6 research outputs found
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The Neuroscience of Justice Sensitivity
No full textFrom an early age, people care deeply about justice. However, reactions to injustice are altered by being involved in the situation, and people differ in their sensitivity to justice. Research suggests that dispositional self-focused and other-focused justice sensitivity reflect antisocial and prosocial tendencies. However, it is unclear (1) whether similar behavioral effects can be elicited by brief perspective-taking manipulations and (2) whether these justice orientations are supported by distinct neural systems. Across six studies, participants rated moral scenarios in either a second-person or third-person frame, then played a three-party ultimatum game and completed tasks probing antisocial and prosocial behavior. In Study 1, self-oriented justice sensitivity predicted greater acceptance of distributions after the second-person than third-person frame and, surprisingly, reduced antisocial behavior. Study 2 found no effects of perspective framing, but a negative relation between other-oriented justice sensitivity and acceptance of distributions that were unfair to a third-party. In Study 3, within-participant manipulation of perspective changed rejection rates for distributions which were fair to the self but unfair to another. Study 4 found that proportional equity was a better predictor of behavior than comparative equality. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, Study 5 found that justice dispositions predicted activity within regions important for saliency processing and executive control. Moreover, these orientations were associated with activity in different networks, suggesting that they arise from distinct processes. Finally, Study 6 failed to find effects of justice sensitivity or perspective framing on electrophysiological measures of neural activity. Overall, these results suggest that perspective framing can influence behavior, though often interacts with justice dispositions. Moreover, justice orientations relate to largely separable neural systems and may prove important for future investigations of social functioning
Harnessing repetitive behaviours to engage attention and learning in a novel therapy for autism: an exploratory analysis
No full textRigorous, quantitative examination of therapeutic techniques anecdotally reported to have been successful in people with autism who lack communicative speech will help guide basic science toward a more complete characterisation of the cognitive profile in this underserved subpopulation, and show the extent to which theories and results developed with the high-functioning subpopulation may apply. This study examines a novel therapy, the "Rapid Prompting Method" (RPM). RPM is a parent-developed communicative and educational therapy for persons with autism who do not speak or who have difficulty using speech communicatively.The technique aims to develop a means of interactive learning by pointing amongst multiple-choice options presented at different locations in space, with the aid of sensory "prompts" which evoke a response without cueing any specific response option. The prompts are meant to draw and to maintain attention to the communicative task–making the communicative and educational content coincident with the most physically salient, attention-capturing stimulus – and to extinguish the sensory–motor preoccupations with which the prompts compete.ideo-recorded RPM sessions with nine autistic children ages 8–14years who lacked functional communicative speech were coded for behaviours of interest
Harnessing repetitive behaviours to engage attention and learning in a novel therapy for autism:An exploratory analysis
No full textRigorous, quantitative examination of therapeutic techniques anecdotally reported to have been successful in people with autism who lack communicative speech will help guide basic science towards a more complete characterisation of the cognitive profile in this underserved subpopulation, and show the extent to which theories and results developed with the high-functioning subpopulation may apply. This study examines a novel therapy, the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM). RPM is a parent-developed communicative and educational therapy for persons with autism who do not speak or who have difficulty using speech communicatively. The technique aims to develop a means of interactive learning by pointing amongst multiple choice options presented at different locations in space, with the aid of sensory prompts which evoke a response without cueing any specific response option. The prompts are meant to draw and to maintain attention to the communicative task – making the communicative and educational content co-incident with the most physically salient, attention-capturing stimulus – and to extinguish the sensory-motor preoccupations with which the prompts compete. Video-recorded RPM sessions with 9 autistic children ages 8 to 14 years who lacked functional communicative speech were coded for behaviours of interest. An analysis controlled for age indicates that exposure to the claimed therapy appears to support a decrease in repetitive behaviours and an increase in the number of multiple-choice response options without any decrease in successful responding. Direct gaze is not related to successful responding, suggesting that direct gaze might not be any advantage for this population and need not in all cases be a precondition to communication therapies
Human and physical infrastructure : public investment and pricing policies in developing countries
