bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Photoperiodism in Mollusks
Authors: Numata Hideharu , Udaka Hiroko
Published: May 2010

This chapter focuses on photoperiodism in gastropods, particularly terrestrial and freshwater species in the order Pulmonata, in which photoperiodism has been intensively examined. It also suggests two possibilities for future studies in mollusk photoperiodism. The first involves approaches toward understanding the ecological significance of photoperiodism. Second, is that the neural mechanism of photoperiodism must be clarified in mollusks.
Photoperiodism and Reproduction in Birds
Authors: Bentley George E.
Published: May 2010

This chapter describes mechanisms thought to be involved in the regulation of photoperiodism in birds. It discusses the key hormones involved in avian photoperiodism. Gonadotropins are not discussed per se, as seasonal changes in gonadotropins are regulated as a result of changes in the neuroendocrine photoperiodic machinery and are not thought to participate themselves in the timing of the photoperiodic response. Thus, in a sense, changes in gonadotropins are more a symptom of photoperiodism rather than a cause.
Introduction
Authors: Roger Roger D. , Whittington Miles A.
Published: May 2010

In a previous monograph, the authors described an experimental model of the 40 Hz oscillations produced in vivo by visual stimulation. The model involved tetanic stimulation of one or two sites in a hippocampal slice, and was able to produce synchronized oscillations in the presence of axonal conduction delays. The monograph showed how network simulations and in vitro studies complement each other, for example in elucidating the cellular mechanisms by such long-range synchrony could occur. The present monograph continues this type of research, but focuses on additional sorts of oscillations, many of which depend on gap junctions.
Overview of In Vivo Cortical Oscillations
Authors: Roger Roger D. , Whittington Miles A.
Published: May 2010

brain oscillations occur spontaneously, for example during sleep; as part of evoked responses following specific sensory stimulations; and as a correlate of cognitive and motor processes. In the latter cases, there is evidence that the oscillations are an essential part of the brain computations being performed, motivating study of the basic cellular mechanisms. Cognitively relevant oscillations are often quite fast, above 20 Hz, and even up to several hundred Hz.
Beta-2 Oscillations
Authors: Roger Roger D. , Whittington Miles A.
Published: May 2010

Neuromodulatory substances evoke beta2 oscillations in motor and secondary somatosensory cortex, that depend on gap junctions. In the latter case, the oscillations are only weakly dependent on synaptic transmission. Beta2 is most prominent in intrinsically bursting layer 5 pyramidal cells (some of which are expected to contribute to the pyramidal tract, at least in primates). The oscillation is an emergent phenomenon, in that individual neurons are not oscillators at beta2 frequency. The period is determined in part by the “M” type of K+ current. Oscillations in deep and superficial cortical layers interact with one another. Gap junctions mediating beta2 are probably located on axons.
Epileptiform Discharges In Vitro
Authors: Roger Roger D. , Whittington Miles A.
Published: May 2010

VFO precedes electrographic seizures in vitro, as well as in vivo. The in vitro VFO is gap junction dependent, and is observed most readily in conditions when synaptic transmission is suppressed. One hypothesis as to seizure initiation is that synaptic excitation recovers prior to synaptic inhibition, so that classical synaptically mediated seizure discharges can arise. Epileptiform discharges in vivo can also be preceded by gamma oscillations, and there is an in vitro model in which gamma activity and bursting activity alternates. The alternating activity appears to arise because of use-dependent alterations in synaptic excitation and inhibition.
3 Top-Down and Bottom-Up Models of Judicial Reasoning
Authors: Bartels Brandon L.
Published: May 2010

This essay offers a perspective on how social psychological insights regarding the cognitive processes of judgment can help enrich our understanding of judicial decision making. Such a focus facilitates a greater understanding of a key inquiry in the study of judicial decision making: when ideology and legal considerations will exhibit greater or lesser effects on judges’ choices. I posit a theoretical framework of judging focusing on top-down versus bottom-up reasoning processes. The theoretical perspective is primarily aimed toward explaining decision making by Supreme Court justices, but the arguments are relevant to judges at other levels of the judiciary.
6 The Supreme Court, Social Psychology, and Group Formation
Authors: Devins Neal , Federspiel Will
Published: May 2010

The Justices of the Supreme Court function not just as individuals but also as members of a group. Political science models of Supreme Court decision making, however, focus on the legal and policy goals of individual Supreme Court Justices. By not taking into account what role intra-group dynamics may play in Court decision making, political science models provide an incomplete and inaccurate picture. For example, when there is an ideologically simpatico majority coalition on the Court, the preferences of the Court's median Justice often give way to intra-group preferences. In this chapter, we employ social psychology literature to examine both the importance of and the obstacles to group formation. By comparing differences in decision making of the (largely simpatico) New Dal Court and the (very diverse) Rehnquist Court, we illustrate how social psychology can contribute to an understanding of Supreme Court decision making.
8 Features of Judicial Reasoning
Authors: Sherwin Emily
Published: May 2010

