bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Children and Nature
Authors: Myers Olin Eugene
Published: February 2013

This chapter summarizes current knowledge about children’s relationships to nature. While nature has always been part of childhood, concern about whether it will retain its traditional roles has risen apace with reduced exposure to it in the West. The chapter first examines Western cultural associations between children and nature, then presents contemporary psychological theories and methods used in this field. Key themes from research include that children are losing access to nature and inhabiting it less; that play in nature is varied and shows developmental patterns; that nature provides both powerful positive and negative emotional experiences; and that children are cognitively equipped to understand the living world. Technological simulations of nature may not provide all that real nature provides. This may include a wide range of physical and psychological benefits that are increasingly recognized.
Cities
Authors: Moser Gabriel
Published: February 2013

This chapter considers urban territory as a place where more than half of the world population lives. After an objective description of the perceptions and images associated with a city, the physical and social environmental urban conditions are reviewed and their impact on the behavior and sociability of city dwellers is analyzed. City dwellers have been observed to have specific adaptive behavior patterns and sociability within the constraints imposed by urban stress and the bad conditions of urban life. Current city developments and especially the growing disparity within the population raises the question of the appropriation of the overall urban infrastructure and of a way of living together in cooperative harmony from the standpoint of an urban citizenship, indispensable for the sustained development of the megapoles of today.
School Environments
Authors: Sanoff Henry , Walden Rotraut
Published: February 2013

Education reform has focused primarily on teaching methods and course content. As a result instructional materials have been updated and instructional methods improved. However, what has received too little attention is the physical environment in which education occurs. Highly qualified teachers do not want to work in outdated, unattractive facilities. Parents are much more discerning about which school their child will attend, including the physical appearance of the school and modern technology available. School systems have discovered that schools with “sick” internal physical environments have an adverse effect on student learning and teacher performance. There are a growing number of studies linking student outcomes whose physical environments support the educational process.
Extreme and Unusual Environments: Challenges and Responses
Authors: Suedfeld Peter
Published: February 2013

Extreme environments pose serious danger to human well-being and even survival, an effect that can be exacerbated if the environment is novel (unusual) either to the individual or compared with “normal” environments. In many cases, such environments are deliberately sought out; in others, the individual chooses to encounter situations that have a probability of turning dangerous; in yet others, the extreme environment is entered accidentally or as the result of natural or anthropogenic disaster. For well over a century, the psychological literature has focused on the adverse characteristics and effects of such experiences, but in recent decades observers and researchers have come to be more appreciative of human resilience and coping, and of the positive aspects and consequences of extreme environments.
Noise
Authors: Stansfeld Stephen A. , Clark Charlotte , Crombie Rosanna
Published: February 2013

Noise exposure from air, road and rail transport, construction, and industry is a pervasive environmental pollutant. Noise causes annoyance and sleep disturbance and may interfere with cognitive performance in both children and adults. Generally the stress hypothesis is believed to underlie noise effects on health. Evidence for effects of noise on mental health is mixed. Noise exposure is associated with increased report of psychological symptoms, especially anxiety symptoms, increased prescription of minor tranquilizers and hypnotics, and impairment of well-being in both adults and children. On the other hand, community studies have generally not found increased rates of common mental disorders related to noise exposure. There is a need for methodologically stronger longitudinal studies to definitively address whether noise has more serious mental health effects.
Environmental Injustice, Collaborative Action, and the Inclusionary Shift
Authors: Opotow Susan
Published: February 2013

Psychologists’ environmental work fosters protection of the natural world (e.g., forests, animals, ecosystems) and opposes environmental degradation. Utilizing research on seven activist environmental collaboratives that addressed long-standing environmental and health challenges, this chapter examines moral exclusion in environmental degradation that has disproportionately burdened low-income communities of color for many decades. Research on these projects identifies strategies, activities, and successes of environmental justice collaborations can effect a shift from moral exclusion to moral inclusion. A study of their work, which includes education, research, and outreach, offers a nuanced and activity-based understanding of processes that can foster moral inclusion.
Healthy Physical Activity and Eating: Environmental Supports for Health
Authors: Brown Barbara B. , Werner Carol M.
Published: February 2013

