Media representation of and for the disabled has been recharged in recent years with the expansion of new media worldwide. Interactive digital communications -- such as the Interact, new varieties of voice and text telephones, and digital broadcasting -- have created a need for a more innovative understanding of new media and disability issues. This engaging analysis offers a global perspective on how people with disabilities are represented as users, consumers, viewers, or listeners of new media, by policymakers, corporations, programmers, and the disabled themselves.
Converging findings suggest that depressed individuals exhibit disturbances in positive emotion. No study, however, has ascertained which specific positive emotions are implicated in depression. We report two studies that compare how depressive symptoms relate to distinct positive emotions at both trait and state levels of assessment. In Study 1 (N=185), we examined associations between depressive symptoms and three trait positive emotions (pride, happy, amusement). Study 2 compared experiential and autonomic reactivity to pride, happy, and amusement film stimuli between depressive (n=24; DS) and non-depressive (n=31; NDS) symptom groups. Results indicate that symptoms of depression were most strongly associated with decreased trait pride and decreased positive emotion experience to pride-eliciting films. Discussion focuses on the implications these findings have for understanding emotion deficits in depression as well as for the general study of positive emotion.
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Guided by appraisal-based models of the influence of emotion upon judgment, we propose that disgust moralizes--that is, amplifies the moral significance of--protecting the purity of the body and soul. Three studies documented that state and trait disgust, but not other negative emotions, moralize the purity moral domain but not the moral domains of justice or harm/care. In Study 1, integral feelings of disgust, but not integral anger, predicted stronger moral condemnation of behaviors violating purity. In Study 2, experimentally induced disgust, compared with induced sadness, increased condemnation of behaviors violating purity and increased approval of behaviors upholding purity. In Study 3, trait disgust, but not trait anger or trait fear, predicted stronger condemnation of purity violations and greater approval of behaviors upholding purity. We found that, confirming the domain specificity of the disgust-purity association, disgust was unrelated to moral judgments about justice (Studies 1 and 2) or harm/care (Study 3). Finally, across studies, individuals of lower socioeconomic status (SES) were more likely than individuals of higher SES to moralize purity but not justice or harm/care.
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Law enforcement personnel (LEPs) experience occupational stressors that can result in poor health outcomes and have a negative impact on the communities they serve. Dispositional mindfulness, or receptive awareness and attention to present moment experience, has been shown to negatively predict perceived stress and to moderate the relationship between stressors and negative stress-related outcomes. The current study is an investigation of the moderating role of specific facets of dispositional mindfulness (i.e., nonreactivity, nonjudging, and acting with awareness) in the relationship between occupational stressors and perceived stress in a sample of LEPs. As hypothesized, nonreactivity significantly moderated the relationship between operational stressors and perceived stress, such that LEPs low in nonreactivity exhibited a significant relationship between stressors and perceived stress, whereas those high in nonreactivity did not. Nonjudging also moderated the relationship between organizational stressors and perceived stress; however, unexpectedly, LEPs high in nonjudging evidenced a significant relationship between stressors and perceived stress, whereas those low in nonjudging did not. Potential implications of these findings for LEP stress reduction interventions are discussed.
Recent research has begun to distinguish between various aspects of self-report measures of mindfulness, including the distinction between mindful process and outcome. Therefore, our primary goal in this study was to examine whether an increase in mindful outcome mediated the relationship between an increase in mindful process and improvements in mental and physical health and perceived stress among mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) participants. Consistent with expectations, we found that changes in mindful outcome partially mediated relationships between changes in mindful process and two outcomes: mental health and perceived stress (but not physical health). Moreover, as expected, in an alternate model, changes in mindful outcome did not facilitate changes in mindful process and improvements in any of the outcome variables. The implications and limitations of these findings, as well as recommendations for future research, are discussed.
Human impacts on the Earth system mark the dawn of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. This claim has triggered a debate in science, media, and politics in which ‘humanity’ as a whole is commonly identified as the driving force of epochal environmental change. The historically and geographically specific expansion of capitalist society-nature relations and the associated social differentiation have led to persistent social inequalities, challenging the assumption of humanity as a homogenous driver. Based on a review of social and political ecology literature, we propose a differentiated research agenda focusing on drivers of accelerating resource use in the Anthropocene. As many current governance instruments replicate and reinforce these drivers, such a research agenda can offer crucial insights for sustainability transformations.