Judges confront rules in two ways, as rule-makers and as rule-followers. When a judge decides a case that is not governed by an existing rule, the judge must formulate a rule of decision and calculate the effects of the rule in future cases. Rule-making is a highly deliberative process, in which the judge must select the rule that will best realize relevant values over the range of cases to which it applies. When a judge decides a case that is governed by a precedent rule, the judge is expected to treat the precedent rule as authoritative. To do this, the judge must follow the rule mechanically, without reflecting on the relationship between the outcome of the rule and the values on which the rule is based. These two tasks — rule-making and rule-following — make different, and possibly conflicting, cognitive demands on judges.
10 Judges, Expertise, and Analogy
Authors: Spellman Barbara A.
Published: May 2010

Political scientists have shown that one can anticipate how a judge will decide a case more often than chance, or a reading of the facts, might allow by using various predictors such as party affiliation, gender, or the judge's own decisions on earlier similar cases. The simplest explanation for such behavior is that judges first decide what they want the outcome of the case to be, then go back to find the precedents that justify their opinions. This chapter considers a more nuanced version of the process: judges may choose relevant case analogies as better or worse, applicable or inapplicable, not because of any particular desired outcome but because of their own pre-existing knowledge. The influence of such knowledge on the decision process may be entirely unconscious; therefore, judges may, in fact, be following the idealized decision-making process to the letter, and be unmotivated toward finding a particular result, yet may usually still reach the predicted result.
12 Every Jury Trial Is a Bench Trial: Judicial Engineering of Jury Disputes
Authors: Rowland C. K. , Traficanti Tina , Vernon Erin
Published: May 2010

For decades virtually every scholarly work on trial judges began by lamenting the unfortunate tendency of students of judicial behavior to concentrate almost exclusively on appellate courts generally and the U.S. Supreme Court in particular. Fortunately, although this imbalance is still present to a degree, a nascent body of research has ameliorated the disparity and enhanced greatly our understanding of civil trial courts, trial judges, and the psychology of trial judging over the last decade. We review this research and conclude, first, that this research collectively suggests a value-based exercise of judicial discretion that may reflect intentional or unintentional bias in trial judging when the dispute involves ideological issues and, second, that when faced with science-based standards, statistical evidence, and other risk-assessment tasks, judges are susceptible to many of the same limits on objectivity and accuracy that plague jurors and all human decision makers faced with difficult judgments.
16 Expertise of Court Judges
Authors: Shanteau James , Dalgleish Len
Published: May 2010

We argue that expert performance is not best understood and assessed in terms of general characteristics applying across all domains. Rather, it should be analyzed in the context of the specific tasks that experts in a particular domain are called on to accomplish. Drawing on a substantial line of research from psychology, we argue that considerable empirical evidence supports this domain-specific view of expert competence, that there are reasons to believe this view holds with respect to court judges, and that, to be as fair and useful as possible, assessments of judicial performance should incorporate this view.
Moral Development and Journalism
Authors: Coleman Renita
Published: May 2010

This chapter looks at how people develop into ethical beings, with special emphasis on Lawrence Kohlberg's moral-development theory. It explores ethical development in the professions, including journalism. Just as medical professionals develop proficiency in areas unique to their work, such as ensuring patient confidentiality and avoiding harm, journalists develop special expertise in such topics as ensuring privacy, avoiding plagiarism and deception, and keeping promises. New journalists find that organizations, codes, and colleagues continue to shape their moral fiber. The chapter also examines the current research on the most important influences on journalists' quality of ethical reasoning. Above and beyond things such as religion and education, moral development for journalists is influenced by factors such as professional autonomy and experience with investigative reporting.
Press Freedom and Responsibility
Authors: Craft Stephanie
Published: May 2010

This chapter proceeds from an American point of view, though many of the issues apply to democratic systems more broadly. First, it explores what democracy needs from the press, what the press requires to meet those needs, and whether, in the United States, the press and democracy are getting what they need. Next, it focuses on the kinds of moral obligations the press might have, given the essential democratic role it plays and the freedom it has to do so. Finally, it considers the future of press freedom and responsibilities in the face of old constraints and new technological realities.
Who Is a Journalist?
Authors: Black Jay
Published: May 2010

