Do humans prefer the self even over their favorite other person? This question has pervaded philosophy and social-behavioral sciences. Psychology's distinction between explicit and implicit preferences calls for a two-tiered solution. Our evolutionarily-based Dissociative Self-Preference Model offers two hypotheses. Other-preferences prevail at an explicit level, because they convey caring for others, which strengthens interpersonal bonds--a major evolutionary advantage. Self-preferences, however, prevail at an implicit level, because they facilitate self-serving automatic behavior, which favors the self in life-or-die situations-also a major evolutionary advantage. We examined the data of 1,519 participants, who completed an explicit measure and one of five implicit measures of preferences for self versus favorite other. The results were consistent with the Dissociative Self-Preference Model. Explicitly, participants preferred their favorite other over the self. Implicitly, however, they preferred the self over their favorite other (be it their child, romantic partner, or best friend). Results are discussed in relation to evolutionary theorizing on self-deception.

The widespread occurrence of noncoding (nc) RNAs--unannotated eukaryotic transcripts with reduced protein coding potential--suggests that they are functionally important. Study of ncRNAs is increasing our understanding of the organization and regulation of genomes.

No abstract available

This study aims to evaluate if the relation between love life satisfaction, assessed by the satisfaction with love life scale (SWLLS), and capacity to love, assessed by the capacity to love inventory (CTL-I), is moderated by gender and by being or not in a romantic relationship, in a Portuguese sample. To this end, the adaptation and validation of CTL-I for this population were carried out through an exploratory factorial analysis (EFA) followed by a Robust Maximum Likelihood (MLR) confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA). A multi-group analysis for measurement invariance depending on being in a romantic relationship or not was assessed. The model's reliability was also evaluated. The associations between SWLLS and CTL-I were tested by correlations, regressions and moderations. At last, differences between means and distributions concerning sociodemographic variables were determined. The results showed that a good model fit for the Portuguese version of the CTL-I was found, as well as good psychometric properties. Results also showed that satisfaction with love life contributes to explaining the capacity to love and all its dimensions, and that gender and being in a romantic relationship moderate the association between love life satisfaction and the capacity to love. Being female and being in a romantic relationship make the relationship between love life satisfaction and the capacity to love stronger and more meaningful.

The Love Canal was a rectangular 16-acre, 10-ft-deep chemical waste landfill situated in a residential neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York. This seriously contaminated site came to public attention in 1978. Only one prior study examined cancer incidence in former residents of the Love Canal neighborhood (LC).

Homology modelling is normally the technique of choice when experimental structure data are not available but three-dimensional coordinates are needed, for example, to aid with detailed interpretation of results of spectroscopic studies. Herein, the state of the art of homology modelling will be described in the light of a series of recent developments, and an overview will be given of the problems and opportunities encountered in this field. The major topic, the accuracy and precision of homology models, will be discussed extensively due to its influence on the reliability of conclusions drawn from the combination of homology models and spectroscopic data. Three real-world examples will illustrate how both homology modelling and spectroscopy can be beneficial for (bio)medical research.

Workplace violence is a growing social problem among many professions, but it particularly affects the health sector. Studies have mainly focused on evaluating user violence toward health professionals, with less attention being paid to other sources of conflict, such as co-workers themselves. There are different manifestations of this violence in what has been called a context of tolerated or normalized violence among co-workers. However, its effects are far from being tolerable, as they have an impact on general health and job satisfaction and contribute to burnout among professionals. Based on this idea, and following the line of the previous literature, nursing staff are a population at high risk of exposure to workplace violence. For this reason, the present study aims to evaluate exposure to lateral violence or violence among co-workers in nursing staff in public health services and the relationship of this exposure with some of the most studied consequences. (2) Methods: A cross-sectional associative study was carried out in which scales of workplace violence (HABS-CS), burnout (MBI-GS), job satisfaction (OJS), and general health (GHQ-28) were applied to a sample of 950 nursing staff from 13 public hospitals located in the southeast of Spain. (3) Results: The results show that nursing staff have a high exposure to violence from their co-workers, which is more common in male nurses. Greater exposure is observed in professionals with between 6 and 10 years of experience in the profession, and it is not characteristic of our sample to receive greater violence when they have less experience or are younger. A positive correlation is observed with high levels of burnout and a negative correlation with general health and job satisfaction. (4) Conclusions: The results of this work contribute to increasing the scientific evidence of the consequences of a type of workplace violence frequent among nursing staff and to which less attention has been paid in relative terms to other types of prevalent violence. Organizations should be aware of the importance of this type of workplace violence, its frequency and impact, and implement appropriate prevention policies that include the promotion of a culture that does not reward violence or minimize reporting. A change of mentality in the academic environment is also recommended in order to promote a more adequate training of nursing staff in this field.

