The relationship between the Tibetan prelate Tāranātha (1575-1634) and his major patrons, the various sDe pa of gTsang is a most complex one. In studying it I am increasingly aware that the wealth of detail to be gleaned from the various relevant texts is not just limited to the narrow study of the lives of just a few people, in this case those of Tāranātha and the various rulers of gTsang. Ind...

Despite renewed interest in shamanic patterns of phenomenal properties such as journeying imagery, these phenomena are neither well defined nor sufficiently understood. Consequently, we propose criteria pertaining to four necessary conditions for a visual mental image to qualify as a shamanic journeying image. Finally, we demonstrate how these necessary conditions may be used to extrapolate a s...

In order to study the feeling of control over decisions, we told 60 participants that a neuroimaging machine could read and influence their thoughts. While inside a mock brain scanner, participants chose arbitrary numbers in two similar tasks. In the Mind-Reading Task, the scanner appeared to guess the participants' numbers; in the Mind-Influencing Task, it appeared to influence their choice of...

This experiment tested how self-views influence shame-induced aggression. One hundred and sixty-three young adolescents (M = 12.2 years) completed measures of narcissism and self-esteem. They lost to an ostensible opponent on a competitive task. In the shame condition, they were told that their opponent was bad, and they saw their own name at the bottom of a ranking list. In the control conditi...

This experiment examined what situational and dispositional features moderate the effects of linguistic gender cues on gender stereotyping in anonymous, text-based computer-mediated communication. Participants played a trivia game with an ostensible partner via computer, whose comments represented either prototypically masculine or feminine language styles. Consistent with the social identity m...

Today’s undergraduate students are digital natives, shaped by constant access to information and countless experiences of encountering the world through convenience a screen. The ostensible comfort have with difference gives way paradox, one that’s made especially apparent in theology classroom: Students comfortable seeing particularity at distance, but not adept locating “at home.” I contend t...

Testosterone affects human social behavior in various ways. While testosterone effects are generally associated with muscular strength and aggressiveness, human studies also point towards enhanced status-seeking motives after testosterone administration. The current study tested the causal influence of exogenous testosterone on male behavior during a competitive provocation paradigm. In this do...

In the 1970s, two similar reviews of an interesting ostensible research literature were published. They claimed to show that a number of factors had been identified to explain how salt is passed on request. Recently, this matter has been taken up again with further reports of new factors suggested to influence the behavior. Moreover, the ideas have been extended to pepper passage. This paper co...

Hospitals are awash with patient experience data, much of it collected with the ostensible purpose of improving the quality of patient care. However, there has been comparatively little consideration of the nature and capacities of data itself. Using insights from actor-network theory, we propose that paying attention to patient experience data as having agency in particular hospital interactio...