The Human-Animal Boundary Wenning, Mario; Batra, Nandita; Bergamin, Joshua A ...
2018, 2018-11-27
eBook
The Human-Animal Boundary shifts the traditional anthropocentric focus of philosophy and literature by combining the question "what is human?" with the question "what is animal?" The objective is to ...expand the imaginative scope of human-animal relationships by combining perspectives from different disciplines, traditions, and cultural backgrounds.
Although a range of relationship enhancement interventions have shown benefits, programs involving trained facilitators are difficult to scale and self-directed programs tend to suffer from low rates ...of adherence (i.e., nonuse/disuse attrition). The present study evaluated Agapé, a relationship wellness smartphone app optimized for broad dissemination through 4 years of persuasive system design driven by user feedback. Agapé builds moments of connection by providing daily prompts to couples and then showing them one another's answers when both partners have responded. To evaluate Agapé, a single-arm, pilot study followed 405 couples (n = 810 partners; 68% non-Latinx White; 50% female; Mage = 29; 50% cohabiting; 31% married; 33% dissatisfied/distressed) through their first month of using the app. Agapé had high engagement (99%, completing M = 27 daily prompts dyadically) and 88% of couples provided follow-up data. The results among completers supported the acceptability, feasibility, and utility of Agapé, suggesting that partners found the app easy (74%) and enjoyable (93%) to use, particularly if they perceived their partners to be responsive. Most partners saw improvement in their relationships (80%) and in their individual well-being (70%). Repeated-measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs) revealed significant within-person improvement on relationship functioning (decreases in relationship negative qualities and increases in relationship satisfaction, relationship positive qualities, and dedication) and on individual functioning (increases in vitality and quality of life with decreases in psychological distress and depressive symptoms) among completers (Cohen's ds ranging from |.14 to .42|). Dosage effects demonstrated that gains in relationship quality were stronger for couples completing more daily prompts.
Biologists studying large carnivores in wild places usually do so from a distance, using telemetry and noninvasive methods of data collection. So what happens when an anthropologist studies a clan of ...spotted hyenas, Africa’s second-largest carnivores, up close—and in a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants? In Among the Bone Eaters , Marcus Baynes-Rock takes us to the ancient city of Harar in Ethiopia, where the gey waraba (hyenas of the city) are welcome in the streets and appreciated by the locals for the protection they provide from harmful spirits and dangerous “mountain” hyenas. They’ve even become a local tourist attraction.
At the start of his research in Harar, Baynes-Rock contended with difficult conditions, stone-throwing children, intransigent bureaucracy, and wary hyena subjects intent on avoiding people. After months of frustration, three young hyenas drew him into the hidden world of the Sofi clan. He discovered the elements of a hyena’s life, from the delectability of dead livestock and the nuisance of dogs to the unbounded thrill of hyena chase-play under the light of a full moon. Baynes-Rock’s personal relations with the hyenas from the Sofi clan expand the conceptual boundaries of human-animal relations. This is multispecies ethnography that reveals its messy, intersubjective, dangerously transformative potential.
Science and Decisions National Research Council; Division on Earth and Life Studies; Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology
09/2009
eBook
Open access
Risk assessment has become a dominant public policy tool for making choices, based on limited resources, to protect public health and the environment. It has been instrumental to the mission of the ...U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as other federal agencies in evaluating public health concerns, informing regulatory and technological decisions, prioritizing research needs and funding, and in developing approaches for cost-benefit analysis.
However, risk assessment is at a crossroads. Despite advances in the field, risk assessment faces a number of significant challenges including lengthy delays in making complex decisions; lack of data leading to significant uncertainty in risk assessments; and many chemicals in the marketplace that have not been evaluated and emerging agents requiring assessment.
Science and Decisions makes practical scientific and technical recommendations to address these challenges. This book is a complement to the widely used 1983 National Academies book, Risk Assessment in the Federal Government (also known as the Red Book). The earlier book established a framework for the concepts and conduct of risk assessment that has been adopted by numerous expert committees, regulatory agencies, and public health institutions. The new book embeds these concepts within a broader framework for risk-based decision-making. Together, these are essential references for those working in the regulatory and public health fields.
The nature and patterns of vertical work relationships between buyers and suppliers is a key subject of inquiry in organization and management research. However, the mechanisms conducive to ...transforming transaction-based relationships into commitment-based relationships remain elusive. Although commitment-based relationships can produce various outcomes, little is known about whether and how these work relationships build and facilitate inter-organizational capabilities and their performance implications. This article presents a theoretical model that clarifies the micro socio-psychological mechanisms by which buyers and suppliers can develop inter-organizational learning agility. By drawing on theoretical insights in the areas of social exchange, micro-foundations, positive work relationships, commitment, and dynamic capabilities, it suggests that three mechanisms – respectful engagement, rich and ongoing communication, and advice seeking and giving – can transition buyer-supplier relations from transactional ties to commitment-based ties. It is argued that relationship commitment is a key to building inter-organizational learning agility by enacting three mechanisms: psychological availability, generativity and reflective reframing. The discussion centers on the fundamentals for developing this stream of research.
•Explaining how micro-relational mechanisms transform transactional ties into commitment-based relationships in buyer-supplier exchanges.•Specifying socio-psychological mechanisms that help develop strategic capabilities and in particular inter-organizational learning agility.•Shedding light on the micro-foundations of a transformational process in work relationships between buyers and suppliers.
