Using data collected from people with at least one brother and one sister, and consistent with an evolutionary perspective, we find that older men and women (a) are more upset by a brother’s partner’s sexual infidelity than by her emotional infidelity and (b) are more upset by a sister’s partner’s emotional infidelity than by his sexual infidelity. There were no effects of participant sex or sex of in-law on upset over a sibling’s partner’s infidelities, but there was an effect of (...) participant sex on reports of upset over one’s own partner’s infidelities. The results suggest that the key variable among older participants is the sex of the sibling or, correspondingly, the sex of the sibling’s partner, as predicted from an evolutionary analysis of reproductive costs, and not the sex of the participant, as predicted from a socialization perspective. Discussion offers directions for future work on jealousy. (shrink)

The resurgence of interest in collective behavior is in large part due to tools recently made available for conducting laboratory experiments on groups, statistical methods for analyzing large data sets reflecting social interactions, the rapid growth of a diverse variety of online self‐organized collectives, and computational modeling methods for understanding both universal and scenario‐specific social patterns. We consider case studies of collective behavior along four attributes: the primary motivation of individuals within the group, kinds of interactions among individuals, typical dynamics (...) that result from these interactions, and characteristic outcomes at the group level. With this framework, we compare the collective patterns of noninteracting decision makers, bee swarms, groups forming paths in physical and abstract spaces, sports teams, cooperation and competition for resource usage, and the spread and extension of innovations in an online community. Some critical issues surrounding collective behavior are then reviewed, including the questions of “Does group behavior always reduce to individual behavior?”“Is ‘group cognition’ possible?” and “What is the value of formal modeling for understanding group behavior?”. (shrink)

Several theoretical perspectives have generated research on grandparental investment, notably socialization and evolutionary psychological perspectives. Using data collected from more than 200 older adults (mean age 67 years), we test three hypotheses derived from socialization and evolutionary perspectives about grandparents’ relationships with and investment in grandchildren. Results indicate that (1) emotional closeness with both children and children-in-law is positively related to reports of emotional closeness with grandchildren; (2) maternal grandmothers invest more in grandchildren than do other grandparents; and (3) grandparents (...) invest more in daughters’ children than in sons’ children. Discussion addresses limitations of self-report methodology in this context and situates the current findings within the body of research indicating the existence of psychological mechanisms designed to guide differential nepotism. (shrink)

PurposeTo use the power of knowledge acquisition and machine learning in the development of a collaborative computer classification system based on the features of age-related macular degeneration (AMD).MethodsA vocabulary was acquired from four AMD experts who examined 100 ophthalmoscopic images. The vocabulary was analyzed, hierarchically structured, and incorporated into a collaborative computer classification system called IDOCS. Using this system, three of the experts examined images from a second set of digital images compiled from more than 1000 patients with AMD. Images (...) were annotated, and features were identified and defined. Decision trees, a machine learning method, were trained on the data collected and used to extract patterns. Interrelationships between the data from the different clinicians were investigated.ResultsSix drusen classes in the structured vocabulary were largely sufficient to describe all the identified features. The decision trees classified the data with 76.86% to 88.5% accuracy and distilled patterns in the form of hierarchical trees composed of 5 to 15 nodes. Experts were largely consistent in their characterization of soft, and to a lesser extent, hard drusen, but diverge in definition of other drusen. Size and crystalline morphology were the main determinants of drusen type across all experts.ConclusionsMachine learning is a powerful tool for the characterization of disease phenotypes. The creation of a defined feature set for AMD will facilitate the development of an IDOCS-based classification system. (shrink)

Despite the growing body of literature on training in the responsible conduct of research, few studies have examined the effectiveness of delivery formats used in ethics courses. The present effort sought to address this gap in the literature through a meta-analytic review of 66 empirical studies, representing 106 ethics courses and 10,069 participants. The frequency and effectiveness of 67 instructional and process-based content areas were also assessed for each delivery format. Process-based contents were best delivered face-to-face, whereas contents delivered online (...) were most effective when restricted to compliance-based instructional contents. Overall, hybrid courses were found to be most effective, suggesting that ethics courses are best delivered using a blend of formats and content areas. Implications and recommendations for future development of ethics education courses in the sciences are discussed. (shrink)