This chapter addresses how objectively rated macro- and micro-level features of the physical environment and residents’ perceptions of the environment support healthy physical activity and eating; these choices in turn relate to environmental health. Environmental qualities such as density, diversity of destinations, and pedestrian-friendly design relate to walking and other activities at both macro- and micro-levels. Perceived walkability sometimes relates to objectively assessed measures but often predicts activity independently as well. Macro environmental factors, such as agricultural practices and food store locations, have important relationships to food availability. Microlevel cues, such as the size of food containers, affect food consumption, often without awareness. Both multiple levels of support and multiple benefits are keys to enabling the macro, micro, and perceptual environments to work in concert to support health. Understanding such systems requires multidisciplinary teams and diverse methodologies. Research is needed at key turning points in life, such as relocation, to make healthier choices easy ones.
The Natural Environment in Residential Settings: Influences on Human Health and Function
Authors: Wells Nancy M. , Rollings Kimberly A.
Published: February 2013

This chapter examines the influences of the natural environment on human health, function, and well-being. We focus primarily on the effects of nature within a residential context and consider a range of outcome variables including physical health and physiological stress; cognitive functioning; psychological or mental health; social interaction; and physical activity and obesity. We consider evidence related to adults as well as youth. Following a review of the evidence, we offer a brief methodological critique and suggest directions for future research.
Learning Our Way Out of Unsustainability: The Role of Environmental Education
Authors: Wals Arjen E. J.
Published: February 2013

In this chapter the role of education in creating a planet that is more sustainable than the one currently in prospect will be discussed from two vantage points: an instrumental one and an emancipatory one. The instrumental perspective emphasizes the potential of education in changing human environmental behavior in predetermined and more or less agreed upon directions. The emancipatory perspective, on the other hand, emphasizes the potential of education in strengthening people’s capacities and confidence to enable them to help determine how to live together in ways that do not further undermine the carrying capacity of the earth. Whereas the former, more behaviorist vantage point tends to have more support among environmentalists with a strong concern about the rapid loss of biodiversity, climate change, depletion of natural resources, and so on, the latter, more human development–oriented vantage point, tends to have more support among educators with a strong concern for self-determination, agency, and democracy. The chapter ends with the introduction of “post-normal” environmental education.
Conclusions: Directions for the Future
Authors: Clayton Susan D.
Published: February 2013

This final chapter builds on the preceding ones to review the current state and future prospects of environmental and conservation psychology. Areas of shared coverage and common interest are identified, including an emphasis on interdisciplinarity, applicability, and person-in-context and a set of key theories that are utilized by many of the authors. Some directions for methodological development are identified. I conclude that environmental and conservation psychology represent different but interdependent and highly overlapping approaches to the study of people in environments.
Rehabilitation Psychology: Introduction, Review, and Background
Authors: Kennedy Paul
Published: February 2013

This chapter provides an overview of the different areas of rehabilitation psychology addressed in this book. Rehabilitation psychology is a growing field in professional practice; it involves the application of psychological knowledge and skills to the understanding and treatment of individuals with physical disabilities, with the aim of optimizing outcomes in terms of health, independence, and daily functioning, and of minimizing secondary health complications. Several conceptual frameworks of disability and their relation to clinical practice are discussed. These include the biopsychosocial model (Engel, 1980), in which a combination of biological, social, and psychological factors contribute to physical health and illness; the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health; the integrated framework of Wright (1960, 1983); Trieschmann's (1988) model, based on her work on spinal cord injuries; and the ABC model of rehabilitation psychology (Cox et al., 2010). The chapter ends with an overview of this book's remaining chapters.
Psychological Models in Rehabilitation Psychology
Authors: Rath Joseph F. , Elliott Timothy R.
Published: February 2013

Rehabilitation psychology depends upon a broad theoretical base incorporating frameworks, theories, models, and methodologies from many different areas of psychology, as well as from other professions invested in the health and rehabilitation of persons living with disabilities and chronic health conditions. This chapter considers some illustrative models that have been influential in rehabilitation psychology—both historically and in the present—including the biopsychosocial model, and psychological models derived from learning theory and behavior modification, psychoanalytic theory, social psychology, neuropsychology, and cognitive-behavioral theory. The current status of these models, their impact on current clinical practice, and future directions—including the role of dynamic models sensitive to differential trajectories of growth, adjustment, and development over time—will be discussed.
Organization and Planning in Person-Centered Hospital-Based Rehabilitation Services
Authors: Smithson Emilie F. , Kennedy Paul
Published: February 2013

Improvements in medical care, advanced methods of detection, and innovations in pharmacological treatment have led to decreased mortality rates following traumatic injury and increased life expectancies for people living with long-term health conditions. Recent years have seen a conversion of views from the medical and social fields as a growing body of research highlighted links among biological, psychological, and social aspects of chronic illness. In a step back from the medical model that dominated hospital care for so long, clinicians began to consider how individual differences inherent to the patient can impact on treatment, adherence, and motivation. Psychological theory has provided an ideal framework on which to structure the provision of person-centered rehabilitation and to engage the patient in taking responsibility and ownership of treatment plans under the guidance of specialists in the field.

