Emotional states alter force control during a feedback occluded motor task

The aim of the current experiment was to determine the extent to which pleasant and unpleasant emotional states altered the ability of men and women to control force production on a feedback occluded motor task that was not direction specific. Participants produced a precision pinch grip with visual feedback. After 5 s, feedback was occluded and replaced with a pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral image. The amplitude, variability, and structure of force production were calculated. As expected, the removal of visual feedback led to progressive force decay. More important, relative to neutral conditions, pleasant and unpleasant emotional states led to greater force production, resulting in attenuated force decay. The variability and structure of force production were not altered by affective state. In addition, men and women performed similarly across all conditions for all measures. We conclude that when sustained force production is not directed toward or away from the body, pleasant and unpleasant emotional states similarly excite the motor system. Neurobiological mechanisms are proposed to account for these findings. Implications and future research directions are discussed.     

The challenge of religious pluralism: A reply to James Kraft

Religious pluralis does have, as James Kraft says, a negative impact on the epistemic confidence with which one holds a religious position, when epistemology is thought on both the externalist and internalist lines. I also conclude both that there is a resulting epistemic humility and that a tolerance of religious diversity results from it, but I reach these conclusions for entirely different reasons. Epistemic humility and religious tolerance are fostered by the realization that many religions are striving for the infinite, though all have limited views of it.     

RATIONAL EMOTIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY AFTER ELLIS: PREDICTIONS FOR THE FUTURE

The 9 members of the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy’s International Training Standards and Review Committee (of which Albert Ellis is currently one) predict the status of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) after the death of Albert Ellis, its progenitor. Most respondents addressed whether REBT will exist in its own right or be subsumed under the broad umbrella of Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Reprinted from Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 17, 413–427, 1995. AMHCA. Reprinted with permission. No further reproduction authorized without written permission from the American Mental Health Counselors Association. Stephen G. Weinrach was a professor of counseling and human relations at Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania. He died in 2004. The authors expressed their appreciation to Martin Gerstein and Allen Ivey for their generous contributions to a draft version of this article. Colleen Deeter provided valuable editorial assistance in the preparation and coordination of this project.     

Building Faculty Learning Communities – Edited by Milton D. Cox and Laurie Richlin

Books reviewed: Building Faculty Learning Communities. Edited by Milton D. Cox and Laurie Richlin. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, No. 97. San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass Publishers, 2004. v + 163 pages. ISBN 0‐7879‐7568‐0. $27.00.     

An event history analysis of union joining and leaving

This article examines parallel models of union joining and leaving using individual-level longitudinal panel data collected over a 5-year period. The authors utilized objective measures of joining and leaving collected from union and organizational records and took into account time by using event history analysis. The results indicated that union joining was negatively related to procedural justice and higher performance appraisals and positively related to partner socialization and extrinsic union instrumentality. Conversely, members were most likely to leave the union when they perceived lower procedural justice, where there was no union representative present in the workplace, and where they had individualistic orientations. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for theory and practice for trade unions.