Background
Behavioral paradigms applied during human recordings in electro- and magneto- encephalography (EEG and MEG) typically require 1–2 hours of data collection. Over this time scale, the natural fluctuations in brain state or rapid learning effects could impact measured signals, but are seldom analyzed.
Methods and Findings
We investigated within-session dynamics of neocortical alpha (7–14 Hz) rhythms and their allocation with cued-attention using MEG recorded from primary somatosensory neocortex (SI) in humans. We found that there were significant and systematic changes across a single ∼1 hour recording session in several dimensions, including increased alpha power, increased differentiation in attention-induced alpha allocation, increased distinction in immediate time-locked post-cue evoked responses in SI to different visual cues, and enhanced power in the immediate cue-locked alpha band frequency response. Further, comparison of two commonly used baseline methods showed that conclusions on the evolution of alpha dynamics across a session were dependent on the normalization method used.
Conclusions
These findings are important not only as they relate to studies of oscillations in SI, they also provide a robust example of the type of dynamic changes in brain measures within a single session that are overlooked in most human brain imaging/recording studies.
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During selective attention, ∼7–14 Hz alpha rhythms are modulated in early sensory cortices, suggesting a mechanistic role for these dynamics in perception. Here, we investigated whether alpha modulation can be enhanced by “mindfulness” meditation (MM), a program training practitioners in sustained attention to body and breath-related sensations. We hypothesized that participants in the MM group would exhibit enhanced alpha power modulation in a localized representation in the primary somatosensory neocortex in response to a cue, as compared to participants in the control group. Healthy subjects were randomized to 8-weeks of MM training or a control group. Using magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recording of the SI finger representation, we found meditators demonstrated enhanced alpha power modulation in response to a cue. This finding is the first to show enhanced local alpha modulation following sustained attentional training, and implicates this form of enhanced dynamic neural regulation in the behavioral effects of meditative practice.
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Advanced meditators in the Zen tradition occasionally experience traumatic physical seizures accompanied by powerful, disruptive emotions, a development consistently taken by meditation masters as signs of progress toward enlightenment. Using data from LSD research, this paper suggests that these seizures are emerging birth-trauma memories. Interpreting these perinatal memories as memories of fetal impingement, it then turns to object-relations theory to study the effect of impingement and impingement-generated fear on ego-development in order to understand why embodied impingement memories should manifest in the ego-dissolving context of meditation. It argues that a coherent explanation for the manifestation of these symptoms can be had by combining insights from these two fields with the understanding of meditation and consciousness emerging in transpersonal psychology.
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Brosnan's research on chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys provides invaluable clues to unlocking the complex nature of human morality. Elaborating upon her claims, we explore the role of emotions in basic social interactions, social regulation processes, and morality, all of which may be crucial to both human and nonhuman communities. We then turn to a conceptualization of teasing and play as forums for negotiating norms and the boundaries of acceptable behavior, and focus on the role of emotions in assessing the moral character of others. Finally, we consider points of convergence and departure between human responses to relative deprivation and those observed by Brosnan in primates. We conclude that work such as Brosnan's paves the way for fruitful collaborations between scholars of morality from diverse fields.
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<p>In this article, we advance the perspective that distinct emotions amplify different moral judgments, based on the emotion’s core appraisals. This theorizing yields four insights into the way emotions shape moral judgment. We submit that there are two kinds of specificity in the impact of emotion upon moral judgment: domain specificity and emotion specificity. We further contend that the unique embodied aspects of an emotion, such as nonverbal expressions and physiological responses, contribute to an emotion’s impact on moral judgment. Finally, emotions play a key role in determining which issues acquire moral significance in a society over time, in a process known as moralization (Rozin, 1999). The implications of these four observations for future research on emotion and morality are discussed. Keywords embodiment, emotion, moral judgment, moralization Emotions are inherently subjective. They arise as the result of personal appraisals, and disrupt seemingly more orderly, deliberate forms of judgment and reasoning. From this perspective, emotions would seem to be inappropriate guides to decisions about moral conduct and virtuous character.</p>
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Engaged Buddhism is founded on the belief that genuine spiritual practice requires an active involvement in society. Engaged Buddhism in the West illuminates the evolution of this new chapter in the Buddhist tradition—including its history, leadership, and teachings—and addresses issues such as violence and peace, race and gender, homelessness, prisons, and the environment.Eighteen new studies explore the activism of renowned leaders and organizations, such as Thich Nhat Hanh, Bernard Glassman, Joanna Macy, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and the Free Tibet Movement, and the emergence of a new Buddhism in North America, Europe, South Africa, and Australia.