This chapter discusses issues pertinent to the organization and delivery of person-centered rehabilitation services, the theories underlying the approach, the challenges faced by hospital-based rehabilitation services, and future directions through which the provision of rehabilitation care can continue to improve.
An Emerging Role for the Rehabilitation Psychologist in Community Rehabilitation Service Delivery
Authors: Ravesloot Craig , Seekins Tom
Published: February 2013

Most people with disabilities have used community services to meet their needs as they engage the community for work and leisure. These services include independent living, vocational, health care and educational services. Some individuals depend on these services to participate as full citizens in the community, and, without them, would be institutionalized. As rehabilitation evolves toward an ecological model that recognizes participation as the ultimate goal, the rehabilitation psychologist is uniquely positioned to maximize these outcomes. Working in a traditional role, the rehabilitation psychologist can make knowledgeable referrals to community services that improve participation outcomes. Working in a new role that we label “community rehabilitation psychologist,” psychologists may use community psychology concepts and methods to deliver “treatments” at the community level, to make the local community accessible to the full participation of all people with disabilities.
Traumatic Brain Injury
Authors: Tate Robyn L.
Published: February 2013

This chapter provides an overview of the current clinical and research literature on traumatic brain injury (TBI), as it pertains to rehabilitation psychology. The background context is provided first, describing the epidemiology of TBI, mechanisms of the injury, recovery process, and outcome. The section concludes with the role of assessment in rehabilitation, drawing on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health. The next section focuses on the psychological rehabilitation of TBI, initially by describing principles of evidence-based clinical practice and resources such as PsycBITE (http://www.psycbite.com) to facilitate rapid identification of relevant research and critical appraisal. Inpatient and community models of rehabilitation are described, and the final section of the chapter reports results of systematic reviews on the types and effectiveness of interventions for cognitive, behavioral, and emotional disorders commonly encountered after TBI.
Ethics in Psychology: Expanding Horizons
Authors: Kerkhoff Thomas R. , Hanson Stephanie L.
Published: February 2013

This chapter considers ongoing challenges in applied health care ethics from an international perspective. The nature of these challenges focuses upon fundamental ethical processes such as clinical and surrogate decision-making and informed consent, considers duty to provide care in difficult circumstances, discusses issues involved in health care research, and moves into the realm of applying technological advances. Additionally, consideration of cultural diversity presents serious issues of relevance in attempting to apply ethical concepts within the Western philosophical tradition. Finally, we consider the emerging professional competence movement within psychology and the role of ethics in developing and maintaining functional practice competencies.
The Expert Patient and the Self-Management of Chronic Conditions and Disabilities
Authors: Meade Michelle A. , Cronin Linda A.
Published: February 2013

Expert patient refers to the inherent knowledge that individuals living with disabilities or chronic conditions have about their condition, its impact on their life, and what decisions they feel comfortable making. Self-management refers to the ability of these individuals to manage their health and its physical and psychosocial consequences. However, just because an individual has a chronic condition or disability does not imply that they have expertise in dealing with it, and, in fact, some chronic conditions result from difficulty in performing health management behaviors. This chapter reviews some of the theories, programs, components, and issues that inform or support the development of self-management skills. At the end, the various roles that rehabilitation psychologists may take in supporting the development and application of self-management skills are discussed.
Rehabilitation Psychology and Global Health
Authors: MacLachlan Malcolm
Published: February 2013

This chapter considers the role of rehabilitation psychology in the context of global health. It begins by reviewing the relationship between rehabilitation psychology and disability, public health, and global health. We then consider the situation of people with disabilities in low-income countries. Having described the scale of the difficulties facing rehabilitation within the broader context of global health, we then explore the international aid and development “architecture”—the organizations and policies—that seek to assist people with disabilities in low-income countries. Given the scale of the demand and the resources available to address them, much of the rehabilitation psychology–related work undertaken has been at the level of policy, systems strengthening, and organizational development, rather than at the level of individual interventions. We review work on improving access to health care, on how the human resources for the health crisis affects rehabilitation in low-income countries, and how advocacy and networking are being used to provide a stronger and more effective evidence base for addressing the challenges facing people with disabilities in low-income countries in general, and Africa in particular. Finally, we consider how rehabilitation psychology can address content, process, and context challenges of working in low- income countries and suggest that closer collaboration with the emerging field of humanitarian work psychology may be fruitful.
Microinsurance: A Case Study of the Indian Rainfall Index Insurance Market
Authors: Giné Xavier , Menand Lev , Townsend Robert W. , Vickery James
Published: February 2013

