High arousal and low arousal work-related positive affects and basal cardiovascular activity

Basal cardiovascular activity may be modulated by positive affect activation levels. In the current study, it was hypothesized that work-related high arousal positive affect (HAPA) will have a U-shaped association with basal cardiovascular activity and low or un-aroused positive affect (LAPA) will be negatively associated with basal cardiovascular activity. Participants were 1807, apparently, healthy adults. HAPA and LAPA were assessed with the Job-related Affective Well-being Scale. Outcome measures were resting heart rate (HR), systolic (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) levels. Results for HAPA supported the hypothesized relationships, such that HR and SBP were lower when HAPA was at moderate levels, but higher when HAPA was at high or low levels. LAPA was negatively associated with SBP and DBP. Our findings suggest that HAPA and LAPA have differential consequences regarding cardiovascular function.     

中年人睡眠相关行为与高血压关系的病例对照研究

为探讨中年人睡眠相关行为与高血压发病风险之间的关系。本研究采用1：1匹配的病例对照研究法;资料收集方法采用问卷调查法;资料处理分析采用t检验及多元条件Logistic回归模型分析法。结果显示中年人病例组与对照组睡眠质量存在显著性差异（t=6．19,P〈0．05）。（1）睡眠相关行为（每日睡眠不足、夜间睡眠不足、睡眠时点延迟、睡眠质量差、入睡困难、每周入睡困难次数增加及打鼾等因素）多元条件Logistic回归模型的OR值和95％CI分别为[（OR=5．07,95％CI：3．12～8．21）;（OR=5．57,95％CI：3．43～9．04）;（OR=2．27,95％CI：1．49～3．47）;（OR=2．17,95％CI：1．60～2．94）;（OR=3．36,95％CI：1．47～7．69）;（OR=1．55,95％CI：1．08～2．24）;（OR=2．69,95％CI：1．86～3．88）]。（2）适当午睡为（OR=0．85,95％CI：0．74～0．98）。（3）早起与否（OR=1．40,95％CI：0．87～2．20）。因此（1）中年人睡眠相关行为与高血压发病密切相关,每日睡眠不足、夜间睡眠不足、睡眠时点延迟、睡眠质量差、入睡困难、每周入睡困难次数增加及打鼾等因素可能为高血压发病的危险因素;（2）中年人适当午睡可能是高血压发病的保护性因素;（3）是否早起与高血压发病关系尚不清晰。     

Game Birds: The Ethics of Shooting Birds for Sport

This paper aims to provide an ethical assessment of the shooting of animals for sport. In particular, it discusses the use of partridges and pheasants for shooting. While opposition to hunting and shooting large wild mammals is strong, game birds have often taken a back seat in everyday animal welfare concerns. However, the practice of raising game birds for sport poses significant ethical issues. Most birds shot are raised in factory-farming conditions, and there is a considerable amount of evidence to show that these birds endure extensive suffering on these farms. Considering the fact that birds do have interests, including interests in life and not suffering, what are the ethical implications of using them for blood sports? Indeed, in the light of the suffering that game birds endure in factory farms, it may be that shooting such birds for sport is more morally problematic than other types of hunting and shooting which many people are often fiercely opposed to, for while it seems plausible to say that some animals may be harmed more by death than others (due to, say, their greater capacities), there may be harms that are worse than death (such as a life of intolerable suffering). The objective of this paper is to assess the ethics of shooting animals for sport, and in particular the practice of raising game birds for use in blood sports, by applying principles commonly used in ethics; specifically the principle of non-maleficence and equal consideration of (like) interests.     

The Chronotype-Academic Performance Model (CAM): Daytime sleepiness and learning motivation link chronotype and school performance in adolescents

Many adolescents experience a discrepancy between their biological time, which is shifted toward eveningness, and early school starting times. Due to this social jetlag, eveningness is negatively correlated with school performance. On the basis of the here presented data, we derived a model for the association of chronotype and school performance, the Chronotype-Academic Performance Model (CAM), including daytime sleepiness and achievement motivation as mediating factors. The sample comprised N = 273 adolescents aged 14–16 years. Circadian preference, daytime sleepiness, learning and achievement motivation, and information about participants’ last school certificate were assessed online. Chronotype was not directly related to academic performance, but was mediated by daytime sleepiness and learning motivation. Morning-orientation was negatively associated with daytime sleepiness and positively with learning motivation, which, in turn, affected performance. In evening-types, we found the strongest association between sleepiness and refusal to work. The CAM suggests that chronotype may not directly influence academic performance, but be mediated by daytime sleepiness and learning motivation. Evening types seem to be at high risk to suffer from daytime sleepiness and to display dysfunctional attitudes toward work. Measures of reducing sleepiness and modifying attitudes toward academic achievement might attenuate the disadvantages of evening-types due to social jetlag.     

