Impact of the HeartMath Self-Management Skills Program on Physiological and Psychological Stress in Police Officers

This study explored the impact on a group of police officers from Santa Clara County, California of the HeartMath stress and emotional self-management training, which provides practical techniques designed to reduce stress in the moment, improve physiological and emotional balance, increase mental clarity and enhance performance and quality of life.This study provides evidence that practical stress and emotional self-management techniques can reduce damaging physiological and psychological responses to both acute and chronic stress in police, and positively impact a variety of major life areas in a relatively short period of time. In particular, results show that application of these interventions can produce notable improvements in communication difficulties at work and in strained family relationships, two areas that are well recognized to be major sources of stress for police

Are Big Gods a big deal in the emergence of big groups?

In Big Gods, Norenzayan (2013) presents the most comprehensive treatment yet of the Big Gods question. The book is a commendable attempt to synthesize the rapidly growing body of survey and experimental research on prosocial effects of religious primes together with cross-cultural data on the distribution of Big Gods. There are, however, a number of problems with the current cross-cultural evidence that weaken support for a causal link between big societies and certain types of Big Gods. Here we attempt to clarify these problems and, in so doing, correct any potential misinterpretation of the cross-cultural findings, provide new insight into the processes generating the patterns observed, and flag directions for future research

The Effect of Affect on Group Memory

Memory typically improves when recollecting in a group - the larger the group, the better the memory (McClure 2010; Atkinson 2011). High arousal at the time of encoding also improves memory (Bohannon, Gratz, & Cross 2007; Libkumen, et al., 1999). In this study 342 participants viewed either an emotional or neutral slideshow and then recalled either alone or with a group of three (triad). The participants were tested using both probed and free recall questionnaires. We found that for perceptually central items, the emotional material only helped the individuals, and not the collaborative groups. However, for the perceptually peripheral items, the emotional material aided the memory of the collaborative groups and not the individuals

Alien Registration- Atkinson, Joseph H. (Presque Isle, Aroostook County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/34372/thumbnail.jp

Conspiracy theorists helped the Parkland students keep gun control on the national agenda

In the wake of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, gun control has remained on the political and media agendas for far longer than has been the case following similar events in the past. Joseph E. Uscinski, Darin DeWitt, and Matthew D. Atkinson argue that this shooting has continued to capture the nation's attention because of the conspiracy theory narratives that surround it. The politically strategic Parkland students have benefited from the public attention generated by conspiracy theorists – who accuse the students of being ‘crisis actors’ – to remain in the media spotlight and keep the issue of gun control on the national agenda

Why do religious cultures evolve slowly? The cultural evolution of cooperative calling and the historical study of religions

Collective representations are the result of an immense cooperation, which stretches out not only into space but into time as well; to make them, a multitude of minds have associated, united and combined their ideas and sentiments: for them, long generations have accumulated their experience and their knowledge. A special intellectual activity is therefore concentrated in them, which is infinitely richer and complexer than that of the individual. (Émile Durkheim, Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, [1912] 1965: 29)The languages and folkways of ancient peoples hold little relevance for us, except in one respect: the religions of the ancient world remain our religions. Though religions change, core features of the scriptures and rituals of the world's most popular religious traditions appear to have been conserved with remarkably high fidelity. We explain slow religious change from how religion facilitates cooperation at large social scales. At the end, we clarify how historians of religion, in collaboration with psychologists and computational biologists, might test and improve explanations such as ours.This research was supported by the John F. Templeton Foundation (Testing the Functional Roles of Religion in Human Society, no. 28745), the Royal Society of New Zealand ("e Cultural Evolution of Religion, no. 11-UOA-23

Just like previous presidents, Donald Trump's political fortunes rise and fall with the economy

In spite of an ever-growing list of scandals and criminal indictments, President Trump's job approval rating has rallied from its December nadir. Trump's approval rating is now in the low 40s - where Reagan's and Clinton's approval stood around the time of their first midterm elections. Given Trump's controversial statements and the various crises which have gripped the White House since the inauguration, why is the 45th president’s approval rating so high? Matthew D. Atkinson, Darin DeWitt, and Joseph E. Uscinski find that, as has been the case with past US presidents, Trump’s approval rate ebbs and flows with the public’s perception of the economy. A relatively buoyant economy, they write, is keeping Trump’s approval rating higher than it might otherwise be. This says something particularly damning not just about approval ratings, but about voters, elections, and democracy as well

What makes a good liar? The relationship between cognitive and personality assessments’ and lying ability using traditional and strategic interview approaches

Over the past several decades, scholars have sought to better understand and refine the process of detecting deception (see Vrij, 2015). However, considerably less research has focused on identifying the characteristics and abilities of effective liars. The purpose of the present project was to begin to examine individual differences in lying ability and identify skills and traits of more successful liars. Participants in this study lied or told the truth under various conditions and then naïve observers judged the veracity of those statements. Overall, participants did not demonstrate good calibration between confidence in their ability and performance on the task. Additionally, some individual difference measures (e.g., working memory capacity, task switching ability, and Machiavellianism) were found to be related to the ability to lie well while others (e.g., inhibitory control, narcissism, and psychopathy) were not. Additionally, good liars were not affected by new strategic interview approaches (e.g., reverse order recall) as performance during control phases of interviews was related to performance during strategic phases. The relationships between confidence, ability, personality traits, cognitive abilities, and strategic interviewing approaches was examined

KSC VAB Aeroacoustic Hazard Assessment

NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) carried out an analysis of the effects of aeroacoustics produced by stationary solid rocket motors in processing areas at KSC. In the current paper, attention is directed toward the acoustic effects of a motor burning within the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). The analysis was carried out with support from ASRC Aerospace who modeled transmission effects into surrounding facilities. Calculations were done using semi-analytical models for both aeroacoustics and transmission. From the results it was concluded that acoustic hazards in proximity to the source of ignition and plume can be severe; acoustic hazards in the far-field are significantly lower