<p>The purpose of this meta-analysis is to examine the effects of adventure programs on a diverse array of outcomes such as self concept, locus of control, and leadership. The meta-analysis was based on 1,728 effect sizes drawn from 151 unique samples from 96 studies, and the average effect size at the end of the programs was .34. In a remarkable contrast to most educational research, these short-term or immediate gains were followed by substantial additional gains between the end of the program and follow-up assessments ( ES = .17). The effect sizes varied substantially according the particular program and outcome and improved as the length of the program and the ages of participants increased. Too little is known, however, about why adventure programs work most effectively.</p>
How did human cooperation evolve? Recent evidence shows that many people are willing to engage in altruistic punishment, voluntarily paying a cost to punish noncooperators. Although this behavior helps to explain how cooperation can persist, it creates an important puzzle. If altruistic punishment provides benefits to nonpunishers and is costly to punishers, then how could it evolve? Drawing on recent insights from voluntary public goods games, I present a simple evolutionary model in which altruistic punishers can enter and will always come to dominate a population of contributors, defectors, and nonparticipants. The model suggests that the cycle of strategies in voluntary public goods games does not persist in the presence of punishment strategies. It also suggests that punishment can only enforce payoff-improving strategies, contrary to a widely cited “folk theorem” result that suggests that punishment can allow the evolution of any strategy.
This article introduces the Journal of Political Ecology Special Section on 'towards a political ecology of applied anthropology.' We provide a brief overview and analysis of the history and application of applied and practicing anthropology. Examining moral and ethical issues related to the application of anthropology, we assess current endeavors and make suggestions for future directions from a political ecology perspective. Introducing five articles that exemplify our approach, we identify common themes and particular contexts that both unify and distinguish each of the contributions. Throughout this introduction, we propose a potential guidepost for a political-ecology informed applied anthropology: any applied anthropology that engages, documents, promotes, and supports cultural diversity, social justice and environmental sustainability is just. Conversely, any applied anthropology that threatens cultural diversity and environmental sustainability is unjust.Key words: applied anthropology, imperialism, political ecology, neoliberalism, ethics
Many scholars have made the call for teacher educators to provide experiences that can lead preservice teachers to embrace a culturally responsive pedagogy. We investigated the use of brief autobiographies during an internship as a tool (a) for preservice teachers to examine their multidimensional culture; and (b) for teacher educators to assess preservice teachers' developing understandings about cultural responsive pedagogy and then further design curriculum to enhance these understandings. Using qualitative methods, we analyzed the preservice teachers' (N = 24) autobiographies and an interview with the professor of this course. Based on the findings of this study, we suggest teacher educators need to develop experiences and opportunities that will enable preservice teachers to reflect on how culture impacts teaching and learning behaviors. Therefore, preservice teachers will be better prepared to teach all students.
This thesis paper is the culmination of two months of ethnographic research conducted during the summer of 2009 in the region of Ladakh, which is located in the midst of the Himalayas in northern India. It explores the inherent connections that exist between Tibetan medicine and Mahayana Buddhism, as exhibited in the Ladakhi medical system. The influx of Tibetans into northern India has shaped the culture of the region for thousands of years, effectively earning Ladakh the moniker "Little Tibet". A greater understanding of the relationship between religion and health care can lead to the beginning of a discourse about the elements that define a competent medical system, and the adequacy of medical systems in treating the wellness seekers in the communities in which they exist.