Today the majority of individuals who call themselves journalists are not full-time employees of traditional news media; they work (sometimes as freelancers, sometimes without pay) as reporters, videographers and commentators on Weblogs, cable outlets and 'zines, locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. This raises the question of who, then, qualifies as a journalist. This chapter explores the ethical and legal parameters of traditional journalism as historically understood. From this background and analysis, it concludes that the best characterization of “journalist” is rooted in the performative and guided by the ethical: to be a journalist is to engage in particular activities and to perform them ethically.
Is Objective News Possible?
Authors: Figdor Carrie
Published: May 2010

The structure of this chapter is as follows. It briefly explains the nature of objective news and of the debate regarding its possibility. It then assesses the main arguments for the unattainability of objective news. A close examination of these arguments shows that, contrary to widespread belief, journalists who try to provide objective news are not striving in vain. The chapter discusses the effect of competing journalistic aims and other limitations on our efforts to generate objective news. It suggests that the unwarranted skepticism regarding the possibility of objective news is an artifact of the changing priorities of journalists and inadequate journalistic methods, and that the only real issue is how we can better train those journalists who want to generate objective news.
Journalism’s Tangled Web: Business, Ethics, and Professional Practice
Authors: Richards Ian
Published: May 2010

This chapter argues that in a world of global corporations and the globalization of the practice of journalism, journalism ethics has little choice but to become global. This is not straightforward for many reasons, not least because journalism is a culturally established practice that has developed in the particular historical circumstances of each country where it is practiced. However, ethics can be both universal and rooted in particular contexts, and it is possible to accommodate considerable differences. For going global to be effective, it will be necessary for the awareness and appreciation of journalism's primary values to extend beyond journalism practitioners.
The Decline of the News Business
Authors: Edmonds Rick
Published: May 2010

With dismal 2008 results and 2009 expected to be worse still, there was, at the time of this book's publication, no bounce left in the newspaper industry's step. Clearly, newspapers entered a race against time to trim costs as quickly as print advertising revenues were tumbling; more than 15 percent year-to-year as deep recession played out. At the same time, newspaper execs were pressed to experiment to find new, sustaining revenue streams. Success was by no means assured. Serious discussion has began to turn to which prominent metro paper would fail first. Print, some new media critics have said, could be largely a relic by early in the decade beginning 2010. This chapter examines the factors that contributed to this decline.
Understanding and Respecting Privacy
Authors: Gauthier Candace Cummins
Published: May 2010

This chapter addresses the practical conflicts for journalists, their employers, the owners of news organizations, and the public regarding issues of privacy in reporting the news. Privacy will be understood here as control over access to oneself and to certain kinds of information about oneself. First, the chapter discusses the relevant interests of the public, journalists, and news organizations. Then, ethical principles are recommended for considering, discussing, and resolving issues of privacy in journalism. Finally, these principles are applied to news stories and images that invade the privacy of public officials, celebrities, and ordinary citizens.
The Ethical Obligations of News Consumers
Authors: Wyatt Wendy N.
Published: May 2010

This book's ethics theory chapter (Chapter 1) claims that journalism and the public should have a collaborative relationship: “The ideal relationship of journalist and audience is to see them as partners in the project of judging what information is needed, what information responds to common social desires, what enhances autonomy, and what builds community.” This chapter — and most of this book — focuses on the journalist's role in the collaborative relationship. It fleshes out the citizen's side of the partnership: the obligations that audiences have to journalism.
The Ethos of “Getting the Story”
Authors: Plaisance Patrick Lee
Published: May 2010

This chapter discusses some key ethical implications of the mechanics of news work: the moral questions raised in the process of getting the story. These questions necessarily address the individual and sociological dimensions. That is, they deal with both the decision-making processes of individual journalists, and the strong cultural and professional norms and standards in the newsroom that influence journalists' behavior. Other questions address the realm of media effects: what are intended and unintended impacts on audiences, and how might those impacts inform our decisions and judgments about news work? The chapter's thesis is that, done well — ethically well — “getting the story” is an ennobling activity, one that benefits journalism and the public alike.
Visual Ethics: An Integrative Approach to Ethical Practice in Visual Journalism
Authors: Newton Julianne H. , Williams Rick
Published: May 2010

This chapter addresses ethical issues of journalism practice that arise through these processes of visual knowing. It describes an integrative approach to ethics in order to help practitioners and readers develop sound professional and personal guidelines for interpreting and using journalistic images. It argues that the kind of rational, reflective systematic moral analysis (SMA) recommended in this book's opening chapter needs to be supplemented with a method that also focuses on humans' pre-reflective, non-conscious, intuitive cognition and memory. The ultimate goal is to show how an individual's understanding, or “personal truth,” of his or her self story can either hinder or contribute to a more balanced approach to journalism and to a more balanced, sustainable culture.
Law, Economics, and Morality
Authors: Zamir Eyal , Medina Barak
Published: May 2010

