Altruismo y empatía en situaciones que implican costos personales imprevisibles

This current study aimed to investigate the influence of empathic feelings on a risky altruistic behavior of young adults. 60 undergraduate students, aged between 18 and 35 years old took part in an experiment in which they had to decide in rather to give or not raffle tickets to an unfamiliar person, after participating of a gambling game. The tickets were gained after a memory quiz. 30 participants were allocated to an experimental condition named “neutral” in which they freely took their distributive decisions, and the other 30 were allocated to an “emotional” condition, in which empathic feelings were induced, by using a video. Results indicated that the participants’ sex and the experimental manipulation influenced gambling behavior, allowing the participants to be in the “emotional condition”, more prone to altruistic behavior than the participants in the “neutral” condition. Also, the men helped more in a high-cost condition than the women did. These results point that the influence of empathic concern on altruistic behavior in a situation involving risks might be mediated by the sex and the relation between these variables should be better observed in studies on distributive behavior.El presente estudio tuvo como objetivo investigar la influencia de los sentimientos empáticos sobre el comportamiento altruista de jóvenes adultos. 60 estudiantes de 18 a 35 años de edad participaron de un experimento en el que tuvieron que decidir dar o no rifas a una persona desconocida, después de participar en un juego de azar. Los biletes se obtuvieron después de ganar un concurso de memoria. 30 participantes fueron asignados a una condición experimental denominada "neutral", en la cual tomaron libremente sus decisiones distributivas, y los otros 30 fueron asignados a una condición "emocional", durante la cual se indujeron sentimientos empáticos, utilizando un video. Los resultados indicaron que el sexo de los participantes y la manipulación experimental influyó en el comportamiento del juego, dejando a los participantes en la "condición emocional" más propensos al comportamiento altruista que los participantes en la condición "neutral". Además, los hombres ayudaron más en una condición de alto costo que las mujeres. Estos resultados apuntan a que la influencia de la preocupación empática sobre el comportamiento altruista en una situación que implica riesgo, podría estar mediada por el sexo y que las relaciones entre estas variables necesitan ser mejor observadas en estudios sobre el comportamiento distributivo

Vortex-Antivortex annihilation dynamics in a square mesoscopic superconducting cylinder

The dynamics of the annihilation of a vortex-antivortex pair is investigated. The pair is activated magnetically during the run of a simulated hysteresis loop on a square mesoscopic superconducting cylinder with an antidot inserted at its center. We study the nucleation of vortices and antivortices by first increasing the magnetic field, applied parallel to the axis of the sample, from zero until the first vortex is created. A further increase of the field pulls the vortex in, until it reaches the antidot. As the polarity of the field is reversed, an antivortex enters the scene, travels toward the center of the sample and eventually the pair is annihilated. Depending on the sample size, its temperature, and Ginzburg-Landau parameter, the vortex-antivortex encounter takes place at the antidot or at the superconducting sea around it. The position and velocity of the vortex and antivortex singularities were evaluated as a function of time. The current density, magnetization and order parameter topology were also calculated.Comment: One REVTeX file and 5 EPS figure