<p>The quantitative evidence of human impacts on the Earth System has produced new calls for planetary stewardship. At the same time, numerous scholars reject modern social sciences by claiming that the Anthropocene fundamentally changes the human condition. However, we cannot simply dismiss all previous forms of cultural learning or transmission. Instead, this paper examines ethics in the Anthropocene, and specifically what it implies for: (1) reassessing our normative systems in view of human impacts on the Earth System; (2) identifying novel ethical problems in the Anthropocene; and (3) repositioning traditional issues concerning fairness and environmental ethics. It concludes by situating ethics within the challenge of connecting multiple social worlds to a shared view of human and Earth histories and calls for renewed engagement with ethics.</p>
The quantitative evidence of human impacts on the Earth System has produced new calls for planetary stewardship. At the same time, numerous scholars reject modern social sciences by claiming that the Anthropocene fundamentally changes the human condition. However, we cannot simply dismiss all previous forms of cultural learning or transmission. Instead, this paper examines ethics in the Anthropocene, and specifically what it implies for: (1) reassessing our normative systems in view of human impacts on the Earth System; (2) identifying novel ethical problems in the Anthropocene; and (3) repositioning traditional issues concerning fairness and environmental ethics. It concludes by situating ethics within the challenge of connecting multiple social worlds to a shared view of human and Earth histories and calls for renewed engagement with ethics.
The emergence and abundance of cooperation in nature poses a tenacious and challenging puzzle to evolutionary biology. Cooperative behaviour seems to contradict Darwinian evolution because altruistic individuals increase the fitness of other members of the population at a cost to themselves. Thus, in the absence of supporting mechanisms, cooperation should decrease and vanish, as predicted by classical models for cooperation in evolutionary game theory, such as the Prisoner's Dilemma and public goods games. Traditional approaches to studying the problem of cooperation assume constant population sizes and thus neglect the ecology of the interacting individuals. Here, we incorporate ecological dynamics into evolutionary games and reveal a new mechanism for maintaining cooperation. In public goods games, cooperation can gain a foothold if the population density depends on the average population payoff. Decreasing population densities, due to defection leading to small payoffs, results in smaller interaction group sizes in which cooperation can be favoured. This feedback between ecological dynamics and game dynamics can generate stable coexistence of cooperators and defectors in public goods games. However, this mechanism fails for pairwise Prisoner's Dilemma interactions and the population is driven to extinction. Our model represents natural extension of replicator dynamics to populations of varying densities.
Research indicates that mindfulness is linked to higher-order neurocognitive control processes, and the associated executive functions and self-regulation capacities needed in daily life. The current study examines the roles of executive function and self-regulation in the link between dispositional mindfulness and well-being using a multi-method, two-phase longitudinal design. Two multiple mediator models were tested in a sample of 77 undergraduate students. Self-regulation independently mediated the relationship between mindfulness and positive affect; however, both executive function and self-regulation independently mediated the relationship between mindfulness and negative affect. The mindfulness facets of acting with awareness and non-judgment were most strongly related to executive function and well-being outcomes, while describing and acting with awareness were most strongly related to self-regulation. Performance-based neurocognitive control was related to self-regulation and positive affect, and a test of inhibition/shifting was related to executive function in daily life. Thus, students who are more dispositionally mindful than their peers tend to be non-judgmental and act with awareness, rather than on automatic pilot, which may engage executive functions and self-regulation.
Ecopsychological theory and practice underscore the vital importance of realizing the interdependence between human beings and the diverse living universes that they inhabit. This article focuses on the mental health implications of the shift toward a more ecologically rooted identity by examining relationships between psychological well-being and the personal experience of connection with nature. Three separate surveys conducted with undergraduate and community samples assessed relationships between the Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS), psychological well-being, mindfulness, and outdoor recreation. Higher CNS scores were consistently associated with greater trait mindfulness, more participation in appreciative outdoor activities, and higher scores on multiple measures of both hedonic and eudaimonic aspects of psychological well-being. Discussion focuses on informing optimal strategies for nature-based interventions.