Is cognition an exclusive property of the individual or can groups have a mind of their own? We explore this question from the perspective of complex adaptive systems. One of the principal insights from this line of work is that rules that govern behavior at one level of analysis can cause qualitatively different behavior at higher levels. We review a number of behavioral studies from our lab that demonstrate how groups of people interacting in real-time can self-organize into adaptive, problem-solving (...) group structures. A number of principles are derived concerning the critical features of such “distributed” information processing systems. We suggest that while cognitive science has traditionally focused on the individual, cognitive processes may manifest at many levels including the emergent group-level behavior that results from the interaction of multiple agents and their environment. (shrink)

The present study examined trajectories of change in the frequency of overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) over the course of repeated trials, and tested whether particular dimensions of depressive symptomatology (somatic and cognitive‐affective distress), self‐esteem, and neuroticism account for individual differences in these trajectories. Given that depression is associated with impairments in effortful processing, we predicted that over repeated trials depression would be associated with increasingly OGM. Generalised Linear Mixed Models with Penalised Quasi‐Likelihood demonstrated significant linear and quadratic trends in OGM (...) over repeated trials, and somatic distress and self‐esteem moderated these slopes. The form of these interactions suggested that somatic distress and low self‐esteem primarily contribute to OGM during the second half of the trial sequence. The present findings demonstrate the value of a novel analytical approach to OGM that estimates individual trajectories of change over repeated trials. (shrink)

Individual-level interventions are inadequate to address complex societal problems. Meaningful solutions require system-level policies that alter the incentives that govern behavior. We argue that individual-level interventions can help improve both the feasibility and effectiveness of system-level interventions, especially when designed as an integrated policy package.

This book gathers inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary perspectives on the effects of today's advances in science and technology have on issues ranging from government policy-making to how we see the differences between men and women. The chapters investigate how invention and innovation really take place, how science differs from competing forms of knowledge, and how science and technology could contribute more to the greater good of humanity. For instance, should there be legal restrictions on 'immoral inventions'? A key theme that runs (...) throughout the book concerns who is taken into account at each stage and who is affected. The amount of influence users have on technology development and how non-users are factored in are evaluated as the impact of scientific and technological progression on society is investigated, including politics, economy, family life, and ethics. (shrink)

We applaud the effort to draw attention to generalizability concerns in twenty-first-century psychological research. Yet we do not feel that a pessimistic perspective is warranted. We outline a continuum of available methodological tools and perspectives, including incremental steps and meta-analytic approaches that can be readily and easily deployed by researchers to advance generalizability claims in a forward-looking manner.

Sound propagation within certain non-relativistic condensed matter models obeys a relativistic wave equation despite such systems admitting entirely non-relativistic descriptions. A natural question that arises upon consideration of this is, “do devices exist that will experience the relativity in these systems?” We describe a thought experiment in which ‘acoustic observers’ possess devices called sound clocks that can be connected to form chains. Careful investigation shows that appropriately constructed chains of stationary and moving sound clocks are perceived by observers on the (...) other chain as undergoing the relativistic phenomena of length contraction and time dilation by the Lorentz factor, \, with \ the speed of sound. Sound clocks within moving chains actually tick less frequently than stationary ones and must be separated by a shorter distance than when stationary to satisfy simultaneity conditions. Stationary sound clocks appear to be length contracted and time dilated to moving observers due to their misunderstanding of their own state of motion with respect to the laboratory. Observers restricted to using sound clocks describe a universe kinematically consistent with the theory of special relativity, despite the preferred frame of their universe in the laboratory. Such devices show promise in further probing analogue relativity models, for example in investigating phenomena that require careful consideration of the proper time elapsed for observers. (shrink)

Analyses of between-sex differences have provided a powerful starting point for evolutionarily informed work on human sexuality. This early work set the stage for an evolutionary analysis of within-sex differences in human sexuality. A comprehensive theory of human sexual strategies must address both between-sex differences and within-sex differences in evolved psychology and manifest behavior.

