Research misconduct is harmful because it threatens public health and public safety, and also undermines public confidence in science. Efforts to eradicate ongoing and prevent future misconduct are numerous and varied, yet the question of “what works” remains largely unanswered. To shed light on this issue, this study used data from both mail and online surveys administered to a stratified random sample of tenured and tenure-track faculty members (N = 613) in the social, natural, and applied sciences at America’s top (...) 100 research universities. Participants were asked to gauge the effectiveness of various intervention strategies: formal sanctions (professional and legal), informal sanctions (peers), prevention efforts (ethics and professional training), and reducing the pressures associated with working in research-intensive units. Results indicated that (1) formal sanctions received the highest level of support, (2) female scholars and researchers working in the applied sciences favored formal sanctions, and (3) a nontrivial portion of the sample supported an integrated approach that combined elements of different strategies. A key takeaway for university administrators is that a multifaceted approach to dealing with the problem of research misconduct, which prominently features enhanced formal sanctions, will be met with the support of university faculty. (shrink)

Despite the salient experience of encoding threatening events, these memories are prone to distortions and often non-veridical from encoding to recall. Further, threat has been shown to preferentially disrupt the binding of event details and enhance goal-relevant information. While extensive work has characterised distinctive features of emotional memory, research has not fully explored the influence threat has on temporal memory, a process putatively supported by the binding of event details into a temporal context. Two primary competing hypotheses have been proposed; (...) that threat can impair or enhance temporal memory. We analysed two datasets to assess temporal memory for an in-person haunted house experience. In study 1, we examined the temporal structure of memory by characterising memory contiguity in free recall as a function of individual levels of heart rate as a proxy of threat. In study 2, we replicated marginal findings of threat-related increases in memory contiguity found in study 1. We extended these findings by showing threat-related increases in recency discriminations, an explicit test of temporal memory. Together, these findings demonstrate that threat enhances temporal memory regarding free recall structure and during explicit memory judgments. (shrink)

Situation selection involves choosing situations based on their likely emotional impact and may be less cognitively taxing or challenging to implement compared to other strategies for regulating emotion, which require people to regulate their emotions “in the moment”; we thus predicted that individuals who chronically experience intense emotions or who are not particularly competent at employing other emotion regulation strategies would be especially likely to benefit from situation selection. Consistent with this idea, we found that the use of situation selection (...) interacted with individual differences in emotional reactivity and competence at emotion regulation to predict emotional outcomes in both a correlational and an experimental field study. Taken together, the findings suggest that situation selection is an effective strategy for regulating emotions, especially for individuals who otherwise struggle to do so. (shrink)

Despite the important role of physical activity in population health and well-being, it has received less focus in public health ethics as compared to other modifiable lifestyle factors such as smoking and diet. However, when considering the current and potential role of physical activity within public health—including interventions and policies to encourage physical activity in schools and workplaces, changes to the built environment and the equity issues associated with access to physical activity—it is a ripe territory for ethical analysis. This (...) paper makes a case for a more sustained focus on physical activity within public health ethics by reviewing two ethical issues within physical activity and public health: physical activity inequity as a structural injustice issue, and stigma in physical activity promotion. While the benefits of physical activity for every age group and demographic are numerous, ethics oversight is encouraged to ensure that these efforts do not impose unnecessary risks or stigmatize marginalized populations. (shrink)

Coral bleaching has attracted considerable study, yet one central question remains unanswered: given that corals and their Symbiodinium symbionts have co‐evolved for millions of years, why does this clearly maladaptive process occur? Bleaching may result from evolutionary conflict between the host corals and their symbionts. Selection at the level of the individual symbiont favors using the products of photosynthesis for selfish replication, while selection at the higher level favors using these products for growth of the entire host/symbiont community. To hold (...) the selfish lower‐level units in check, mechanisms of conflict mediation must evolve. Fundamental features of photosynthesis have been co‐opted into conflict mediation so that symbionts that fail to export these products produce high levels of reactive oxygen species and undergo programmed cell death. These mechanisms function very well under most environmental conditions, but under conditions particularly detrimental to photosynthesis, it is these mechanisms of conflict mediation that trigger bleaching. (shrink)

