scholarly journals The Change in William I. Thomas’s View of Biology

Stan Rzeczy ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 75-94
Author(s):  
Łukasz Remisiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Psychological Development ◽  
Departure Point ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain

In this article the author shows how the exploding role of biology in William Thomas’s sociology and social psychology has changed. Since the beginning of his career, this researcher addressed numerous topics that involved both biological and social factors – he commented on the nature of gender, race, instincts, prejudice and evolution. His departure point was biologism, which proclaimed that innate predispositions are a variable independent of social processes. In the following years, Thomas changed his beliefs, recognising that it was culture and society that left its mark on physiological and psychological development. The changes in Thomas’s reasoning are described by the author against the background of past and present views on the relationship between society and the brain, claiming that his late views could resonate with today’s approaches.

scholarly journals From likely to likable: The role of statistical typicality in human social assessment of faces

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (47) ◽  
pp. 29371-29380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chaitanya K. Ryali ◽  
Stanny Goffin ◽  
Piotr Winkielman ◽  
Angela J. Yu
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Theoretical Result ◽  
Face Image ◽  
Societal Implications ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Efficient Coding ◽  
Typical Data ◽  
Log Likelihood ◽  
The Brain

Humans readily form social impressions, such as attractiveness and trustworthiness, from a stranger’s facial features. Understanding the provenance of these impressions has clear scientific importance and societal implications. Motivated by the efficient coding hypothesis of brain representation, as well as Claude Shannon’s theoretical result that maximally efficient representational systems assign shorter codes to statistically more typical data (quantified as log likelihood), we suggest that social “liking” of faces increases with statistical typicality. Combining human behavioral data and computational modeling, we show that perceived attractiveness, trustworthiness, dominance, and valence of a face image linearly increase with its statistical typicality (log likelihood). We also show that statistical typicality can at least partially explain the role of symmetry in attractiveness perception. Additionally, by assuming that the brain focuses on a task-relevant subset of facial features and assessing log likelihood of a face using those features, our model can explain the “ugliness-in-averageness” effect found in social psychology, whereby otherwise attractive, intercategory faces diminish in attractiveness during a categorization task.

scholarly journals Kynurenic acid and cancer: facts and controversies

2019 ◽  
Vol 77 (8) ◽  
pp. 1531-1550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Walczak ◽  
Artur Wnorowski ◽  
Waldemar A. Turski ◽  
Tomasz Plech
Keyword(s):  
Kynurenic Acid ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Potential Role ◽  
Cancer Cell Proliferation ◽  
Gastrointestinal Microbiota ◽  
Tryptophan Metabolite ◽  
Peripheral Cells ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain

Abstract Kynurenic acid (KYNA) is an endogenous tryptophan metabolite exerting neuroprotective and anticonvulsant properties in the brain. However, its importance on the periphery is still not fully elucidated. KYNA is produced endogenously in various types of peripheral cells, tissues and by gastrointestinal microbiota. Furthermore, it was found in several products of daily human diet and its absorption in the digestive tract was evidenced. More recent studies were focused on the potential role of KYNA in carcinogenesis and cancer therapy; however, the results were ambiguous and the biological activity of KYNA in these processes has not been unequivocally established. This review aims to summarize the current views on the relationship between KYNA and cancer. The differences in KYNA concentration between physiological conditions and cancer, as well as KYNA production by both normal and cancer cells, will be discussed. The review also describes the effect of KYNA on cancer cell proliferation and the known potential molecular mechanisms of this activity.

Drugs and Drug Policy

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A.R. Kleiman ◽  
Jonathan P. Caulkins ◽  
Angela Hawken
Keyword(s):  
Drug Policy ◽  
Illicit Trade ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Control Drug ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Drugs And Crime ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Drug Free ◽  
The Brain