Female coital orgasm may be an adaptation for preferentially retaining the sperm of males with “good genes.” One indicator of good genes may be physical attractiveness. Accordingly, R. Thornhill, S. W. Gangestad, and R. Comer (1995) found that women mated to more attractive men reported an orgasm during a greater proportion of copulations than did women mated to less attractive men. The current research replicates this finding, with several design variations. We collected self-report data from 388 women residing in the (...) United States or in Germany. Results support the hypothesis that women mated to more attractive men are more likely to report an orgasm at the most recent copulation than are women mated to less attractive men, after statistically controlling for several key variables. Discussion addresses (a) the inability of the present research to specify the causal link between female orgasm and male attractiveness and (b) the proactive nature of female sexuality documented in recent research guided by an evolutionary perspective. (shrink)

We examine the interdependence between individual and group behavior surrounding a somewhat arbitrary, real‐world decision: selecting a name for one’s child. Using a historical database of the names given to children over the last century in the United States, we find that naming choices are influenced by both the frequency of a name in the general population, and by its ‘‘momentum’’ in the recent past in the sense that names which are growing in popularity are preferentially chosen. This bias toward (...) rising names is a recent phenomena: In the early part of the 20th century, increasing popularity of a name from one time period to the next correlated with a decrease in future popularity. However, more recently this trend has reversed. We evaluate a number of formal models that detail how individual decision‐making strategies, played out in a large population of interacting agents, can explain these empirical observations. We argue that cognitive capacities for change detection, the encoding of frequency in memory, and biases toward novel or incongruous stimuli may interact with the behavior of other decision makers to determine the distribution and dynamics of cultural tokens such as names. (shrink)

How, and how well, do people switch between exploration and exploitation to search for and accumulate resources? We study the decision processes underlying such exploration/exploitation trade‐offs using a novel card selection task that captures the common situation of searching among multiple resources (e.g., jobs) that can be exploited without depleting. With experience, participants learn to switch appropriately between exploration and exploitation and approach optimal performance. We model participants' behavior on this task with random, threshold, and sampling strategies, and find that (...) a linear decreasing threshold rule best fits participants' results. Further evidence that participants use decreasing threshold‐based strategies comes from reaction time differences between exploration and exploitation; however, participants themselves report non‐decreasing thresholds. Decreasing threshold strategies that “front‐load” exploration and switch quickly to exploitation are particularly effective in resource accumulation tasks, in contrast to optimal stopping problems like the Secretary Problem requiring longer exploration. (shrink)

?A highly useful core text for courses in the field?as well as an invaluable reference for any serious student of the ethics of war.??Albert Pierce, U.S. Naval AcademyWhen and why is war justified? How, morally speaking, should wars be fought? The Morality of War confronts these challenging questions, surveying the fundamental principles and themes of the just war tradition through the words of the philosophers, jurists, and warriors who have shaped it.The collection begins with the foundational works of just war (...) theory, as well as those of two competing perspectives, realism and pacifism. Subsequent selections focus on issues related to the resort to war, the conduct of war, and the judgment of war crimes. Both traditional just war concerns and those that have emerged in response to contemporary developments?such as the U.S. ?war on terror??are thoroughly covered.With articles that are crucially relevant to today?s world paired with contextual introductions to each section, the reader is ideally constructed to inform and guide students as they consider the morality of past and current military actions.David Kinsella is associate professor of political science at the Hatfield School of Government, Portland State University. He is editor of International Studies Perspectives and coauthor of World Politics: The Menu for Choice. Craig L. Carr is professor of political science at the Hatfield School of Government. He is author of On Fairness and editor of The Political Writings of Samuel Pufendorf. (shrink)

Keith Lehrer wrote Thomas Reid for those who are not Reid scholars. He claims that Reid is not widely read but believes the "combination of soundness and creativity of his work is unexcelled". Lehrer focuses on the main theories and arguments of Reid rather than dealing with exegetical disputes or worrying about influences on Reid or Reid's influence on later philosophy.

In the target article, we presented the hypothesis that parasite-stress variation was a causal factor in the variation of in-group assortative sociality, cross-nationally and across the United States, which we indexed with variables that measured different aspects of the strength of family ties and religiosity. We presented evidence supportive of our hypothesis in the form of analyses that controlled for variation in freedom, wealth resources, and wealth inequality across nations and the states of the USA. Here, we respond to criticisms (...) from commentators and attempt to clarify and expand the parasite-stress theory of sociality used to fuel our research presented in the target article. (shrink)

Young men are more distressed by a partner’s sexual infidelity, whereas young women are more distressed by a partner’s emotional infidelity. The present research investigated (a) whether the sex difference in jealousy replicates in an older sample, and (b) whether younger people differ from older people in their selection of the more distressing infidelity scenario. We presented forced-choice dilemmas to 202 older people (mean age = 67 years) and to 234 younger people (mean age = 20 years). The sex difference (...) replicated in the older sample. In addition, older women were less likely than younger women to select a partner’s emotional infidelity as more distressing than a partner’s sexual infidelity. Discussion offers directions for future work on sex differences and age differences in jealousy. (shrink)