Economic analysis of law is a powerful analytical methodology. However, as a purely consequentialist approach, which determines the desirability of acts and rules solely by assessing the goodness of their outcomes, standard cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is normatively objectionable. Moderate deontology prioritizes such values as autonomy, basic liberties, truth-telling, and promise-keeping over the promotion of good outcomes. It holds that there are constraints on promoting the good. Such constraints may be overridden only if enough good (or bad) is at stake. While moderate deontology conforms to prevailing moral intuitions and legal doctrines, it is arguably lacking in methodological rigor and precision. This book examines the possibility of combining economic methodology and deontological morality through explicit and direct incorporation of moral constraints (and options) into economic models. It argues that the normative flaws of economic analysis can be rectified without relinquishing its methodological advantages, and that moral constraints can be formalized so as to make their analysis more rigorous. The book discusses various substantive and methodological choices involved in modeling deontological constraints. It proposes to determine the permissibility of any act or rule infringing a deontological constraint by means of mathematical threshold functions. The book presents the general structure of threshold functions, analyzes their elements, and addresses possible objections to this proposal. It then illustrates the implementation of constrained CBA in several legal fields, including the fight against terrorism, freedom of speech, anti-discrimination law, contract law, and legal paternalism.
The Consequentialist Nature of Economic Analysis
Authors: ZAMIR EYAL , MEDINA BARAK
Published: May 2010

This chapter presents welfare economics and its consequentialist nature. It first discusses the main features of positive and normative economic analysis and the meaning of “consequentialism.” It then analyzes the deontological critique of consequentialism, specifically consequentialism's lack of constraints on attaining the best outcomes. It critically examines various attempts at defending consequentialism in general, and welfare economics in particular, against this critique. It concludes that all of the attempts to downplay, deny, or circumvent the deontological critique are doomed to failure. The responses that come closest to actually addressing the critique do so by endorsing deontological constraints (and options) on the factoral level. They imply that agents and policy-makers should only strive to attain the overall best outcomes subject to constraints and that agents sometimes have options not to attain the best outcomes.
The Fight Against Terrorism
Authors: ZAMIR EYAL , MEDINA BARAK
Published: May 2010

This chapter presents a constrained cost-benefit analysis of measures taken in the fight against terrorism. It begins by characterizing and criticizing existing normative economic analysis of the fight against terrorism as reflecting a simplified ad-hoc balancing. It then presents the central deontological constraints pertaining to the fight on terror. The chapter discusses threshold functions that should be employed in order to determine the permissibility of such measures as targeted killings and torture. It discusses the factors affecting the evaluation of the act's relevant net benefit, and those determining the amount of net benefit required to justify an infringement. It argues that standard economic analysis fails to take into account critical distinctions. These include the distinction between different goals of anti-terrorist measures; the difference between harms the state inflicts through antiterrorist measures, and those resulting from unthwarted terrorist attacks; and the distinction between intended and unintended harm. Deontologically-constrained CBA, which incorporates all of these distinctions, is shown to be methodically workable and normatively superior.
Contract Law
Authors: ZAMIR EYAL , MEDINA BARAK
Published: May 2010

This chapter discusses contract law. Ordinarily, market transactions do not involve infringements of deontological constraints. For this reason (and since they usually involve money or easily monetized goods), standard cost-benefit analysis is particularly apt for analyzing contract law. Nevertheless, it is argued that certain deontological constraints apply to contracting behavior and that combining deontological constraints with economic analysis of contract law, may be fruitful. The chapter briefly surveys the deontological constraints pertinent to contract law and critically examines the standard economic response to them. It then demonstrates how deontological constraints may be integrated with economic analysis of the contracting stage, focusing on the doctrines of mistake and misrepresentation. Last, it highlights the differences between economic and deontological analyses of contract performance and breach, and discusses the difficulties facing integration of deontological constraints with the economic analysis of contract remedies, given the current state of the pertinent theories.
Conclusion
Authors: ZAMIR EYAL , MEDINA BARAK
Published: May 2010

The conclusion briefly summarizes the main argument of the book.
1.2 Physiological Basis of the BOLD Signal
Authors: Goense Jozien , Logothetis Nikos K.
Published: May 2010

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and other non-invasive imaging methods have greatly expanded our knowledge of human brain function. Although MRI was invented in the early 1970s and has been used clinically since the mid-1980s, its use in cognitive neuroscience expanded greatly with the advent of blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) functional imaging, and by now, fMRI is a mainstay of neuroscience research. This chapter gives an overview of the relation between the BOLD signal and the underlying neural signals. It focuses on intracortically recorded neural signals, recorded with microelectrodes.
1.3 Studies of the Human Brain Combining Functional Neuroimaging and Electrophysiological Methods
Authors: Snyder Abraham Z. , Raichle Marcus E.
Published: May 2010