The COVID‐19 pandemic has placed extraordinary stress on frontline healthcare providers as they encounter significant challenges and risks while caring for patients at the bedside. This study used qualitative research methods to explore nurses and respiratory therapists' experiences providing direct care to COVID‐19 patients during the first surge of the pandemic at a large academic medical center in the Northeastern United States. The purpose of this study was to explore their experiences as related to changes in staffing models and to (...) consider needs for additional support. Twenty semi‐structured interviews were conducted with sixteen nurses and four respiratory therapists via Zoom or by telephone. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, identifiers were removed, and data was coded and analyzed thematically. Five major themes characterize providers' experiences: a fear of the unknown, concerns about infection, perceived professional unpreparedness, isolation and alienation, and inescapable stress and distress. This manuscript analyzes the relationship between these themes and the concept of moral distress and finds that some, but not all, of the challenges that providers faced during this time align with previous definitions of the concept. This points to the possibility of broadening the conceptual parameters of moral distress to account for providers' experiences of treating patients with novel illnesses while encountering institutional and clinical challenges. (shrink)

Multiteam systems are complex organizational forms comprising interdependent teams that work towards their own proximal goals within and across teams to also accomplish a shared superordinate goal. MTSs operate within high-stakes, dangerous contexts with high consequences for suboptimal performance. We answer calls for nuanced exploration and cross-context comparison of MTSs “in the wild” by leveraging the MTS action sub-phase behavioral taxonomy to determine where and how MTS failures occur. To our knowledge, this is the first study to also examine how (...) key MTS attributes influence MTS processes and performance. We conducted historiometric analysis on 40 cases of failed MTS performance across various contexts to uncover patterns of within- and between-team behaviors of failing MTSs, resulting in four themes. First, component teams of failing MTSs over-engaged in within-team alignment behaviors by enacting acting, monitoring, and recalibrating behaviors more often within than between teams. Second, failing MTSs over-focused on acting behaviors and tended to not fully enact the action sub-phase cycle. Third and fourth, boundary status and goal type exacerbated these behavioral patterns, as external and physical MTSs were less likely to enact sufficient between-team behaviors or fully enact the action sub-phase cycle compared to internal and intellectual MTSs. We propose entrainment as a mechanism for facilitating MTS performance wherein specific, cyclical behavioral patterns enacted by teams align to facilitate goal achievement via three multilevel behavioral cycles. We argue that the degree to which these cycles are aligned both between teams and with the overarching MTS goal determines whether and how an MTS fails. Our findings add nuance beyond single-context MTS studies by showing that the identified behavioral patterns hold both across contexts and almost all types of MTS action-phase behaviors. We show that these patterns vary by MTS boundary status and goal type. Our findings inform MTS training best practices, which should be structured to integrate all component teams and tailored to both MTS attributes and situation type. (shrink)