While there have always been norms and customs around the use of drugs, explicit public policies--regulations, taxes, and prohibitions--designed to control drug abuse are a more recent phenomenon. Those policies sometimes have terrible side-effects: most prominently the development of criminal enterprises dealing in forbidden (or untaxed) drugs and the use of the profits of drug-dealing to finance insurgency and terrorism. Neither a drug-free world nor a world of free drugs seems to be on offer, leaving citizens and officials to face the age-old problem: What are we going to do about drugs? In Drugs and Drug Policy, three noted authorities survey the subject with exceptional clarity, in this addition to the acclaimed series, What Everyone Needs to Know. They begin by, defining "drugs, " examining how they work in the brain, discussing the nature of addiction, and exploring the damage they do to users. The book moves on to policy, answering questions about legalization, the role of criminal prohibitions, and the relative legal tolerance for alcohol and tobacco. The authors then dissect the illicit trade, from street dealers to the flow of money to the effect of catching kingpins, and show the precise nature of the relationship between drugs and crime. They examine treatment, both its effectiveness and the role of public policy, and discuss the beneficial effects of some abusable substances. Finally they move outward to look at the role of drugs in our foreign policy, their relationship to terrorism, and the ugly politics that surround the issue. Crisp, clear, and comprehensive, this is a handy and up-to-date overview of one of the most pressing topics in today's world.

scholarly journals The cutaneous borders of interoception: Active and social inference of pain and pleasure on the skin

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariana von Mohr ◽  
Aikaterini Fotopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Active Inference ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Social Inference ◽  
Brain Levels ◽  
The Brain

Pain and pleasant touch have been recently classified as interoceptive modalities. This reclassification lies at the heart of long-standing debates questioning whether these modalities should be defined as sensations on their basis of neurophysiological specificity at the periphery or as homeostatic emotions on the basis of top-down convergence and modulation at the spinal and brain levels. Here, we outline the literature on the peripheral and central neurophysiology of pain and pleasant touch. We next recast this literature within a recent Bayesian predictive coding framework, namely active inference. This recasting puts forward a unifying model of bottom-up and top-down determinants of pain and pleasant touch and the role of social factors in modulating the salience of peripheral signals reaching the brain.

Gender and Supervision: The Legitimation of Authority in Relationship to Task

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Miller
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Personal Attributes ◽  
Job Complexity ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
Female Workers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Inherent Nature ◽  
Supervisory Practices ◽  
The Relationship

Most theories of bureaucratic organization legitimize hierarchical authority in terms of the economic and administrative imperatives of the production process. Rationales for specific levels of supervision emphasize the inherent nature of task activity (especially job complexity) and its related human-capital and organizational requirements. Personal attributes and the social differentiation of labor in the workplace are explicitly outside the legal-rational framework legitimizing the system of governance and job configuration. This study examines the relationship between job complexity and supervision for male and female workers and the economic and social factors that underlie the configuration of task and authority relations. The analysis suggests dramatic differences in the rationalization of work arrangements by gender—especially in the extent to which social status influences supervisory practices. Further, there appear to be over-time differences in the labor-market processes structuring progressions of jobs and thus normative work arrangements. The findings challenge common assumptions about bureaucratic authority and highlight the role of supervision in labor segmentation within the workplace.

Between Mind and Brain:Final and Efficient Causation in Relation to Neuroplasticity

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 194-208
Author(s):  
Derrick L. Hassert
Keyword(s):  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Behavioral Interventions ◽  
Rational Behavior ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Efficient Causation ◽  
Final Causes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Behavior And Cognition

Reductionism is usually taken for granted in many areas of science, neuroscience and psychology being no exceptions. It is often assumed as scientific orthodoxy that human behavior can be reduced to “what the brain does” without recourse to a consideration of cognition. Although many philosophers and ethicists may seek to reduce or eliminate the concept of mind, other philosophers and ethicists have continually pointed out the logical inconsistencies of such an approach. Via a discussion of efficient and final causes in Aristotelian philosophy, I seek to argue that the understanding of human beings as rational and social creatures has guided and should continue to guide our approach to the care and treatment of the mentally ill. Observations concerning rational behavior and cognition, by necessity, have provided the benchmarks by which clinicians evaluate the effectiveness of somatic/pharmacological or psychological/ behavioral interventions: Eliminative reductionism is inappropriate in this area. In approaching issues pertaining to the relationship between human cognitive functioning and neural functioning, the distinction between capacity and vehicle will be used. However, the fact that mental and behavioral functioning can alter neuronal functioning (and vice versa) necessitates that those working with the mentally ill need to know both the efficient causes—the vehicles of certain capacities—and the role of the capacities themselves and how they relate to possible final causes in giving explanations for behavior. These issues become more significant when considering the ethics of treatment choice for those with mental disorders.