Functional neuroimaging (FNI) techniques, such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), gain access to the activity of the brain through changes in blood flow and metabolism that accompany, with remarkable fidelity, regional changes in the activity of the brain. While the temporal resolution of these techniques falls far below that of the electrophysiological techniques, they do offer full 3D coverage of the human brain at subcentimeter resolution. This chapter focuses on fMRI BOLD imaging, which is now the dominant FNI technique.
2.2 Scanning Strategies for Simultaneous EEG-fMRI Recordings
Authors: Bagshaw Andrew P. , Bénar Christian-G.
Published: May 2010

The simultaneous recording of electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has opened several new perspectives within the field of functional MRI. It allows the detailed temporal and spectral information contained in EEG to be incorporated into the analysis of fMRI signals. In addition, it permits the study of spontaneous brain activity that can only be observed with EEG, such as epileptic spikes, sleep spindles, or alpha waves. However, the price to pay for this technical advance is the deterioration of the quality of both signals, and, in particular, of EEG. This chapter first reviews the pros and cons of sparse and continuous EEG-fMRI. It then introduces advanced recording strategies aimed at improving the quality of EEG within a continuous sampling scheme.
3.3 EEG-Informed fMRI Analysis
Authors: Ullsperger Markus
Published: May 2010

This chapter gives an overview of data integration methods for simultaneous EEG-fMRI, in which EEG features are extracted and used to parametrically model the fMRI data. Up to now, variants of EEG-informed fMRI analysis have been most widely and successfully applied. After a brief discussion of the rationale of this approach, its variants for ongoing and event-related EEG phenomena are explained. Studies applying EEG-informed fMRI are reviewed. The advantage of denoising methods such as independent component analysis allowing single-trial quantifications of the EEG phenomena of interest is discussed. To allow clear interpretations of covariations between electrophysiological and hemodynamic measures, further dependent variables such as behavioral data should be taken into account. The chapter closes with an outlook on future questions and ongoing methodological developments.
3.4 Fusion of EEG and fMRI by Parallel Group ICA
Authors: Calhoun Vince D. , Eichele Tom
Published: May 2010

Independent component analysis (ICA) is increasingly utilized as a tool for evaluating the hidden spatiotemporal structure contained within brain imaging data. This chapter first provides a brief overview of ICA and how ICA is applied to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. It then discusses group ICA and the application of group ICA for data fusion, with an emphasis on the methods developed within our group. It also discusses, within a larger context, the many alternative approaches that are feasible and currently in use.
Self-Control Over Automatic Associations
Authors: Gonsalkorale Karen , Sherman Jeffrey W. , Allen Thomas J.
Published: May 2010

Processes that permit control over automatic impulses are critical to a range of goal-directed behaviors. This chapter examines the role of self-control in implicit attitudes. It is widely assumed that implicit attitude measures reflect the automatic activation of stored associations, whose expression cannot be altered by controlled processes. We review research from the Quad model (Sherman et al., 2008) to highlight the importance of two self-control processes in determining the influence of automatically activated associations. The findings of this research indicate that processes relating to detecting appropriate responses and overcoming associations contribute to performance on implicit attitude measures. These two processes work together to enable self-control of automatic associations; one process detects that control is needed, and the other process overcomes the associations to permit correct behavior. Implications for understanding self-control dilemmas are discussed.
The Power of Planning: Self-Control by Effective Goal-striving
Authors: Gollwitzer Peter M. , Gawrilow Caterina , Oettingen Gabriele
Published: May 2010

As highlighted by Kurt Lewin, goal attainment is not yet secured solely by forming strong commitments to highly desirable and feasible goals. There is always the subsequent issue of implementing a set goal, and one wonders what people can do to enhance their chances of being successful at this second phase of goal pursuit. A promising answer seems to be the following: People may plan out in advance how they want to solve the problems of goal implementation. But what are these problems? There are at least four problems that stand out. These problems include getting started with goal striving, staying on track, calling a halt, and not overextending oneself. We will describe research showing that making if–then plans (i.e., form implementation intentions) on how to deal with these problems indeed facilitates solving the crucial problems of goal implementation. Thereafter, we will ask whether implementation intentions foster goal attainment even under conditions that are commonly viewed as not amenable to self-regulation attempts, such as succeeding on an intelligence test or overcoming spider phobia. Finally, we will report research showing that implementation intentions can even foster goal-striving in those samples (e.g., children with ADHD) that are known to suffer from impaired action control.
Implicit Control of Stereotype Activation
Authors: Moskowitz Gordon B. , Li Peizhong
Published: May 2010