<p>The research investigated the effect of mindfulness meditation on the emotional states of depression, anxiety, and stress. Additionally, we explored whether people with varying severity of depression, anxiety, and stress responded differently to mindfulness training. In order to investigate these questions, participants (n = 50) completed the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale, 21-item version (DASS-21) before and after a 10-week mindfulness meditation program. As predicted, the severity levels of all affective measures have decreased by the end of the meditation course. Participants with severe emotional difficulties at the time of commencing the meditation course demonstrated the most notable improvement over time. These results suggest that mindfulness training is beneficial in reducing the symptoms of subclinical depression and anxiety and can substantially reduce stress. Attentional retraining and self-management aspects of mindfulness meditation, as well as relevant methodological issues are discussed.</p>
This study investigated the impact of nature experience on affect and cognition. We randomly assigned sixty participants to a 50-min walk in either a natural or an urban environment in and around Stanford, California. Before and after their walk, participants completed a series of psychological assessments of affective and cognitive functioning. Compared to the urban walk, the nature walk resulted in affective benefits (decreased anxiety, rumination, and negative affect, and preservation of positive affect) as well as cognitive benefits (increased working memory performance). This study extends previous research by demonstrating additional benefits of nature experience on affect and cognition through assessments of anxiety, rumination, and a complex measure of working memory (operation span task). These findings further our understanding of the influence of relatively brief nature experiences on affect and cognition, and help to lay the foundation for future research on the mechanisms underlying these effects.
Scholars have recently extended the traditional calculus of participation model by adding a term for benefits to others. We advance this work by distinguishing theoretically a concern for others in general (altruism) from a concern for others in certain groups (social identification). We posit that both concerns generate increased benefits from participation. To test these theories, we use allocations in dictator games towards an unidentified anonymous recipient and two recipients identified only as a registered Democrat or a registered Republican. These allocations permit a distinction between altruism and social identification. The results show that both altruism and social identification significantly increase political participation. The results also demonstrate the usefulness of incorporating benefits that stem from sources beyond material self-interest into rational choice models of participation.
Purpose: Meditative movement (MM) practices are increasingly being studied, including examination of the potential for these modalities to contribute to weight management.Methods: A search was conducted for randomized controlled trials testing one or both of two forms of MM, Tai Chi and Qigong, reporting effects on changes in body composition. Data from these studies were extracted and tabled, and a meta-analysis of studies with inactive control conditions was conducted. Risk of bias was assessed, and seven RCTs had a low risk of bias. Sources of bias include publication bias and selection of English only.Results: Publications meeting inclusion criteria yielded 24 studies (N = 1621 participants). Significant improvements in body composition, primarily body mass index, were noted for 41.7% of studies. A synthesis table describes the distribution of design factors, including type of comparison condition (inactive vs. active) and baseline body composition status (whether or not overweight/obese). A meta-analysis was conducted on 12 studies with inactive controls (using a random effects model) finding a small-to-medium treatment effect (SMD = − 0.388, CI = [− 0.732, − 0.044], t = 2.48, p < 0.03) for TC or QG interventions with a high level of heterogeneity.Conclusions: Tai Chi and Qigong show demonstrable effects on body composition, when compared to inactive control conditions. Systematic evaluation and valid conclusions regarding the impact of Tai Chi and Qigong on body composition outcomes will require more targeted study designs and control of comparison conditions. ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR
The phobic fear response appears to resemble an intense form of normal threat responding that can be induced in a nonthreatening situation. However, normative and phobic fear are rarely contrasted directly, thus the degree to which these two types of fear elicit similar neural and bodily responses is not well understood. To examine biological correlates of normal and phobic fear, 21 snake phobic and 21 nonphobic controls saw videos of slithering snakes, attacking snakes and fish in an event-related fMRI design. Simultaneous eletrodermal, pupillary, and self-reported affective responses were collected. Nonphobic fear activated a network of threat-responsive brain regions and involved pupillary dilation, electrodermal response and self-reported affect selective to the attacking snakes. Phobic fear recruited a large array of brain regions including those active in normal fear plus additional structures and also engendered increased pupil dilation, electrodermal and self-reported responses that were greater to any snake versus fish. Importantly, phobics showed greater between- and within-subject concordance among neural, electrodermal, pupillary, and subjective report measures. These results suggest phobic responses recruit overlapping but more strongly activated and more extensive networks of brain activity as compared to normative fear, and are characterized by greater concordance among neural activation, peripheral physiology and self-report. It is yet unclear whether concordance is unique to psychopathology, or rather simply an indicator of the intense fear seen in the phobic response, but these results underscore the importance of synchrony between brain, body, and cognition during the phobic reaction.