Efforts have been made in India and other countries in recent years to develop formal insurance markets to improve diversification of weather-related income shocks. This article aims to survey the features of one of these markets, the Indian rainfall index insurance market. “Index insurance” refers to a contract whose payouts are linked to a publicly observable index; in this case, the index is cumulative rainfall recorded on a local rain gauge during different phases of the monsoon season. This form of insurance is now available at a retail level in many parts of India, although these markets are still in their relative infancy in terms of product design and distribution.
Informal Sector and the Developing World: Relating Theory and Evidence to India
Authors: Marjit Sugata , Kar Saibal
Published: February 2013

This article aims to account for the pattern of structural transformation seen in the Indian economy during the period 1970–2007. It develops a three-sector general equilibrium model consisting of agriculture, industry, and services. Output in each sector is produced using capital, labor, and land (in agriculture). The production function in each sector is assumed to be Cobb-Douglas, and different values of capital and labor shares are allowed for as well as different growth rates of total factor productivity (TFP) across the sectors. Using sectoral data, sector-specific TFP growth rates are calculated which are fed exogenously into the model with the objective of examining the model's performance with respect to the evolution of sectoral value-added shares as well as sectoral employment shares over the sample period.
Domestic Financial Sector Reforms
Authors: Gangopadhyay Subhashis , Shanthi S. K.
Published: February 2013

This article discusses domestic financial sector reforms in India since 1991. It discusses banking sector reforms at length and argues that although Indian financial markets have increased their efficiency in the postreform phase, India still needs to develop an active and more dynamic bond market and make the bankruptcy market more efficient. This article also discusses the global financial crisis of 2007–2009 and how Indian financial markets behaved during that time. This crisis was especially significant because this was the first time that a liberalized Indian financial market was facing an external shock. The article suggests that the chain of causation during the crisis was more from the real sector to the financial sector rather than the other way round (as in the United States). The article discusses what form financial regulation will take going into the future.
Knowledge Representation
Authors: Markman Arthur B.
Published: February 2013

Theories in psychology make implicit or explicit assumptions about the way people store and use information. The choice of a format for knowledge representation is crucial, because it influences what processes are easy or hard for a system to accomplish. In this chapter, I define the concept of a representation. Then, I review three broad types of representations that have been incorporated into many theories. Finally, I examine proposals for the role of body states in representation as well as proposals that the concept of knowledge representation has outlived its usefulness.
Analogy and Relational Reasoning
Authors: Holyoak Keith J.
Published: February 2013

Analogy is an inductive mechanism based on structured comparisons of mental representations. It is an important special case of role-based relational reasoning, in which inferences are generated on the basis of patterns of relational roles. Analogical reasoning is a complex process involving retrieval of structured knowledge from long-term memory, representing and manipulating role-filler bindings in working memory, identifying elements that play corresponding roles, generating new inferences, and learning abstract schemas. For empirical analogies, analogical inference is guided by causal knowledge about how the source analog operates. Simpler types of relation-based transfer can be produced by relational priming. Human analogical reasoning is heavily dependent on working memory and other executive functions supported by the prefrontal cortex, with the frontopolar subregion being selectively activated when multiple relations must be integrated to solve a problem.
Cognitive Hierarchies and Emotions in Behavioral Game Theory
Authors: Camerer Colin F. , Smith Alec
Published: February 2013

Until recently, game theory was not focused on cognitively plausible models of choices in human strategic interactions. This chapter describes two new approaches that do so. The first approach, cognitive hierarchy modeling, assumes that players have different levels of partially accurate representations of what others are likely to do, which vary from heuristic and naïve to highly sophisticated and accurate. There is reasonable evidence that this approach explains choices (better than traditional equilibrium analysis) in dozens of experimental games and some naturally occurring games (e.g., a Swedish lottery, auctions, and consumer reactions to undisclosed quality information about movies). Measurement of eye tracking and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activity during games is also suggestive of a cognitive hierarchy. The second approach, psychological games, allows value to depend upon choice consequences and on beliefs about what will happen. This modeling framework can link cognition and emotion, and express social emotions such as “guilt.” In a psychological game, guilt is modeled as the negative emotion of knowing that another person is unpleasantly surprised that your choice did not benefit her (as she had expected). Our hope is that these new developments in a traditionally cognitive field (game theory) will engage interest of psychologists and others interested in thinking and social cognition.
The Human Enigma
Authors: Penn Derek C. , Povinelli Daniel J.
Published: February 2013

