent theories that rely on rapid, intuitive judgments and see justifications as more or less irrelevant to moral cognition. Despite this dramatic shift, analyses of culture and moral decision-making have largely been framed as a quest for and test of universal principles of moral judgment. In this review, we discuss challenges that remain in trying to understand crosscultural variability in moral values and the processes that underlie moral cognition. We suggest that the universalist framework may lead to an underestimation of the role of culture in moral reasoning. Although the field has made great strides in incorporating more and more cultural perspectives in order to understand moral cognition, theories of moral reasoning still do not allow for substantial variation in how people might conceptualize the domain of the moral. The processes that underlie moral cognition may not be a human universal in any simple sense, because moral systems may play different roles in different cultures. We end our review with a discussion of work that remains to be done to understand cultural variation in the moral domain.     

Thinking Styles and Academic Performance Among Tribal and Non-tribal Students

This study examines differences in thinking styles among tribal (n = 272) and non-tribal (n = 229) secondary school students, and their relationship with academic performance. Based on Sternberg’s (1997) theory of mental self government, MANOVA results indicated that thinking style of tribal and non-tribal students differed. Regression results revealed that hierarchic and local thinking styles contributed positively while legislative, monarchic, anarchic and global thinking styles contributed negatively to academic achievement of the students.     

Superordinate shape classification using natural shape statistics

This paper investigates the classification of shapes into broad natural categories such as animal or leaf. We asked whether such coarse classifications can be achieved by a simple statistical classification of the shape skeleton. We surveyed databases of natural shapes, extracting shape skeletons and tabulating their parameters within each class, seeking shape statistics that effectively discriminated the classes. We conducted two experiments in which human subjects were asked to classify novel shapes into the same natural classes. We compared subjects’ classifications to those of a naive Bayesian classifier based on the natural shape statistics, and found good agreement. We conclude that human superordinate shape classifications can be well understood as involving a simple statistical classification of the shape skeleton that has been “tuned” to the natural statistics of shape.     

To Value and Address Diversity: From Policy to Practice

A basic assumption of Target 3 of the National Agenda is that the rates of identification, placement, and achievement of children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbance (SED) are strongly correlated with dimensions of diversity, such as race, gender, socioeconomic status, and culture. A related assumption is that culturally competent and linguistically appropriate exchanges and collaborations among families, professionals, students, and communities will enable our school systems to achieve better educational outcomes for all children, including those with SED. We discuss these assumptions in the context of current policies and suggest ways of translating these policies into practices.     

Cavum septi pellucidi in first-episode patients and young relatives at risk for schizophrenia

Studies on schizophrenia (SZ) have documented an increased presence of cavum septi pellucidi (CSP) in individuals suffering from the illness. Moreover, the presence of CSP has been cited in support of the early neurodevelopmental hypothesis in SZ. Our objective was to assess the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of first-episode patients and healthy controls to evaluate the frequency of CSP. The presence and the size of CSP were visually assessed on the MRI scans of 40 first-episode SZ patients, 19 nonpsychotic child and high-risk adolescent offspring of patients with SZ or schizoaffective disorder, and 59 controls. Our analysis revealed an absence of statistically significant differences in the occurrence of CSP between SZ patients, high-risk subjects, and controls. Even when the analysis was restricted to large CSP, no differences were found. Furthermore, no association between CSP and sex or handedness was observed. The absence of CSP abnormalities in first-episode SZ subjects might indicate that SZ is not characterized by developmentally mediated alterations in CSP. Also, family history of SZ might not increase likelihood for CSP.