The Effects of Animals on Human Health and Well-Being

Substantial sums of money are invested annually in preventative medicine and therapeutic treatment for people with a wide range of physical and psychological health problems, sometimes to no avail. There is now mounting evidence to suggest that companion animals, such as dogs and cats, can enhance the health of their human owners and may thus contribute significantly to the health expenditure of our country. This paper explores the evidence that pets can contribute to human health and well-being. The article initially concentrates on the value of animals for short- and long-term physical health, before exploring the relationship between animals and psychological health, focusing on the ability of dogs, cats, and other species to aid the disabled and serve as a "therapist" to those in institutional settings. The paper also discusses the evidence for the ability of dogs to facilitate the diagnosis and treatment of specific chronic diseases, notably cancer, epilepsy, and diabetes. Mechanisms underlying the ability of animals to promote human health are discussed within a theoretical framework. Whereas the evidence for a direct causal association between human well-being and companion animals is not conclusive, the literature reviewed is largely supportive of the widely held, and long-standing, belief that "pets are good for us."     

All Creatures Great and Small: New Perspectives on Psychology and Human–Animal Interactions

Relations between humans and nonhuman animals are morally significant, intense, enduring, and pervasive. Presented here are current perspectives on social and psychological aspects of human–animal interactions. The articles in this issue focus on three broad themes—attitudes toward the use of other species, the effects of relationships with companion animals on human health and well-being, and the ethical and policy implications of our interactions with other species. The article represent a mix of theory, qualitative and quantitative empirical approaches, review, and policy recommendations on a topic that has historically been neglected by social scientists.     

Effects of Outcome and Probabilistic Ambiguity on Managerial Choices

Information ambiguity is prevalent in organizations and likely influences management decisions. This study examines, given imprecise probabilities and outcomes, how managers make choices when they are provided with single-figure benchmarks. Seventy-nine MBA students completed two experiments. We found that, in a decision framed as a decision under certainty involving an ambiguous outcome, the majority of the subjects were ambiguity prone in the loss condition and switched to ambiguity aversion in the gain condition. However, in the presence of probabilistic ambiguity in a decision under risk, this expected switching pattern was shown only when the difference in riskiness between the two choice options (in the loss condition) was perceived to be relatively small. In a companion study, we used a written protocol approach to identify factors that affect decision makers' investment choices when faced with ambiguous outcomes. Protocols frequently mentioned that the ambiguous outcome option was risky, even in the case which was framed as a decision under certainty in the problem statement. In a decision under risk with ambiguous outcomes, the combination of probabilistic risk and outcome ambiguity was seen as even more risky.     

无序和虚空:后现代伦理存在的破碎

后现代伦理存在从主体性虚空到社会的道德虚空,无一不表现着破碎的样子,建立在封建纲常基础上的旧有伦理秩序被废弃、符合新时期社会期望的伦理存在方式还没有成熟。伦理主体存在着,却以没有主体的方式存在,存在以身体的呈现模式承载着自我和社会的破碎状态,以渴望和探索的姿态正在生成,主体理性也在不断的反思和对话中,拯救着迅速蔓延的虚空。     

Contradictions and Confounds in Coverage of Obesity: Psychology Journals, Textbooks, and the Media

Although obesity is not listed as a psychiatric condition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, psychologists focus on obesity in their research, clinical practice, and teaching. This article reviews the methods and outcomes of the weight loss research in psychology journal articles, and discusses some of the confounds. These studies focus on comparisons among treatment conditions rather than on the low amounts of weight lost, and do not use clinical criteria for evaluating outcome. Although improvement in physical health is viewed as the reason for weight loss programs, few studies assess physical health. There has been little concern about how weight loss participants feel when they regain weight. Furthermore, the journal peer review process does not encourage paradigm shifts. The article also discusses how the results of the weight loss research studies are covered in undergraduate psychology textbooks and how they are (mis)interpreted by the media. Recommendations for a paradigm shift in the peer review process, coverage in textbooks and the media, are offered.     