Mindfulness has transdiagnostic applicability, but little is known about how people first begin to practice mindfulness and what sustains practice in the long term. The aim of the present research was to explore the experiences of a large sample of people practicing mindfulness, including difficulties with practice and associations between formal and informal mindfulness practice and wellbeing. In this cross-sectional study, 218 participants who were practicing mindfulness or had practiced in the past completed an online survey about how they first began to practice mindfulness, difficulties and supportive factors for continuing to practice, current wellbeing, and psychological flexibility. Participants had practiced mindfulness from under a year up to 43 years. There was no significant difference in the frequency of formal mindfulness practice between those who had attended a face-to-face taught course and those who had not. Common difficulties included finding time to practice formally and falling asleep during formal practice. Content analysis revealed “practical resources,” “time/routine,” “support from others,” and “attitudes and beliefs,” which were supportive factors for maintaining mindfulness practice. Informal mindfulness practice was related to positive wellbeing and psychological flexibility. Frequency (but not duration) of formal mindfulness practice was associated with positive wellbeing; however, neither frequency nor duration of formal mindfulness practice was significantly associated with psychological flexibility. Mindfulness teachers will be able to use the present findings to further support their students by reminding them of the benefits as well as normalising some of the challenges of mindfulness practice including falling asleep.
Happiness, sadness, compassion, resentment, despair: just some of the feelings and moods that characterize the lives of each one of us. They are part and parcel of our everyday lives and they affect everything we do, like a kind of mental climate that surrounds and permeates our activities and thoughts.
Freedom Project trains prisoners in nonviolent communication and meditation. Two complementary studies of its effects are reported in this article. The first study is correlational; we found decreased recidivism rates among prisoners trained by Freedom Project compared with recidivism rates in Washington state. The second study compared trained prisoners with a matched-pair control group and found improvement in self-reported anger, self-compassion, and certain forms of mindfulness among the trained group. Ratings of role-plays simulating difficult interactions show increased social skills among the group trained by Freedom Project than in the matched controls.
A growing body of research suggests educators need to focus on cultivating social and emotional competencies that youth will need to thrive in the new knowledge economy (Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, & Schellinger, 2011). For marginalized urban youth, in particular, few have derived programs and interventions to assist with these competencies. This study illuminates the perspectives of 9 African American youth at risk for academic failure taking part in the Fulfill the Dream (FTD) program. FTD is a social and emotional learning curriculum emphasizing social justice and critical consciousness through the utilization of hip-hop culture. Information regarding the nature of the collaboration of this research project and recommendations for education professionals working with marginalized youth are discussed.
Our ability to explain and predict other people's behaviour by attributing to them independent mental states, such as beliefs and desires, is known as having a ‘theory of mind’. Interest in this very human ability has engendered a growing body of evidence concerning its evolution and development and the biological basis of the mechanisms underpinning it. Functional imaging has played a key role in seeking to isolate brain regions specific to this ability. Three areas are consistently activated in association with theory of mind. These are the anterior paracingulate cortex, the superior temporal sulci and the temporal poles bilaterally. This review discusses the functional significance of each of these areas within a social cognitive network.
<p>With each eye fixation, we experience a richly detailed visual world. Yet recent work on visual integration and change direction reveals that we are surprisingly unaware of the details of our environment from one view to the next: we often do not detect large changes to objects and scenes ('change blindness'). Furthermore, without attention, we may not even perceive objects ('inattentional blindness'). Taken together, these findings suggest that we perceive and remember only those objects and details that receive focused attention. In this paper, we briefly review and discuss evidence for these cognitive forms of 'blindness'. We then present a new study that builds on classic studies of divided visual attention to examine inattentional blindness for complex objects and events in dynamic scenes. Our results suggest that the likelihood of noticing an unexpected object depends on the similarity of that object to other objects in the display and on how difficult the priming monitoring task is. Interestingly, spatial proximity of the critical unattended object to attended locations does not appear to affect detection, suggesting that observers attend to objects and events, not spatial positions. We discuss the implications of these results for visual representations and awareness of our visual environment.</p>
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