Sex steroids-induced neurogenesis in adult brain: a better look at mechanisms and mediators

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamideh Abotalebi ◽  
Babak Ebrahimi ◽  
Raziyeh Shahriyari ◽  
Reyhaneh Shafieian
Keyword(s):  
Sex Steroids ◽  
Ventricular Zone ◽  
Mammalian Species ◽  
Adult Brain ◽  
Sex Steroid ◽  
Subgranular Zone ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain

Abstract Adult neurogenesis is the production of new nerve cells in the adult brain. Neurogenesis is a clear example of the neuroplasticity phenomenon which can be observed in most of mammalian species, including human beings. This phenomenon occurs, at least, in two regions of the brain: the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus in hippocampus and the ventricular zone of lateral ventricles. Numerous studies have investigated the relationship between sex steroid hormones and neurogenesis of adult brain; of which, mostly concentrated on the role of estradiol. It has been shown that estrogen plays a significant role in this process through both classic and non-classic mechanisms, including a variety of different growth factors. Therefore, the objective of this review is to investigate the role of female sex steroids with an emphasis on estradiol and also its potential implications for regulating the neurogenesis in the adult brain.

scholarly journals Breves orientações sobre a Teoria das Representações Sociais de Serge Moscovici e a interdisciplinaridade

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Cristiana Barcelos Da Silva ◽  
Gerson Tavares Do Carmo ◽  
Alessandra Maria da Silva Custódio Da Silva
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Scientific Production ◽  
Social Representation ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Representation Theory ◽  
Qualitative Nature ◽  
The Relationship

<p class="TituloGeral">O presente trabalho teve como objetivo analisar a Teoria das Representações Sociais (TRS) e a questão da Interdisciplinaridade enquanto categorias analíticas e alternativas metodológicas de produção científica. A partir de leituras inicias de autores basilares como, Moscovici (2003), Jodelet (2011, 1998), Sá (1998), Japiassu (1976), Fazenda (1995,1979) e Frigotto (2008), dentre outros, verificamos algumas questões que faziam referência a respeito da possibilidade de interseção  entre a TRS e a Interdisciplinaridade. Desse modo, este estudo buscou, com base em uma análise bibliográfica de cunho qualitativo, comprovar ou refutar a hipótese em torno da relação entre a teoria moscoviciana e a questão da Interdisciplinaridade. Importante destacar que, para a análise, levamos em conta a abordagem, os objetivos, os efeitos, bem como o contexto em que ambos se constituíram. Concluímos o estudo, afirmando a existência de conexão entre as duas temáticas, apontamos para quatro elementos característicos comuns: análise multifacetada de explicação da realidade, a dialogicidade, o foco no todo e a proposição em superar a fragilidade da fragmentação da ciência.</p><p class="ResumoTexto"><strong>Palavras-chave: </strong>psicologia social; processos sociais;conhecimento.</p><p class="ResumoTexto"> </p><p class="TituloGeral"><span lang="EN-US">BRIEF COMMENTS ABOUT THEORY OF SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF SERGE MOSCOVICI AND INTERDISCIPLINARITY</span></p><p class="ResumoTitulo"><span lang="EN-US">Abstract</span></p><p class="TituloGeral">This study aimed to analyze the Social Representation Theory (SRT) and the issue of Interdisciplinarity as analytical categories and methodological alternatives of scientific production. From initial readings of authors such as basic, Moscovici (2003), Jodelet (2011, 1998), Sa (1998), Japiassu (1976), Finance (1995,1979) and Frigotto (2008), among others, we find some issues that made reference about the possibility of intersection between the SRT and the Interdisciplinary. Thus, this study, based on a literature review of qualitative nature, prove or disprove the hypothesis on the relationship between theory and moscovician the issue of interdisciplinarity. Importantly, for the analysis, we consider the approach, the objectives, the effects and the context in which they are constituted. Concluded the study by stating that there is connection between the two issues, we pointed to four common characteristic: multifaceted analysis of explanation of reality, dialogicity, focus on the whole and the proposition to overcome the weakness of fragmentation of science.</p><p class="ResumoTitulo"><strong>Keywords:</strong> social psychology; social processes; knowledge</p><p class="ResumoTexto"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></p><p class="TituloGeral"><span lang="ES">BREVES COMENTARIOS SOBRE LA TEORÍA DE LAS REPRESENTACIONES SOCIALES DE SERGE MOSCOVICI Y LA INTERDISCIPLINARIEDAD </span></p><p class="ResumoTexto">Resumen</p><p class="ResumoTexto"><span lang="ES">Este estudio tuvo como objetivo analizar la Teoría de las Representaciones Sociales (TRS) y la cuestión de la Interdisciplinariedad como categorías de análisis y alternativas metodológicas de la producción científica. A partir de las lecturas iniciales de autores como básico, Moscovici (2003), Jodelet (2011, 1998), Sa (1998), Japiassu (1976), Finanzas (1995,1979) y Frigotto (2008), entre otros, nos encontramos con algunos problemas que hace referencia a la posibilidad de intersección entre los TRS y la Interdisciplinario. Por lo tanto, este estudio, basado en una revisión de la literatura de naturaleza cualitativa, probar o refutar la hipótesis sobre la relación entre la teoría y moscoviciana el tema de la interdisciplinariedad. Es importante destacar que, para el análisis, consideramos el enfoque, los objetivos, los efectos y el contexto en que se constituyen. Concluido el estudio afirmando que no hay conexión entre los dos asuntos, señalamos a cuatro característica común: el análisis multifacético de la explicación de la realidad, dialogicidad, se centran en el todo y la proposición para superar la debilidad de la fragmentación de la ciencia.</span></p><p class="ResumoTexto"><strong><span lang="ES">Palabras clave: </span></strong><span lang="ES">psicología social; los procesos sociales; conocimiento.</span></p><p class="ResumoTexto"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></p>