Here we tested the hypothesis that entrepreneurs' emotional experience and brain responses toward their own firm resemble those of parents toward their own children. Using fMRI, we measured the brain activity while male entrepreneurs viewed pictures of their own and of a familiar firm, and while fathers viewed pictures of their own and of a familiar child. The entrepreneurs who self-rated as being very closely attached with their venture showed a similar suppression of activity in the posterior cingulate cortex, temporoparietal junction, and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex as fathers during viewing pictures of their own children versus familiar children. In addition, individual differences in the confidence trait influenced the neural encoding of both paternal and entrepreneurial processing. For underconfident fathers, a picture of one's own child was associated with stronger activation and for overconfident fathers with weaker activation in the amygdala and in caudate nucleus, a brain structure associated with processing of rewards. Similar association with activation, yet more widespread in the emotional processing network, was observed in entrepreneurs suggesting a similar neural basis for increased sensitivity to threats and potential risks concerning one's venture and child. In conclusion, both entrepreneurial and parental love seem to be supported by brain structures associated with reward and emotional processing as well as social understanding. Hum Brain Mapp 38:2923-2938, 2017. © 2017 The Authors Human Brain Mapping Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Love feelings can be more intense than desired (e.g., after a break-up) or less intense than desired (e.g., in long-term relationships). If only we could control our love feelings! We present the concept of explicit love regulation, which we define as the use of behavioral and cognitive strategies to change the intensity of current feelings of romantic love. We present the first two studies on preconceptions about, strategies for, and the feasibility of love regulation. Questionnaire responses showed that people perceive love feelings as somewhat uncontrollable. Still, in four open questions people reported to use strategies such as cognitive reappraisal, distraction, avoidance, and undertaking (new) activities to cope with break-ups, to maintain long-term relationships, and to regulate love feelings. Instructed up-regulation of love using reappraisal increased subjective feelings of attachment, while love down-regulation decreased subjective feelings of infatuation and attachment. We used the late positive potential (LPP) amplitude as an objective index of regulation success. Instructed love up-regulation enhanced the LPP between 300-400 ms in participants who were involved in a relationship and in participants who had recently experienced a romantic break-up, while love down-regulation reduced the LPP between 700-3000 ms in participants who were involved in a relationship. These findings corroborate the self-reported feasibility of love regulation, although they are complicated by the finding that love up-regulation also reduced the LPP between 700-3000 ms in participants who were involved in a relationship. To conclude, although people have the preconception that love feelings are uncontrollable, we show for the first time that intentional regulation of love feelings using reappraisal, and perhaps other strategies, is feasible. Love regulation will benefit individuals and society because it could enhance positive effects and reduce negative effects of romantic love.

We prospectively investigate protective benefits against depression of cortical thickness across nine regions of a Ventral Frontotemporal Network (VFTN), previously associated with spiritual experience. Seventy-two participants at high and low risk for depression (Mean age 41 years; 22-63 years; 40 high risk, 32 low risk) were drawn from a three-generation, thirty-eight year study. FreeSurfer estimated cortical thickness over anatomical MRIs of the brain (Year 30) for each of the nine ROIs. Depression (MDD with SAD-L; symptoms with PHQ; Years 30 and 38) and spirituality (self-report on five phenotypes; Year 35), respectively, were associated with the weighted average of nine regions of interest. VFTN thickness was: 1) positively associated (p<0.01) with two of five spiritual phenotypes, altruism and love of neighbor, interconnectedness at a trend level, but neither commitment nor practice, 2) inversely associated with a diagnosis of MDD (SADS-L Year 30, for any MDD in the past ten years), and 3) prospectively neuroanatomically protective against depressive symptoms (PHQ-9 Year 38) for those at high familial risk.

