Love Incessantly Flows: Mae Naak,a New Asian Opera Heroine Born out of a Thai Buddhist Narrative

The folklore of Nak (Naak) or ‘Mae Nak Phrakhanong’ (Mother Nak of Phrakhanong District) permeates Thailand as the most popular story of a ghostly haunting. The story, originating in the nineteenth century, has been made into a plethora of versions including more than 20 film adaptations. My research focuses on the 2003 opera Mae Naak composed by Somtow Sucharitkul. The opera contains idiosyncratic traits different from other versions, which reflect Thais’ multiple feelings of horror, veneration and affection to Nak. Somtow creates a new Asian heroine in opera, who bears powerful emotions of love and desire to live, unlike the stereotype such as Madama Butterfly. The conclusion, however, does not define the emotional aspect of the story as merely the ignorance of impermanence and attachment. Instead, the narrative helps each individual to concretise and personalise the more abstract concepts of Buddhism. The opera depicts true love that continues through rebirths with her beloved in a karmic journey.     

Examining the home advantage in the National Hockey League: Comparisons among regulation,overtime, and the shootout

ObjectivesTo investigate the magnitude of the home advantage in the National Hockey League (NHL) as games proceeded from regulation, to overtime, to the shootout, while adjusting for team quality.DesignArchival.MethodBinary logistic regression analyses were conducted using data from the 2005–2006 through 2013–2014 NHL seasons (N = 10,534 games) to compare home teams’ odds of winning in regulation, overtime, and the shootout.ResultsCompared to games decided in regulation, higher quality home teams' odds of winning were slightly lower when games concluded in either overtime or the shootout. Further, regardless of team quality, home teams’ odds of winning were moderately lower when games concluded in the shootout rather than overtime.ConclusionsThe shootout may affect home team players' psychological and behavioural states, generally resulting in a decrease in home teams’ odds of winning in the shootout relative to overtime.     

John Nash: Three Phases in the Career of a Beautiful Mind

This article is the Helen Flanders Dunbar Lecture presented at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City in 2002, the centennial year of her birth. It focuses on three periods in the evolution of Nash’s mental illness, the predelusional, delusional, and postdelusional periods, and provides a psychoanalytic interpretation of each. Donald Capps is Professor of Pastoral Psychology at Princeton Theological Seminary. His books include Men, Religion, and Melancholia (1997), Living Stories: Pastoral Counseling in Congregational Context (1998), Social Phobia: Alleviating Anxiety in an Age of Self-Promotion (1999), Jesus: A Psychological Biography (2000), Giving Counsel: A Minister’s Guidebook (2001), Men and Their Religion: Honor, Hope, and Humor (2002), and A Time to Laugh: The Religion of Humor (2005). He has served as President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and has an honorary doctorate in theology from the University of Uppsala, Sweden. Correspondence to Donald Capps, joan.blyth@ptsem.edu     

道德:是在压抑人性,还是在提升人性

当前社会上出现一股思潮,认为道德的约束使人性中很多自然、正常的东西得不到应有的释放与满足,道德压抑了人性,导致了人性的扭曲,严重地影响了人们的身心健康。认为应当将人们从道德的种种束缚中解放出来,打倒一切违背人性、压抑人性、摧残人性的东西。本文通过对人性本质的揭示认为:道德本然的定位并不是要压抑人性,恰恰相反,道德自始至终都是立足于提升和完善人性。在人类历史上,道德的确有走向人性的反面的情况,而这不过是由于我们将道德绝对化、制度化和虚无化后所致。     

Positive psychotherapy for distressed cancer survivors: Posttraumatic growth facilitation reduces posttraumatic stress