Two lines of evidence indicate that there exists a reciprocal inhibitory relationship between opposed brain networks. First, most attention-demanding cognitive tasks activate a stereotypical set of brain areas, known as the task-positive network and simultaneously deactivate a different set of brain regions, commonly referred to as the task negative or defaultmode network. Second, functional connectivity analyses show that these same opposed networks are anti-correlated in the resting state. Wehypothesize that these reciprocally inhibitory effects reflect two incompatible cognitive modes, each of (...) which may be directed towards understanding the external world. Thus, engaging onemode activates one set of regions and suppresses activity in the other.Wetest this hypothesis by identifying two types of problem-solving task which, on the basis of prior work, have been consistently associated with the task positive and task negative regions: tasks requiring social cognition, i.e., reasoning about the mental states of other persons, and tasks requiring physical cognition, i.e., reasoning about the causal/mechanical properties of inanimate objects. Social and mechanical reasoning tasks were presented to neurologically normal participants during fMRI. Each task type was presented using both text and video clips. Regardless of presentation modality, we observed clear evidence of reciprocal suppression: social tasks deactivated regions associated with mechanical reasoning and mechanical tasks deactivated regions associated with social reasoning. These findings are not explained by self-referential processes, task engagement, mental simulation,mental time travel or external vs. internal attention, all factors previously hypothesized to explain default mode network activity. Analyses of resting state data revealed a close match between the regions our tasks identified as reciprocally inhibitory and regions of maximal anti-correlation in the resting state. These results indicate the reciprocal inhibition is not attributable to constraints inherent in the tasks, but is neural in origin. Hence, there is a physiological constraint on our ability to simultaneously engage two distinct cognitive modes. Furtherwork is needed tomore precisely characterize these opposing cognitive domains. (shrink)

We describe the design and evaluation of a sub-clinical digital assessment tool that integrates digital biomarkers of depression. Based on three standard cognitive tasks on which people with depression have been known to perform differently than a control group, we iteratively designed a digital assessment tool that could be deployed outside of laboratory contexts, in uncontrolled home environments on computer systems with widely varying system characteristics. We conducted two online studies, in which participants used the assessment tool in their own (...) homes, and completed subjective questionnaires including the Patient Health Questionnaire —a standard self-report tool for assessing depression in clinical contexts. In a first study, we demonstrate that each task can be used in isolation to significantly predict PHQ-9 scores. In a second study, we replicate these results and further demonstrate that when used in combination, behavioral metrics from the three tasks significantly predicted PHQ-9 scores, even when taking into account demographic factors known to influence depression such as age and gender. A multiple regression model explained 34.4% of variance in PHQ-9 scores with behavioral metrics from each task providing unique and significant contributions to the prediction. (shrink)

IntroductionApproaches to improve heart rate variability and reduce stress such as breathing retraining are more frequently being integrated into psychotherapy but little research on their effectiveness has been done to date. Specifically, no studies to date have directly compared using a breathing pacer at 6 breaths per minute with compassion focused soothing rhythm breathing.Current StudyIn this randomized controlled experiment, 6 breaths per minute breathing using a pacer was compared with compassion focused soothing rhythm breathing, with a nature video being used (...) as a control group condition.MethodsHeart rate variability measures were assessed via electrocardiogram and respiration belt, and an automated blood pressure machine was used to measure systolic diastolic blood pressure, and heart rate. A total of 96 participants were randomized into the three conditions. Following a 5-min baseline, participants engaged in either 6 breath per minute breathing, soothing rhythm breathing, or watched a nature video for 10 min. To induce a stressful state, participants then wrote for 5 min about a time they felt intensely self-critical. Participants then wrote for 5 min about a time they felt self-compassionate, and the experiment ended with a 10-min recovery period.ResultsConditions did not significantly differ at baseline. Overall, HRV, as measured by standard deviation of NN intervals, low frequency HRV, and LF/HF ratio, increased during the intervention period, decreased during self-critical writing, and then returned to baseline levels during the recovery period. High frequency HRV was not impacted by any of the interventions. The participants in the 6 breath per minute pacer condition were unable to consistently breathe at that rate and averaged about 12 breaths per minute. Time by Condition analyses revealed that both the 6 breaths per minute pacer and soothing breathing rhythm conditions lead to significantly higher SDNN than the nature video condition during breathing practice but there were no significant differences between conditions in response to the self-critical and self-compassionate writing or recovery periods. The 6 breath per minute pacer condition demonstrated a higher LF HRV and LF/HF ratio than the soothing rhythm breathing condition, and both intervention conditions had a higher LF HRV and LF/HF ratio than the nature video.ConclusionsAlthough the 6 breath per minute pacer condition participants were not able to breath consistently at the low pace, both the participants attempting to breathe at 6 breaths per minute as well as those in the soothing rhythm breathing condition effectively increased HR variability as measured by SDNN, and attempting to breathe at 6 breaths per minute led to the highest LF HRV and LF/HF ratio. Both breathing approaches impacted HRV more than watching a relaxing nature video and can potentially be used as key adjuncts in psychotherapy to aid in regulating physiological functioning, although it appears that consistent breathing practice would be needed. (shrink)