Is the Future more or less Human? Differing Views of Humanness in the Posthumanism Debate

A debate has emerged in the bioethics literature about the use of biotechnology to modify human nature. A failure to define humanness has produced conceptual confusion in this debate. We draw upon recent social psychological work on folk concepts of humanness and dehumanization to analyse the understandings of humanness that underpin the rival positions. We argue that advocates and opponents of human nature modification employ distinct conceptions of humanness, and that their differing evaluations of modification make sense in light of these conceptions. Advocates view modification as the enhancement of a non‐essentialist sense of humanness that takes us further from animal nature. Opponents view it as the loss of an essentialist sense of humanness that takes us closer to a robotic state. Recognition that humanness has multiple senses implies that there is no mutually exclusive choice between seeing the outcome of modification as a quantitative gain in humanness or a fundamental, qualitative loss of it.     

Aggression in toddlers: Associations with temper loss and parent-child conflict

Using a normative US sample of 477 mothers of 6- to 24- month-old children, we explored the relations among toddlers’ physical aggression, child temper loss, and parent-child conflict to gain a better understanding of how aggression develops from infancy to toddlerhood. An inventory of specific aggressive acts was subject to factor analysis to test whether the acts clustered as hypothesized. Consistent with our hypothesis, confirmatory factor analyses supported the distinction between the two types of aggression, directed and exploratory physical aggression. Although the two types were correlated, they showed differential associations with temper loss and parent-child conflict consistent with theory. Directed aggression had a relatively stronger relation with child defiance and temper loss than did exploratory aggression. Moreover, the association between directed aggression and defiance was stronger for older children. The findings from this cross-sectional study provide preliminary support for two forms of early aggression that may differ in trajectory and context.     

Integration of Supportive Psychotherapy with Case Management for Older Adults with Borderline Personality Disorder

This article attempts to demonstrate how supportive psychotherapy may serve as a companion therapeutic modality for case management activities with older adult clients suffering with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Justification for this approach is provided and techniques and interventions are identified. Three case examples demonstrating the modalities integration are provided.     

Integration of supportive psychotherapy with case management for older adults with borderline personality disorder

This article attempts to demonstrate how supportive psychotherapy may serve as a companion therapeutic modality for case management activities with older adult clients suffering with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Justification for this approach is provided and techniques and interventions are identified. Three case examples demonstrating the modalities integration are provided.     

Teaching Group Work in the BSW Generalist Social Work Curriculum: Core Content

In this article, nine considerations associated with social work practice with groups are identified and discussed. These range from the importance of mutual aid and the role of the group leader to multicultural competence and practice skills needed in the beginning, middle, and ending phases of group work. Group work is only one of four modalities that must be taught in the undergraduate practice sequence. Therefore, the nine considerations represent the essential content on group work for the generalist practice curriculum. The author assumes that this content can be presented in a 7-week time frame. In a companion article, the author presents teaching strategies and techniques that assist the instructor in conveying the principles for practice discussed in the present article.     

略论张炎词学理论的诗化倾向与对词体本质特征的把握

宋词的总体发展过程存在着"明修栈道"和"暗度陈仓"两种不同方式的诗化倾向。张炎在坚持并肯定词的音乐性、写意性和传统婉约词深婉曲折特质的基础上,自觉、全面地建构了以"清空"和"雅正"为核心的词学理论体系,把"暗度陈仓"式的词的诗化推进到一个新的阶段。这是一种诗化倾向的词学理论,而不是将词变为诗的诗学观念。     

September 10, 2001

Abstract

This essay chronicles the impact of a patient's suicide on the therapist, reflecting on the initial trauma, the therapist's repeated attempts to deal with the loss, and her ultimate physical collapse. Time off from work began the healing of her physical symptoms, and the spontaneous writing and immediate sharing of her raw and unformulated feelings with a writing group she had just joined, began the process of grieving which, until this point, had only been known physically. Working and re-working this essay kept her safely, but affectively connected to the loss and gave her experiential understanding of the adaptive function of somatization, leading finally to the acceptance of the limitations of both patient and therapist.     

The BSW Social Work Curriculum: Teaching Strategies,Case Material,and Assignments for Teaching Group Work

This article is a companion piece to another article appearing in this special edition of Social Work with Groups on group work content for the generalist practice curriculum. In this article, techniques that assist the instructor in presenting the material on group work in the classroom are identified. These techniques, which include case material and classroom exercises, also help students connect their field and classroom learning about group work. The activities discussed in this article derive from the core group work content discussed in the previous article.     