No full textAlmost by definition, the basis for development is infrastructure - whether services for human infrastructure (health, education, nutrition) or physical infrastructure (transport, energy, water). Although the infrastructure sectors are diverse, what they have in common is that public policy has had a great deal to do with how these services are provided and financed in almost all countries. The author reviews the recent literature on two key aspects of that involvement: investment and pricing. While the quality of the econometric evidence varies, recent literature reinforces the view that human and physical infrastructure are critical for economic growth and the reduction of poverty. And the state is recognized as playing a key role in ensuring the efficient, equitable allocation of resources for infrastructure. Despite many sound theoretical reasons for such public involvement, however, recent studies have shown that it leaves much to be desired in efficiency and equity. One symptom is underinvestment in key subsectors that have high economic returns and that help the poor the most, such as primary education and rural health clinics, in relation to more expensive interventions, such as tertiary education and urban hospitals. Another common malaise is the poor use of scarce resources, leading to low quality (students learning little) and reliability (irregular power and water flows), poor maintenance (dilapilated roads), and inappropriate input use (too many school adminstrators or health workers and not enough books or drugs in producing education health outcomes). Just as market failures necessitate government intervention in the infrastructure sectors, so government failures should be considered in deciding the depth and extent of that intervention. The literature has made some advances in diagnosing these problems in poor countries and proposing solutions. But information gaps remain, particularly in developing robust methodologies for: 1) making intersectoral comparisons across the wide range of infrastructure services; 2) crafting more diverse policies about the public-private balance in infrastructure investment, depending on the nature of"public goods"characteristics for various types of infrastructure services, or even across activities for the same service (for example, power transmission versus distribution); and 3) taking issues of political economy into account, such as the vested interests of those with large financial interests in infrastructure. The author also highlights public pricing as a policy initiative that has recently gotten much attention.After briefly reviewing the basic concepts of pricing, he focuses on the literature about pricing reform. Most commonly, the public sector is the main provider of infrastructure services, usually free or at subsidized prices. But the recent literature has aired a rethinking of the balance between public and private financing of infrastructure. The debate in this area is often heated. Health and education are traditionally provided free and some recent literature argues for positive prices, at least for higher tiers of service. The principle of public pricing has been more widely accepted in transport, energy, and to a lesser extent water, but often the levels are too low and do not provide the appropriate incentives for efficient and equitable use.Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research
Bandanas and blue helmets : an analysis of United Nations-insurgent relations after the Cold War
No full textThis is an examination of a neglected class of relations that have become more common after the Cold War, those between the United Nations and sub-State insurgent groups. This relationship has changed significantly after the end of the Cold War, both in the nature and frequency of the United Nations' response, and in the character of the insurgents that are addressed. Observing a
strong influence of realism in both the motivations of insurgent actions and in
the determinants and constraints of United Nations security initiatives, this study hypothesises that the predominant determinant of the effectiveness of
United Nations-insurgent interactions is an essential concurrence in their approaches to the interaction. The research design develops an analytical framework of approach indicators to test the validity of this hypothesis across a range of United Nations-insurgent interactions. Those interactions chosen for analysis are Mediation; Peacekeeping, including Monitoring Ceasefires, Humanitarian Peacekeeping; and Disarmament and Demobilisation; and Election Monitoring. United Nations interactions with contemporary insurgent movements - the FMLN, the Khmer Rouge, the Bosnian Serbs, Renamo, the USC-SNA, the Contras, and Unita - are chosen according to their operational
viability in order to fully test the hypothesised relationship. The general
support for the hypothesis revealed by the analysis suggests important conclusions for the planning and conduct of United Nations initiatives, which are increasingly being called on since the Cold War to intervene in civil wars
PARTICIPATING IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD: AN ENGAGEMENT WITH THE TRINITARIAN EPISTEMOLOGY OF T. F. TORRANCE
No full textThe overall aim of this thesis is to assess the viability of a particular understanding of participation in the knowledge of God for the postmodern, scientific context in which it is now located. Through a critical engagement of the Trinitarian epistemology of T. F. Torrance, this thesis provides a more holistic, complex vision of participation in the knowledge of God that moves beyond the problems of reductionist accounts.
Part I of the thesis identifies and defines the modern problem of reductionist accounts of theological epistemology. To overcome these problems, this thesis proposes a complex vision of the knowledge of God through an engagement and expansion of Torrance’s Trinitarian epistemology.
Part II delineates and analyzes seven general dynamics which comprise the nature of the knowledge of God for Torrance. Before moving to the center of his theological epistemology, this section provides an introduction and assessment of the general dynamics at work throughout his discussions of the knowledge of God.
Part III goes to the heart of Torrance’s epistemology, the Triune God. This section begins by examining how the persons and relations of the ontological Trinity exercise a governing influence upon Torrance’s theological epistemology. From this Trinitarian framework, this section then turns to expand and appraise three epistemological dynamics which consequently become centrally important: knowledge of God as personal, relational, and participatory. This section contends that these forms of knowledge involve the whole person and a way of life. This vision of participation extends the Trinitarian epistemology of Torrance with priorities to which his theological writings clearly point but which he himself did not develop.
Part IV concludes the thesis by drawing together the assessments made along the way concerning knowledge of God in a postmodern, scientific age and proposing an epistemological model that moves beyond the problems of reductionism