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We observed, over four independent experiments, 565 criterion-meeting episodes of breath suspension in 40 subjects practicing the Transcendental Mediation technique (TM), a simple mental technique involving no breath control procedures. The frequency and length of these breath suspension episodes were substantially and significantly greater for TM subjects than for control subjects relaxing with eyes closed. Voluntary control of respiration was most probably eliminated as an explanation of ths phenomenon by the experimental design and by the use of a variety of nonintrusive respiration transducers, including a two-channel magnetometer, an indirect but accurate means of monitoring respiration. Many TM subjects report experience of a completely quiescent mental state characterized by maintained awareness in the absence of thought. Eleven TM subjects were instructed to press an event mark button after each episode of this pure consciousness experience. The temporal distribution of button presses was significantly related (p less than 10(-10) to the distribution of breath suspension episodes, indicating that breath suspension is a physiological correlate of some, but not all, episodes of the pure consciousness experience. In an extensive study of a single advanced mediator, pure consciousness experiences were also associated with reduced heart rate; high basal skin resistance; stable phasic skin resistance; markedly reduced mean respiration rate, mean minute ventilation and mean metabolic rate; and statistically consistent changes in EEG power and EEG coherence (an indicator of long-range spatial order in the nervous system).
An alarming number of students drop out of junior high school in developing countries. In this study, we examine the impacts of providing a social-emotional learning (SEL) program on the dropout behavior and learning anxiety of students in the first two years of junior high. We do so by analyzing data from a randomized controlled trial involving 70 junior high schools and 7,495 students in rural China. After eight months, the SEL program reduces dropout by 1.6 percentage points and decreases learning anxiety by 2.3 percentage points. Effects are no longer statistically different from zero after 15 months, perhaps due to decreasing student interest in the program. However, we do find that the program reduces dropout among students at high risk of dropping out (older students and students with friends who have already dropped out), both after eight and 15 months of exposure to the SEL program.
Conversion and dissociative disorders have psychopathological mechanisms in common and can simultaneously be present in the same patient. Evidence-based treatments for conversion and dissociative disorders are limited and mostly focused on cognitive-behavioral therapies (CBT) for a few conversion disorders. Avoidance and difficulties in emotion expression are thought to explain conversion and hence, mindfulness-based therapies (MBTs) could hypothetically constitute a beneficial intervention. Here, we present the case of Anne, a 31-year-old female with a long-term history of depression, anxiety, and psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES). While facing health-related and marital stressors, Anne acutely developed conversion left-sided paralysis, psychogenic bilateral tremor, and dissociative amnesia and had an increase in PNES frequency. Some of these newly developed symptoms resolved and other improved significantly after an acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) intervention was offered during a brief inpatient hospitalization. This constitutes the first report of an ACT-based intervention used in this type of clinical syndromes.
Social cognition is a broad term used to describe cognitive processes related to the perception, understanding, and implementation of linguistic, auditory, visual, and physical cues that communicate emotional and interpersonal information. Like other cognitive and human problem-solving abilities, social cognition is associated with the integrity of interrelated brain systems for accurate perception and interpretation of the behaviors of others and the effective emotional and behavioral response to those behaviors. Many clinical populations—including patients diagnosed with neurological, psychiatric, and developmental disorders, as well as patients suffering traumatic brain injury—have impairments in one or more components of social cognition. The ACS provides clinicians with measures of important aspects of social cognition such as recognition of emotion from facial expressions and prosody, identifying the impact of prosody and body language on the social meaning of verbal expressions, learning and recognition of new faces, and associating names and faces. The ACS Social Cognition measures, described in this chapter, were designed to screen for deficits in social cognition that may affect social and interpersonal behaviors.
