A Practical Guide to Building an Integral World

We stand at the start of a new millennium with a growing awareness of what is wrong with our civilization but little agreement as to what to do. From environmental crises to democratic systems dominated by moneyed interests, the list of dangers is long and growing. Each issue has a band of defenders who struggle to right that particular wrong but, because these bands are disjointed, the broad movement they serve remains incoherent and weak. The broad movement is usually described as toward "sustainable civilization," but its precise designation is "integral society." The challenge for the emerging "new science" is to provide a framework for understanding that unifies and gives direction to the disparate efforts that comprise the integral movement. This framework must address three needs. First, it must provide a sound understanding of why, despite our sophistication, things seem to be going badly in so many spheres. Secondly, it must present a believable vision of where our civilization should be headed. Finally, it must provide a sense that there are concrete steps we can take to achieve the deep dreams that most of us actually share. What we need, in short, is not more disparate insights, but rather a collective intellectual unity that integrates existing insights into a logically coherent and emotionally compelling whole. Such integration, however, cannot be constructed artificially, by committee or consensus. Rather, true integration can only come from a unified scientific understanding of why various ideas connect. Today, a scientific story capable of such unifying understanding is found in the expanded theory of evolution that is emerging from the union of a broad range of scientific efforts. This theory also serves as a unifying thread for an integrated new science. This article outlines the "dynamic" view of evolution and how it unites integral efforts.     

The physics of evolution: From chaos to evolution and deep ecology

This paper summarizes the various physical science elements of the evolutionary story. The “nonlinear” revolution includes chaos, self‐organization theory, the thermodynamics of evolution, and biological evolution. The key result of the revolution is a physical understanding of how order emerges and change is driven. This paper brings the lessons of each branch of the revolution together into a single easily understood thread. The unexpected result of this revolution is an understanding of evolution as a single inexorable physical process that has given rise to everything from molecules to humankind. Here evolution is driven by energy flow and involves increasing efficiency, the growth of complexity, and the acceleration of change. This paper ties the resulting physical insights to an evolving ecological world view, looks at its ties to spirituality and applies the rules that govern the growth of complexity to business and its current crisis. The net result of the nonlinear revolution is a radical change in our everyday understanding of how the world works, a shift away from classical science's machine world to the vision of an evolving deeply ecologically intertwined world.     

Emotional triangles: A test of emotion-based attentional capture by simple geometric shapes

Previous work has proposed that simple geometric shapes, carrying the features present within negative or threatening faces are especially effective at capturing or guiding attention. Here we test this account and provide converging evidence for a threat-based attentional advantage. Experiment 1 found that downward-pointing triangles continue to be detected more efficiently than upward-pointing triangles when: (i) both overall RT and search slope measures are obtained; and (ii) when the set size is varied and the stimuli are presented in random configurations. Experiment 2 tested and ruled out an alternative account of the selection advantage, based on differences between triangle shape consistencies with scene perspective cues. Overall, the data provide converging evidence that simple geometric shapes, which might be particularly important in providing emotional signals in faces, can also attract attention preferentially even when presented outside of a face context.     

Patriarchal science

Sexual Science: The Victorian Construction of Womanhood, by Cynthia Eagle Russett, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989, 245 pages, hb $25, £15.95     

Images and goals

We propose that mental images are derived from goals. Goals are represented in a complex hierarchy and form a major part of the “working self”. Images reflect the existence of specific goals and also act to maintain goals by facilitating the derivation of beliefs from the content of an image. Images in psychopathology may reflect the operation of dysfunctional goals: goals that are unconstrained and which increase discrepancy (experienced as anxiety) within the goal system. Another feature of the goal system is that it is conservative and avoids change. By this view some aspects of distortions in intrusive images of traumatic experiences might be viewed as a defence against goal change. Conversely generating new images might lead to the formation of new goals. These ideas are applied to the findings of the papers in this special issue of Memory and to several new case studies.     

