The Brain’s Reward Response Occurs Even Without Actual Reward!

What if the brain’s response to reward occurs even when there is no reward? Wouldn’t that be a further concern for people prone to problem gambling and other forms of addiction, like those related to eating? Electroencephalography was employed to investigate this possibility using probabilistic feedback manipulations and measures of known event-related potentials (ERPs) related to reward processing. We tested the hypothesis—that reward-based ERPs would occur even in the absence of a tangible reward and when manipulations on expectation are implicit. The well-known P300 response potential was a key focus, and was assessed in non-gambling volunteer undergraduates on a task involving experimentally-manipulated probabilities of positive or negative feedback comprising three trial types—80, 50, or 20% positive feedback. A feedback stimulus (F1) followed a guess response between two possible outcomes (implicit win/loss), and then a second feedback stimulus (F2) was presented to confirm an alleged ‘win’ or ‘loss’ (explicit win/loss). Results revealed that amplitude of the P300 in F1-locked data (implicit manipulation) was larger (more positive) on average for feedback outcomes that were manipulated to be less likely than expected. The effect is pronounced after increased time on task (later trials), even though the majority of participants were not explicitly aware of our probability manipulations. For the explicit effects in F2-locked data, no meaningful or significant effects were observed. These findings point to the existence of proposed success-response mechanisms that operate not only explicitly but also with implicit manipulations that do not involve any direct indication of a win or loss, and are not associated with tangible rewards. Thus, there seems to be a non-explicit form of perception (we call ‘implicit’) associated with an internal experience of wins/losses (in the absence of actual rewards or losses) that can be measured in associated brain processes. The potential significance of these findings is discussed in terms of implications for problem gambling.     

A Response to Our Invitation

A form for readers can be found at the back of every odd-numberedissue of Women of China,including an invitation to give us any opinionsand suggestions regarding this magazine or any questions concerningChinese women.Women of China welcomes all forms of feedback or     

Response to “A Theoretical Framework”

Abstract

The outcome of social work intervention is often some rearrangement of valuable resources—money, services, power, status—in a family, neighborhood, or community. However, this redistributional effect of social work intervention and the related ethical implications have been largely unexplicated. This paper discusses the nature of distributional questions, examines three alternative approaches to the ethics of distribution—1) classical utilitarianism, 2) intuitionism, and 3) Rawls' “Theory of Justice”—and reviews the criticisms of each. The paper concludes that elements of each of these approaches can apply to social work education and practice and can help guide practitioners to higher levels of ethical consciousness.     

Reward the lucky? An experimental investigation of the impact of agency and luck on bonuses

We examine the impact of agency and luck on bonuses in a two player, two stage controlled laboratory experiment. In the first stage, Player A makes an investment decision on behalf of Player B. In the second stage, Player B makes a dictator allocation for each possible outcome from the investment. We compare dictator giving (bonuses) across outcomes and with a control treatment in which the stage 1 outcomes are determined randomly. We do not find that luck is rewarded with higher bonuses. However, we do find a general tendency to respond to agency with reduced bonuses and, in particular, a significant tendency to reduce bonuses to agents who are unlucky. Additionally, we find that those who are more risk tolerant are less likely to give no bonus under agency but not in the control.     

Response Rate in Academic Studies — A Comparative Analysis

A study was conducted to explore what could andshould be a reasonable response rate in academicstudies. One hundred and forty-one papers which included175 different studies were examined. They were published in the Academy of Management Journal, HumanRelations, Journal of Applied Psychology, OrganizationalBehavior and Human Decision Processes , and Journal ofInternational Business Studies in the years 1975, 1985, and 1995, covering about 200,000respondents. The average response rate was 55.6 with astandard deviation of 19.7. Variations among thejournals such as the year of publication and othervariables were discussed. Most notable is the declinethrough the years (average 48.4, standard deviation of20.1, in 1995), the lower level found in studiesinvolving top management or organizationalrepresentatives (average 36.1, standard deviation of 13.3), andthe predominance of North American studies. It issuggested that the average and standard deviation foundin this study should be used as a norm for future studies, bearing in mind the specific referencegroup. It is also recommended that a distinction is madebetween surveys directed at individual participants andthose targeting organizationalrepresentatives.     

Response to Ross’s Comment to Miccio-Fonseca and DeFeo

ABSTRACT

Response to Ross on his comments regarding my purported misunderstanding of Ross’s article and the DSM-V (Ross, 2015). Although Ross claims he offered no personal opinions of any kind in his commentary, undeniably there were two separate and independent comments in (Miccio-Fonseca (2015) and DeFeo (2015) addressing similar issues. Is this coincidental? This author maintains the stance expressed in the cited commentary.     

Response to “Becoming Visible: The Case of Collette”

The clinician’s experiences of race outside of the treatment room contribute to the formation of a racialized self, which influences clinical work with all clients notwithstanding race. Multiracial individuals at times must balance their external physical presentation—and the corresponding race-related categories that others place on them—with their own internally constructed racial identifications. The mechanisms of identification and disidentification can provide safety for the multiracial individual. How can clinicians effectively acknowledge their own identifications and disidentifications as lenses for seeing the multiracial person’s racialized self and selves so as to more effectively work with the multiracial?     