L-Dopa metabolism in genetically hypertensive mice: effect of pargyline

1987 ◽  
Vol 65 (12) ◽  
pp. 2390-2395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nguyen T. Buu ◽  
Johanne Duhaime ◽  
Karoly Racz ◽  
Otto Kuchel ◽  
Gunther Schlager
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Sympathetic Nervous System ◽  
Monoamine Oxidase ◽  
Hydroxylase Activity ◽  
Sympathetic Nervous ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Genetically Hypertensive

This study on the role of the sympathetic nervous system in the development of hypertension involves the measurement of dopamine and norepinephrine accumulation in various tissues of the hypertensive and random-bred normotensive strains of mice at basal levels, and following a pargyline–L-dopa treatment. Under such a treatment, designed to suppress the homeostatic action of monoamine oxidase and to better expose the relationship between dopamine and norepinephrine, the brain and heart of the hypertensive mice accumulated more dopamine than the normotensive mice. There was a significantly lower norepinephrine accumulation in the heart of the hypertensive mice in spite of comparable dopamine-β-hydroxylase activity in this tissue between the two strains of mice. Under the pargyline–L-dopa treatment, the brain and heart of the older mice in both hypertensive and normotensive strains accumulated significantly (p < 0.05) more dopamine than those of their younger counterparts, while their norepinephrine accumulation remained unchanged. The results demonstrated different patterns of response of dopamine and norepinephrine in the development of hypertension.

scholarly journals “Be a Man”: The Role of Social Pressure in Eliciting Men’s Aggressive Cognition

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Stanaland ◽  
Sarah Gaither
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Social Pressure ◽  
Social Psychology Bulletin ◽  
Identity Threat ◽  
The Social ◽  
Confirmatory Factor ◽  
Younger Men ◽  
The Relationship

[Pre-print accepted for publication in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin on November 20, 2020.] Threatening a man’s manhood—but not a woman’s womanhood—elicits aggression. In two studies, we found evidence that this aggression is related to the social pressure men experience to “be a man.” In Study 1a, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis to isolate participants’ (N = 195; Mage = 19.92) differential motivations for conforming to gender norms. Study 1b then showed that pressure to be masculine moderates the relationship between gender identity threat and aggressive cognition for men. In Study 2a, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to validate the aforementioned scales with an age-diverse sample of men (N = 391; Mage = 33.16, range 18-56 years). Study 2b replicated Study 1b, most notably with younger men. In all, these findings reveal one pathway—the pressure men experience to be stereotypically masculine—that elicits aggressive cognition when under threat in a U.S. context.

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