Effects of controlled nicotine doses upon punished and non-punished responding in humans.
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INTRODUCTION: This paper deals with coincidental deaths of persons previously engaged in violent behaviour. In victimology, violent deaths rest on legal authorities and public prosecutor. In some cases the clearance of circumstances is "sui generis", as a consequence of "vis maior". However, in some cases, depending of circumstances, perpetrators are uncovered without further investigations. CASE REPORT: This paper presents some of the most interesting cases from our Forensic practice: infanticides, "jealousy" killing, other murders. All crimes were recovered and sanctioned. History is full of cases like these described. Man is the only primate who kills and tortures other men. Nothing can fill the soul as hatred. Hatred is stronger than love. Love can easily lead to hate. Man is afraid of being killed, but often acts like a victim. The man proves himself worthy through his life, not death.
The present study investigated in rats whether variables which may affect the animals' tolerance for delay of reward could be critical for the benzodiazepine-induced release of punished behavior. Rats were subjected to conflict situations during which signalled FR4 non-punished periods (lights-off) alternated with punished periods of different durations signalled by lights-on stimuli. Lever presses during punished periods resulted in the delivery of both one food-pellet and one electric foot-shock (0.45 mA). The antipunishment effect of diazepam (2 mg/kg IP) clearly depended on the duration of the punished periods, release of punished behavior being observed only when punished periods exceeded 1 min. The duration of punished periods required for diazepam-induced release of responding was affected by factors which modified the contrast between rewards received in punished and non-punished periods. One of these factors was the FR schedule imposed during non-punished periods, since the anti-punishment effect of diazepam was observed during short-lasting (30-s and 1-min) punished periods separated by FR24 non-punished periods. A second factor was the ratio of the durations of punished and non-punished periods: diazepam released behavior during 2-min punished periods when the duration of the intercurrent non-punished periods was 1 min, but not when it was 4 min. The predictability of the duration of the punished periods also modulated the effect of diazepam since: with 1 min punished periods, diazepam released punished responding during the first exposures of the rats to the experimental session, but lost part or all its efficacy in animals extensively trained to the procedure.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
OBJECTIVE: To ascertain the prevalence of childhood corporal punishment by teachers in students, to explore the influencing factors and associations between childhood corporal punishment and psychological problems. METHODS: Five hundred and twenty-eight students from a college and a technical secondary school in Hebei province were surveyed by self-administered questionnaire anonymously in Dec. 2004. The questionnaire used for this survey mainly included (1) general demographic information; (2) 5 forms of childhood corporal punishments, in this study, cases of teachers' corporal punishments were defined as those who answered positively one or more of the 5 questions relating to childhood corporal punishment by school teachers occurring before the age of 16 years; (3) Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90); (4) Youth Risk Behaviours. RESULTS: Overall, 57.6% of students reported having been corporally punished at least one time, one of four forms of corporal punishment by teachers before age of 16 years, the four forms corporal punishment were non-contact corporal punishment, e.g., running for punishment, repeat-doing homework many times for punishment, standing for punishment, kneel down for punishment, not allowing to eat, sending outside in winter, etc. (53.4%), hitting/kicking/pushing very hard with open hands/fist/feet/other part of body (16.1%), beating with an object (10.2%), and locking in a small compartment/tying with rope (0.2%). No students reported having been choked, or burned/scalded, or stabbed with a sharp object by the teachers. Males had a significantly higher overall prevalence rate than females (66.4% vs. 46.6%, chi(2) = 21.01, P = 0.000). There was no statistically significant association between a history of childhood corporal punishment and the three other demographic indicators, which included residence region (rural and non-rural area) prior to 16 years of age, parental education level, and whether the respondent lived in a single or multiple children family. Compared with their peers who had not experienced childhood corporal punishment by teachers, the students with two or more forms of corporal punishments by teachers showed significantly higher scores (punished group vs. unpunished group) of psychological symptoms of somatization (0.78 vs. 0.42), obsessiveness (1.22 vs. 0.98), interpersonal sensitivity (1.24 vs. 0.89), depression (1.06 vs. 0.76), anxiety (0.90 vs. 0.64), hostility (1.11 vs. 0.68), paranoid ideation (1.11 vs. 0.71) and psychoticism (0.84 vs. 0.56), and showed significantly higher rates in sadness (54.7% vs. 26.3%), drunk (37.2% vs. 20.1%), involving in physical fighting (15.1% vs. 3.6%) in the past year and current smoking (36.0% vs. 14.5%). CONCLUSIONS: The problem of corporal punishment by teachers is common in schools, and the problem has a significant correlation with youth mental health problems. The results highlighted urgent needs to increase public awareness on children rights, creating learning-friendly environment in school.
