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Previous studies have found that high neuroticism, low agreeableness, as well as high anger are associated with vengefulness. The aim of the present study was to investigate these associations in more detail. For example, we have included the extent to which trait ANGER may be associated with vengefulness by using the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales […]
3 
Initiated in the fall of 2003, a high-stakes achievement test is being administered to all four and five-year-olds in Head Start. Two times a year, 35,000 teachers or surrogates will administer the 15- to 20-minute test to more than a half-million children, at a cost in excess of $16 million. The purpose of the test, as described by the Head Start Bureau, is threefold: (1) […]
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This article uses Gadamer’s concept of play as a common lens through which both traditional church liturgy and imaginative evangelical practices of engaging with God can be understood. The category of play encompasses processes which exhibit a back-and-forth motion and functions in Gadamer’s aesthetics to describe the relationship between artwork and viewer. Through an aesthetics […]
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Kant holds that it is possible to quarrel about judgements of beauty and cultivate taste, but these possibilities have not been adequately accounted for in the dominant interpretations of his aesthetics. They can be better explained if we combine a more subjectivist interpretation of the free harmony of the faculties and aesthetic form with a […]
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Pre-clinical models of brain affective circuits provide relevant evidence for understanding the brain systems that figure heavily in psychiatric disorders. Social isolation and the resulting separation distress contribute to the onset of depression. In this work, the effects of excitatory amino acids (EAA) on isolation-induced distress vocalization (DV) were assessed in young domestic chicks. Both […]
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Psychologists usually considered the “Self” as an object of experience appearing when the individual perceives its existence within the conscious field. In accordance with such a view, the self-representing capacity of the human mind has been related to corticolimbic learning processes taking place within individual development. On the other hand, Carl Gustav Jung considered the Self as […]
3 Charles Darwin made numerous seminal contributions to the study of animal behavior over his long career. This essay places these contributions in the context of Darwin’s life, showing his long-standing interest in psychological and behavioral issues encompassing all species, including humans. Ten areas are highlighted: natural history; communication; sexual selection and courtship; comparative cognition; emotion; […]
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Cross-species affective neuroscience studies confirm that primary-process emotional feelings are organized within primitive subcortical regions of the brain that are anatomically, neurochemically, and functionally homologous in all mammals that have been studied. Emotional feelings (affects) are intrinsic values that inform animals how they are faring in the quest to survive. The various positive affects indicate […]
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In certain populations, female Japanese macaques (. Macaca fuscata) mount both males and females. Vasey (2007) proposed that female-female sexual mounting in Japanese macaques may be a neutral evolutionary by-product of a purported adaptation, namely, female-male mounting. In this study, we aim to further examine the proposed link between female-male and female-female mounting in Japanese […]
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Consciousness is not a process in the brain but a kind of behavior that, of course, is controlled by the brain like any other behavior. Human consciousness emerges on the interface between three components of animal behavior: communication, play, and the use of tools. These three components interact on the basis of anticipatory behavioral control, […]
Performative Let’s Play gaming videos are a part of contemporary Internet culture through which morality becomes shared. Many digital games draw on Gothic traditions to feature human-like monsters who demand morally complex interpretations from players. This study examines what kinds of moral evaluations players form of ambiguous Gothic monsters in Let’s Play videos of the […]
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This essay provides an overview of evolutionary levels of consciousness, with a focus on a continuum of consciousness: from primarily affective to more advanced cognitive forms of neural processing-from anoetic (without knowledge) consciousness based on affective feelings, elaborated by brain networks that are subcortical- and can function without neocortical involvement, to noetic (knowledge based) and […]
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Objective: Suicidal ideation and behavior currently have no quick-acting pharmacological treatments that are suitable for independent outpatient use. Suicidality is linked to mental pain, which is modulated by the separation distress system through endogenous opioids. The authors tested the efficacy and safety of very low dosages of sublingual buprenorphine as a time-limited treatment for severe […]
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Recent cross-species research has demonstrated that the neurohormone oxytocin plays a key role in social interaction and cognitive processing of others’ emotions. Whereas oxytocin has been shown to influence social approach, trust, and bond formation, a potential role of the oxytocinergic system in blurring or enhancing the ability to differentiate between one’s self and other’s […]
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In monogamous species, an abiding relationship between a specific adult male and a specific adult female is a defining feature of the social system. The interactions between these individuals are influenced by many factors, including not only the history of their relationship (for example, development of a mutual bond), but also the immediate effects of […]
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This paper explores the bachelorette party as a postfeminist expression. By focusing on food’and drink consumed’at bachelorette parties held in Atlantic Canada over a twenty year period, it considers both the symbolic construction and consumption of male bodies in the form of meatballs or phallic cake, and the conjuring of girlhood through the ironic reinterpretations […]
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The synthesis provided by Kline in the target article is noteworthy, but ignores the inseparable role of play in the evolution of learning and teaching in both humans and other animals. Play is distinguished and advantaged by its positive feedback reinforcement through pleasure. Play, especially between adults and infants, is probably the platform from which […]
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This paper describes the evolution of a staff Work Discussion group run by a child psychotherapist in a teaching hospital for more than 15 years. It offers insight into the emotional experience of both NHS staff and patients as seen through the lens of the discussion of the staff’s work. The author identifies three main […]
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Peter Smith’s target article, coming fast on the heels of Fagen’s (1981) monumental book on animal play, leaves the student of human play with a feeling of contented satiety, an impression that our ethological colleagues have finally wrapped up all the comparative information that has been accumulating over the past century, and thus made it […]
Discovering the Importance of Play through Personal Histories and Brain Images
Stuart L. Brown is founder of the National Institute for Play, a California-based, not-for-profit organization dedicated to the notion that play can help transform the lives of individuals, families, schools, and organizations. Trained in general and internal medicine, psychiatry, and clinical research, Brown was a physician in the United States Navy, a fellow in internal […]