Control typically is conceived of as a set of conscious responses to an activated goal and the subsequent attempts at goal pursuit. Control includes the self-regulatory steps one initiates by conscious willing to address a selected goal and to allow one to pursue that goal. However, these attempts to compensate for a desired end state that is not yet achieved are not limited to conscious acts of deliberation, planning, and the resulting behavior. Implicit cognition plays an important role in preparing the individual to act, in allowing the individual both to detect goal-relevant stimuli in the environment and to process goal-relevant stimuli in a fashion that will facilitate goal achievement and shield one from distractions that could potentially derail attempts at self-control. Such automatic thought includes processes of spreading activation and inhibition as well as attentional selectivity. Evidence in support of such automatic processes of self-control is provided from the domain of stereotype control and the preconscious cognitive operations that result when one attempts to regulate the goal to be egalitarian and non-stereotypic in one's dealings with others.
Ego Depletion and the Limited Resource Model of Self-Control
Authors: Mead Nicole L. , Alquist Jessica L. , Baumeister Roy F.
Published: May 2010

People break diets, procrastinate in the face of looming deadlines, imbibe too much alcohol the night before a midterm, struggle to save money, and lash out at loved ones and family members. They do all these things despite their best intentions not to. Why do people engage in such personally, interpersonally, and socially destructive behaviors? This chapter suggests that a major reason why people fail at self-control is because it relies on a limited resource. We define self-control as the capacity to alter one's responses; it is what enables people to forego the allure of short-term pleasures to institute responses that bring long-term rewards. One of the core functions of self-control may be to facilitate culture, which often requires that people curtail selfishness for the sake of effective group functioning. The first part of the chapter gives an overview of how self-control operates, including the possible biological basis of self-control. It covers a substantial body of literature suggesting that self-control operates on a limited resource, which becomes depleted with use. The second part of the chapter reviews the benefits of good self-control and the costs of bad self-control across a large variety of domains, such as consumption, self-presentation, decision making, rejection, aggression, and interpersonal relationships.
Walking the Line between Goals and Temptations: Asymmetric Effects of Counteractive Control
Authors: Fishbach Ayelet , Converse Benjamin A.
Published: May 2010

Research on counteractive control explores the processes that individuals employ to increase the motivational strength of their high-order goals and decrease the motivational strength of their low-order temptations. In this chapter, we first describe the basic assumption of counteractive control theory: that self-control is an instrumental response to motivational conflicts. People only exercise self-control when a significant conflict is expected between high- and low-order motives. We then describe how self-control operations bolster the motivational strength of goal pursuit via one path and asymmetrically undermine the motivational strength of temptation pursuit via a second path. Next, we discuss the specific self-control strategies, including those that modify the choice situation, shift attainment expectations, and change the psychological representation of choice alternatives. We further distinguish between explicit self-control operations that rely on conscious processing, and implicit operations that do not require explicit consideration. We end with a broader discussion of the conditions under which goals and temptations appear to be in conflict or not.
Seeing the Big Picture: A Construal Level Analysis of Self-Control
Authors: Fujita Kentaro , Trope Yaacov , Liberman Nira
Published: May 2010

People frequently make decisions and act in a manner contrary to their goals and values. These self-control failures are widely prevalent, troubling, and implicated in some of the most pressing social issues, ranging from obesity and addiction to environmentalism and poor financial planning. Given humans' remarkable intellectual and reasoning capacities, why do people fail to express their admirable aims in their everyday lives? This chapter briefly reviews several prominent theoretical accounts that have been proposed to explain self-control failures. It then describes and reviews supporting evidence for an emerging new perspective inspired by construal level theory (Liberman, Trope, & Stephan, 2007; Trope & Liberman, 2003). Drawing from decades of research indicating the central role of people's subjective construals in judgment and decision making (e.g., Griffin & Ross, 1991), we propose that self-control is a construal-dependent phenomenon. That is, whether one chooses to act in a manner consistent with one's global goals and values depends on how one has subjectively interpreted and constructed the event in his or her mind. Construal level theory suggests that people's subjective mental construals can differ in abstractness. Whereas low-level construals highlight the idiosyncratic, incidental, concrete, local features of an event, high-level construals extract the core, central, abstract, and global features. Self-control conflicts occur when the behavioral connotations of these two construals are mutually exclusive. The preferred action depends on which construal people adopt at the time of decision making. This chapter discusses how this proposed construal level perspective relates to extant theoretical perspectives, reviews supporting empirical evidence, and discusses the implications for our understanding of self-control.
From Stimulus Control to Self-Control: Toward an Integrative Understanding of the Processes Underlying Willpower
Authors: Kross Ethan , Mischel Walter
Published: May 2010

