Adam Smith and dependency

The focus of this paper is the works and life of Adam Smith, who is widely recognized as the father and founder of contemporary economics. Latent content analysis is applied to his seminal text in economics, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The results reveal that Smith considers dependence on others a problem and sees the solution to this problem in impersonalized interdependence. In addition, his views on social dependency and personal dependency, reflected in his Lectures on Jurisprudence (1963) and The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), are analyzed. This analysis suggests a central tension between dependence and independence in Smith's writings. The personal dependency patterns he exhibited in his life, which also suggest a tension between dependence and independence, are identified through a reading of his biographies. Based on insights from psychoanalytic literature, this paper proposes that developing the ideas in the Wealth of Nations was part of Smith's creative solution to this tension. In particular, his solution to one individual's dependence on another was through a system of impersonalized interdependence. In other words, Smith defended against his personal dependence through his economic theorizing.     

Death anxiety and visual oculomotor processing of arousing stimuli in a free view setting

The main goal of this study was to determine how death anxiety (DA) affects visual processing when confronted with arousing stimuli. A total of 26 males and females were primed with either DA or a neutral primer and were given a free view/free choice task where eye movement was measured using an eye tracker. The goal was to identify measurable/observable indicators of whether the subjects were under the influence of DA during the free view. We conducted an eye tracking study because this is an area where we believe it is possible to find observable indicators. Ultimately, we observed some changes in the visual behavior, such as a prolonged average latency, altered sensitivity to the repetition of stimuli, longer fixations, less time in saccadic activity, and fewer classifications related to focal and ambient processing, which appear to occur under the influence of DA when the subjects are confronted with arousing stimuli.