Individuals are known to respond to self-threats by increasing consumption behaviors. These are intended to ameliorate the psychological discomfort aroused by a threat by symbolically compensating for the threatened aspect of the self or by distracting attention from the threat. However, such behaviors merely mask the threat, and can result in harmful consequences, such as overeating or excessi...

For self-avoiding walks on the d-dimensional cubic lattice defined with a positive bias in one of the coordinate directions, it is proved that the drift in the favored direction is strictly positive. c © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keyword: Biased self-avoiding walks

Asian American parents espouse higher academic expectations relative to parents from other ethnic groups, yet these high expectations predict greater self-doubt in children who fall short of expectations. In the present study, 69 Asian American and 33 Latino undergraduate students discussed their parents’ expectations, how supportive they felt their parents were with their choice of major and s...

Widespread assumptions about the extractive and self-serving nature of African elites have resulted in the relative neglect of questions concerning their personal ethics and morality. Using life-history interviews undertaken with a range of Ghanaian development workers, this article explores some of the different personal aspirations, ideologies and beliefs that such narratives express. The sel...

This paper presents a model of agent behavior that takes into account emotions and moral values. In our proposal, when the description of the current situation reveals that an agent’s moral value is ‘at stake’, the moral goal of reestablishing the threatened value is included among the active goals. The compliance with values generates positive emotions like pride and admiration, while the oppo...

general public. Contrary to common perception, your typical academic economist does not believe that only money matters, and self-interest is not equivalent to selfishness. People are as likely to be altruistic as venal, and in day-to-day life, they are probably more likely to exhibit kindness than viciousness. Yet it is always wise to bear in mind that self-interest, even of the more enlighten...

Gravitational collapse of radiation shells in a non self-similar higher dimensional spherically symmetric spacetime is studied. Strong curvature naked singularities form for a highly inhomogeneous collapse, violating the cosmic censorship conjecture. As a special case, self similar models can be constructed.