In this chapter, Lin and Fyles retrace the thinking of Aldo Leopold on conceiving humans as plain members and citizens of the biotic community, perceiving the intrinsic character of the land as “land health,” and considering how these two ideas led to his famous “land ethic.” Leopold’s land ethic urges people to expand their relationship with land beyond economics to include “integrity, stability, and beauty.” The authors then apply his thinking to the context of ecosystem and ecosystem health by considering humans as part of ecosystems, and the resulting implications for ecosystem health. With this thinking, the authors return to Leopold by studying one of his essays in A Sand County Almanac (1949). In “A Mighty Fortress,” Leopold mentioned how his woodlot, having been visited by various tree diseases, became a rich habitat for wildlife. This essay underscores the multiplicity of perspectives in an ecosystem and its complex nature, which in turn challenges humans to learn the richness and meaning of the concept of health. Put another way, and echoing the view of the previous chapter, health cannot be adequately portrayed by using only medical science. The authors conclude with a call for supplementing the scientific, rational mode of perceiving reality and human action with thinking from the arts and the humanities.
The tradition of Samkhya is one of the oldest and most influential in the intellectual history of India. The fundamental notions of Samkhya namely prakrti, purusa, buddhi, ahamkara, manas and the three gunas provided the conceptual framework in which much of Indian philosophizing occurred, and the classical formulations of Yoga and Vedanta together with many traditions of Buddhist philosophy and meditation developed vis-a-vis the intellectual perspective of the Samkhya. Similarly on a general cultural level the influence of Samkhya was profound and important over many centuries in such areas as law, medicine, ancient science and mathematics, logic, mythology, cosmology and ritual. This study traces the history of the Samkhya not only in the Indian intellectual tradition, but also in the traditions of historical criticism. The book also offers a new interpretation of the philosophical significance of the Samkhya, with special reference to the classical interpretation of the interaction of prakrti and purusa. In this edition author has also included a Chart of the Twenty-five Basic Principles of the Samkhya, a Glossary of Samkhya Terminology, an additional Appendix which surveys recent scholarly work in the area of Samkhya together with a discussion of Samkhya in the Purana-s and a revised Bibliography.
The tradition of Samkhya is one of the oldest and most influential in the intellectual history of India. The fundamental notions of Samkhya namely prakrti, purusa, buddhi, ahamkara, manas and the three gunas provided the conceptual framework in which much of Indian philosophizing occurred, and the classical formulations of Yoga and Vedanta together with many traditions of Buddhist philosophy and meditation developed vis-a-vis the intellectual perspective of the Samkhya. Similarly on a general cultural level the influence of Samkhya was profound and important over many centuries in such areas as law, medicine, ancient science and mathematics, logic, mythology, cosmology and ritual. This study traces the history of the Samkhya not only in the Indian intellectual tradition, but also in the traditions of historical criticism. The book also offers a new interpretation of the philosophical significance of the Samkhya, with special reference to the classical interpretation of the interaction of prakrti and purusa. In this edition author has also included a Chart of the Twenty-five Basic Principles of the Samkhya, a Glossary of Samkhya Terminology, an additional Appendix which surveys recent scholarly work in the area of Samkhya together with a discussion of Samkhya in the Purana-s and a revised Bibliography.
Background:Tinnitus can be defined as the perception of an auditory sensation, perceivable without the presence of an external sound.
Purpose:
The aim of this article is to systematically review the peer-reviewed literature on treatment approaches for tinnitus based on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and to provide a historical overview of developments within these approaches.
Research Design:
Experimental studies, (randomized) trials, follow-up assessments, and reviews assessing educational, counseling, psychological, and CBT treatment approaches were identified as a result of an electronic database metasearch.
Results:
A total of 31 (of the initial 75 studies) were included in the review. Results confirm that CBT treatment for tinnitus management is the most evidence-based treatment option so far. Though studied protocols are diverse and are usually a combination of different treatment elements, and tinnitus diagnostics and outcome assessments vary over investigations, a common ground of therapeutic elements was established, and evidence was found to be robust enough to guide clinical practice.
Conclusions:
Treatment strategy might best be CBT-based, moving toward a more multidisciplinary approach. There is room for the involvement of different disciplines, using a stepped-care approach. This may provide brief and effective treatment for a larger group of tinnitus patients, and additional treatment steps can be provided for those suffering on a more severe level.
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