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PubMed1999

Job continuity among new mothers.

In the early 1990s, both state and federal governments enacted maternity-leave legislation. The key provision of that legislation is that after a leave of a limited duration, the recent mother is guaranteed the right to return to her preleave employer at the same or equivalent position. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we correlate work status after childbirth with work status before pregnancy to estimate the prevalence, before the legislation, of returns to the preleave employer. Among women working full-time before the pregnancy, return to the prepregnancy employer was quite common. Sixty percent of women who worked full-time before the birth of a child continued to work for the same employer after the child was born. Furthermore, the labor market behavior of most of the remaining 40% suggests that maternity-leave legislation is unlikely to have a major effect on job continuity. Compared with all demographically similar women, however, new mothers have an excess probability of leaving their jobs.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Delay or probability discounting in a model of impulsive behavior: effect of alcohol.

Little is known about the acute effects of drugs of abuse on impulsivity and self-control. In this study, impulsivity was assessed in humans using a computer task that measured delay and probability discounting. Discounting describes how much the value of a reward (or punisher) is decreased when its occurrence is either delayed or uncertain. Twenty-four healthy adult volunteers ingested a moderate dose of ethanol (0.5 or 0.8 g/kg ethanol: n = 12 at each dose) or placebo before completing the discounting task. In the task the participants were given a series of choices between a small, immediate, certain amount of money and $10 that was either delayed (0, 2, 30, 180, or 365 days) or probabilistic (i.e., certainty of receipt was 1.0, .9, .75, .5, or .25). The point at which each individual was indifferent between the smaller immediate or certain reward and the $10 delayed or probabilistic reward was identified using an adjusting-amount procedure. The results indicated that (a) delay and probability discounting were well described by a hyperbolic function; (b) delay and probability discounting were positively correlated within subjects; (c) delay and probability discounting were moderately correlated with personality measures of impulsivity; and (d) alcohol had no effect on discounting.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

The construction of mental accounts in benefits decision making.

Mental accounting describes the psychological creation of separate accounts or budgets for categories of decisions. This process simplifies complex budget decisions in ways that significantly affect consumer behavior (Kahneman and Tversky 1981, 1984) and has been incorporated into economic theory (Shefrin and Thaler 1988). The impact of mental accounts on benefits decisions is likely to be significant. The creation of these accounts is context dependent, and prior work has demonstrated that the source and timing of payments affects the allocation of resources into mental accounts. Results from this work demonstrate that other normatively unimportant factors of the choice such as presentation order impact the construction of mental accounts. These results describe mental accounting biases within the context of health care benefits and demonstrate that the construction of mental accounts is highly unstable and easily manipulated within this domain.

Chi-Square Distribution↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Psychosocial and demographic variables associated with consumer intention to purchase sustainably produced foods as defined by the Midwest Food Alliance.

OBJECTIVE: To examine psychosocial and demographic variables associated with consumer intention to purchase sustainably produced foods using an expanded Theory of Planned Behavior. DESIGN: Consumers were approached at the store entrance and asked to complete a self-administered survey. SETTING: Three metropolitan Minnesota grocery stores. PARTICIPANTS: Participants (n = 550) were adults who shopped at the store: the majority were white, female, and highly educated and earned >or= 50,000 dollars/year. Participation rates averaged 62%. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The major domain investigated was consumer support for sustainably produced foods. Demographics, beliefs, attitudes, subjective norm, and self-identity and perceived behavioral control were evaluated as predictors of intention to purchase them. ANALYSIS: Descriptive statistics, independent t tests, one-way analysis of variance, Pearson product moment correlation coefficients, and stepwise multiple regression analyses (P <.05). RESULTS: Consumers were supportive of sustainably produced foods but not highly confident in their ability to purchase them. Independent predictors of intention to purchase them included attitudes, beliefs, perceived behavioral control, subjective norm, past buying behavior, and marital status. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Beliefs, attitudes, and confidence level may influence intention to purchase sustainably produced foods. Nutrition educators could increase consumers' awareness of sustainably produced foods by understanding their beliefs, attitudes, and confidence levels.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Replacing relative reinforcing efficacy with behavioral economic demand curves.

Relative reinforcing efficacy refers to the behavior-strengthening or maintaining property of a reinforcer when compared to that of another reinforcer. Traditional measures of relative reinforcing efficacy sometimes have led to discordant results across and within studies. By contrast, previous investigations have found traditional measures to be congruent with behavioral economic measures, which provide a framework for integrating the discordant results. This study tested whether the previously demonstrated congruence between traditional relative reinforcing efficacy measures and behavioral economic demand curve measures is sufficiently robust to persist when demand for one reinforcer is altered. Cigarette smokers pulled plungers for cigarettes or two magnitudes of money on progressive-ratio schedules that increased the response requirement across sessions. Demand for the two different reinforcers was assessed in single-schedule and concurrent-schedule sessions. Demand curve measures Pmax and Omax correlated significantly with traditional measures of breakpoint and peak response rate, respectively. Relative locations of demand curves for money and cigarettes under single schedules predicted preference in concurrent schedules in most cases. Although measures of relative reinforcing efficacy for money changed with money magnitude, the congruence between traditional and behavioral economic measures remained intact. This robust congruence supports the proposal that demand curves should replace measures of relative reinforcing efficacy. The demand curve analysis illustrates why concordance between traditional measures is expected under some experimental conditions but not others.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

The effect of intrahypothalamic serotonin reinforcement on directional preference in rats.