Anhedonia, or a deficit in the liking, wanting, and seeking of rewards, is typically assessed via self-reported “in-the-moment” emotional and motivational responses to reward stimuli and activities. Given that mental imagery is known to evoke emotion and motivational responses, we conducted two studies to investigate the relationship between mental imagery use and self-reported anhedonia. Using a novel Reward Response Scale (adapted from the Dimensional Anhedonia Rating Scale, DARS; Rizvi et al., Citation2015) modified to assess deliberate and spontaneous mental imagery use, (...) Study 1 (N = 394) compared uninstructed and instructed mental imagery use, and Study 2 (N = 586) conducted a test of replication of uninstructed mental imagery use. Results showed that greater mental imagery use was associated with higher reward response scores (Study 1 & 2), and this relationship was not moderated by whether imagery use was uninstructed or instructed (Study 1). Importantly, mental imagery use moderated the convergence between reward response and depression scale measures of anhedonia, with lower convergence for those reporting higher mental imagery use (Study 1 & 2). Results suggest that higher spontaneous mental imagery use may increase self-reported reward response and reduce the convergence between reward response scale and depression questionnaire measures of anhedonia. [199 / 200 words]. (shrink)

Readers’ Theater is a unique vehicle for introducing ethical, cultural, and social issues in medicine to academic, professional, and community audiences. It brings alive the characters in a story in a way that silent reading or reading a story aloud cannot. Audience members experience what is, in essence, a case report acted out “on stage” rather than reading or hearing someone report on a situation second hand. RT has an immediacy about it, a compelling aspect, that makes listeners pay attention (...) and mentally participate in the action. It draws people into the story, engages them. The oral reading and subsequent open discussion combine to educate audience members about the topic of the story and the variety of ways one can interpret the story’s message. This article describes the long-standing RT program at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University and some of variations on RT that people have developed around the country. (shrink)

A dynamical analysis of standard procedures for subensemble selection is used to show that the state restriction violation proposal in Part I of the paper cannot be realized by employing familiar correlation schemes. However, it is shown that measurement of an observable not commuting with the superselection operator is possible, a violation of the observable restrictions. This is interpreted as supporting the position that each of these restrictions is sufficient but not necessary for the superselection rule. The results do constitute (...) a proposal for superselection rule violation in theories requiring both restrictions, e.g., the axiomatic treatment by Bogolubov, Logunov, and Todorov. It is also concluded that superselection rules place restrictions on procedures for selective state preparations using correlations. More generally, it is conjectured that a mathematically conceivable decomposition of a given density operator does not necessarily represent a possibility for partitioning of the corresponding ensemble into subensembles by any physically realizable means. (shrink)

Examining the costs and motivations of warfare is key to conundrums concerning the relevance of this troubling phenomenon to the evolution of social attachment and cooperation, particularly during adolescence and young adulthood—the developmental time period during which many participants are first recruited for warfare. The study focuses on Samburu, a pastoralist society of approximately 200,000 people occupying northern Kenya’s semi-arid and arid lands, asking what role the emotionally sensitized, peer-driven adolescent life stage may have played in the cultural and genetic (...) coevolution of coalitional lethal aggression. Research in small-scale societies provides unparalleled opportunities for sharply defined variables, particularly in age generation societies in which all young men are initiated into “warriorhood.” Proposing an epigenetic and component behavior approach, we examine whether raiding activities such as number of raids, killing, and sparing enemy lives associate with DNA methylation in two candidate genes: MAOA, linked to mood and arousal, and NR3C1, linked to stress and immune response. We report statistically significant associations between the epigenetic variables and the combat variables of overall raiding activity and reportedly showing mercy to enemies. In contrast, epigenetic variables did not associate with post-traumatic stress disorder symptom scores, and the only combat variable associated with PTSD was losing one’s own livestock in a raid. These findings raise important questions concerning the mechanisms driving warfare’s paradoxical mix of violent and altruistic behaviors. (shrink)

Le Messie et son prophète: Aux origines de l’Islam. By Édouard-Marie Gallez. Studia Arabica, vols. 1 and 2. 2 vols., 3rd ed. Versaille: Éditions de Paris, 2007. Pp. 526, 588. €35 and €39.