(1) Background: The interpersonal dimensions of coaching in high performance sport have been subject to increasing scrutiny but with limited evidence to guide practice. Similarly, there is increasing practical interest in the concept of psychological safety, often portrayed as an implicitly desirable characteristic of all sporting environments but, as yet, still to receive research attention in high performance. As a first step to addressing these deficiencies, the present study addressed two research aims: (a) to examine the extent to which matched groups of international and released professional rugby union players perceived psychological safety to be an adaptive feature of their developmental experience and (b) to understand what elements of the player's coaching experience were perceived to be enabling or disenabling of future progress. (2) Methods: Seven rugby union players who had 'made it' and eight players who had been released from their professional contracts took part in a semi-structured interview exploring their developmental experiences. Data were subsequently analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis. (3) Results: Both groups of players found each of their talent development and high performance environments to be psychologically unsafe. Furthermore, players perceived coaches who were the most impactful in their development as offering 'tough love'. This included a range of 'harder' and 'softer' interpersonal approaches that presented the player with clear direction, role clarity and a sense of care. It appeared that this interpersonal approach helped the player to navigate, and benefit from, the psychologically unsafe high performance milieu. (4) Conclusions: There appear to be a number of balances for the coach in the high performance setting to navigate and a need for more nuance in applying constructs such as psychological safety.

A defining feature of passionate love is idealization--evaluating romantic partners in an overly favorable light. Although passionate love can be expected to color how favorably individuals represent their partner in their mind, little is known about how passionate love is linked with visual representations of the partner. Using reverse correlation techniques for the first time to study partner representations, the present study investigated whether women who are passionately in love represent their partner's facial appearance more favorably than individuals who are less passionately in love. In a within-participants design, heterosexual women completed two forced-choice classification tasks, one for their romantic partner and one for a male acquaintance, and a measure of passionate love. In each classification task, participants saw two faces superimposed with noise and selected the face that most resembled their partner (or an acquaintance). Classification images for each of high passion and low passion groups were calculated by averaging across noise patterns selected as resembling the partner or the acquaintance and superimposing the averaged noise on an average male face. A separate group of women evaluated the classification images on attractiveness, trustworthiness, and competence. Results showed that women who feel high (vs. low) passionate love toward their partner tend to represent his face as more attractive and trustworthy, even when controlling for familiarity effects using the acquaintance representation. Using an innovative method to study partner representations, these findings extend our understanding of cognitive processes in romantic relationships.

No abstract available

Although father love is vital for the positive growth of the child, there is currently no reliable tool to assess the psychological absence of fathers. Therefore, the current study aims to develop an instrument to measure adolescents' experiences of father-love absence from a psychological absence perspective. According to the fundamental psychological diathesis assumption, the father-love absence scale (FLAS) was developed based on expert panel discussions. A total of 2592 junior high school student participants were surveyed, and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to determine the items for the formal scale. The results showed that the 18-item FLAS consisted of four factors, which were emotional absence (EA), cognitive absence (CA), behavioral absence (BA), and volitional absence (VA). In conclusion, the FLAS demonstrated satisfactory reliability and validity, and this scale is a valuable tool for assessing father-love absence.

The tribal character of the affective link between football fans and their teams is a well-recognized phenomenon. Other forms of love such as romantic or maternal attachment have previously been studied from a neuroimaging point of view. Here we aimed to investigate the neural basis of this tribal form of love, which implies both the feeling of belongingness and rivalry against opposing teams. A pool of 56 participants was submitted to an fMRI experimental design involving the presentation of winning and losing football moments of their loved, rival or neutral teams. We found recruitment of amygdala and reward regions, including the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and substantia nigra (SN), as well as other limbic regions involved in emotional cognition, for 'positive vs neutral' and 'positive vs negative' conditions. The latter contrast was correlated with neuropsychological scores of fanaticism in the amygdala and regions within the reward system, as the VTA and SN. The observation of increased response patterns in critical components of the reward system, in particular for positive content related to the loved team, suggests that this kind of non-romantic love reflects a specific arousal and motivational state, which is biased for emotional learning of positive outcomes.

