Does subliminal exposure to sexual stimuli have the same effects on men and women?

Three studies explored gender differences in explicit and implicit components of sexual arousal following brief exposure to a sexual stimulus. Whereas Study 1 assessed reports of sexual arousal following subliminal exposure to a sexual or a neutral picture, Studies 2 and 3 examined the effects of the same priming procedure on accessibility of sex-related thoughts assessed with a pictorial judgment task and a lexical decision task. The subliminal sexual prime did not have an effect on men's reports of sexual arousal, but caused women to report lower levels of sexual arousal. In contrast, the same subliminal sexual prime led to higher accessibility of sex-related thoughts in both men and women. It is therefore suggested that the subliminal sexual prime causes women to activate sex-related mental contents but to experience the result as somewhat aversive.     

Moral Emotions and Social Activism: The Case of Animal Rights

Why do some people and not others become involved in social movements? We examined the relationships between a moral emotion—disgust—and animal activism, attitudes toward animal welfare, and consumption of meat. Participants were recruited through two social networking websites and included animal activists, promoters of animal use, and participants not involved in animal-related causes. They took an online survey which included measures of sensitivity to visceral disgust, attitudes toward animal welfare, and frequency of meat eating. Animal activists were more sensitive to visceral disgust than were promoters of animal use or nonaligned participants. Disgust sensitivity was positively correlated with attitudes toward animal welfare but not with meat consumption. The relationship between animal activism and vegetarianism was complex; nearly half of animal activists ate meat, and half of the vegetarians did not consider themselves to be animal activists. We argue that conflicts over the moral status of animals reflect fundamental differences in moral intuitions.     

Einsatz von Simulationspatienten im Kommunikations- und Interaktionstraining für Medizinerinnen und Mediziner (Medi-KIT): Bedarfsanalyse — Training — Perspektiven

Communication skills are of central importance within daily medical life providing effective treatment. In the modern high-tech field of medicine, trustful conversations play a prominent role. In order to help students of the Heidelberg Medical Faculty to be ready for their highly responsible role as communication partner, training is carried out in the framework of HeiCuMed (short for Heidelberger Curriculum Medicinale) using specially trained simulation patients. The communication and interaction training program (referred to as Medi-KIT) enables to practice conducting conversations with challenging communication partners and grave conversational content in difficult situations. Feedback from the standardized patients, as well as from peers and tutors represents a central didactic element.In order to secure knowledge transfer into daily clinic life and as well to build a relation to cognitive knowledge transfer, all medical students are assigned, alongside Medi-KIT lessons, to a ward, and training units are coordinated in terms of content to correspond with symptom-oriented lectures and parallel POL-groups (problem-oriented learning groups). In addition, communication learning objectives are examined at the end of the semester in the form of a clinical practical exam (OSCE: Objective Structured Clinical Examination) and at patient’s bedside (Mini-CEX: Mini Clinical Examination). The goal in imparting communication skills within medical education is that the longitudinal communication curriculum be maintained and continued in subsequent medical specialization studies.     

Health care applications of complexity science. Life at the edge of chaos

The authors explore complexity science, a relatively new field of inquiry, which holds for both clinicians and health care leaders the real possibility of stimulating fresh insights and approaches to health and medical care-both its provision and its organization. Two case studies are presented to illustrate how complexity theory can provide health care leaders with a new perspective on how to address the myriad challenges they confront daily: (1) a patient with dissociative identity disorder; and (2) a physician task group charged to advise on hospital medical staff reorganization and governance. These case studies help clinicians and leaders of health care organizations understand how complexity: (1) may be relevant, even helpful, as they consider difficult challenges in both patient and organizational management; and (2) might emerge as a synthesizing force as they face the extraordinarily complicated task of jointly creating integrated health care systems. A resource section is provided for those who may wish to further pursue the topic.     

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.     

The Convergence Between Outreach and Financial Performance in Mediterranean MFIs: A Panel Data Analysis

There is a long-standing debate on the relationship between outreach and financial performance in the microfinance institutions (MFIs). Although previous researches have reported contradictory results, many of these studies suffer from problems of misspecified model and/or restricted data. In this paper, we employ a static panel data analysis to empirically examine the impact of outreach on financial performance for a sample of 16 Mediterranean MFIs over the 2001–2008 period. Our evidence implies, first that the non-governmental organizations commercial viability increases with average loan size. Second, this commercial viability also increases with the number of outstanding loans per women. Finally, neither targeting the poor nor targeting women affect the repayment default.     

No Contagion,Only Interdependence During the US Sub-Primes Crisis

In this paper, we have interested to testing the contagion exists that is caused by the sub-prime crisis, in order to distinguish between the cases of interdependences and “shift contagion” during this crisis. The analysis was conducted on a sample of four highly transition countries: Brazil, Russia, India and china, and the market source of crisis, taking into consideration the index as an aggregate indicator of financial market. The study of contagion is based on the tests of adjusted correlation coefficient and the non-linear error correction models. Indeed, these techniques reject the contagion hypothesis between these markets in order to conclude “no contagion, only interdependence”.     

Ethnic Segmentation in School and Labor Market — 40 Year Legacy of Austrian Guestworker Policy1

Compared to other countries in Europe, official figures in Austria, however incomplete, indicate that pessimism towards successful integration of immigrants and their children is justified. With regard to schooling and labor market, it is not only the first generation of the so‐called guest‐workers who seem to be stuck at low levels of the social hierarchy, but also the second generation. This is especially true for the descendants of Turkish immigrants. Among important factors to explain their educational position are the highly selective school system and the young age in which compulsory education ends. Relevant labor‐market features explain the low unemployment figures as well as the low permeability into some occupational positions and branches. Other important factors to explain the high share of low educational tracks among descendants of Turkish guestworkers are found in the difficult legal situation of families caused by the restrictive and highly complicated residence and work permission system of the past. It did not allow parents and their children to consider more ambitious educational and professional careers. All in all, the Austrian situation is a telling result of a 30‐year absence of concerted action in the field of immigrant integration.