Why is there such an enormous gap between human and nonhuman minds? Humans have been asking themselves this question for millennia. But if anything, the question has only become more enigmatic since Darwin and the genetic revolution. In the present chapter, we review the various answers that have been proposed to this question in recent years—from a “language instinct” and a “Theory of Mind” to the “massively modular” hypothesis—and argue that none of them provides a satisfactory solution to the enigma of the human mind.
Development of Quantitative Thinking
Authors: Opfer John E. , Siegler Robert S.
Published: February 2013

For understanding development of quantitative thinking, the distinction between nonsymbolic and symbolic thinking is fundamental. Nonsymbolic quantitative thinking is present in early infancy, culturally universal, and similar across species. These similarities include the ability to represent and compare numerosities, the representations being noisy and increasing logarithmically with actual quantity, and the neural correlates of number representation being distributed in homologous regions of frontoparietal cortex. Symbolic quantitative thinking, in contrast, emerged recently in human history, differs dramatically across cultural groups, and develops over many years. As young children gain experience with symbols in a given numeric range and associate them with nonverbal quantities in that range, they initially map them to a logarithmically-compressed mental number line and later to a linear form. This logarithmic-to-linear shift expands children's quantitative skills profoundly, including their ability to estimate positions of numbers on number lines, to estimate measurements of continuous and discrete quantities, to categorize numbers by size, to remember numbers, and to estimate and learn answers to arithmetic problems. Thus, while nonsymbolic quantitative thinking is important and foundational for symbolic numerical capabilities, the capacity to represent symbolic quantities offers crucial cognitive advantages.
Gesture in Thought
Authors: Goldin-Meadow Susan , Wagner Cook Susan
Published: February 2013

The spontaneous gestures that speakers produce when they talk about a task reflect aspects of the speakers' knowledge about that task, aspects that are often not found in the speech that accompanies the gestures. But gesture can go beyond reflecting a speaker's current knowledge—it frequently presages the next steps the speaker will take in acquiring new knowledge, suggesting that gesture may play a role in cognitive change. To investigate this hypothesis, we explore the functions gesture serves with respect to both communication (the effects gesture has on listeners) and cognition (the effects gesture has on speakers themselves). We also explore the mechanisms that underlie the production of gesture, and we provide evidence that gesture has roots in speech, visuospatial thinking, and action. Gesturing is not merely hand waving, nor is it merely a window into the mind. It can affect how we think and reason and, as such, offers a useful tool to both learners and researchers.
Impact of Aging on Thinking
Authors: McGillivray Shannon , Friedman Michael C. , Castel Alan D.
Published: February 2013

This chapter discusses the impact of aging on judgment and decision making, problem solving, reasoning, induction, memory, and metacognition, as well as the influence of expertise, training, and wisdom. In addition, the chapter presents theories of cognitive aging and addresses the ways in which changing goals (such as emotional goals) in old age can alter the processes and outcomes associated with cognitive operations. There is a wealth of research documenting age-related cognitive declines and impairments in areas such as decision making, reasoning, problem solving, category learning, and memory. However, in addition to addressing the potential difficulties older adults may experience when performing demanding cognitive operations, this chapter also examines certain situations and variables that have been shown to lessen or ameliorate age-related differences in performance. Lastly, the impact of training, expertise, and wisdom are discussed as they relate to successful cognitive aging.
Legal Reasoning
Authors: Spellman Barbara A. , Schauer Frederick
Published: February 2013

The legal profession has long claimed that there are process-based differences between legal reasoning—that is, the thinking and reasoning of lawyers and judges—and the reasoning of those without legal training. Whether those claims are sound, however, is a subject of considerable debate. We describe the importance in the legal system of using categorization and analogy, following rules and authority, and the odd task of “fact finding.” We frame these topics within the debate between two views of legal reasoning: the traditional view—that when deciding a case, judges are doing something systematic and logical that only legally trained minds can do; and the Legal Realist view—that judges reason in much the same way as ordinary people do, and that they first come to conclusions and then go back to justify them with the law rather than using the law to produce their conclusions in the first place.
Psychopharmacology of Personality Disorders
Authors: Silk Kenneth R. , Feurino Louis
Published: February 2013