Man and Bird in the Palaeolithic of Western Europe
considers the nature of the interaction between birds and
hunter-gatherers. It examines aspects of avian behaviour and the
qualities that could be ...(and were) targeted at different periods by
hunter-gatherers, who recognised the utility of the diversity of
avian groups in various applications of daily life and thought. It
is clear from the records of excavated sites in western Europe that
during the evolution of both the Neanderthal period and the
subsequent occupations of Homo sapiens, avian demographics
fluctuated with the climate along with other aspects of both flora
and fauna. Each was required to adapt to these changes. The present
study considers these changes through the interactions of man and
bird as evidenced in the remains attached to Middle and Upper
Palaeolithic occupation sites in western Europe and touches on a
variety of prey/predator relationships across other groups of plant
and animal species. The book describes a range of procurement
strategies that are known from the literature and artistic record
of later cultures to have been used in the trapping, enticement and
hunting of birds for consumption and the manufacture of weapons,
domestic items, clothing, ceremony and cultural activities. It also
explores how bird images and depictions engraved or painted on the
walls of caves or on the objects of daily use during the Upper
Palaeolithic may be perceived as communications of a more profound
significance for the temporal, seasonal or social life of the
members of the group than the simple concept of animal. Certain
bird species have at different times held a special significance in
the everyday consciousness of particular peoples and a group of
Late Glacial, Magdalenian settlements in Aquitaine, France, appear
to be an example of such specialised culling. A case study of the
treatment of snowy owl at Arancou in the Atlantic Pyrenees seems to
illustrate such a specialisation. Discussion of the problems of
reconciling dating and research methods, of the last two hundred
years of Palaeolithic research, and of possible directions for
future research offer an open conclusion to the work.
Although attachment security is relatively stable over time, individuals do experience significant within-person variation in their attachment security across time. No research to date, however, has ...assessed the relational consequences of within-person variation (fluctuations) in attachment security toward a specific attachment figure. Study 1 (N = 409) first examined whether attachment security was associated with individuals' expectations that their current intimate relationship would be stable and consistent over time (vs. inconsistent and unstable). Studies 2 and 3 extended this by examining the prevalence and consequences of actual within-person variation (fluctuations) in relationship-specific attachment security toward an intimate partner in 2 multiwave longitudinal studies that assessed individuals (Study 2, N = 324) and couples (Study 3, N = 171 dyads). The results indicate that secure individuals (those low in attachment anxiety or attachment avoidance) expect their current relationship to remain relatively stable and consistent over time (Study 1). However, Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that most individuals do experience fluctuations in their relationship-specific attachment security. Moreover, greater fluctuations predict declines in relationship satisfaction (Studies 2 and 3) and increases in relationship distress (Study 3) over time, but primarily for secure individuals (those low in baseline attachment anxiety or attachment avoidance). This set of findings highlight the importance of examining within-person fluctuations in attachment security, which are associated with declines in trajectories of relationship wellbeing, particularly for secure individuals who anticipate greater stability in their relationships.
While previous studies have focused on the benefits, risks and outcomes of buy–sell relationships, little is known about the dynamics of these relationships. Our study takes an initial step in this ...direction by examining how firms develop successful relationships. We review the literature and analyze multiple buyer–supplier relationships to explore developments over time, identify triggers for change, and identify effective management practices for long-term inter-organizational relationships. We employ retrospective data to compare six long-standing buyer–supplier relationships. Our data suggest a recurring pattern of integration initiatives in the evolution towards a successful buy–sell relationship. Specifically, our field data indicate that this pattern starts with initiatives for logistics responsiveness, followed by knowledge exchange initiatives and finally initiatives to increase the use of common resources. Each of these initiatives are triggered by specific opportunities and are emergent in nature. By examining the triggers in the development and maintenance of buy–sell relationships, our study adds to the integration of existing life-cycle frameworks, which increases our understanding of a life-cycle theory for inter-organizational relationships.
Social media provides a useful platform for people to share information, develop networks, and connect with each other online. While social media allows one to foster relationships with ease, it may ...pose challenges for individuals in a romantic relationship. Mounting evidence suggests that social media use may have an adverse impact on relationship dynamics, largely due to reduced time and attention for relationship partners. However, it remains unclear (1) how the increased use of social media may lead to negative consequences of relationship quality; (2) how the increased use of social media and negative relationship consequences together may trigger social media addiction; and (3) whether there are psychological factors that may contribute to the mitigation of the negative consequences. Here, we explored these issues by selecting Instagram (IG) as the target platform because the unique feature of tracking objective time of usage within the IG app allowed us to more accurately determine the length of IG usage. Using a structural equation modeling approach, we found that increased IG usage reduced relationship satisfaction, which led to an increase in both conflicts and negative outcomes. The sequential effects of reduced relationship satisfaction and increased conflicts then triggered addictive use of IG. In contrast, tendency to make sacrifice for the relationship partner in everyday life produced a positive effect on relationship satisfaction, which in turn reduced the likelihood of conflicts, negative outcomes, and addiction. Taken together, we have delineated pathways through which excessive social media use may detrimentally affect both relationship and personal well-being and identified sacrifice as a possible psychological factor to mitigate the detrimental effects. We believe that these findings add to our understanding of the processes by which social media influences romantic relationship and highlight the interactive effects of social media and relationship on causing unexpected, adverse consequences.
PDF
