Humanities and Social Sciences

Caffeine is one of the most ubiquitous drugs in the world, and is often consumed for its cognitive enhancing properties. The current research investigated the influence of caffeine on two commonly used measures of risky decision making (the Iowa Gambling Task and the Balloon Analogue Risk Task). Findings indicated that caffeine improved performance on the IGT but not on the BART. However, inclusion of individual differences on decision making style and impulsivity generated regression models that explained a significant proportion of variance in performance on the IGT and BART. Multiple significant correlations existed among a variety of individual difference trait measures of decision-making style, impulsive tendencies and risk-taking behaviour. Results and implications are discussed in terms of two prominent decision-making theories as well as prior research, and further research directions are suggested that may help elucidate the apparently contradictory effects of caffeine on two distinct measures of risky decision making. Author keywords:

This study observed Systems 1 (heuristic) and Systems 2 (cognitively effortful) decision making styles in individuals undergoing high and low intensity exercise versus a no exercise control group. The attraction effect and delay discounting were measured to test the hypothesis that post exercise hyperglycaemia can reduce heuristic-based decision making and increase cognitively effortful decisions. Individual differences in decision making traits were also assessed using the General Decision Making Styles questionnaire. Results showed that high-intensity exercise can induce elevation in blood glucose; however this effect was observed only in half the sample. Participants in the high intensity exercise condition were significantly more likely than those in the low intensity exercise condition to elicit post exercise hyperglycaemia. Additionally, results from this study show that higher blood glucose is associated with a greater probability of choosing the non-heuristic option in the apartment task; thus signifying less reliance on heuristic based System 1 decision making. Furthermore, in the delay discounting task, exploratory analyses suggest that high-intensity exercise-induced hyperglycaemia may rescue optimal decision-making for individuals who tend to make more intuitive decisions (i.e., are more reliant on System 1). Further studies with larger sample sizes are needed to further elucidate the effects of exercise on decision making, taking into account blood glucose changes and individual difference profiles.

Throughout human history, people have lived in societies without formalized government. We argue that the theory of anarchism presents a productive framework for analyzing decentralized societies. Anarchism encompasses a broad array of interrelated principles for organizing societies without the centralization of authority. Moreover, its theory of history emphasizes an ongoing and active resistance to concentrations of power. We present an anarchist analysis of the development of social power, authority, and status within the Coast Salish region of the Northwest Coast. <p>Coast Salish peoples exhibited complex displays of chiefly authority and class stratification but without centralized political organization. Ethnographically, their sociopolitical formation is unique in allowing a majority of "high- class" people and a minority of commoners and slaves, or what Wayne Suttles described as an "inverted-pear" society. We present the development of this sociopolitical structure through an analysis of cranial deformation from burial data and assess it in relation to periods of warfare. We determine that many aspects of Coast Salish culture include practices that resist concentrations of power. Our central point is that anarchism is useful for understanding decentralized (or anarchic) networks-those that allow for complex intergroup relations while staving off the establishment of centralized political authority.<p>