Effects of a Mindfulness Task on Women’s Sexual Response

Mindfulness-based interventions are effective at improving symptoms of sexual dysfunction in women. The mechanisms by which mindfulness improves sexual function are less clear. The main objective of our study was to investigate the impact of a mindfulness task on sexual response in women. Forty-one women (mean age = 27.2, SD = 5.6) participated in two laboratory sessions that each included two erotic films and one attention task that were presented in counterbalanced order. Both attention tasks consisted of a six-minute audio recording of either a modified body scan, focusing on genital arousal sensations (mindfulness condition), or a visualization exercise. Subjective and genital sexual arousal were measured continuously during stimulus presentation. The mindfulness task led to greater subjective and lower genital arousal. The agreement of subjective and genital sexual arousal (i.e., concordance) was greater in the mindfulness condition. Trait mindfulness was related to lower sexual arousal but also greater sexual concordance in women. Mindfulness-based interventions that encourage women to focus on physical arousal sensations in the here and now may be associated with women’s improved sexual function by enhancing feelings of sexual arousal during sexual activity and by increasing concordance between subjective and genital sexual arousal.     

Audience Response Systems: Using “Clickers” to Enhance BSW Education

Among new technologies for enhancing classroom-based education are audience response systems (ARS), also known as “clickers.” These handheld devices record student responses to instructor questions and send them electronically to a receiver that tallies the responses. Summary results are then projected, usually as a graph. Instructors piloted the use of clickers in undergraduate social work research and practice courses. Instructor and student experiences with the clickers were examined by type of course, frequency of use, ease of use, perceived impact on learning, and use by students with disabilities. Instructors and students in both types of courses found the clickers beneficial. Minor differences by type of course were found. Some students with disabilities noted problems using the clickers. More use of clickers and research on their use in social work education is recommended along with continued attention to universal design in course preparation.     

Preconceiving Life: Response to Gentile’s “Troubling Temporalities”

When behavior is reported that objectively places the patient and others at risk and subjectively exposes the therapist to a vivid range of private experience, the challenge in maintaining a clinical stance is complicated to say the least. This complication is intensified to the degree that the clinician's aim involves understanding rather than discipline and control. To specify details of that challenge, I discuss two patients whose unsafe sexual practice confronted me. In these clinical situations, I found it useful to be mindful that bareback sex contains a range of meanings, including the search for a quality of relating that can enliven an inner deadness. Thinking this, I found it necessary to be alert to wishes for creativity as well as destructiveness. Attending to such paradoxes also required me to come up with a new way of working with countertransference: to render it an imaginary theatrical performance.     

American Indians’ Response to Physical Pain: Functional Limitations and Help-Seeking Behaviors

Seventy-five American Indians, ages 25 to 84, representing 14 tribal nations, participated in this study. The historical, cultural, and behavioral responses to physical pain were examined. Data were collected over a 7-month period with a survey instrument that included the Universal Pain Scale, activities of daily living, causes of pain, cultural beliefs, and self-help-seeking behaviors. Also, recommendations for Western biomedical health care professionals are offered to improve services for the American Indian population. Findings demonstrate that culture plays a crucial role in wellness and significantly affects help-seeking behaviors, treatment regimens, responses to pain, and pain management.     

Community‐oriented Social Work in Cuba: Government Response to Emerging Social Problems

Cuba developed a unique community‐oriented social work approach in the 1990s that transformed social work education and practice. This paper describes that approach and why it emerged when it did. A review of the literature on social change in Cuba in the 1990s, and 31 open‐ended interviews conducted in Havana, Cuba, showed that social work changed in response to economic crisis, emerging social problems and the need for social workers for community practice. Social workers' participation in neighborhood development projects and Cuba's post‐Revolutionary communal ethos also shaped a community‐oriented social work approach in Cuba. This approach contrasts with an individually oriented model in the US and in Britain. Social workers in Cuba and in these countries can learn from one another, despite the differences that exist among them.     

Organization–Public Relationships and Crisis Response Strategies: Impact on Attribution of Responsibility

The study examines how relationships with an organization and crisis response strategy affect attribution of crisis responsibility. Participants were exposed to 1 of 4 different crisis response strategies, manipulated through news articles. The study measured perceptions of the organization–public relationship, and after exposure to 1 of the 4 news articles, attribution of crisis responsibility. People with a positive relationship with the organization were less likely to place blame for the crisis on the organization regardless of crisis response strategy. The study provides evidence that maintaining positive relationships with stakeholders may be more important that individual crisis strategies.     

Refining the Salience Hypothesis: Does the Response to Immigration Differ Across Countries?

Applied to immigration, Blalock’s (Toward a Theory of Minority‐Group Relations. A Capricorn Giant, 1967) salience hypothesis predicts that contact with immigrants will tend to highlight the role of nationality in the identities of natives and thereby increase opposition to immigration. Drawing on group threat and cultural perspectives hypotheses, we consider the roles of macroeconomic conditions and national culture in salience effects. Our results indicate that economic concerns over immigration are more sensitive to the immigrant population share during difficult economic times and in countries with less religious diversity and more collectivist cultures. In contrast, cultural concerns over immigration are not sensitive to the macroeconomic and cultural variables we examine. Thus, the attitudinal response to immigration differs significantly across countries, a finding that is relevant to attempts to manage the social and political consequences of large immigration inflows.     

Two Means Together? Effects of Response Bias and Sensitivity on Communicative Action Detection

Numerous lines of research suggest that communicative dyadic actions elicit preferential processing and more accurate detection compared to similar but individual actions. However, it is unclear whether the presence of the second agent provides additional cues that allow for more accurate discriminability between communicative and individual intentions or whether it lowers the threshold for perceiving third-party encounters as interactive. We performed a series of studies comparing the recognition of communicative actions from single and dyadic displays in healthy individuals. A decreased response threshold for communicative actions was observed for dyadic vs. single-agent animations across all three studies, providing evidence for the dyadic communicative bias. Furthermore, consistent with the facilitated recognition hypothesis, congruent response to a communicative gesture increased the ability to accurately interpret the actions. In line with dual-process theory, we propose that both mechanisms may be perceived as complementary rather than competitive and affect different stages of stimuli processing.