Self-control is fundamental to human survival and success in the modern world. Consequently, a critical challenge is to understand the processes that underlie it. The main goal of this chapter is to address this issue to demystify the self-control construct. The chapter begins with the assumption that to make sense of the psychological processes that enable self-control it is first necessary to understand how they operate within the larger cognitive affective processing system guiding people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (Mischel & Shoda, 1995, 1998; Shoda & Mischel, 1998). We begin by briefly describing this system and discussing its value for conceptualizing self-control dynamics. Drawing primarily from research on delay of gratification in children (Mischel, Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989) and recent work that has begun to link this research with findings at the cognitive and neural levels of analysis the chapter then describes the psychological processes that enable people to effectively exert self-control. The second half of the chapter transitions from reviewing prior research on delay of gratification to current work examining how findings revealed from this paradigm generalize to different kinds of situations that require self-control. The chapter concludes by discussing how future research on self-control may benefit from work that bridges different levels of analysis.
Self-Control in Groups
Authors: Levine John M. , Alexander Kira , Hansen Thomas
Published: May 2010

This chapter reviews theoretical and empirical work on self-regulation at the group level of analysis. We examine how groups exert control over their members and how members respond to these control efforts. The first section of the chapter focuses on groups as agents of control. Following a discussion of the functions that groups serve, we examine how groups use norms and roles to control their members. The second section of the chapter focuses on individuals as targets of control. Here we examine two opposing ways in which individuals respond to perceived group pressure: capitulation and resistance. We conclude by examining two implicit assumptions underlying our analysis of group control—that groups initiate control for their own ends and that members view such control as an unwelcome constraint. Using the example of social support groups, we discuss the relationship between self- and group-control when individuals seek group help in regulating their behavior.
Teleological Behaviorism and the Problem of Self-Control
Authors: Rachlin Howard
Published: May 2010

Problems of self-control as well as social cooperation may be seen as conflicts not between internal spiritual or neurological entities, but between highly valued overt behavioral patterns of differing temporal extents or social distances. For example, an alcoholic must choose between having a drink now—valuable in the short run—and being healthy, performing well at work, maintaining satisfying social relationships, etc. —valuable in the long run. The essential question addressed in this chapter is how the latter may come to dominate the former within a person's lifetime. A behavioral evolutionary process is proposed by which valuable temporally or socially extended behavior patterns evolve over an individual lifetime from simpler, shorter patterns. It is argued that complex patterns, such as social cooperation over long periods, arise from simpler patterns in behavioral evolution analogously to the way complex structures, such as the human eye, arise from simpler structures in biological evolution. The idea that complex, long-term behavioral patterns in conflict with short-term patterns, if they are not inherited in toto, must be generated by an internal and autonomous spiritual, neurological, or cognitive process is compared to creationism in biological evolution. The role of delay and social discount functions in measuring the extent of coherent behavioral patterns is explicated. Finally, the chapter examines several implications of teleological behaviorism for practical behavioral control.
The Promise of Preschool
Authors: Rose Elizabeth
Published: May 2010

How did the United States move from seeing preschool as a way to give the nation's poorest children a “head start” to seeing preschool as the beginning of public education for all children? Advocates and policymakers have recently had remarkable success at expanding preschool in many parts of the country, and are gaining support for federal action as well. Yet questions still remain about the best ways to shape policy that will fulfill the promise of preschool. The Promise of Preschool investigates how policy choices in the past forty‐five years—such as the creation of Head Start in the 1960s, efforts to craft a child care system in the 1970s, and the campaign to reform K‐12 schooling in the 1980s—helped shape the decisions that policymakers are now making about early education. In addition to exploring the sources of today's preschool movement, the book also examines policy questions such as, should preschool be provided to all children, or just to the neediest? Should it be run by public schools, or incorporate private child care providers? What are the most important ways to ensure educational quality? By looking at these policy issues through the lens of history, the book offers a unique perspective on this important area of education reform, and explores how an understanding of the past can help spur debate about today's decisions.
Chapter 3 Separate Strands
Authors: Rose Elizabeth
Published: May 2010

The education reform movement of the 1980s drew preschool closer to the world of public education, leading to the spread of public pre‐kindergarten programs. Research on the long‐term benefits of quality preschool for disadvantaged children put preschool education on the national agenda of K‐12 education reform and bolstered the fortunes of the Head Start program. At the same time, advocates also pushed child care back onto the federal agenda, prompting unprecedented political debate over children's policy and securing a new federal commitment to supporting child care for low‐income families. Some reformers urged bringing preschool “into the education tent,” seeing the public K‐12 system as a more secure home for early childhood education. Nevertheless, the relationship between private providers and public school educators was often marked by mistrust and competition.
Chapter 5 Preschool for All
Authors: Rose Elizabeth
Published: May 2010