Reinforcing properties of serotonin administration to the lateral hypothalamus were tested on the experimental model of the T-maze learning in 19 rats. The results did not definitely prove either positive or negative reinforcement produced by the central serotonergic stimulation, although the rats modified their behavior in the maze in the response to intrahypothalamic serotonin. It seems that the central serotonergic neurons do not play a decisive role in the mediation of the reinforcing phenomena but they may interact with the activity of some other reward neurons.

Animals↗
PubMed2002

Hormonal influences on sexual partner preference in rams.

Domestic rams display a naturally occurring variation in sexual partner preference, such that 6-10% of range-bred populations prefer male sexual partners (male-oriented) in contrast to the majority of rams that prefer female sexual partners (female-oriented). Male-oriented rams exhibit hormone profiles and stress responses distinctly different from their heterosexual counterparts. These differences include reduced circulating levels of testosterone that arise after anesthetization. Lower levels of aromatase activity in the medial preoptic area and estrogen receptor in the amygdala were also measured in male-oriented versus female-oriented rams and may represent an important link to sexual behavior that should be investigated. It is anticipated that the male-oriented ram model will be useful for studies aimed at identifying both the activational and organizational components and the neuronal substrates of male sexual partner preferences.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

A theory of associating food types with their postingestive consequences.

Animals often face complex and changing food environments. While such environments are challenging, an animal should make an association between a food type and its properties (such as the presence of a nutrient or toxin). We use information theory concepts, such as mutual information, to establish a theory for the development of these associations. In this theory, associations are assumed to maximize the mutual information between foods and their consequences. We show that associations are invariably imperfect. An association's accuracy increases with the length of a feeding session and the relative frequency of a food type but decreases as time delay between consumption and postingestive consequence increases. Surprisingly, the accuracy of an association is independent of the number of additional food types in the environment. The rate of information transfer between novel foods and a forager depends on the forager's diet. In light of this theory, an animal's diet may have two competing goals: first, the provision of an appropriate balance of nutrients, and second, the ability to quickly and accurately learn the properties of novel foods. We discuss the ecological and behavioral implications of making associational errors and contrast the timescale and mechanisms of our theory with those of existing theory.

Animal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena↗
PubMed2005

Mecamylamine and ethanol preference in healthy volunteers.

BACKGROUND: Recent evidence suggests that some of the behavioral effects of alcohol may be mediated through actions on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. Mecamylamine, a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor antagonist, reduces alcohol preference and consumption in alcohol-preferring rats, and in humans, mecamylamine dampens some of the subjective, or mood-altering, effects of alcohol. This experiment was designed to investigate the effects of mecamylamine on consumption of alcohol in healthy social drinkers. METHODS: Healthy volunteers (12 men, 12 women) participated in a choice procedure in which they chose between an alcoholic beverage and money (low, medium, or high amounts) after pretreatment with mecamylamine (7.5 or 15 mg) or placebo. Outcome measures were the number of alcoholic beverages consumed and the subjective effects of alcohol. RESULTS: Mecamylamine (15 mg) decreased blood alcohol levels (BALs) after a small fixed dose of alcohol (0.2 g/kg). Even when the lower BALs were taken into account, mecamylamine reduced ratings of stimulation after alcohol (Addiction Research Center Inventory A scale). Mecamylamine did not significantly reduce choice for alcohol versus money. However, there was a tendency for the drug to decrease alcohol choice among participants who reported the greatest stimulant-like effects from alcohol. CONCLUSION: These results provide only limited support for the idea that nicotinic acetylcholine receptors are involved in the rewarding effects of alcohol.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Maintenance of delay of gratification by four chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): the effects of delayed reward visibility, experimenter presence, and extended delay intervals.

Previous research in our laboratory has demonstrated that chimpanzees can delay gratification by inhibiting consumption of available food items for as long as 3 min as an experimenter transfers additional food items from a transparent container to a bowl placed in front of the subject. In this study, we examined the influence of the visibility of the food source, as well as the presence of the experimenter, on four chimpanzees' self-control in this paradigm. In Experiment 1 an experimenter transferred 15 preferred food items between a distant opaque container and a bowl placed in front of the subject. In Experiment 2 we tested the chimpanzees with an automated system that (in the absence of the experimenter) transferred up to 36 highly preferred food items from a universal food dispenser to a container located either inside or outside of the subject's enclosure. There were no differences in self-directed behaviors or attentiveness to the food items between the self-imposed and externally imposed delay conditions. A final experiment with the automated paradigm indicated that individuals could delay gratification for up to 11min in order to obtain all 36 food items.