Background/Objective

There is increasing evidence that positive life changes, such as posttraumatic growth (PTG), can result from the experience of coping with cancer. However, no interventions have been specifically designed to facilitate the development of PTG in cancer. In this article, we describe and assess the results of Positive Psychotherapy for Cancer (PPC) survivors. It aims to facilitate PTG as a way of achieving significant reductions in the symptoms of emotional distress and posttraumatic stress. In addition, the corroboration of this PTG facilitation is assessed using interpersonal indicators. Method: We allocated 126 consecutive survivors of cancer with high levels of emotional distress and who were seeking psychological support to either an experimental group (PPC) or a waiting list group. Results: The PPC group obtained significantly better results after treatment than the control group, showing reduced distress, decreased posttraumatic symptoms, and increased PTG. The benefits were maintained at 3 and 12 months’ follow-up. Participants’ PTG was correlated to the PTG that their significant others attributed to them, corroborating PTG facilitation. Conclusions: PPC appears to promote significant long-term PTG and can reduce emotional distress and posttraumatic stress in cancer survivors. In addition, PTG facilitation induced by PPC is corroborated by significant others.     

The role of sex hormones and of 2D:4D ratio in individual differences in cognitive abilities

The present study aimed at investigating the role of sex hormones in individual differences in cognitive abilities. This was achieved by a combination of two methods, reflecting 2 critical periods of hormonal secretion: prenatal, based on the 2D:4D ratio, and postnatal, based on circulating hormone levels. Both methods were tested in 39 men and 41 women, who completed a battery of 6 cognitive tasks. Results showed significant sex differences on the mental rotation task, with men outperforming women. A positive correlation was found between testosterone and performance on the mental rotation task for the combined sample (men and women). A significant interaction was found between sex and estrogen on mental rotation task. Findings also revealed a significant interaction between sex and right hand 2D:4D ratio on different memory tasks. Findings regarding between- and within-sex differences in cognition are discussed in light of the organisational and activational effects of sex hormones.     

Septal area lesions impair spatial working memory in homing pigeons (Columba livia)

The septo-hippocampal system in birds resembles that of mammals, motivating research into the function of the avian hippocampus while surprisingly little attention has been given to the septum. To investigate a possible role of the avian septum in memory, the effects of septal area lesions on a spatial working memory (SpWM) task was tested in homing pigeons. After preoperative training on an analogue eight-arm (feeders) radial maze, now sham-operated control and septal lesioned pigeons were then trained again on the same task of locating the four feeders on the test phase of a trial that were not baited during the sample phase of a trial. During the test phase of a working memory trial, septal lesioned pigeons, compared to both their own preoperative performance and the performance of the controls, required significantly more choices to locate the four baited feeders not baited during the sample phase of a trial, and they made significantly fewer correct responses to the now baited feeders on their first four choices. The results demonstrate that, like its mammalian counterpart, the avian septum plays an important role in SpWM, suggesting that at least some functional properties of the septum are evolutionarily conserved in birds and mammals.     

“时间窗”—— 认知加工的后勤基础

时间加工是认知加工的内在属性。因此, 理解发生在知觉或更广泛的认知过程中的时间加工极为重要。为了应对中枢信息加工所面临的外部挑战, 大脑显然已形成了一些用于整合信息的特殊时间窗。已经发现, 其中一个时间窗介于数十毫秒的范围内, 它用于为意识活动产生必要的建构单元。来自反应时、时序阈限以及神经元结构振荡反应的研究为该时间窗的存在提供了实证证据。另一个时间窗的作用范围是2~3秒, 它用于产生“主观现在感”或作为使知觉体的标识保持不变的时间整合区间。支持该窗口存在的实验证据来自时距再现、两可图形、感觉运动同步以及神经生理学研究。还有一种时间窗以昼夜节律的形式存在。所有的心理和生理功能似乎都有着24小时的周期性变化。时间窗的紊乱会以神经或精神疾病的形式表现出来, 这恰恰表明了在基础研究之外对时间加工进行研究的重要性。     

Criminel en col blanc de grande envergure. Un renard bien cravaté

This discussion provides an archetypal psychological profile of individuals engaged in large-scale white-collar crime. A full review of white-collar crime research suggests the presence of narcissistic etiopathogeny in these criminals. As well, given the comorbidity of narcissism with primary psychopathy and Machiavellianism, this review hypothesizes possible lateral effects of these factors on narcissistic affect-control. Potentially this poor affect-control is decreased by primary psychopathy and Machiavellianism together, thereby revealing a facilitating condition for the successful completion of large-scale white-collar crime.