Adolescent Girls' Parasocial Interactions With Media Figures

We examined aspects of adolescent girls’ parasocial interactions in the context of typical development. Parasocial interactions are defined as symbolic, one-sided quasi-interactions between a viewer and a media figure. In total, 107 adolescent girls were examined; 94% reported engaging in parasocial interactions to some degree. Preoccupied attachment style predicted the degree of involvement in and emotional intensity of parasocial interactions. Results suggest that parasocial interactions are characteristic of girls with preoccupied attachment, but are also part of normative development.     

Sales Territory Alignment: An Overlooked Productivity Tool

The authors have a wide-spectrum of experience in territory alignment arising from research as well as direct interaction with over 300 sales forces. Based on their experience, they believe sales territory alignment is one of the most frequently overlooked sales force productivity areas. Many sales forces are losing millions of dollars each year because of territory imbalances. Well-managed companies are overcoming the many obstacles to good territory design by using a cogent process to realign territories. This process ensures that consistent, objective criteria are used to evaluate alignment needs, yet recognizes the importance of incorporating local management judgment.     

Acute stressors and cortisol responses: a theoretical integration and synthesis of laboratory research

This meta-analysis reviews 208 laboratory studies of acute psychological stressors and tests a theoretical model delineating conditions capable of eliciting cortisol responses. Psychological stressors increased cortisol levels; however, effects varied widely across tasks. Consistent with the theoretical model, motivated performance tasks elicited cortisol responses if they were uncontrollable or characterized by social-evaluative threat (task performance could be negatively judged by others), when methodological factors and other stressor characteristics were controlled for. Tasks containing both uncontrollable and social-evaluative elements were associated with the largest cortisol and adrenocorticotropin hormone changes and the longest times to recovery. These findings are consistent with the animal literature on the physiological effects of uncontrollable social threat and contradict the belief that cortisol is responsive to all types of stressors.     

Eye movements and morphological segmentation of compound words: There is a mouse in mousetrap

In two experiments, readers' eye movements were monitored as they read sentences containing compound words. In Experiment 1, the frequency of the first and second morpheme was manipulated in compound words of low whole word frequency. Experiment 2 compared pairs of low frequency compounds with high and low frequency first morphemes but identical second morphemes that were embedded in the same sentence frames. The results showed significant effects of the frequency of both morphemes on gaze duration and total fixation time on the compound words. Regression analyses revealed an influence of whole word frequency on the same measures. The results suggest that morphemic constituents of compound words are activated in the course of retrieving the representation of the whole compound word. The fact that the frequency effects were not confined to fixations on the morphemic constituents themselves implies that saccadic eye movements are implemented before morphemic retrieval has been completed. The results highlight the importance of developing more precise models of the perceptual processes underlying reading and how they interact with the processes involved in lexical retrieval and comprehension.     

Counseling Customers: Emerging Roles for Genetic Counselors in the Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing Market

Individuals now have access to an increasing number of internet resources offering personal genomics services. As the direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTC GT) industry expands, critics have called for pre- and post-test genetic counseling to be included with the product. Several genetic testing companies offer genetic counseling. There has been no examination to date of this service provision, whether it meets critics’ concerns and implications it may have for the genetic counseling profession. Considering the increasing relevance of genetics in healthcare, the complexity of genetic information provided by DTC GT, the mediating role of the internet in counseling, and potential conflicts of interest, this is a topic which deserves further attention. In this paper we offer a discourse analysis of ways in which genetic counseling is represented on DTC GT websites, blogs and other online material. This analysis identified four types of genetic counseling represented on the websites: the integrated counseling product; discretionary counseling; independent counseling; and product advice. Genetic counselors are represented as having the following roles: genetics educator; mediator; lifestyle advisor; risk interpreter; and entrepreneur. We conclude that genetic counseling as represented on DTC GT websites demonstrates shifting professional roles and forms of expertise in genetic counseling. Genetic counselors are also playing an important part in how the genetic testing market is taking shape. Our analysis offers important and timely insights into recent developments in the genetic counseling profession, which have relevance for practitioners, researchers and policy makers concerned with the evolving field of personal genomics.