Concordia University

About: Concordia University is a education organization based out in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Control theory & Population. The organization has 13565 authors who have published 31084 publications receiving 783525 citations. The organization is also known as: Sir George Williams University & Loyola College, Montreal.

Adult Tactile Stimulation during Face-to-Face Interactions Modulates Five-Month-Olds' Affect and Attention

Abstract: 3 studies were designed to investigate infant responses to tactile stimulation during brief adult-infant interaction using a modified still-face (SF) procedure. When adults pose a neutral SF expression, infants decrease gazing and smiling at the adults, and some increase grimacing, relative to normal interaction periods. This SF effect was substantially reduced in Study 1 when mothers or strangers continued to touch infants during the SF period. In Studies 2 and 3, tactile versus visual and active versus passive aspects of adult touch were isolated during different SF periods. Visible, active adult hands unaccompanied by touch elicited infant attention, but not smiling, during the SF period. By contrast, active, not passive, adult touch substantially reduced the SF effect, even when the adult's hands were invisible. In the latter condition, infants continued to gaze and smile at the adult's SF. Thus, adult facial expressions are not the only modulator of infant affect and attention during social exchanges; adult touch appears to play an active role.

Peroxide Levels and the Activities of Catalase, Peroxidase, and Indoleacetic Acid Oxidase during and after Chilling Cucumber Seedlings

Abstract: The activities of catalase, peroxidase, indoleacetic acid (IAA) oxidase and peroxide levels in cucumber plants during and after chilling were determined. During 96 hours at 5 C and 85% relative humidity, catalase activity declined, IAA oxidase activity increased, and peroxide concentrations increased. Peroxidase activity was not affected by chilling. When chilled plants were returned to 25 C to recover, enzyme activities and peroxide concentration were restored to their prechilling levels. The increase in peroxide and IAA oxidase activity may inactivate or destroy IAA and thus retard growth.

Sex Differences in Emotionality: A Multidimensional Approach

Abstract: An Emotionality Survey was developed to assess sex differences in three dimensions of emotion: covert responding, interpersonal expression, and attitudes toward responses and expressions. Situational determinants of responses were also investigated. Within each of these areas, four types of emotion were distinguished: anger, fear, joy, and sadness. In general, females exceeded males in reported emotionality, but sex differences varied as a function of dimension and type of emotion. Differences were greatest for interpersonal expression, and for fear and sadness. Females also reported more of an interpersonal basis for their emotional responses. The findings suggest a sex difference in the functional significance of emotion, and support a multidimensional approach to the investigation of sex differences in emotionality.

Rethinking biodiversity: from goods and services to “living with”

Abstract: Since the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity, counting and mapping have come to dominate international debates around biodiversity protection. With the emergence of the Ecosystem Services concept, these counting and mapping efforts are increasingly imbued with an economic logic that argues that to save biodiversity, its goods and services must be given monetary value. This article offers a critical engagement with the Ecosystem Services discourse and the way it translates the diversity of nature into a single measure—a “currency”—to be included in systems of exchange. We argue that this conception of biodiversity is too narrow and potentially detrimental because it reduces biodiversity to a series of quantifiable fragmented parts that become liable to counting, mapping, and utilitarian use, and because it reduces social–natural relations to market transactions. Subsequently, we outline possibilities for conceiving and living with biodiversity that go beyond relations of counting, mapping, and commodification. It is important that biodiversity knowledge organizations, such as the recently sanctioned Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), take these into account. Conserving a diversity of life requires acknowledging a diversity of values, knowledge and framings of biodiversity, and fostering a diversity of social–natural relations.

Individualistic orientation and consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence

Abstract: Purpose – Interpersonal influences play a major role in shaping consumer choice decisions. This is particularly evident in the case of services, where intangibility and variability add to the decision difficulty. While all consumers are susceptible to interpersonal influence, people differ in the extent of their susceptibility to interpersonal influence, with some individuals being chronically more susceptible to social influence than others. Seeks to speculate in this paper that, in addition to individual differences, susceptibility to interpersonal influence also varies systematically across cultures with varying degrees of individualism‐collectivism.Design/methodolog/approach – Hypothesis is tested by investigating and comparing the structure, properties, and mean levels of the susceptibility to interpersonal influence scale across samples of French and English Canadian consumers.Findings – It is found that: French Canadians are significantly more susceptible to normative influence than English Canadia...