Historical demographic research shows that the factors influencing mortality risk are labile across time and space. This is particularly true for datasets that span societal transitions. Here, we seek to understand how marriage, migration, and the local economy influenced mortality dynamics in a rapidly changing environment characterized by high in-migration and male-biased sex ratios. Mortality records were extracted from a compendium of historical vital records for the Baja California peninsula (Mexico). Our sample consists of 1,201 mortality records spanning AD 1835–1900. (...) Findings from Cox proportional hazard models indicate that (1) marriage was associated with a protective effect for both sexes; (2) residing in a mining town was associated with higher mortality for men, but not women; (3) migration was associated with decreased mortality risk for women, but not men; and (4) the risk of mortality increased in the face of infectious disease, but decreased over time. Despite the early initiation of reproduction for women, marriage had a protective effect, likely because marriage linked women to resources. Although mining boomtowns were associated with elevated risk factors generally, only men experienced greater mortality risk, likely due to dangerous working conditions that women did not experience. Last, female, but not male, migrants experienced greater longevity, possibly because exposure to harsh labor conditions eroded the protective effect of selection bias for men. Together, these results shed light on an understudied historical population and broaden our understanding of demographic dynamics in preindustrial settings. (shrink)

This paper offers a new concept of the firm that aims at balancing the corporate economic, social, and environmental responsibilities and goes beyond the stakeholder approach. It intends to provide a conceptual and operationalizable basis to fairly assess corporate conduct from both inside and outside the companies. To a large extent these different responsibilities may overlap and reinforce each other. However, if they conflict, they should be clearly evaluated for their own sake and in terms of wealth creation. Only then (...) can a balanced approach be realized. Section 1 briefly discusses some general aspects of the relationship between concepts and measurement. In Section 2, a concept of the firm is developed that is based on the notion of responsibility and balances economic, social and environmental responsibilities. According to these concepts, different ways of measuring corporate planning and performance are examined in Section 3, followed up by a summary and conclusions. (shrink)

I have enjoyed my six years as editor of this journal. I was pleased to be able to bring the journal to Purdue University Press and learn how to produce a first-rate academic journal. From the early days of choosing a cover design, to supervising my graduate assistant Jiwon Kim as she expertly sought indexing services, to acquiring an ISSN number, to being lucky to convince David Granger to become the book review editor and, with the next issue, editor, I (...) have been fortunate to work with excellent colleagues. I particularly want to thank the staff at Purdue University Press, especially its former director, Thomas Bacher, who agreed to publish the journal in 2004. Tom later moved the management of the journal's .. (shrink)

Many contemporary logicians acknowledge a plurality of logical theories and accept that theory choice is in part motivated by logical evidence. However, just as there is no agreement on logical theories, there is also no consensus on what constitutes logical evidence. In this paper, I outline Jean Piaget’s psychological theory of reasoning and show how he used it to diagnose and solve one of the paradoxes of material implication. I assess Piaget’s use of psychology as a source of evidence for (...) logical theory in light of reservations raised by psychologism, and I highlight some ramifications for exceptionalism and anti-exceptionalism about logic by considering his use of psychology as logical evidence in the framework of genetic epistemology, Piaget’s research programme. I conclude that Piaget’s psychological theory of reasoning not only plausibly serves as a source of evidence for logical theory but also makes a strong case for anti-exceptionalism about logic. (shrink)