The Horsley gantt medal address October 11, 1992

The concept of systemic quantization of behavior was used to study the interaction between dominant motivation and reinforcement on brain neurons. Feeding and escape were used as experimental models. Results showed that feeding and escape motivations are based on the mechanisms of ascending activating influences of lateral or ventromedial hypothalamic centers, respectively, on cortical neurons. Feeding and escape motivations evoked by electrical stimulation of hypothalamus, or the ones occurring naturally, modify the responses of single neurons of sensorimotor and insular cortex to sensory stimuli, to microiontophoretic application of neurotransmitters and neuropeptides, and especially to reinforcement. Dominant motivations are reflected in the burst-like activity and in a specific pattern of interpulse intervals of single units in various brain structures. Reinforcement transforms this activity into a regular pattern and also changes the neuronal responses of hypothalamic feeding and escape centers, to electrical stimulation and to microiontophoretic application of oligopeptides. Specific patterns of the unit responses to conditioned stimuli in the course of consecutive reinforcement was determined. After several instances of reinforcement, especially after repetitive reinforcement, the brain neurons influenced by the dominant motivation begin to produce specific protein molecules that are important for organization of an appropriate type of behavior. This process can be blocked by protein synthesis inhibitors.     

Measurement and Predictive Invariance of a Work–Life Boundary Measure Across Gender

Pervasive gender norms influence the way in which men and women create and experience work–life boundaries and work–life conflict, which may lead to differing conceptions of work–life boundary management. Measurement equivalence/invariance (ME/I) and predictive invariance analyses were conducted on the WorkLife Indicator^TM (WLI), a measure of work–life boundary management, to determine if men and women maintain similar conceptualizations of work–life boundary constructs and if work–life outcomes are predicted equally well by WLI scales across gender. Three of the five WLI scales exhibited ME/I; however, half of the WLI scale–criterion pairings failed to demonstrate predictive invariance. These results indicate that measurement and/or predictive invariance cannot be assumed when using work–life boundary assessments across gender.     

Linking safety knowledge to safety behaviours: a moderated mediation of supervisor and worker safety attitudes

The thousands of deaths and disabilities due to workplace accidents and injuries each year emphasize the importance of safety research. Despite occupational safety research that has contributed to identifying antecedents of safety, little is known about why and how safety knowledge leads to safety behaviours and how personal and situational factors interact to promote occupational safety. Using a multilevel, multisource, and time-lagged research design, the present study investigates whether safety knowledge affects safety behaviours through safety attitudes and further tests whether supervisory safety attitudes can impact the strength of these relationships and play a role as moderators of the proposed mediated relationship. Data were collected from workers (N = 177) and supervisors (N = 42) in a construction company in the energy industry at two time points. Results indicate full support for the moderated mediation model, demonstrating that worker safety attitudes partially mediate the relationship between safety knowledge and safety behaviours. Moreover, when supervisors had positive attitudes towards safety, both the direct relationship between worker safety attitudes and safety behaviours and the indirect relationship between safety knowledge and safety behaviours were more positive compared to when supervisors had negative safety attitudes. Theoretical and practical implications for occupational safety are discussed.     

论俄国的内在状况

俄罗斯民族是一个不关心政治的民族,她没有对自治的渴求,没有对政治权利的渴望.俄国要实现她的使命,必须遵循自己的理念和要求,而不是那些与她格格不入的理论.俄国有两个方面:国家和百姓.她们之间的理想状态是:人民不干预政府的或行政的事务,给政府无限的统治自由,让政府有行动的权利和相应的法律的权力;而国家并不干预人民的生活方式.给人民以政府保护下的充分的社会和精神生活自由,让人民有发表意见的权利和相应的言论自由.沙皇和百姓之间的正确关系一旦被恢复了,俄罗斯从苦难中就会被解救出来.     