Human cooperation in social dilemmas challenges researchers from various disciplines. Here we combine advances in experimental economics and evolutionary biology that separately have shown that costly punishment and reputation formation, respectively, induce cooperation in social dilemmas. The mechanisms of punishment and reputation, however, substantially differ in their means for 'disciplining' non-cooperators. Direct punishment incurs salient costs for both the punisher and the punished, whereas reputation mechanisms discipline by withholding action, immediately saving costs for the 'punisher'. Consequently, costly punishment may become extinct in environments in which effective reputation building--for example, through indirect reciprocity--provides a cheaper and powerful way to sustain cooperation. Unexpectedly, as we show here, punishment is maintained when a combination with reputation building is available, however, at a low level. Costly punishment acts are markedly reduced although not simply substituted by appreciating reputation. Indeed, the remaining punishment acts are concentrated on free-riders, who are most severely punished in the combination. When given a choice, subjects even prefer a combination of reputation building with costly punishment. The interaction between punishment and reputation building boosts cooperative efficiency. Because punishment and reputation building are omnipresent interacting forces in human societies, costly punishing should appear less destructive without losing its deterring force.
AIM: To investigate the prevalence, nature, and context of physical punishment and other forms of parental discipline, as reported by study members (SMs) of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study. METHODS: 962 26-year-old adults (born in Dunedin, New Zealand) were interviewed about their experiences of discipline in childhood. Study members were asked about the usual forms of punishment received in primary and secondary school years, as well as the worst punishment they ever received. Details regarding the study members' reactions to different punishments were collected. Variables related to the person administering the punishment were also investigated. RESULTS: Of the study members providing data, 80% reported receiving physical punishment at some time during childhood: 29% identifying smacking; 45% reporting being hit with an object; and 6% reporting extreme physical punishment as the most severe form. Physical punishment on a regular basis was reported by 71% of study members. Results varied by age with more study members reporting physical punishment in primary school years. However, the number of study members experiencing physical punishment in adolescence was still high, at 47%. Significant gender differences were found in reported punishment, with more girls smacked, and more boys hit with an object in primary school years. Punisher-related reports showed that mothers were significantly more likely to employ non-physical forms of punishment whereas fathers were significantly more likely to use extreme physical punishment. CONCLUSION: For many New Zealanders, experiences of physical punishment during childhood are very much the norm. These findings have implications for the young adults studied as they now enter the parenting years and for efforts aimed at prevention and early intervention for at-risk groups.
Earlier observations have shown that septal lesions released operant responding punished by foot-shock, but did not change behavior punished by electrical stimulation of the dorsal periaqueductal gray (DPAG) substance of the rat brain. In contrast, chlordiazepoxide facilitated both kinds of punished responding. In order to further study the mechanism of brain stimulation punishment, dose-response curves of two minor tranquilizers, chlordiazepoxide and pentobarbital, of two tryptamine antagonists, methysergide and cyproheptadine as well as of amphetamine on lever-pressing behavior of rats maintained by water reinforcement and punished by DPAG stimulation were determined. A multiple schedule with a variable-interval 2 min (VI 2) non-punished component and a continuous reinforcement (CRF) component in which every response was both rewarded and punished was used. Chlordiazepoxide and pentobarbital caused dose-dependent increases in punished responding. Unpunished VI response rates were also moderately increased by the minor tranquilizers. In contrast, neither methysergide nor cyproheptadine increased punished or unpunished responding at doses that have been previously shown to markedly release behavior punished by foot-shock, in the rat. Conversely, amphetamine, a drug that usually does not release responding punished by peripheral noxious stimulation, caused dose-dependent increases in responding suppressed by DPAG punishment without affecting VI response rate. These and previous results with septal lesions suggest that neither the septo-hippocampal system nor its serotonergic input from the mesencephalon mediate response suppression by DPAG electrical stimulation, in contrast to their active role in peripheral punishment. This difference may also explain the marked facilitatory effect of amphetamine on responding punished by brain stimulation shown by the present results.
