Snakes and their relationships with humans and other primates have attracted broad attention from multiple fields of study, but not, surprisingly, from neuroscience, despite the involvement of the visual system and strong behavioral and physiological evidence that humans and other primates can detect snakes faster than innocuous objects. Here, we report the existence of neurons in the primate medial and dorsolateral pulvinar that respond selectively to visual images of snakes. Compared with three other categories of stimuli (monkey faces, monkey hands, and geometrical shapes), snakes elicited the strongest, fastest responses, and the responses were not reduced by low spatial filtering. These findings integrate neuroscience with evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology, herpetology, and primatology by identifying a neurobiological basis for primates’ heightened visual sensitivity to snakes, and adding a crucial component to the growing evolutionary perspective that snakes have long shaped our primate lineage.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/110/47/19000.full.pdf

Pulvinar neurons reveal neurobiological evidence of past selection for rapid detection of snakes

http://www.lib.kobe-u.ac.jp/repository/90002667.pdf

Relationship value promotes costly apology-making: testing the valuable relationships hypothesis from the perpetrator's perspective

An apology, as an expression of remorse, can be an effective response from a transgressor to obtain forgiveness from a victim. Yet, to be effective, the victim should not construe the transgressor’s actions in a cynical way. Because low-power people tend to interpret the actions of high-power people in a cynical way, we argue that an apology (versus no apology) from high-power transgressors should be relatively ineffective in increasing forgiveness from low-power victims. We find support for this moderated mediation model in a critical incidents study (Study 1), a forced recall study (Study 2) among employees from various organizations and a controlled laboratory experiment among business students (Study 3). These studies reveal the limited value of expressions of remorse by high-power people in promoting forgiveness.

/pdf/when-saying-sorry-may-not-help-transgressor-power-moderates-46n1zlfd1i.pdf

When saying sorry may not help: Transgressor power moderates the effect of an apology on forgiveness in the workplace:

We use a theory of apologies to design a nationwide field experiment involving 1.5 million Uber ridesharing consumers who experienced late rides. Several insights emerge from our field experiment. First, apologies are not a panacea: the efficacy of an apology and whether it may backfire depend on how the apology is made. Second, across treatments, money speaks louder than words – the best form of apology is to include a coupon for a future trip. Third, in some cases sending an apology is worse than sending nothing at all, particularly for repeated apologies. For firms, caveat venditor should be the rule when considering apologies.

/pdf/toward-an-understanding-of-the-economics-of-apologies-1ot5kjyxg1.pdf

Toward an Understanding of the Economics of Apologies: Evidence from a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment

http://www.lib.kobe-u.ac.jp/repository/90004772.pdf

Costly apologies communicate conciliatory intention: an fMRI study on forgiveness in response to costly apologies

After inadvertently committing an interpersonal transgression, an offender might make an effortful apology (e.g. cancelling an important meeting to make an apology as soon as possible). Such costly apologies signal the apologiser's sincere intention to restore the endangered relationship. The present study investigated this costly signalling model of apology across seven countries (Chile, China, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea and the U.S.). Participants were asked to imagine that a friend had committed an interpersonal transgression against them and had then apologised in either a costly or non-costly fashion. The results showed that costly apologies were perceived to be significantly more sincere than no cost apologies in the all seven countries. We further investigated whether religious beliefs would moderate the effect of costly apologies. Consistent with our prediction and evolutionary hypothesis, costly apologies were perceived to be significantly more sincere than no cost ap...

/pdf/are-costly-apologies-universally-perceived-as-being-sincere-3xowbchkwo.pdf

Are costly apologies universally perceived as being sincere? : A test of the costly apology-perceived sincerity relationship in seven countries.

This study is a descriptive research study attempted to identify factors influencing depression of new nurses, focusing on job stress, self-efficacy, resilience, and social support factors of new nurses. The subjects of this study were 174 new nurses with less than one year of nursing experience, who worked at five university hospitals in the metropolitan area. A self-report questionnaire was used for the data collection of this study. The collected data were subjected to stepwise multiple regression to analyze the factors affecting depression using the SAS 9.4 program. As a result of the study, the average score of depression of the subjects was 13.01 out of 80, Factors influencing the subject's depression were identified including job stress(p<.001), self-efficacy(p=.044), resilience(p=.013), social support(p=.012), work department(p=.021), and work type(p=.001). It was found that the higher the job stress of the subject, the higher the degree of depression, while the higher the self-efficacy, resilience, and social support of the subject, the lower the degree of depression. In this study, it was confirmed that job stress, self-efficacy, resilience, and social support were factors influencing the depression of new nurses. In order to prevent depression of new nurses and actively manage with depression, it is suggested that arbitration programs for new nurses will be needed to reduce job stress of new nurses, strengthen self-efficacy, resilience and social support. It is also thought that strategies supporting for new nurses at the organizational level, such as the establishment of various social support systems, are needed 

Jiyoon Kim

Papers

Are costly apologies universally perceived as being sincere? : A test of the costly apology-perceived sincerity relationship in seven countries.

The Impact of Newly Graduated Nurses’ Job Stress, Self-efficacy, Resilience and Social Support on Depression