Hemispheric specialization and creative thinking: A meta-analytic review of lateralization of creativity

In the last two decades research on the neurophysiological processes of creativity has found contradicting results. Whereas most research suggests right hemisphere dominance in creative thinking, left-hemisphere dominance has also been reported. The present research is a meta-analytic review of the literature to establish how creative thinking relates to relative hemispheric dominance. The analysis was performed on the basis of a non-parametric vote-counting approach and effect-size calculations of Cramer’s phi suggest relative dominance of the right hemisphere during creative thinking. Moderator analyses revealed no difference in predominant right-hemispheric activation for verbal vs. figural tasks, holistic vs. analytical tasks, and context-dependent vs. context-independent tasks. Suggestions for further investigations with the meta-analytic and neuroscience methodologies to answer the questions of left hemispheric activation and further moderation of the effects are discussed.     

Theory Choice,Theory Change,and Inductive Truth-Conduciveness

Studia Logica - (I) Synchronic norms of theory choice, a traditional concern in scientific methodology, restrict the theories one can choose in light of given information. (II) Diachronic norms of...     

What Prevents Adolescents from Seeking Help After a Suicide Education Program?

Perceived barriers to help-seeking among adolescents attending a suicide education program were examined. A total of 854 high school students in Colorado completed one of two questionnaires, measuring barriers to help-seeking for self or friend. The most prominent barriers for self were: inability to discuss problems with adults, self-overconfidence, fear of hospitalization, and lack of closeness to school adults. The most prominent barriers for troubled friends were: friendship concerns, unapproachability of school adults, fear of friend's hospitalization, and underestimating friend's problems. Results reveal multiple constraints limiting the program's utilization, supporting the need for comprehensive system approaches to suicide prevention.     

Chemical plasticity of visual cortical neurons in integrative organization of feeding behavior in cats

The P.K. Anokhin conception of organization of systemic behavior was used to study the discharge activity and chemical plasticity of cortical neurons in a goal-directed behavior. Chemical sensitivity of neurons in the visual cortex of instrumentally conditioned cats was studied during successive stages of food procuring and consuming. The results showed that definite stages of this integrated behavioral act are characterized by differences in the chemical sensitivity of visual neurons to neurotransmitters. The largest number of neurons resistant to neurotransmitters was found among cells that did not respond at successive stages of goal-directed behavior. The iontophoretic delivery of cycloheximide and lyzilvasopressine altered the discharge activity of individual cortical neurons at different stages of stereotyped instrumental conditioned acts. This suggests that the integrative organization of the feeding behavior is determined by chemical plasticity of the brain’s visual cortical neurons and is dependent upon the processes of protein synthesis. According to the functional system theory (Anokhin, 1974) each brain neuron is included, by various degrees of freedom, in the stages of systemic organization that underlie the goal-directed behavior. Thanks to the plastic reorganization of brain units, each stage is directed toward the achievement of useful adaptive results for the organism during interaction with different environmental factors (Adrianov, 1993; Fadeev, 1988). It may be proposed that the reorganization of discharges of brain neurons that occurs at different stages of activity is due to changes in their chemical capacities. In concordance with such a hypothesis, the purpose of the present investigation was to study the chemical sensitivity of single visual cortical neurons to neurotransmitters at different stages of systemic organization of feeding behavior. The influence of protein synthesis inhibitors on the sensitivity of cortical neurons was also investigated.     

Comparability of Self‐Reported Conscientiousness Across 21 Countries

In cross‐national studies, mean levels of self‐reported phenomena are often not congruent with more objective criteria. One prominent explanation for such findings is that people make self‐report judgements in relation to culture‐specific standards (often called the reference group effect), thereby undermining the cross‐cultural comparability of the judgements. We employed a simple method called anchoring vignettes in order to test whether people from 21 different countries have varying standards for Conscientiousness, a Big Five personality trait that has repeatedly shown unexpected nation‐level relationships with external criteria. Participants rated their own Conscientiousness and that of 30 hypothetical persons portrayed in short vignettes. The latter type of ratings was expected to reveal individual differences in standards of Conscientiousness. The vignettes were rated relatively similarly in all countries, suggesting no substantial culture‐related differences in standards for Conscientiousness. Controlling for the small differences in standards did not substantially change the rankings of countries on mean self‐ratings or the predictive validities of these rankings for objective criteria. These findings are not consistent with mean self‐rated Conscientiousness scores being influenced by culture‐specific standards. The technique of anchoring vignettes can be used in various types of studies to assess the potentially confounding effects of reference levels. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.