The anticonflict effect of the selective 5-HT3 receptor antagonist, ondansetron, was investigated employing an operant conflict task in pigeons. Behavior (key pecking) was stimulated by food presentation. A fixed-interval program of alternated punished (electrical shocks) and unpunished responding was employed. The effects of drugs were evaluated at two levels punishment intensity; i.e., baseline responding during the punished interval was 5% (higher punishment) or 10% (lower punishment) of the unpunished responding rate. Ondansetron released responding suppressed by punishment only when pigeons were working at the lower levels of punishment. Under these conditions, ondansetron (100 microg/kg, i.v.), increased key pecking by 119% above control and vehicle values, and doubled the number of shocks received by the pigeons during the punished intervals. Similarly to ondansetron, the anticonflict effects of buspirone (0.3 and 1 mg/kg) and diazepam (1 and 1.5 mg/kg) were strongly dependent on the intensity of the punishing stimulus. When punished responding was suppressed to 5% of unpunished responding by applying shocks of higher intensity, diazepam and buspirone had negligible anticonflict action. However, at lower levels of punishment, diazepam and buspirone produced much greater anticonflict effects than ondansetron (p < 0.001). These results indicate that ondansetron exhibits a modest effect in releasing behaviors suppressed by punishment (anxiolytic-like action), which was highly dependent on the intensity of punishment applied. It is proposed that the anxiogenic response to punishment is less sensitive to 5-HT3 antagonists than the behavior induced by aversive, unpunished situations, where 5-HT3 antagonists have shown comparable efficacy to benzodiazepines.
We surveyed 449 parents to assess: (a) the prevalence of different types of physical and emotional punishment during their childhoods: (b) the prevalence of current parental approval of these types of punishments, and (c) risk factors for current approval of physical and emotional punishments. Parents in waiting rooms of pediatric clinics were asked to complete an anonymous questionnaire about their childhood punishment experiences and their current approval of various types of punishment. Reported experiences and approval were as follows: 24% experienced and 6% approved of uncommon punishments (e.g., burned), 45% experienced and 17% approved of common punishments (e.g., shaken), and 94% experienced and 88% approved of very common punishments (e.g., spanked). Having experienced each type of punishment was a highly significant risk factor for currently approving of that type of punishment (p < .01 for each). Race, income, and education were not significant risk factors for approval of different types of punishment. Many parents have experienced harsh types of punishment during their childhoods. Efforts at identifying and educating parents who approve of harsh and/or abusive types of punishment should focus on those who have experienced harsh punishment rather than on particular racial or socioeconomic groups.
PURPOSE: To investigate the perceptions of scientists and institutional representatives (IRs) to the National Institutes of Health's Office of Research Integrity concerning appropriate punishment for unethical research behavior. METHOD: In 1994-95, 606 scientists and 91 IRs rated the ethical behaviors of and suggested appropriate punishments for protagonists in randomly generated scenarios describing scientific research behaviors. The authors evaluated the relationships of the suggested punishments to the protagonists' behaviors and characteristics, and compared recommendations of the scientists and IRs. RESULTS: The respondents suggested punishments for 80% of the scenarios that were rated unethical. Punishments were more often prescribed for behaviors rated more unethical and for repeat offenders. The type of punishment was related to the protagonist's academic status and the nature of the unethical behavior. IRs proposed more and different punishments than did scientists. CONCLUSION: Scientists and IRs proposed that most unethical research behaviors be punished. The decision to punish depended on the unethical level of the behavior. The type of punishment depended on the aims: correcting the wrong, rehabilitation, or sanction. Variation in the respondents' selections of punishments and the IRs' greater propensity to punish suggest that scientists committing similar ethical violations may receive different punishments. Explicit consideration of which punishment is merited under what circumstances should be undertaken by the scientific community.
Three groups of albino rats were trained under a free-operant avoidance (Sidman) procedure with equal shock-shock and response-shock intervals. After stable performance was achieved, the animals were concurrently exposed to a brief electric shock after each response. The procedures were as follows: Punishment Schedule I: punishment shock was introduced at an intensity approximately one quarter that of avoidance shock; increments of nearly this same size were made as stable performance was achieved at succeeding punishment shock intensities. Punishment Schedule II: punishment shock was introduced at approximately one-half the intensity of avoidance shock; after stable performance, punishment shock was increased to the same intensity as avoidance shock. Punishment Schedule III: punishment shock was introduced and maintained at the same intensity as avoidance shock. Punishment was continued for all groups until one of two suppression criteria was attained. All animals made fewer responses and received more avoidance shocks as a function of increasing punishment shock. Half of the animals under Punishment Schedule I required punishment shock higher than avoidance shock to meet their assigned suppression criterion. A comparison of all procedures showed that suppression was greater when punishment shock was initially at high intensity.