The purpose of this chapter is to review the literature concerning the psychopharmacology of personality disorders. We first review the double-blind placebo-controlled pharmacologic studies of all the personality disorders, except for borderline personality disorder (BPD). Attention is then focused on BPD. While there have been many open-labeled studies, there are fewer than 30 randomized-controlled trials even for this personality disorder. The section on borderline personality disorder will conclude with guidance as to how to think about the management of the actual pharmacologic treatment of this disorder, including matters such as dosage, lethality, augmentation, and avoiding polypharmacy. We conclude with a discussion of the obstacles hampering the development of a more substantial database that could provide guidance and direction.
Mentalization-Based Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder
Authors: Bateman Anthony W. , Fonagy Peter
Published: February 2013

An outline of the developmental origins of mentalizing and its relevance to borderline personality disorder is provided. Mentalizing, a capacity to understand intentions of oneself and others in terms of mental states, develops in the context of attachment relationships. Disruption of the attachment relationship due to psychological trauma leads to a vulnerability in adulthood to a loss of mentalizing in the context of interpersonal interaction, which is a core problem for people with borderline personality disorder. Treatment requires a focus on mentalizing, and mentalization-based treatment has been developed with the aim of helping patients improve their ability to maintain mentalizing in the face of emotional stimulation in the context of close relationships. The treatment has been subjected to research trials and shown to be effective in reducing many of the symptoms of borderline personality disorder when implemented by generic mental health professionals with limited specialist training.
Songs of Japanese Schoolchildren during World War II
Authors: Manabe Noriko
Published: February 2013

This article examines the songs that Japanese schoolchildren learned during World War II and their impact on children’s lives. These songs were filled with propaganda such as Japan’s superiority over other nations, the glory of dying for the country, and the joys of working in weapons factories. The study addresses questions such as: what values were these songs reinforcing? What behaviors were being encouraged? What legacy did they leave in the minds of the children who sang them, after the war had ended? Personal stories were obtained from individuals who attended elementary school during World War II. It is shown that the children who grew up during the war internalized the values promoted by these wartime songs and acted upon them as adults; they also passed it on to their own children.
Socio-Cognitive Specializations in Nonhuman Primates: Evidence from Gestural Communication
Authors: Cartmill Erica A. , Maestripieri Dario
Published: February 2013

This chapter reviews primate cognitive abilities in physical, social, and communicative realms and asks (1) whether primates exhibit abilities that differ from those of other animals, and (2) what selective pressures primates face that may have led to the emergence of specific cognitive abilities. The authors focus on communication as the most likely realm for primate cognitive specialization and on the gestural communication of great apes as the modality in which primates exhibit the most advanced cognitive abilities. Findings from studies of natural communication systems of both wild and captive primates as well as studies involving communication with human experimenters are presented and discussed. Apes demonstrate flexibility, learning, and sensitivity to social cues in their gestural communication, but further studies are needed to determine how gestures are acquired and how they are perceived. Studies of comparative development of gestural communication and social cognition have the greatest potential to reveal the cognitive abilities used during gesturing, and they will help to determine whether those abilities are truly specializations for communication.
The Phylogeny and Ontogeny of Prosocial Behavior
Authors: Silk Joan B. , House Bailey R.
Published: February 2013

Humans rely on cooperation among large numbers of unrelated group members to a much greater extent than any other animals do. Moreover, most people have social preferences that motivate them to feel concern for the welfare of others and take advantage of opportunities to behave altruistically toward others. This raises two important questions: Are differences in the form, extent, and scope of cooperation among humans and other primates associated with differences in the nature of their social preferences? How do social preferences unfold over the course of development in humans? Here, we review a growing body of research that addresses these two questions. We focus on a set of experiments that were inspired by research in behavioral economics. In these experiments, subjects are presented with choices that have different material payoffs for themselves and others, and the choices that subjects make reveal their underlying preferences. This work is allowing researchers to begin to map out the phylogeny and ontogeny of social preferences in humans and other primates.
Comparative Evolutionary Perspectives on Violence
Authors: Newton-Fisher Nicholas E. , Thompson Melissa Emery
Published: February 2013