Disruption and Reintegration

Nursing home staff often fail to recognize and deal with the disruption and distress that takes place within a family when a member is institutionalized. The disruption of family relationships and the change in physical environment represent a family crisis that engenders a great sense of loss and grief. This paper discusses institutional planning and interventive strategies that help to expedite and facilitate this process of change in the most comfortable manner possible.     

Intentionality in Nature. Against an All-Encompassing Evolutionary Paradigm: Evolutionary and Cognitive Processes are not Instances of the Same Process

Three examples of theoretical analysis of evolutionary processes are presented. It is shown that the mechanisms involved have little to do with cognitive processes except for superficial and formal analogies. That is the case not only for classical models of adaptive evolution (example I), but also for more recent ones (exanples II and HI) making use of neural network computation and self-organization theories.
Recent works on functional self-organization exhibiting some features of intentionality are discussed in this context. It is argued that Dennett's (or other) intentional stance cannot be used as a theoretical framework common to human prepositional attitudes, animal behaviour and adaptive (or non-adaptive) evolution. Indeed, a physical theory of intentionality could account, at least in principle, for the production of intentional self-organizing systems. However, except for a renewed theological "argument from design", there is no justification to attribute intentionality to evolutionary processes and "Mother Nature", for the reason that they have produced organisms endowed with intentional psycholinguistic capabilities.     

A New National Health Agenda: Providing the Public With Accurate Information

For decades the recommendations provided by federal agencies have been decidedly one-sided, focusing on the dangers of obesity and need for weight loss. Therefore the public has been presented with incomplete and inaccurate information, which has stagnated our understanding of health. The primary objective needed for a new national health agenda is for the government to provide the public with complete and accurate information about health, weight, and dieting. In order for federal agencies and congress to promote a new national health agenda that reflects a more accurate understanding of the research, the author recommends the following policy changes: (1) the recognition of the health threat imposed by the thinness pursuit and eating disorders, (2) the promotion of weight stability rather than weight loss, (3) ensuring that the conclusions of federal agencies are neutral rather than serving special interest groups, (4) the protection of the consumer from harmful diet programs and drugs, and (5) the providing of public education campaigns emphasizing physical and psychological health rather than efforts for advancing such a national health-centered agenda.     

Pet dogs: Does their presence influence preadolescents' emotional responses to a social stressor?

Despite interest in human–animal interaction, few studies have tested whether the presence of a dog facilitates children's emotional responding. Preadolescents (N = 99) were randomly assigned to complete the Trier Social Stress Test either with or without their pet dog. Children rated their positive and negative affect, and high‐frequency heart rate variability (HF‐HRV) was assessed throughout the session. Children reported higher positive affect when they completed the task with their pet dog, although there were no differences for negative affect or HF‐HRV. Children who had more physical contact with their dog at baseline reported higher positive affect. The findings suggest contact with pets is associated with enhanced positive affect.     

Child well-being through different lenses: why concept matters

'Well-being' has entered policy rhetoric in children's services in the UK and other Western developed countries as a companion to other buzzwords of recent years. In order to improve children's well-being, we need not only a better understanding of what it is and how services can improve it, but also the ability to measure child well-being in order to evaluate success. This paper explores conceptually and empirically the 'lenses' through which child well-being is often viewed. It considers the relationships between these perspectives, the added value that each one brings and the implications for services.     

The Nature of Culture. Towards a Realist Phenomenology of Material, Animal and Human Nature

In an ironic rejoinder to the postmodern politics of nature, I will adopt an anthropological perspective on culture, which is conspicuous by its absence in the latest wave of science studies, and reformulate the distinction between nature and culture as a reflexive distinction within culture that emerges with modernity. In order to countering the hypertextualism of the (de)constructivists, I will next sketch out a realist theory of nature. Combining the transcendental realism of Roy Bhaskar with the transcendental phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, I will then try to outline the contours of a realist phenomenology of the ontological regions of physical, animal and human nature. Resuming my anthropological considerations on culture, I will finish the article with a progressive account of how the opposition between regional ontologies and regional typologies could be overcome.