NIMBYism and Legitimate Expectations

An increasing portion of contemporary politics revolves around a set of claims made by those (typically derisively) referred to as NIMBYs. Despite its practical significance, NIMBYism has not received significant attention in academic philosophy. I attempt a charitable but limited reconstruction of NIMBYism in terms of legitimate expectations. I argue that, despite NIMBY expectations being somewhat vague and at least moderately unjust, they may be legitimate. This does not imply that they are decisive, or entail a conclusion about their overall normative force. I close by developing some tentative details in institutional design, focusing on the possibility of monetary compensation as a way of recognizing, but limiting the force of, NIMBY expectations.     

Autonomic determinism: the modes of autonomic control, the doctrine of autonomic space, and the laws of autonomic constraint.

Contemporary findings reveal that the multiple modes of autonomic control do not lie along a single continuum extending from parasympathetic to sympathetic dominance but rather distribute within a 2-dimensional space. The physiological origins and empirical documentation for the multiple modes of autonomic control are considered. Then a formal 2-dimensional conception of autonomic space is proposed, and a quantitative model for its translation into a functional output surface is derived. It is shown that this model (a) accounts for much of the error variance that has traditionally plagued psychophysiological studies, (b) subsumes psychophysiological principles such as the law of initial values, (c) gives rise to formal laws of autonomic constraint, and (d) has fundamental implications for the direction and interpretation of a wide array of psychophysiological studies.     

Interoceptive sensitivity and self-reports of emotional experience

People differ in the extent to which they emphasize feelings of activation or deactivation in their verbal reports of experienced emotion, termed arousal focus (AF). Two multimethod studies indicate that AF is linked to heightened interoceptive sensitivity (as measured by performance on a heartbeat detection task). People who were more sensitive to their heartbeats emphasized feelings of activation and deactivation when reporting their experiences of emotion over time more than did those who were less sensitive. This relationship was not accounted for by several other variables, including simple language effects. Implications for the role of interoception in experienced emotion and the validity of self-reported emotion are discussed.     

Attention network test: Assessment of cognitive function in chronic fatigue syndrome

Information processing difficulties are common in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). It has been shown that the time it takes to process a complex cognitive task, rather than error rate, may be the critical variable underlying CFS patients' cognitive complaints. The Attention Network Task (ANT) developed by Fan and colleagues may be of clinical utility to assess cognitive function in CFS, because it allows for simultaneous assessment of mental response speed, also called information processing speed, and error rate under three conditions challenging the attention system. Comparison of data from two groups of CFS patients (those with and without comorbid major depressive disorder; n = 19 and 22, respectively) to controls (n = 29) consistently showed that error rates did not differ among groups across conditions, but speed of information processing did. Processing time was prolonged in both CFS groups and most significantly affected in response to the most complex task conditions. For simpler tasks, processing time was only prolonged in CFS participants with depression. The data suggest that the ANT may be a task that could be used clinically to assess information processing deficits in individuals with CFS.     

An examination of trait,spontaneous and instructed emotion regulation in dysphoria

Depression is thought to be characterised by impaired emotion regulation, although the mechanisms of that regulation are not yet well understood. The present study examined trait, spontaneous and instructed emotion regulation in dysphoric (n = 66) and non-dysphoric (n = 86) participants. Participants were randomly assigned to use reappraisal while watching a sadness-inducing film clip (instructed emotion regulation condition) or were not given specific viewing instructions (spontaneous emotion regulation condition). Participants also completed trait measures of emotion regulation. Dysphoric individuals reported greater spontaneous use of rumination and suppression than non-dysphoric individuals, and these strategies were associated with greater negative emotional reactivity to the sadness-inducing film clip. Both participant groups were able to effectively use reappraisal when instructed to do so. The clinical implications of these findings and future research directions are discussed.     

The effects of trait and state anxiety on attention to emotional images: An eye-tracking study

Attentional biases for threatening stimuli have been implicated in the development of anxiety disorders. However, little is known about the relative influences of trait and state anxiety on attentional biases. This study examined the effects of trait and state anxiety on attention to emotional images. Low, mid, and high trait anxious participants completed two trial blocks of an eye-tracking task. Participants viewed image pairs consisting of one emotional (threatening or positive) and one neutral image while their eye movements were recorded. Between trial blocks, participants underwent an anxiety induction. Primary analyses examined the effects of trait and state anxiety on the proportion of viewing time on emotional versus neutral images. State anxiety was associated with increased attention to threatening images for participants, regardless of trait anxiety. Furthermore, when in a state of anxiety, relative to a baseline condition, durations of initial gaze and average fixation were longer on threat versus neutral images. These findings were specific to the threatening images; no anxiety-related differences in attention were found with the positive images. The implications of these results for future research, models of anxiety-related information processing, and clinical interventions for anxiety are discussed.     

Group decision process and incrementalism in organizational decision making

In two studies examining resource allocation, support is found for the notion that group decisions are affected in systematic ways depending on whether or not there was individual consideration of the problem before meeting as a group. Specifically, compared to no prior consideration groups, prior consideration groups (1) escalate their commitment more in progress (i.e., ongoing) decisions, and (2) are less willing to concentrate resources on a single project in adoption (i.e., resource utilization) decisions. The findings challenge the blanket assertion that promoting divergent views in a group decision context is always related to better decisions.