Perhaps more than for any other human behavior, the evolutionary heritage of violence has been the subject of vigorous debate: whether shared patterns of intraspecific aggression between humans and other species doom us to a bloody existence. This chapter reviews intraspecific aggression and violence among mammalian species, focusing on primates. It highlights three themes: (1) aggression is a part of everyday life for most social animals, (2) the vast majority of conflicts in animal societies are of low intensity, and (3) there are extraordinary examples within the broad spectrum of aggressive behaviors seen in nonhumans that conform to even the most anthropocentric definitions of violence. To illustrate this third theme, the chapter reviews violence in chimpanzees, the extant species most closely related to humans and that, next to humans, exhibits the most spectacularly gruesome and varied aggressive repertoire in mammals.
Evolutionary Perspectives on Male-Male Competition, Violence, and Homicide
Authors: Kruger Daniel J. , Fitzgerald Carey J.
Published: February 2013

Aggression and violence are common elements of male mating competition across animal species. The level of violence across species, across human populations, and across individuals within societies corresponds with the intensity of male mating competition. In humans, peak rates of violence and homicide occur as males reach reproductive maturity and contest directly for mates, as well as for the social status and resources that facilitate attraction of prospective partners. In modern societies, levels of mortality from violence decrease considerably as males marry, start families, and undergo a life history shift from mating effort to paternal investment. In other societies, especially those with extended male fertility from additional sequential and/or simultaneous mating partners, risky behaviors including violence persist at higher levels throughout adulthood. Across species, those with higher degrees of male reproductive inequality (polygyny) have higher rates of violence and male mortality. There is a parallel pattern for the degree of polygyny across human populations, as well as for the degree of inequality in social status and resource holdings that are historically tied to male reproductive success. Temporal fluctuations in social stressors such as higher extrinsic mortality and higher socioeconomic inequality also elevate rates of violent behavior and mortality from homicide within societies. Androgen production mirrors the pattern of risky and violent male behavior across the life span, indicating a physiological basis in the mechanisms underlying male sexuality.
Women and Aggression
Authors: Campbell Anne , Cross Catharine
Published: February 2013

Sex differences in aggression can be traced ultimately to sex differences in parental investment. Higher variance in reproductive success in men, resulting from lower parental investment, creates incentives for competition to achieve intrasexual dominance, while women's greater investment and role in caring for offspring creates costs for dangerous confrontations. Data suggest that, at a proximal psychological level, sex differences in fear, but not anger, mediate involvement in aggression. Although biparental care brings with it two-way sexual selection, female competition is chiefly conducted either intersexually (through the display of qualities attractive to men) or through indirect aggression (gossip and social exclusion), both of which are low-risk strategies. Under resource scarcity, competition between women can escalate to direct confrontation, but even then the severity of aggression is lower than that of men. Women and men are equal in the frequency of aggressive acts directed at intimate partners, which poses an explanatory problem for any theory of sex differences in aggression. We propose that the fear reduction in women necessary to permit sexual intimacy, possibly mediated by oxytocin, also diminishes women's normal restraint on aggressive behavior.
If, When, and Why Adolescent Bullying Is Adaptive
Authors: Volk Anthony , Camilleri Joseph A. , Dane Andrew , Marini Zopito
Published: February 2013

Adolescent bullying appears to be a cross-cultural, worldwide phenomenon. A substantial literature has addressed this phenomenon due to the important implications bullying presents for adolescents. The ubiquity of bullying, along with its heritability, suggests the possibility that some bullying may be the result of evolved adaptations. Unfortunately, the bullying literature has failed to formally examine this possibility in depth. The current chapter is an effort to redress this situation as we look at if, when, and why adolescent bullying is adaptive. We find significant evidence for the functionality of modern bullying and the absence of psychopathologies typically associated with maladaptive development, supporting the claim that bullying may be an evolved adaptation. Evidence from hunter-gatherers and historical data further support this claim. We examine the individual differences, contextual factors, and developmental pathways that may lead to bullying being an important, functional, adaptive behavior among adolescents. We end the chapter with a discussion of the implications an adaptive view of bullying has for intervention, research, and adolescents.
A Feminist Evolutionary Analysis of the Relationship Between Violence Against and Inequitable Treatment of Women, and Conflict Within and Between Human Collectives, Including Nation-States
Authors: Hudson Valerie M. , den Boer Andrea M.
Published: February 2013

In this chapter we examine the theoretical linkage between the security of women and the security of states, drawing insights from evolutionary biology and psychology, political sociology, and psychology. A feminist evolutionary approach demonstrates the way in which male reproductive interests can and often do lead to strategies of sexual coercion of females, including violence. That violence can be directed at other males and other groups as male dominance hierarchies develop a parasitical approach to resource accumulation, involving coalitional aggression against outgroups in order to strip such groups of their resources. The mitigation of male dominance hierarchies is thus, we argue, key to the mitigation of dysfunctional, conflictual intergroup relations. We illustrate the effects of male dominance and structural patriarchy through an examination of polygyny and through historical cases before finally discussing strategies for mitigating male dominance hierarchies.
Band of Brothers or Band of Siblings?: An Evolutionary Perspective on Sexual Integration of Combat Forces
Authors: Browne Kingsley R.
Published: February 2013