Inspired by the success of preschool in these states, advocates, foundation leaders, and business allies built a movement for universal preschool. Rather than continuing to push for the expansion of targeted programs like Head Start, they shifted to a universal strategy, believing that a program that served middle‐class families would ultimately build more enduring political support. The involvement of the Pew Charitable Trusts served as a catalyst, pouring funding into selected state campaigns, bringing together different constituencies across the country, and focusing unprecedented attention on pre‐kindergarten as a solution to educational and social problems. Support for expanding preschool relied on a strong research base that documented the promise of preschool for improving the life chances of disadvantaged children. But the movement's vision of providing “preschool for all” was challenged, both by those who preferred to target scarce resources to the neediest children, and by critics who feared increasing government's role in raising children in general.
Chapter 7 Mixed Blessings
Authors: Rose Elizabeth
Published: May 2010

Public preschool is being organized and delivered through a combination of private providers and public schools; several states have opted to build on the patchwork of existing programs, allowing private and community‐based providers as well as schools to deliver pre‐kindergarten. Policymakers in states like New York, New Jersey, Georgia, and Florida have looked for ways to combine, through a mixed public‐private system, the best of both worlds: the universal access, stable funding, and educational standards of public schools, and the flexibility, diversity, and responsiveness to families of existing early childhood programs. However, weaving together these different strands of the early childhood world is a complicated task, requiring that those who shape and implement policy pay careful attention to the details that can strengthen the patchwork on which they rely.
Silencing the Self Across Cultures
Authors: Jack Dana C. , Ali Alisha
Published: May 2010

This international volume offers new perspectives on social and psychological aspects of the complex dynamic of depression. The 21 contributors from 13 countries—Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Haiti, India, Israel, Nepal, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Scotland, and the United States—represent contexts with very different histories, political and economic structures, and gender role disparities. Authors use Silencing the Self theory, which details the negative psychological effects when individuals silence themselves in close relationships and the importance of the social context in precipitating depression. This book breaks new ground by demonstrating that the linkage of depressive symptoms with self-silencing occurs across a range of cultures. Chapters offer evidence regarding why women’s depression is more widespread than men’s and why the treatment of depression lies in understanding that a person’s individual psychology is inextricably related to the social world and to close relationships. Several chapters describe the transformative possibilities of community-driven movements for disadvantaged women that support healing through a recovery of voice, and describe the need for systemic and structural changes to counter violations of human rights as a means of reducing women’s risk of depression. Chapters also discuss health-related aspects of self-silencing, including eating disorders, treatment for cardiovascular disease, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, and self-care for women in cancer treatment. Bringing the work of these researchers together in one collection furthers international dialogue about critical social factors that affect the rising rates of depression around the globe.
Chapter 2 The Social Causes of Women's Depression: A Question of Rights Violated?
Authors: Astbury Jill
Published: May 2010

This chapter explores the relationships between women's depression and various human rights violations that cross cultures. The author contends that a human rights framework should be applied in analyzing factors that precipitate women's depression and that such a framework can expose the social realities that put women's psychological health at risk. Although some social factors have been explored in previous research on women's depression, there has been a lack of research specifically focused on human rights violations as social determinants of depression and related conditions. This chapter describes various types of violations including war-related acts, sexual violence, unjust work practices, and injuries to human dignity to demonstrate the social factors that can assist in explaining women's significantly higher rates of depression as compared with men's. It also provides a framework for examining how self-silencing relates to women's social inequality and human rights violations.
Chapter 5 Women's Self-Silencing and Depression in the Socio-cultural Context of Germany
Authors: Zoellner Tanja , Hedlund Susanne
Published: May 2010

This chapter explores how the construct of self-silencing can contribute to our understanding of the effects of socio-cultural expectations placed on German women. The authors provide historical and social perspectives on the experiences of German women to illustrate the explanatory role of self-silencing theory for depression. The chapter describes German values regarding women's mothering roles (e.g., self-sacrifice and selflessness) and relates those values to risk factors for self-silencing and depression, presenting evidence that the Silencing the Self Scale distinguishes between depressed women, agoraphobic women, and healthy women. The authors also examine self-silencing, attachment styles and effects of violence on depression. They suggest that the experience of violence is an underlying factor for both self-silencing and mental health problems in women, and emphasize the importance of the trend in Germany toward increased public awareness of the damaging effects of violence against women.[Q1]