Fear regulation: from passive extinction to active avoidance

It is adaptive to start fearing stimuli that signal imminent danger and to stop fearing these signals when they are no longer followed by danger. The topic of extinction research is to investigate the mechanisms of fear reduction when passively observing such change in contingency. However, we can also actively intervene and change contingencies by executing actions that prevent the signaled danger. Such avoidance behavior is an active form of fear regulation that is adaptive when it serves to protect against imminent danger, but becomes maladaptive when it is not appropriate to the actual level of threat. I will review different theories of the learning and maintenance of avoidance behaviors and present evidence that suggests that similar fear regulation mechanisms are at play in avoidance as in extinction. I will further show how this similarity can provide new hypotheses regarding the mechanism that pushes adaptive avoidance into maladaptive avoidance. Finally, I will discuss strategies to extinguish avoidance behaviors.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

The aspirations of Afghan unaccompanied refugee minors before departure and at arrival in the host country

This article explores the perspectives of Afghan unaccompanied refugee minors on their own motives and aspirations and on the motives and aspirations of their family and community context at the moment they left their home country and at arrival in the host country. Interviews and questionnaires were used to measure the aspirations of 52 Afghan unaccompanied refugee minors, soon after their arrival in Belgium. Aspirations at departure and evolutions in aspirations over time were examined retrospectively. Finding security and studying particularly influenced their decision to migrate. These aspirations changed over time under the impact of a diversity of factors, such as their own experiences and the opinions of others (e.g. peers, smugglers). Since motives and aspirations might influence the migration trajectories of unaccompanied refugee minors, migration policies and practitioners should take them actively into account so as to improve support for unaccompanied refugee minors

The Lerner Index as a Measure of Market Power of U.S. Credit Unions in the Absence of Profit Maximization

This paper explores the theoretical implications of a change in the behavioral assumptions of the Lerner index in the case of U.S. credit unions which do not operate under profit maximization. Despite the finding that the Lerner index underestimates the actual degree of market power in this non standard case, the value found for credit unions is significantly higher than for commercial banks. In other words, credit unions behave relatively monopolistically

The Special Collections in the Peace Palace Library and the work of Library Director Dr Jacob ter Meulen

This paper was originally presented under the title, “The Peace Palace Library. Its collections: historic and those serving the objective of contemporary arbitration and adjudication. Its users: courts, academics and the general public” at the Socio-Legal Sources and Methods in International Law workshop, held at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London on November 25th, 2016. Since the 1924-1952 Peace Palace Library Director Dr Jacob ter Meulen played such a crucial role in the shaping of the Special Collections about which the above mentioned lecture was centered the text and form of everything hereunder focuses extensively on Dr Jacob ter Meulen. Moreover, it is worth addressing the life and work of Dr Jacob ter Meulen because he has not received much scholarly attention in easily available publications such as Legal Information Management

The role of aversiveness in the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty and inflexible avoidance

The study of avoidance behaviour is considered relevant to improve our understanding of anxiety disorders, which are commonly characterized by the presence of undue avoidance behaviours. Flores et al. (2018) found evidence that Prospective Intolerance of Uncertainty (P-IU) is associated with inflexible avoidance behaviour. Specifically, healthy participants learned in a free-operant discriminative task to avoid an aversive sound, and were tested in extinction to measure the sensitivity of avoidance responses to the devaluation of the sound aversiveness. The results showed that an increase in P-IU was positively associated with insensitivity to outcome devaluation. This association was still significant even when trait anxiety was controlled for. These results suggested that PIU may be a vulnerability factor for inflexible avoidance. However, in a recent replication, we found that the relationship between P-IU and inflexible avoidance was moderated by the participants ratings of outcome aversiveness. Specifically, the significant association between PIU and insensitivity to outcome devaluation was found to be conditional upon high aversiveness ratings.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, proyecto I+D+i PSI2014-56061. Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme. Plan Propio de Investigación de la Universidad de Málaga, Programa de Fortalecimiento de las Capacidades en I+D+I en las Universidades 2014-20150, Fondos FEDER

Nonlinear least squares updating of the canonical polyadic decomposition

status: publishe

Memories of 100 years of human fear conditioning research and expectations for its future

This special issue celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Little Albert study, published in February 1920, which marked the birth of human fear conditioning research. The collection of papers in this special issue provides a snapshot of the thriving state of this field today. In this Editorial, we first trace the historical roots of the field and then provide a conceptual analysis of the many ways in which human fear conditioning is currently used in theory and treatment development, with special reference to the contributions in this special issue. Ivan P. Pavlov allegedly claimed that "If you want new ideas, read old books". We could not agree more; it is our conviction that tracing the roots of our field illuminates current trends and will contribute to shaping new directions for the next 100 years of research