Sexual integration of combat forces presents underappreciated challenges. Sex differences in physical capacity remain important in modern warfare, and the sexes also differ in combat-relevant psychological traits, including risk taking and aggressiveness. Moreover, group dynamics have consequences for unit cohesion and combat performance. Men more easily participate in coalitions organized to mete out violence, a tendency enhanced in the presence of intergroup competition. Men's coalitions require lower levels of investment and can persist for longer in the face of within-group conflict than women's coalitions. Combat units rely on cohesion to enable performance, and introduction of women tends to reduce cohesion because, among other reasons, men often find it difficult to trust women. The attributes that soldiers value in comrades are ones that would have been important for primitive warriors, including strength, physical courage, and other aspects of masculinity, which may mean that women cannot evoke trust in their male comrades the way other men can.
The Extremes of Conflict in Literature: Violence, Homicide, and War
Authors: Carroll Joseph
Published: February 2013

Literature depicts emotions arising from conflict and makes them available to readers, who experience them vicariously. Literary meaning lodges itself not in depicted events alone but also, and more importantly, in the interpretation of depicted events: in the author's treatment of the depicted events; the reader's response to both the depicted events and the author's treatment; and the author's anticipation of the reader's responses. This chapter outlines possible stances toward violence, makes an argument for the decisive structural significance of violence in both life and literature, and then presents a representative sampling of violent acts in literature. The examples from literature are organized into the main kinds of human relationships: one's relation to oneself (suicide); sexual rivals, lovers, and marital partners; family members (parents, children, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins); communities (violence within social groups); and warfare (violence between social groups).
Why Religion Is Unable to Minimize Lethal and Nonlethal Societal Dysfunction Within and Between Nations
Authors: Paul Gregory S.
Published: February 2013

The widely held premise that godly religion is important if not critical to maximizing the socioeconomic success of societies while suppressing criminal violence and war is undergoing growing historical and scientific scrutiny. Research indicates that theism is not reliably efficacious even when moderate or progressive, and often contributes to societal dysfunction and war when it is conservative or reactionary in nature. Theism cannot be part of the solution because theism is popular only when socioeconomic conditions are sufficiently defective to compel the majority to relieve their chronic anxiety by petitioning supernatural forces for aid and protection. The most successful and pacific societies in history have been the most nontheistic modern democracies, in part because a high level of secure prosperity always suppresses mass religion. So rather than being universal and integral to human psychology, religious supernaturalism is superficial and elective, and it is poorly developed even in some hunter-gatherers. The best human option is atheistic liberal democracy.
Peace and the Human Animal: Toward Integration of Comparative Evolutionary Psychology and Peace Studies
Authors: Dess Nancy K.
Published: February 2013

Peace is arguably the problem of the 21st century. Peacefulness is not uniquely human, but a dearth of it among humans disproportionately threatens people and other animals around the globe. The urgent need for peace—if not immediately, everywhere, at any cost, then soon, as a pervasive norm—coincides with unprecedented scholarly attention to peace and to the implications of evolution for psychological functioning in the context of complex sociality. The time is ripe to integrate evolutionary perspectives into peace studies. Toward that end, this chapter describes potential impediments to an evolutionary peace project, provides a basic lexical and conceptual tool kit, and identifies some promising research directions.
An International Perspective on Ethics Codes for Psychology: A Focus on Test Development and Use
Authors: Oakland Thomas , Leach Mark M. , Bartram Dave , Lindsay Geoff , Smedler Ann-Charlotte , Zhang Houcan
Published: February 2013

The purpose of this chapter is to describe and discuss the international status of ethics codes and other documents that address test development and use in light of fundamental characteristics of such codes. The selection of issues associated with test development and use to assist in a discussion of ethics codes was due, in part, to the early onset and international nature of their development and use. Models of ethics codes and documents are examined, including similarities and differences in their emphasis on principles and standards, as well as professionals impacted by a code. Test issues are discussed in light of codes and documents that apply to individual countries, a regional code for countries that have considerable diversity, a regional code for countries that have considerable cultural consistency, and internationally. Information in this article may assist national psychological associations engaged in developing or revising their ethics codes.