If the future of human rights is dependent on the capacity of the state to fulfill them, then one must focus on how the private sector interfaces with public values—an interface that directly affects how billions of people survive both economically and with dignity. During the last few years reports about multinational corporations shielding phenomenal profits from meaningful taxation have troubled governments and individual taxpayers alike. But there has been little effort to associate such tax avoidance schemes with corporate (...) abdication of responsibility for advancing critical societal goals. Instead, much of the ensuing debate has centered on how to tax corporate profits fairly and more efficiently. While the ideas being marketed in this area are enlightening, there has been less discussion about why corporate taxation is a worthy public goal or what corporations should do voluntarily. The linkage between corporate tax avoidance and “corporate social responsibility” has not yet been clearly drawn, but the moment has arrived to bridge the gap. That task may necessitate changing, fundamentally, the ethical framework within which corporate officers, boards of directors, shareholders, tax advisers, and stakeholders in general operate. (shrink)

Using a queer theory and disrupting heteronormativity framework, we applied a model lesson in the elementary methods course to understand preservice teachers’ experiences with LGBTQ individuals and families and their beliefs about utilizing children׳s literature portraying LGBTQ families in the elementary classroom. Participants reported a range of personal experiences with LGBTQ individuals and families and relatively positive responses to the family text set presented but wavered on LGBTQ themed books due to perceived conflict, religious beliefs, and ideas about what is (...) appropriate content for young learners. A discussion of the findings also includes preservice teachers’ intentions for future teaching related to LGBTQ topics. Implications for teacher education and social studies education are explored. (shrink)

In this concluding piece, we identify and discuss various aspects of convergence and, to a lesser degree, divergence in the ideas expressed in the contributions to this special section. These contributions emphatically illustrate that approach–avoidance motivation is integral to the scientific study of emotion. It is our hope that the articles herein will facilitate cross-talk among researchers and research traditions, and will lead to a more thorough understanding of the role of approach–avoidance motivation in emotion.

This paper describes some components of a working system which drives a vehicle through cluttered real world environments under computer control, guided by images perceived through an onboard television camera. The emphasis is on reliable and fast low level visual techniques which determine the existence and location of objects in the world, but do not identify them. They include an interest operator for choosing distinctive regions in images, a correlator for finding matching regions in similar images, a geometric camera solver (...) which determines camera displacement and distance to objects from motion stereo information and an automatic distortion corrector which compensates for camera imperfections. (shrink)

This study investigates the ability of individuals with psychopathy to perform passive avoidance learning and whether this ability is modulated by level of reinforcement/punishment. Nineteen psychopathic and 21 comparison individuals, as defined by the Hare Psychopathy Checklist Revised (Hare, 1991), were given a passive avoidance task with a graded reinforcement schedule. Response to each rewarding number gained a point reward specific to that number (i.e., 1, 700, 1400 or 2000 points). Response to each punishing number lost a point (...) punishment specific to that number (i.e., the loss of 1, 700, 1400 or 2000 points). In line with predictions, individuals with psychopathy made more passive avoidance errors than the comparison individuals. In addition, while the performance of both groups was modulated by level of reward, only the performance of the comparison population was modulated by level of punishment. The results are interpreted with reference to a computational account of the emotional learning impairment in individuals with psychopathy. (shrink)

Recent research indicates that angry facial expressions are preferentially processed and may facilitate automatic avoidance response, especially in socially anxious individuals. However, few studies have examined whether this bias also expresses itself in more complex cognitive processes and behavior such as decision making. We recently introduced a variation of the Iowa Gambling Task which allowed us to document the influence of task-irrelevant emotional cues on rational decision making. The present study used a modified gambling task to investigate the impact (...) of angry facial expressions on decision making in 38 individuals with a wide range of social anxiety. Participants were to find out which choices were (dis-) advantageous to maximize overall gain. To create a decision conflict between approach of reward and avoidance of fear-relevant angry faces, advantageous choices were associated with angry facial expressions, whereas disadvantageous choices were associated with happy facial expressions. Results indicated that higher social avoidance predicted less advantageous decisions in the beginning of the task, i.e., when contingencies were still uncertain. Interactions with specific skin conductance responses further clarified that this initial avoidance only occurred in combination with elevated responses before choosing an angry facial expressions. In addition, an interaction between high trait anxiety and elevated responses to early losses predicted faster learning of an advantageous strategy. These effects were independent of intelligence, general risky decision-making, self-reported state anxiety, and depression. Thus, socially avoidant individuals who respond emotionally to angry facial expressions are more likely to show avoidance of these faces under uncertainty. This novel laboratory paradigm may be an appropriate analog for central features of social anxiety. (shrink)

Why do policies fail? How can we objectively choose the best policy from two (or more) competing alternatives? How can we create better policies? To answer these critical questions this book presents an innovative yet workable approach. Avoiding Policy Failure uses emerging metapolicy methodologies in case studies that compare successful policies with ones that have failed. Those studies investigate the systemic nature of each policy text to gain new insights into why policies fail. -/- In addition to providing intriguing directions (...) for research, this book also suggests a bold new standard for evaluating policies. While this method is broadly generalizable, specific examples are provided showing how to develop better Economic Policy, Military Policy, and Constitutional Organizations. This book shows scholars, researchers, and policy analysts how to develop more effective policies so that we may achieve our highest aspirations and avoid the horrendous failures of the past. (shrink)