Previous research has demonstrated that the effects of d-amphetamine on punished lever pressing of squirrel monkeys are modified by an avoidance history in which lever pressing postpones shock. In the present experiment generalization of behavioral history across responses was assessed by determining the effects of d-amphetamine and cocaine on punished lever pressing of squirrel monkeys before and after exposure to an avoidance procedure in which a chain-pulling response postponed shock. The punishment schedule consisted of a fixed-interval 5-min schedule of food delivery in which every 30 lever presses produced a 5-mA electric shock. During avoidance sessions each chain pull postponed shock delivery for 25s; in the absence of chain pulling, shocks occurred every 5s. Only a single response manipulandum was present in each phase. Punished lever pressing was initially unaltered or decreased by d-amphetamine and cocaine. Following the chain-pull avoidance history, however, d-amphetamine produced dose-dependent increases in the punished lever pressing of all three monkeys at several doses that formerly did not alter or reduce responding; a similar pattern of results was obtained when cocaine was administered to two of the subjects. The effects of d-amphetamine and cocaine on punished lever pressing were subsequently determined within the context of a multiple schedule of lever-press punishment and chain-pull avoidance, with both manipulanda present simultaneously. The effects of the drugs on punished lever pressing within the multiple schedule were similar to their initial, pre-avoidance effects for the two monkeys whose responding was increased by both drugs in the preceding, post-avoidance phase. Chain pulling during the punishment component was dose-dependently increased, suggesting that chain pulling during punishment reduced the opportunity to exhibit increases in punishing lever pressing. The remaining monkey's punished lever pressing was increased by both drugs within the context of the multiple schedule. This experiment demonstrates that avoidance-dependent upward shifts in the dose-response curves of d-amphetamine and cocaine can occur when the punishment and avoidance responses differ, and that original effects can be partially restored when both responses are available simultaneously. The results suggest that generalization across responses of the effects of a critical behavioral history may be a general property of behavioral history phenomena within behavioral pharmacology. These findings underscore the generality and importance of behavioral history as a modulatory influence on the effects of abused drugs.
Many people voluntarily incur costs to punish violations of social norms. Evolutionary models and empirical evidence indicate that such altruistic punishment has been a decisive force in the evolution of human cooperation. We used H2 15O positron emission tomography to examine the neural basis for altruistic punishment of defectors in an economic exchange. Subjects could punish defection either symbolically or effectively. Symbolic punishment did not reduce the defector's economic payoff, whereas effective punishment did reduce the payoff. We scanned the subjects' brains while they learned about the defector's abuse of trust and determined the punishment. Effective punishment, as compared with symbolic punishment, activated the dorsal striatum, which has been implicated in the processing of rewards that accrue as a result of goal-directed actions. Moreover, subjects with stronger activations in the dorsal striatum were willing to incur greater costs in order to punish. Our findings support the hypothesis that people derive satisfaction from punishing norm violations and that the activation in the dorsal striatum reflects the anticipated satisfaction from punishing defectors.
Key-peck responses of pigeons under a fixed-rate 60 (Exp. I) or fixed-ratio 99 (Exp. II) schedule of positive reinforcement were punished by response-dependent electric shock during a segment of the ratio. The punishing stimulus was scheduled in one of three locations: the first third of the ratio, the middle third, or the final third. At high shock levels, the different loci of punishment differentially affected the typical fixed-ratio performance pattern. Post-reinforcement pauses were lengthened by all punishment conditions but to a greater degree when the responses in initial third of the ratio were punished. Disruption of responses before the punished segment of the ratio was a conspicuous feature of the performances when the middle or final third of the ratio was punished. Two of the punishment conditions produced similar effects on both fixed-ratio baselines but punishing the final third of the ratio suppressed the punished responses of the ratio only with the fixed-ratio 99 schedule. General effects of all punishment conditions included consistent intra-session recoveries of partially suppressed performances, the rapid recovery of the FR performances after the punishment dependency was removed after complete suppression, and the facilitation of overall and/or local response rates of most subjects by low-intensity shock.