An analysis of commitment.

Despite the frequent references to commitment in social psychological literature, little seems to have been done in the analysis of its various components. Kiesler and Sakamura (1966) defined commitment as a binding of the individual to behavioral acts, this binding being inversely related to the amount of inducement offered to an individual for performing an overt act. Moreover, commitment is said to be increased when one increases: the number of acts performed by S (although this relationship may not be linear); the degree of irrevocability of the act; the importance of the act to S; expectancy of positive outcomes associated with the act; and volition of S, manipulated either by increasing the degree of perceived choice or decreasing the external pressure to perform the act. Some consequences of commitment have included increased resistance to attacks on committed beliefs as in the above study, harsh treatment of the misjudged other if committed to a negative evaluation (Walster and Walster, et. al., 1966), and attitude change in the direction of the dissonance arousing but committing act in forcedcompliance situations (e.g., Brehm, 1960). However, since studies in general tend to use commitment as an explanation of results, rather than viewing results as explanations of commitment, this construct retains its dispositional qualities leaving one with a vague understanding of its underlying characteristics

Disease Complementarities and the Evaluation of Public Health Interventions

This paper provides a theoretical and empirical investigation of the positive complementarities between disease-specific policies introduced by competing risks of mortality. The incentive to invest in prevention against one cause of death depends positively on the level of survival from other causes. This means that a specific public health intervention has benefits other than the direct medical reduction in mortality: it affects the incentives to fight other diseases so the overall reduction in mortality will, in general, be larger than that predicted by the direct medical effects. We discuss evidence of these cross-disease effects by using data on neo-natal tetanus vaccination through the Expanded Programme on Immunization of the World Health Organization.

miR-34a-/- mice are susceptible to diet-induced obesity

Objective: MicroRNA (miR)−34a regulates inflammatory pathways, and increased transcripts have been observed in serum and subcutaneous adipose of subjects who have obesity and type 2 diabetes. Therefore, the role of miR-34a in adipose tissue inflammation and lipid metabolism in murine diet-induced obesity was investigated. Methods: Wild-type (WT) and miR-34a−/− mice were fed chow or high-fat diet (HFD) for 24 weeks. WT and miR-34a−/− bone marrow-derived macrophages were cultured in vitro with macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF). Brown and white preadipocytes were cultured from the stromal vascular fraction (SVF) of intrascapular brown and epididymal white adipose tissue (eWAT), with rosiglitazone. Results: HFD-fed miR-34a−/− mice were significantly heavier with a greater increase in eWAT weight than WT. miR-34a−/− eWAT had a smaller adipocyte area, which significantly increased with HFD. miR-34a−/− eWAT showed basal increases in Cd36, Hmgcr, Lxrα, Pgc1α, and Fasn. miR-34a−/− intrascapular brown adipose tissue had basal reductions in c/ebpα and c/ebpβ, with in vitro miR-34a−/− white adipocytes showing increased lipid content. An F4/80high macrophage population was present in HFD miR-34a−/− eWAT, with increased IL-10 transcripts and serum IL-5 protein. Finally, miR-34a−/− bone marrow-derived macrophages showed an ablated CXCL1 response to tumor necrosis factor-α. Conclusions: These findings suggest a multifactorial role of miR-34a in controlling susceptibility to obesity, by regulating inflammatory and metabolic pathways

Effects of coherence on speaker preference and rule-following

Rule-following is affected by multiple variables. A relevant aspect of rules regards whether they “make sense”, that is, the extent to which the instruction coheres with previously reinforced patterns of relational responding. The present study aimed to evaluate the influence of relational coherence upon rule-following. After mastering a particular set of conditional relations (e.g., A1B1, A2B2), the participants were exposed to two speakers, one of which would “state” relations that cohered (e.g., A1B1, A2B2) with the participant’s previous relational training and the other that would present relations that were incoherent (e.g., A1B2, A2B1). Then, rule-following was measured in a preference test in which the participant would have to choose which of the two speakers would provide instructions in each test trial. Results show that the participants preferred the coherent speaker to provide instructions and followed the rules presented by that speaker throughout the test. Coherence is discussed as a critical aspect of rule following and preference for particular narratives

Grappling with the Complexity of Behavioral Processes in Human Psychological Suffering: Some Potential Insights from Relational Frame Theory

Relational frame theory (RFT) has historically been considered the basic explanatory science behind acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). However, some have argued that there has been an increasing separation between the two in recent years. The primary aim of the current article is to explore the extent to which RFT concepts, particularly those that have been proposed recently in the context of “up-dating” the theory, may be used to build stronger links between basic and applied behavior analyses in which there is a shared language of relatively precise technical terms. As an example of this strategy, we outline RFT process-based experimental and conceptual analyses of the impact of one of the most widely used sets of interventions employed in the ACT literature, defusion. In addition, we suggest a potential experimental methodology for analyzing the basic behavioral processes involved. Overall, the current article should be seen as part of a broader research agenda that aims to explore how RFT may be used to provide a functional-analytic abstractive treatment of the behavioral processes involved in human psychological suffering

March 1965

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