Objective: The individual capacity to love (CTL) has been linked to various mental health parameters and is considered to be an important outcome parameter of psychotherapeutic treatment. However, empirical examinations of the concept have not been conducted up to now. The aim of this study was to develop a valid and reliable instrument for the assessment of CTL [Capacity to Love Inventory (CTL-I)] as a trait of personality, which is shown to be related to clinically relevant symptoms and conditions. Method: Four independent healthy samples in Austria (n = 547, n = 174, and n = 85) and Poland (n = 240) were assessed by a prototype of the CTL-I and its final shorter version in a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Internal consistency of the total questionnaire and each subscale was assessed by Cronbach alpha. External validity was measured against Beck Depression Inventory, Quality of Relationship Inventory, Sociosexual Orientation Inventory, Pathological Narcissism Inventory, and Narcissistic Personality Inventory according to the theoretical framework of the CTL concept. Further test-retest reliability was assessed. Results: The CFA confirmed 41 items in six dimensions: Interest in the life project of the other, Basic trust, Humility and gratitude, Common ego ideal, Permanence of sexual passion, and Acceptance of loss/jealousy/mourning. The Cronbach alphas of the total CTL-I and its subscales ranged between 0.67 and 0.90 in all samples, suggesting a valid construct. The CTL-I was moderately positively associated with quality of relationship (Support r = 0.63, Conflict r = -0.66, and Depth r = 0.66) and inversely associated with symptoms of depression (r = -0.37), pathological narcissism (r = -0.29) and promiscuity (r = -0.42). The test-retest reliability of the total CTL-I was high with r = 0.81, suggesting the stability of answers over time. Conclusion: The proposed 41-item version of the CTL-I is a psychometrically sound and validated instrument measuring six dimensions of the concept of the CTL. The reported negative associations with clinically relevant parameters such as depression, pathological narcissism and promiscuity as well as associations with relationship qualities such as conflicts, support, and depth warrant its future use in burdened populations including couples in clinical settings.

We present a comprehensive study of a magnetic sensor system that benefits from a new technique to substantially increase the magnetoelastic coupling of surface acoustic waves (SAW). The device uses shear horizontal acoustic surface waves that are guided by a fused silica layer with an amorphous magnetostrictive FeCoSiB thin film on top. The velocity of these so-called Love waves follows the magnetoelastically-induced changes of the shear modulus according to the magnetic field present. The SAW sensor is operated in a delay line configuration at approximately 150 MHz and translates the magnetic field to a time delay and a related phase shift. The fundamentals of this sensor concept are motivated by magnetic and mechanical simulations. They are experimentally verified using customized low-noise readout electronics. With an extremely low magnetic noise level of ≈100 pT/[Formula: see text], a bandwidth of 50 kHz and a dynamic range of 120 dB, this magnetic field sensor system shows outstanding characteristics. A range of additional measures to further increase the sensitivity are investigated with simulations.

Fecal contamination of waterways in Delaware pose an ongoing problem for environmental and public health. For monitoring efforts, Enterococcus has been widely adopted by the state to indicate the presence of fecal matter from warm-blooded animals and to establish Primary and Secondary Contact Recreation criteria. In this study, we examined sites within the Love Creek watershed, a tributary of the Rehoboth bay, using next-generation sequencing and SourceTracker to determine sources of potential fecal contamination and compared to bacterial communities to chemical and nutrient concentrations. Microbial community from fecal samples of ten different types of animals and one human sample were used to generate a fecal library for community-based microbial source tracking. Orthophosphate and total dissolved solids were among the major factors associated with community composition. SourceTracker analysis of the monthly samples from the Love Creek watershed indicated the majority of the microbial community were attributed to "unknown" sources, i.e. wildlife. Those that attribute to known sources were primarily domestic animals, i.e. cat and dog. These results suggest that at the state level these methods are capable of giving the start for source tracking as a means to understanding bacterial contamination.

Touch is the primary way people communicate intimacy in romantic relationships, and affectionate touch behaviors such as stroking, hugging and kissing are universally observed in partnerships all over the world. Here, we explored the association of love and affectionate touch behaviors in romantic partnerships in two studies comprising 7880 participants. In the first study, we used a cross-cultural survey conducted in 37 countries to test whether love was universally associated with affectionate touch behaviors. In the second study, using a more fine-tuned touch behavior scale, we tested whether the frequency of affectionate touch behaviors was related to love in romantic partnerships. As hypothesized, love was significantly and positively associated with affectionate touch behaviors in both studies and this result was replicated regardless of the inclusion of potentially relevant factors as controls. Altogether, our data strongly suggest that affectionate touch is a relatively stable characteristic of human romantic relationships that is robustly and reliably related to the degree of reported love between partners.

The Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) left the Soviet Union only once to attend a conference on the education of the deaf in London. So far almost nothing was known about this trip, which took place in a period when Vygotsky was still completely unknown as a psychologist, both inside his own country and abroad. Making use of a newly discovered notebook, it proved possible to partially reconstruct Vygotsky's journey and stay in London. Vygotsky's very personal remarks show him to have been a very sensitive and spirited man, who was prey to strong emotions during the conference and afterwards. Rather surprisingly, Vygotsky's own paper about the education of the deaf was never presented during the conference and the stay in London appears to have had a limited value for his own scientific development.