Postural Asymmetries in Response to Holding Evenly and Unevenly Distributed Loads During Self-Selected Stance

The authors examined postural asymmetries during quiet stance and while holding evenly or unevenly distributed loads. Right-hand dominant subjects preferentially loaded their right lower limb when holding no load or a load evenly distributed in both hands, but no differences in center of pressure (CoP) were observed between the left and right limbs. However, longer CoP displacement was observed under the preferentially loaded limb, which may reflect a functional asymmetry that allows quick movement of one limb in response to a potential perturbation. When a load was held only in the nondominant hand, sample entropy decreased in the left (loaded) limb but increased in the right (unloaded) limb, suggesting the unloaded foot compensated for a loss of control flexibility in the loaded foot.     

Event-related cerebral hemodynamics reveal target-specific resource allocation for both “go” and “no-go” response-based vigilance tasks

Transcranial Doppler sonography was used to measure cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV) in the right and left cerebral hemispheres during the performance of a 50-min visual vigilance session. Observers monitored a simulated flight of unmanned aerial vehicles for cases in which one of the vehicles was flying in an inappropriate direction relative to its cohorts. Two types of vigilance tasks were employed: a traditional task in which observers made button press (“go”) responses to critical signals, and a modification of the traditional task called the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) in which “go” responses acknowledged nonsignal events and response withholding (“no-go”) signified signal detection. Signal detections and global CBFV scores declined over time. In addition, fine-grained event-related analyses revealed that the detection of signals was accompanied by an elevation of CBFV that was not present with missed signals. As was the case with the global scores, the magnitude of the transient CBFV increments associated with signal detection also declined over time, and these findings were independent of task type. The results support the view of CBFV as an index of the cognitive evaluation of stimulus significance, and a resource model of vigilance in which the need for continuous attention produces a depletion of information-processing assets that are not replenished as the task progresses. Further, temporal declines in the magnitude of event-related CBFV in response to critical signals only is evidence that the decrement function in vigilance is due to attentional processing and not specific task elements such as the required response format.     

Forecasting and Ethical Decision Making: What Matters?

This study examined how the number and types of consequences considered are related to forecasting and ethical decision making. Undergraduate participants took on the role of the key actor in several ethical problems and were asked to forecast potential outcomes and make a decision about each problem. Performance pressure was manipulated by ostensibly making rewards contingent on good problem-solving performance. The results indicated that forecast quality was associated with decision ethicality, and the identification of the critical consequences of the problem and consequences for others were associated with both higher quality forecasts and more ethical decisions. In addition, the identification of a larger number of consequences was negatively associated with ethical decision making. Performance pressure did not impact forecast quality or ethicality of decisions. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Hostile affect and casual blood pressure

Abstract

The present study investigated the relation between hostile affect and casual blood pressure in men and women. Data were collected from two independent samples: (1) 204 university students, and (2) 175 adults from the community. Findings on blood pressure-hostile affect linkage are reported with age and body-mass index corrected values. Data were analyzed for subgroups split at the median for hostility and also for tercile subgroups. Median splits revealed no relationship between hostility and blood pressure. Systolic blood pressure tended to be highest in the medium and high hostility terciles. The diastolic pressure-hostility link in men represented a “V”-shaped curve. In women, there was no relationship. Heart rate levels were consistently unrelated to hostile affect. The importance of testing for linear as well as curvilinear relationships in future studies is highlighted.     

Type D personality and cardiovascular reactivity to an ecologically valid multitasking stressor

Previous research investigating the influence of Type D personality on cardiovascular reactivity to stress in healthy young adults is somewhat mixed. The present study sought to investigate this question using an ecologically valid laboratory stressor. Beat-to-beat blood pressure and heart rate were measured in 77 healthy young adults during exposure to multitasking stress. Mood and background stress were both associated with Type D personality when Type D was conceptualised as a dimensional construct, with less robust findings observed using the traditional dichotomous typological approach. However, the continuous Type D construct added limited predictive value of the self-report measures above that of its constituent components, negative affectivity (NA) and social inhibition (SI). Further, an inverse relationship between the continuous Type D construct and blood pressure reactivity to multitasking stress was observed. In summary, our findings suggest that Type D personality is predictive of blunted cardiovascular reactivity to stress in healthy individuals when Type D is considered as a dimensional construct and the independent influence of NA and SI is controlled for. Further, our findings suggest that Type D does not predict additional variance in mood and background stress above that of NA and SI when these constituent factors are considered independently.