Too Good to Be True: Rhesus Monkeys React Negatively to Better-than-Expected Offers

To succeed in a dynamically changing world, animals need to predict their environments. Humans, in fact, exhibit such a strong desire for consistency that one of the most well-established findings in social psychology is the effort people make to maintain consistency among their beliefs, attitudes, and behavior. However, displeasure with unpredictability leads to a potential paradox, because a positive outcome that exceeds one’s expectations often leads to increased subjective value and positive affect, not the opposite. We tested the hypothesis that two evolutionarily-conserved evaluation processes underlie goal-directed behavior: (1) consistency, concerned with prediction errors, and (2) valuation, concerned with outcome utility. Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) viewed a food item and then were offered an identical, better, or worse food, which they could accept or reject. The monkeys ultimately accepted all offers, attesting to the influence of the valuation process. However, they were slower to accept the unexpected offers, and they exhibited aversive reactions, especially to the better-than-expected offers, repeatedly turning their heads and looking away before accepting the food item. Our findings (a) provide evidence for two separable evaluation processes in primates, consistency and value assessment, (b) reveal a direct relationship between consistency assessment and emotional processes, and (c) show that our wariness with events that are much better than expected is shared with other social primates

Urban Youth’s Perspectives on Flash Mobs

This is the author's final draft. Copyright 2013 Taylor & Francis.Flash mobs are new, emerging, and evolving social phenomena that have recently been associated with youth violence in U.S. cities. The current study explores how youth understand flash mobs through focus groups conducted in Kansas City, Missouri (a site of violent youth flash mobs). Results indicate that youth have varying familiarity with flash mobs and define them in different ways; that youth perceive youth boredom to be the most frequent cause of problems with flash mobs; that youth connect ongoing social disorder with the violence associated with flash mobs; and that while social media are facilitators of flash mobs, flash mobs have their roots in youth activities that have been going on for generations (e.g., hanging out in groups, cruising)

Keeping Girls in Sport: A Two-Part Evaluation of an E-Learning Program for Coaches and Activity Leaders

The purpose of this study was twofold: first, to identify who engaged with the Keeping Girls in Sport e-learning program and, second, to evaluate coach and activity leaders’ perceptions of the program and their perceived learnings gained from completing the program. An explanatory sequential mixed-method design was adopted. First, an online survey was distributed to all individuals who had participated in the program. In total, 511 (33% response rate) completed the survey. Quantitative survey data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Subsequently, interviews were conducted with 20 survey respondents. A realist logic of analysis was applied to the qualitative data, and context–mechanism–outcome configurations were formed. Overall, survey findings indicated that most participants identified as women (56%), coaches (69%), and were between 40 and 49 years of age (37%). In general, participants had positive perceptions of the program. Participants perceived that the accessibility and flexibility of the program increased opportunities to engage with content and, thus, their learning. They described improvements in knowledge and perspective regarding working with female athletes. This increase in knowledge provided participants with confidence to establish trusting and positive relationships with others, specifically parents. Nevertheless, participants highlighted a need for more tailored but also more expansive programs

Benchmarking urine storage and collection conditions for evaluating the female urinary microbiome.

Standardized conditions for collection, preservation and storage of urine for microbiome research have not been established. We aimed to identify the effects of the use of preservative AssayAssure® (AA), and the effects of storage time and temperatures on reproducibility of urine microbiome results. We sequenced the V3-4 segment of the 16S rRNA gene to characterize the bacterial community in the urine of a cohort of women. Each woman provided a single voided urine sample, which was divided into aliquots and stored with and without AA, at three different temperatures (room temperature [RT], 4 °C, or -20 °C), and for various time periods up to 4 days. There were significant microbiome differences in urine specimens stored with and without AA at all temperatures, but the most significant differences were observed in alpha diversity (estimated number of taxa) at RT. Specimens preserved at 4 °C and -20 °C for up to 4 days with or without AA had no significant alpha diversity differences. However, significant alpha diversity differences were observed in samples stored without AA at RT. Generally, there was greater microbiome preservation with AA than without AA at all time points and temperatures, although not all results were statistically significant. Addition of AA preservative, shorter storage times, and colder temperatures are most favorable for urinary microbiome reproducibility

When Less is More: Evolutionary Origins of the Affect Heuristic

The human mind is built for approximations. When considering the value of a large aggregate of different items, for example, we typically do not summate the many individual values. Instead, we appear to form an immediate impression of the likeability of the option based on the average quality of the full collection, which is easier to evaluate and remember. While useful in many situations, this affect heuristic can lead to apparently irrational decision-making. For example, studies have shown that people are willing to pay more for a small set of high-quality goods than for the same set of high-quality goods with lower-quality items added [e.g. 1]. We explored whether this kind of choice behavior could be seen in other primates. In two experiments, one in the laboratory and one in the field, using two different sets of food items, we found that rhesus monkeys preferred a highly-valued food item alone to the identical item paired with a food of positive but lower value. This finding provides experimental evidence that, under certain conditions, macaque monkeys follow an affect heuristic that can cause them to prefer less food. Conservation of this affect heuristic could account for similar ‘irrational’ biases in humans, and may reflect a more general complexity reduction strategy in which averages, prototypes, or stereotypes represent a set or group

