Covert communication in laboratories, classrooms, and the truly real world

Hundreds of research studies have demonstrated that one person's expectations for the behavior of another person can actually affect that other person's behavior. These studies implicate the operation of processes of covert communication, communication that is subtle, largely nonverbal, and ordinarily unintended. The earliest studies of these processes showed that through their expectations, laboratory researchers unwittingly affected the responses of their research participants. Later studies showed that teachers' experimentally induced expectations about their pupils affected the pupils' intellectual performance. Most recently, studies of covert communication processes have extended to diverse contexts, such as the judicial and health care systems. For example, research indicates that judges' beliefs about the guilt of trial defendants can be unwittingly communicated to juries by the judges' nonverbal behavior during jury instruction. In addition, studies of covert communication in medical contexts show that physicians' effectiveness in persuading their patients to enter into treatment can be predicted from their tone of voice in talking to or about their patients. For example, one study showed that surgeons who used a bossy tone of voice when talking to their patients were more likely to be sued by their patients than were surgeons who used a more respectful tone. In sum, then, we have learned a great deal about the importance of subtle processes of nonverbal communication, but a great deal more is yet to be learned about these processes as they occur in the relatively sheltered context of laboratories and classrooms and in the rough-and-tumble of the truly real world beyond.     

Revising Process Metaphysics in Response to Ian Barbour's Critique

In Religion in an Age of Science , Ian Barbour concludes that the contemporary evolutionary worldview with its emphasis on the interplay of law and chance, relationality and autonomy, can be properly accounted for only by something like the process-relational metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead. At the same time, he expresses serious reservations about certain features of Whitehead's scheme, notably, his perceived inability to account for the ongoing identity of the human self and for the fact of multilevel organization within organisms and in the world of inanimate compounds. In this article, I suggest that both of these difficulties can be resolved if one adopts a revisionist understanding of the Whiteheadian category of society according to which democratically organized societies possess an ontological unity and exercise a corporate agency proper to their own level of existence and activity. Furthermore, if one applies this revisionist understanding of societies to the Whiteheadian doctrine of God, a Trinitarian understanding of God becomes possible within the overall parameters of process-relational metaphysics. In this way, traditional belief in the doctrine of the Trinity can be reconciled with a scientifically credible worldview.     

An interactive fuzzy satisficing method for multiobjective stochastic linear programming problems using chance constrained conditions

Two major approaches to deal with randomness or ambiguity involved in mathematical programming problems have been developed. They are stochastic programming approaches and fuzzy programming approaches. In this paper, we focus on multiobjective linear programming problems with random variable coefficients in objective functions and/or constraints. Using chance constrained programming techniques, the stochastic programming problems are transformed into deterministic ones. As a fusion of stochastic approaches and fuzzy ones, after determining the fuzzy goals of the decision maker, interactive fuzzy satisficing methods to derive a satisficing solution for the decision maker by updating the reference membership levels is presented. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does the philosophy of medicine exist?

There has been a great deal of discussion, in this journal and others, about obstacles hindering the evolution of the philosophy of medicine. Such discussions presuppose that there is widespread agreement about what it is that constitutes the philosophy of medicine.Despite the fact that there is, and has been for decades, a great deal of literature, teaching and professional activity carried out explicitly in the name of the philosophy of medicine, this is not enough to establish that consensus exists as to the definition of the field. And even if consensus can be obtained as to what constitutes the philosophy of medicine, this does not mean that it exists as a field.     

青少年外向/宜人性人格、互联网服务偏好与"网络成瘾"的关系

该研究采用问卷法,以481名中学生为被试,通过无约束结构方程模型分析方法探讨了外向性、宜人性人格特征与互联网服务偏好的交互作用对网络成瘾的影响。研究发现在对网络成瘾的影响上,青少年宜人性人格特征与互联网社交服务偏好存在显著的交互作用,但与互联网娱乐、信息和交易服务偏好的交互作用不显著。外向性人格特征与互联服务偏好不存在显著的交互作用。(1)从平均影响来看,外向性、宜人性、互联网社交、娱乐和交易使用偏好能够正向预测网络成瘾,互联网信息使用偏好对网络成瘾没有显著的预测效果;(2)在宜人性高分组中,互联网社交服务偏好与PIU的正向关系要强于宜人性低分组。斜率检验表明对于低宜人性人格的青少年来说,互联网社交服务偏好不易导致其成瘾,而对高宜人性人格的青少年而言,互联网社交服务偏好反而容易导致其成瘾。     

互动支持者在临终病人与家属关于临终问题互动中的作用——基于田野研究之情境分析

通过在某三级医院安宁疗护科为期5个月的田野研究,分析临终病人与家属的临终互动过程,阐明互动支持者在促进其临终互动过程中的作用。期间共收集21例研究对象的20份家庭会议录音、79张照片、21份个案笔记,梳理出7个临终互动情境。研究显示,互动支持者发挥的作用有互动促发激发互动意愿、互动支持增加互动勇气和互动保障促进互动进行。由此得出结论,互动支持者作为病人与家属的互动桥梁,通过互动促发、互动支持和互动保障,翻译其行为背后的情感与期待、转述情感的表达,促进有效陪伴和及时表达爱,使病人善终、家属善别。

     

The role of oxytocin in early mother-infant interactions: Variations in maternal affect attunement

The aim of the present research was to investigate the relationship between oxytocin and maternal affect attunement, as well as the role of affect attunement in the relationship between oxytocin and infant social engagement during early mother-infant interactions. Forty-three mother-infant dyads participated in the present study when infants were 4 months. They were observed during (1) a situation where no communication took place and (2) a natural interaction between mother and infant. During this procedure, three saliva samples from mothers and their infants were collected to determine their levels of oxytocin at different time points. Maternal affect attunement (maintaining attention, warm sensitivity) and infant interactive behaviors (gaze, positive, and negative affect) were coded during the natural interaction. Results indicated that overall maternal oxytocin functioning was negatively related to her warm sensitivity, while infant oxytocin reactivity together with maternal affect attunement were associated with infant positive social engagement with their mothers. Specifically, infant oxytocin reactivity was significantly related to their gazes at mother, but only for infants of highly attuned mothers. These results point to the complex role oxytocin plays in parent-infant interactions while emphasizing the need to analyze both overall oxytocin functioning as well as reactivity as different indices of human affiliative behavior.     

Mental verb input for promoting children's theory of mind: A training study

An experimental study investigated the effect of the type of mental verb input (i.e., input with think, know, and remember) on preschoolers’ theory of mind development. Preschoolers (n = 72) heard 128 mental verb utterances presented in video format across four sessions over two weeks. The training conditions differed only in the way the mental verbs were presented: the form (statement or question), the referent (first person or other person), and the interaction style (overheard or interactive). Children who overheard the characters discussing the mental states of someone else, either in statement or question form, significantly improved in their false belief understanding. These experimental findings demonstrate mental verb utterances about other people, even when not directed to the child, scaffold children's attention to differing perspectives, thus more efficiently promoting some aspects of their ToM development.     

认知风格对不同类型几何问题解决的影响

通过镶嵌图形测验（EFT）,在初中学生中选了不同认知风格的被试,限时考查被试对不同类型几何问题的解决。结果表明：新问题与所学内容相似性会影响中学生几何问题解决的成绩;认知风格不同类型在几何问题解决中存在显著差异,在与所学内容相似性高的新问题解决中,场依存性学生的成绩显著地高于场独立性的学生。