Doing What Comes Naturally: Recent Work on Thomas Aquinas and the New Natural Law Theory

John Finnis, Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998, xxi+385 pp., $55.00 (hardback) ISBN 0 19 87808 42, $18.95 (paperback) ISBN 0 19 878085 0.

Robert P. George, In Defense of Natural Law. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999, 343 pp., $65.00 (hardback) ISBN 0 19 82677 11, $19.95 (paperback) ISBN 0 19 92429 92     

Same faces, different labels: Generating the cross-race effect in face memory with social category information

Recognition of own-race faces is superior to recognition of other-race faces. In the present experiments, we explored the role of top-down social information in the encoding and recognition of racially ambiguous faces. Hispanic and African American participants studied and were tested on computer-generated ambiguous-race faces (composed of 50 % Hispanic and 50 % African American features; MacLin & Malpass, Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 7:98–118, 2001). In Experiment 1, the faces were randomly assigned to two study blocks. In each block, a group label was provided that indicated that those faces belonged to African American or to Hispanic individuals. Both participant groups exhibited superior memory for faces studied in the block with their own-race label. In Experiment 2, the faces were studied in a single block with no labels, but tested in two blocks in which labels were provided. Recognition performance was not influenced by the labeled race at test. Taken together, these results confirm the claim that purely top-down information can yield the well-documented cross-race effect in recognition, and additionally they suggest that the bias takes place at encoding rather than testing.     

Evaluating Medical Marijuana Dispensary Policies: Spatial Methods for the Study of Environmentally-Based Interventions

In 1996, California was the first state to pass a Compassionate Use Act allowing for the legal use of marijuana for medical purposes. Here we review several current policy and land use environmental interventions designed to limit problems related to the influx of medical marijuana dispensaries across California cities. Then we discuss the special challenges, solutions, and techniques used for studying the effects of these place-based policies. Finally, we present some of the advanced spatial analytic techniques that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of environmental interventions, such as those related to reducing problems associated with the proliferation of medical marijuana dispensaries. Further, using data from a premise survey of all the dispensaries in Sacramento, this study will examine what characteristics and practices of these dispensaries are related to crime within varying distances from the dispensaries (e.g., 100, 250, 500, and 1,000 feet). We find that some security measures, such as security cameras and having a door man outside, implemented by medical marijuana dispensary owners might be effective at reducing crime within the immediate vicinity of the dispensaries.     

Regional brain activity change predicts responsiveness to treatment for stuttering in adults

Developmental stuttering is known to be associated with aberrant brain activity, but there is no evidence that this knowledge has benefited stuttering treatment. This study investigated whether brain activity could predict progress during stuttering treatment for 21 dextral adults who stutter (AWS). They received one of two treatment programs that included periodic H₂¹⁵O PET scanning (during oral reading, monologue, and eyes-closed rest conditions). All participants successfully completed an initial treatment phase and then entered a phase designed to transfer treatment gains; 9/21 failed to complete this latter phase. The 12 pass and 9 fail participants were similar on speech and neural system variables before treatment, and similar in speech performance after the initial phase of their treatment. At the end of the initial treatment phase, however, decreased activation within a single region, L. putamen, in all 3 scanning conditions was highly predictive of successful treatment progress.     

For which side the bell tolls: The laterality of approach-avoidance associative networks

The two hemispheres of the brain appear to play different roles in emotion and/or motivation. A great deal of previous research has examined the valence hypothesis (left hemisphere = positive; right = negative), but an increasing body of work has supported the motivational hypothesis (left hemisphere = approach; right = avoidance) as an alternative. The present investigation (N = 117) sought to provide novel support for the latter perspective. Left versus right hemispheres were briefly activated by neutral lateralized auditory primes. Subsequently, participants categorized approach versus avoidance words as quickly and accurately as possible. Performance in the task revealed that approach-related thoughts were more accessible following left-hemispheric activation, whereas avoidance-related thoughts were more accessible following right-hemispheric activation. The present results are the first to examine such lateralized differences in accessible motivational thoughts, which may underlie more “downstream” manifestations of approach and avoidance motivation such as judgments, decision making, and behavior.     

Multiple birth rates and racial type: a research note regarding r/K theory

Recent work in the sociobiological study of deviance has suggested a link between r-selection traits, such as probabilities of multiple births, racial type, and criminality. This theory, however, failed to present any supporting evidence regarding the multiple birth-crime relationship. This paper tests a hypothesis derived from r/K theorization, that twinning rates will correspond to differential crime rates by racial type. Further, a number of additional variables are discussed that may prove suitable for future study.     

Media Exposure and Attitudes Toward Drug Addiction Spending, 1975–2004

In this article we examine the relationships between media exposure (television and newspaper) and drug addiction spending attitudes. Theory and research suggest the critical role of media for shaping views and influencing public opinion. However, no studies have considered media's impact for individual-level drug-related attitudes. We examine this using General Social Survey and other data from 1975 to 2004. Results from logistic regression analyses indicate that greater frequency of television viewing and of newspaper reading are associated with higher likelihoods of saying too little money is spent to address addiction. These findings are robust even when accounting for other factors.     

Cortisol reactivity in the laboratory predicts ineffectual attentional control in daily life

Objective: The objective was to examine an executive control difficulty perspective on individual differences in cortisol reactivity using a daily protocol.

Design: Fifty participants competed a laboratory stressor task and individualdifferences in cortisol reactivity were quantified.

Main outcome measures: Daily attentional control, conflicting thoughts, error reactivity, worry and mindfulness were assessed.

Results: The findings support the idea that as cortisol responses to stress get larger (as an individual difference), attentional control ceases to function as it should in terms of variables that should predict (mindfulness) and follow from (e.g. worry) it.

Conclusion: The findings support the idea that individual differences in cortisol reactivity can be conceptualised in terms of ineffectual attentional control.     

Sleep disturbance and emotion dysregulation as transdiagnostic processes in a comorbid sample

Sleep disturbance and emotion dysregulation have been identified as etiologic and maintaining factors for a range of psychopathology and separate literatures support their relationships to anxiety, depression, PTSD, and alcohol dependence (AD) symptom severity. Previous studies have examined these relationships in isolation, failing to account for the high rates of comorbidity among disorders. It is not yet known whether these processes uniquely predict symptom severity in each of these domains. Participants were 220 patients in residential substance abuse treatment, who had experienced a potentially traumatic event and exceeded screening cutoffs for probable PTSD and problematic alcohol use. Controlling for emotion dysregulation and the interrelationships among the outcome variables, insomnia was uniquely associated with anxiety (B = .27, p < .001), depression (B = .25, p < .001), PTSD (B = .22, p < .001), and AD (B = .17, p = .01) symptom severity. Similarly, controlling for insomnia, emotion dysregulation was uniquely associated with anxiety (B = .40, p < .001), depression (B = .47, p < .001), PTSD (B = .38, p < .001), and AD (B = .26, p < .001) symptom severity. Insomnia and emotion dysregulation appear to be transdiagnostic processes uniquely associated with symptom severity across a number of different domains and might be important treatment targets for individuals with PTSD and AD.