Animals↗
PubMed2000

Conditioned increases in behavioral activity and accumbens dopamine levels produced by intravenous cocaine.

In vivo microdialysis, behavioral activity assessments, and a conditioned place preference (CPP) test were used to investigate dopaminergic correlates of cocaine-conditioned behaviors. Over 12 days, rats were given either intravenous cocaine (4.2 mg/kg) or saline (6 cocaine and 6 saline infusions) daily in distinctively different environments. The following day, rats were tested in the cocaine- and saline-paired environments; 48 hr later, CPP was determined. The cocaine-associated environment elicited greater nucleus accumbens dopamine (NAcc DA) levels, hyperactivity, and place preference, though the emergence of DA increases was not in synchrony with peak behavioral activation. Although conditioned behavioral effects after repeated cocaine are well documented, direct evidence of increased NAcc DA in response to a cocaine-paired environment has not been previously reported. Discrepancies with previous work are attributed to a number of methodological differences.

Animals↗
PubMed1975

Parkinsonism: effects of levodopa treatment on concept formation.

Concept formation was compared in 71 parkinsonian patients and 35 controls matched for age and WAIS vebal IQ. It was found that the patients formed significantly fewer concepts, as measured by the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). The patients had difficulties in shifting sets and were unable to attend to the completion of a concept. Levodopa-treated patients were able to produce more correct responses, but were still unable to maintain the correct responses to produce more correct concepts than non-levodopa-treated patients. The behavior of the parkinsonian patients on the WCST is similar to that of patients who have undergone frontal lobectomy. In addition, the results indicate that levodopa therapy may improve "vigilance", without increasing the patient's overall cognitive ability.

Choice Behavior↗
PubMed2006

Behavioral and neuroeconomics of drug addiction: competing neural systems and temporal discounting processes.

We review behavioral- and neuroeconomic research that identifies temporal discounting as an important component in the development and maintenance of drug addiction. First, we review behavioral economic research that explains and documents the contribution of temporal discounting to addiction. This is followed with recent insights from neuroeconomics that may provide an explanation of why drug-dependent individuals discount the future. Specifically, neuroeconomics has identified two competing neural systems that are related to temporal discounting using brain-imaging techniques that examine the relative activation of different brain regions for temporal discounting. According to the competing neural systems account, choices for delayed outcomes are related to the prefrontal cortex (i.e., the "executive system") and choices for immediate outcomes are related to the limbic brain regions (i.e., the "impulsive system"). Temporal discounting provides a useful framework for future imaging research, and suggests a novel approach to designing effective drug dependence prevention and treatment programs.

Awareness↗
PubMed2002

Why do transplant surgeons turn down organs? A model of the accept/reject decision.

Despite the scarcity of transplantable organs, 45% of livers are rejected by the first surgeon to whom they are offered. I present a model in which a surgeon decides to accept or reject an organ for a patient based on the patient's current health level. Using data on transplanted patients, I show that surgeons' behavior is consistent with the solution to an optimal stopping problem in which they reject low quality organs for relatively healthy patients in the hope that they will receive a better organ offer in the future. I discuss trends in organ procurement in light of this finding.

Choice Behavior↗
PubMed2002

Sexual differences for emigration behavior in natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster.

Evolutionary biology considers migration behavior as central in genetic structure of populations and speciation. Here we report on emigration patterns in Drosophila melanogaster behavior under laboratory conditions. For this study, a special apparatus was employed that includes a few important changes in its design and size compared with other known systems. The results presented in this paper were obtained on flies derived from natural populations of two contrasting climatic and geographical regions, from mesic northern and xeric southern parts of Israel. Highly significant difference between sexes in emigration activity was found for both localities. Emigration activity of females appeared to be higher than that of males. We also found that the flies' geographic origin affects emigration behavior (flies from a relatively closed natural system seem to display lower emigration ability than those from an open habitat), although broader sampling from various habitats is needed to confirm these results.

Animals↗
PubMed1990

Thinking upstream: nurturing a conceptual understanding of the societal context of health behavior.

This article addresses the issue of overreliance on theories that define nursing in terms of a one-to-one relationship at the expense of theoretical perspectives that emphasize the societal context of health. When individuals are perceived as the focus of nursing action, the nurse is likely to propose intervention strategies aimed at either changing the behaviors of the individual or modifying the individual's perceptions of the world. When nurses understand the social, political, and economic influences that shape the health of a society, they are more likely to recognize social action as a nursing role and work on behalf of populations.

Choice Behavior↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Correlates of fat intake among urban, low income African Americans.

OBJECTIVE: To test a dietary intervention for high risk African American adults with small children. METHODS: Using telephone data, logistic regression was used to identify association of low-fat eating behaviors, fat calories, and frequency of sweets/oils/fats with personal and environmental variables. RESULTS: Education and income were associated with low-fat eating behaviors, fat calories, and frequency of fat/oils/sweets. Availability, price, and policy were related to low fat eating behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: Effectiveness of dietary interventions relies upon environments that support changes by the individual. Focusing on high-risk populations should be a priority in this research.

Black or African American↗