Group dancing is a ubiquitous human activity that involves exertive synchronized movement to music. It is hypothesized to play a role in social bonding, potentially via the release of endorphins, which are analgesic and reward-inducing, and have been implicated in primate social bonding. We used a 2 × 2 experimental design to examine effects of exertion and synchrony on bonding. Both demonstrat...

Lack of access to formal insurance market may prevent farmers from pursuing risky production activities with potentially large returns. How does access to formal microinsurance affect production and economic development? We report results from a large randomized field experiment conducted in southwestern China in the context of a subsidized insurance for sows. We induce exogenous variation in i...

Exertion interfaces require bodily activity. Users have to perform exercises, they have to dance, they have to golf or football, and they have to train particular bodily skills. Unlike game interfaces where we can observe lots of research activity recently trying to define, interpret and evaluate issues such as ‘flow’ and ‘engagement’, in exertion interfaces these concepts need to be reconsider...

Nurses are often obliged to work in a 12-hr shift work system. We have decided to check whether such a working system constitutes an excessive load for nurses. On the basis of a questionnaire survey among nurses working in an 8-hr daytime shift system (169 nurses) and in a 12-hr shift (536 nurses), the amount of physical workload, work stress, and after-work activities were compared. Data analy...

Although human activity is considered to be a major driving force affecting the distribution and dynamics of Mediterranean ecosystems, the full consequences of projected climate variability and relative sea-level changes on fragile coastal ecosystems for the next century are still unknown. It is unclear how these waterfront ecosystems can be sustained, as well as the services they provide, when...

Examining work as social practice offers a means of understanding relations between behaviour and the social world; or the mind in activity. Recent views have proposed that cognition is distributed (Hutchins 1991, Resnick, et al 1997) or stretched (Lave 1991) across the social partners and artifacts that comprise the social practice in which they act. Therefore, more than proposing social pract...