Lateral asymmetry of personal optimism

By combining models of cerebral emotional asymmetry and unilateral hemispheric activation, it was hypothesized that orienting to the right would produce greater personal optimism about future events than would orienting toward the left. This was supported significantly in two experiments which differed from each other in their manipulations, hypothetical future events, means of responding, and settings. The results supported previous research on unrealistic optimism and extended the concept to show the effect of induced lateral orientation. It was proposed that this effect is mediated by mood, and possibly by perceived control, and that this methodology can be extended to other behaviors which have proven amenable to mood manipulation.     

Projecting Earth on to Heaven: The Hopes of Frank Drake and the Fears of Stephen Hawking

Space scientists today exemplify the projection theory of religion, only they substitute space aliens for the Heavenly Father. Projections are delusions, not facts.     

Searching for Spiritual Signatures in SETI Research

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) research assumes that we live in an intelligence-friendly universe. But do we live in a spiritual-friendly universe? We include the spiritual quest in a new multidisciplinary approach to SETI. In a thought experiment, we consider two types of alien civilizations by including a Spiritual factor in the Drake Equation. Using the analogy of planetary biomarkers and the concept of noosphere introduced by Teilhard de Chardin, we propose two spiritual markers that could evidence the presence of a noosphere in an exoplanet.     

Human reasoning: Some possible effects of availability

This paper discusses some possible ways in which the availability heuristic (Tversky and Kahneman, 1973) may mediate subjects' responses to experimental ‘reasoning’ tasks. A brief review of some effects of availability in other areas is given and then the application of availability to reasoning data is considered with respect to problems employing both ‘thematic’ and ‘abstract’ content.In the case of thematic content, it is argued, with reference to a variety of studies, that to produce a differential effect (to abstract content), the content must provide available cues, resulting from the subjects' experience. Differential effects of content are thus interpreted as differential effects of availability. When abstract content is used, there are cues available from the experimental situation itself, and it is shown that several known error tendencies readily lend themselves to an explanation in terms of availability.In the final section, it is pointed out that a focus on available cues, rather than logical structure, provides a psychological, rather than logical, approach to human reasoning. It is argued that a bias may be psychologically, although not logically, optimal in that it may often produce correct responses in ‘real life’. Accordingly, the possible real life utility of availability is considered, and several ways in which the bias may lead to usually correct decisions are discussed. Given this, it is argued that availability is an effective heuristic and that observed biases on a range of experimental tasks may thus be interpreted as resulting from the application of a behavior that is optimal within the limits of human cognition. However, it is concluded that limitations in both deterministic and probabilistic problem solving may lead to a consistent, but erroneous, view of the world.     

Induced lateral orientation and persuasibility

It was hypothesized from three different lines of evidence that relative activation of the left cerebral hemisphere of right-handers would increase resistance to a persuasive message as compared to relative activation of the right hemisphere. An experiment was performed using 22 subjects who heard the counterattitudinal message in only one ear and filled in response measures while their body was turned toward that same side. Subjects who listened and turned toward the left agreed more with the views of the message (p less than .05) and produced more thought favorable to the message (p less than .05) than those induced to orient rightward. It was concluded that these results may be due to asymmetries in selective attention, counterarguing, consistency, self-awareness, and perseveration between the cerebral hemispheres of the normal human brain.     

“Where Is Everybody?” Fermi’s Paradox,Evolution, and Sin

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project has been scanning the heavens for signs of intelligent life for almost half a century. So far, nothing. This raises the question physicist Enrico Fermi asked, “Where is everybody?” The probability of intelligent life on another planet is high so why the silence? Technological civilizations may be short-lived. The mechanisms of evolution that lead to intelligent life and technological development also lead to propensities traditionally labeled as sin. These propensities make it difficult for technological civilizations to survive long enough to escape their home planet.     

Effects of massed practice and cue-controlled relaxation on tic frequency in Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome

The effects of massed practice (MP) and cue-controlled relaxation on tic frequency were assessed in three single-case studies. Measures of tic frequency, subjective tension and fatigue, and physiological arousal were obtained throughout treatment.MP failed to produce any reduction in tic frequency in the three Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome patients studied. Cue-controlled relaxation resulted in a moderate decrease in tic frequency in only one patient.Tic frequency was related to physiological arousal, as assessed by skin conductance response frequency. No evidence was obtained in support of the suggestion that ticquers demonstrate a deficit in their habituation to sensory stimulation.     

Hope of success and fear of failure components of Mehrabian's scales of resultant achievement motivation

This report is concerned with the factor structure and psychometric properties of the nonprojective Male and Female scales of Resultant Achievement Motivation (RAM) developed by Mehrabian (Educational and Psychological Measurement, 1968, 28, 493–503). The 26-item self-report scales along with Mandler and Sarason's (Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1952, 47, 166–173) Test Anxiety Questionnaire (TAQ) were administered to 237 males and 225 females in Experiment 1. Unrestricted maximum likelihood factor analyses of the RAM scales revealed four primary factors for each version. Since the first two factors from both analyses resembled measures of Hope of Success and Fear of Failure, two strategies for improving the scales were adopted, both of which eliminated the items loading on factors III and IV. One strategy involved adding the indexes of Hope of Success and Fear of Failure, while the other involved finding their difference. Construct validity coefficients were computed for the 26-item full scales, and the RAM measures formed using the above strategies with student grade point average and TAQ scores as the criterion variables. In Experiment 2, the appropriate RAM scale and the TAQ were administered to 30 males and 38 females. Construct validity coefficients were computed in this cross validation sample with the three RAM measures as predictors and with TAQ scores and student achievement in a course in Social/Personality Psychology as the criterion variables. The three RAM measures were used to predict the performance of 16 males who worked at a common laboratory task (anagrams) in Experiment 3. The results of all three experiments indicate the Hope of Success minus Fear of Failure measure to be the best measure of RAM from a theoretical, psychometric, and pragmatic point of view.