Teens’ social media use and collective action

This is the author's accepted manuscript, made available with the permission of the publisher.This research examined how social self-efficacy, collective self-esteem, and need to belong can be used to predict teens’ use of social media. The particular focus was on how these social psychological variables together with social media use account for variation in teens’ participation in a flash mob – an exemplar of 21st-century collective action. Empirical data come from a survey of teens in a major Midwestern city in the USA. Teens’ need to belong was positively associated with the amount of time they reported spending on social networking sites, even when controlling for gender, race, and household socio-economic status. Both teens’ social self-efficacy and time spent on YouTube were positively associated with their intention to participate in a flash mob in the future. These and other findings are discussed in the context of the role of social media in youth culture and collective action

Oral serum-derived bovine immunoglobulin improves duodenal immune reconstitution and absorption function in patients with HIV enteropathy.

ObjectivesTo examine the impact of serum-derived bovine immunoglobulin, an oral medical food known to neutralize bacterial antigen and reduce intestinal inflammation, on restoration of mucosal immunity and gastrointestinal function in individuals with HIV enteropathy.DesignOpen-label trial with intensive 8-week phase of bovine serum immunoglobulin (SBI) 2.5 g twice daily with a 4-week washout period and an optional 9-month extension study.MethodsHIV enteropathy was defined as chronic gastrointestinal symptoms including frequent loose or watery stools despite no identifiable, reversible cause. Upper endoscopy for tissue immunofluorescent antibody assay and disaccharide gut permeability/absorption studies were performed before and after 8 weeks of SBI to test mucosal immunity and gastrointestinal function. Blood was collected for markers of microbial translocation, inflammation, and collagen kinetics. A validated gastrointestinal questionnaire assessed changes in symptoms.ResultsAll eight participants experienced profound improvement in symptoms with reduced bowel movements/day (P = 0.008) and improvements in stool consistency (P = 0.008). Gut permeability was normal before and after the intervention, but D-xylose absorption increased in seven of eight participants. Mucosal CD4 lymphocyte densities increased by a median of 139.5 cells/mm2 from 213 to 322 cells/mm2 (P = 0.016). Intestinal-fatty acid binding protein (I-FABP), a marker of enterocyte damage, initially rose in seven of eight participants after 8 weeks (P = 0.039), and then fell below baseline in four of five who continued receiving SBI (P = 0.12). Baseline serum I-FABP levels were negatively correlated with subsequent rise in mucosal CD4 lymphocyte densities (r = -0.74, P = 0.046).ConclusionSBI significantly increases intestinal mucosal CD4 lymphocyte counts, improves duodenal function, and showed evidence of promoting intestinal repair in the setting of HIV enteropathy

Aspects of Bunuba grammar and semantics

This thesis is a study of Bunuba, a language spoken around the township of Fitzroy Crossing in the West Kimberley region of Western Australia. Chapter 1 introduces Bunuba by discussing the location and sociolinguistic information and providing the reader with background to the language and its speakers. In this Chapter details of different speech registers and dialects are introduced and a brief review is undertaken of the previous research which has been carried out on the language and its speakers. Also included is a discussion of some contemporary uses of Bunuba and a description of my fieldwork methodology. This Chapter also sets this work apart from previous research on Bunuba, particularly that undertaken by Alan Rumsey. The differences between his work and the work presented in this thesis are outlined in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 describes the structure of the language detailing phonology and morphophonological procedures, word classes and nominal morphology. Chapter 3 discusses the formal structure of Bunuba verbal morphology

Global silicate weathering flux over-estimated because of sediment-water cation exchange

Rivers carry the dissolved and solid products of silicate mineral weathering, a process that removes CO2 from the atmosphere and provides a key negative climate feedback over geological timescales. Here we show that in some river systems, a reactive exchange pool on river suspended particulate matter, bonded weakly to mineral surfaces, increases the mobile cation flux by 50%. The chemistry of both river waters and the exchange pool demonstrate exchange equilibrium, confirmed by Sr isotopes. Global silicate weathering fluxes are calculated based on riverine dissolved sodium (Na+) from silicate minerals. The large exchange pool supplies Na+ of non- silicate origin to the dissolved load, especially in catchments with widespread marine sediments, or where rocks have equilibrated with saline basement fluids. We quantify this by comparing the riverine sediment exchange pool and river water chemistry. In some basins, cation exchange could account for the majority of sodium in the river water, significantly reducing estimates of silicate weathering. At a global scale, we demonstrate that silicate weathering fluxes are over-estimated by 12-28%. This over-estimation is greatest in regions of high erosion and high sediment loads where the negative climate feedback has a maximum sensitivity to chemical weathering reactions. In the context of other recent findings that reduce the net CO2 consumption through chemical weathering, the magnitude of the continental silicate weathering fluxes and its implications for solid Earth CO2 degassing fluxes needs to be further investigated.NER