Psychologists are increasingly interested in embodiment based on the assumption that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are grounded in bodily interaction with the environment. We examine how embodiment is used in social psychology, and we explore the ways in which embodied approaches enrich traditional theories. Although research in this area is burgeoning, much of it has been more descriptive than explanatory. We provide a critical discussion of the trajectory of embodiment research in social psychology. We contend that future researchers should engage (...) in a phenomenon-based approach, highlight the theoretical boundary conditions and mediators involved, explore novel action-relevant outcome measures, and address the role of individual differences broadly defined. Such research will likely provide a more explanatory account of the role of embodiment in general terms as well as how it expands the knowledge base in social psychology. (shrink)

(2009). Mellow Monday and furious Friday: The approach-related link between anger and time representation. Cognition & Emotion: Vol. 23, No. 6, pp. 1166-1180.

Responding to bivalent stimuli slows subsequent performance. In prospective memory research, prospective memory targets can be considered as bivalent stimuli because they typically involve features relevant for both the prospective memory task and the ongoing task. The purpose of this study was to investigate how responding to a prospective memory target slows subsequent performance. In two experiments, we embedded the prospective memory task in a task-switching paradigm and we manipulated the degree of task-set overlap between the prospective memory task and (...) the ongoing task. The results showed consistent after-effects of responding to prospective memory targets. The specific trajectory of the slowing depended on the amount of task-set overlap. These results demonstrate that responding to prospective memory targets results in after-effects, a so far neglected cost on ongoing task performance. (shrink)

The right to health was codified in Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as an individual right, focusing on individual health services at the expense of public health systems. This article assesses the ways in which the individual human right to health has evolved to meet collective threats to the public's health. Despite its repeated expansions, the individual right to health remains normatively incapable of addressing the injurious societal ramifcations of economic globalization, advancing individual (...) rights to alleviate collective inequalities in underlying determinants of health. By examining modern changes to underlying determinants of health, this article concludes that responding to globalized health threats necessitates a collective right to public health. (shrink)

In confronting the insalubrious ramifications of globalization, human rights scholars and activists have argued for greater national and international responsibility pursuant to the human right to health. Codified seminally in Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the right to health proclaims that states bear an obligation to realize the “highest attainable standard” of health for all. However, in pressing for the highest attainable standard for each individual, the right to health has been ineffective in (...) compelling states to address burgeoning inequalities in underlying determinants of health, focusing on individual medical treatments at the expense of public health systems. This article contends that the paradigm of individual health, focused on a right to individual medical care, is incapable of responding to health inequities in a globalized world and thereby hampers efforts to operationalize health rights through public health systems. While the right to health has evolved in international discourse over time, this evolution of the individual right to health cannot address the harmful societal ramifications of economic globalization. Rather than relying solely upon an individual right to medical care, envisioning a collective right to public health – a right applied at the societal level to address underlying determinants of health – would alleviate many of the injurious health inequities of globalization. (shrink)

Immunization plays a crucial role in global health security, preventing public health emergencies of international concern and protecting individuals from infectious disease outbreaks, yet these critical public health benefits are dependent on immunization law. Where public health law has become central to preventing, detecting, and responding to infectious disease, public health law reform is seen as necessary to implement the Global Health Security Agenda. This article examines national immunization laws as a basis to implement the GHSA and promote the public's (...) health, analyzing the scope and content of these laws to prevent infectious disease across Sub-Saharan Africa. Undertaking policy surveillance of national immunization laws in 20 Sub-Saharan African countries, this study: developed a legal framework to map the legal attributes relevant to immunization; created an assessment tool to determine the presence of these attributes under national immunization law; and applied this assessment tool to code national legal landscapes. An analysis of these coded laws highlights legal attributes that govern vaccine requirements, supply chains, vaccine administration standards, and medicines quality and manufacturer liability. Based upon this international policy surveillance, it will be crucial to undertake legal epidemiology research across countries, examining the influence of immunization law on vaccination rates and disease outbreaks. (shrink)

While human rights law has evolved to provide guidance to governments in realizing human rights in public health emergencies, the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the foundations of human rights in global health governance. Public health responses to the pandemic have undermined international human rights obligations to realize the rights to health and life, human rights that underlie public health, and international assistance and cooperation. As governments prepare for revisions of global health law, new opportunities are presented to harmonize global health (...) law and human rights law, strengthening rights-based governance to respond to future threats. (shrink)

The development of a human right to water and sanitation under international law has created an imperative to implement human rights in water and sanitation policy. Through forty-three interviews with informants in international institutions, national governments, and non-governmental organizations, this research examines interpretations of this new human right in global governance, national policy, and local practice. Exploring obstacles to the implementation of rights-based water and sanitation policy, the authors analyze the limitations of translating international human rights into local water and (...) sanitation practice, concluding that system operators, utilities, and management boards remain largely unaffected by the changing public policy landscape for human rights realization. To understand the relevance of human rights standards to water and sanitation practitioners, this article frames a research agenda to ensure that human rights aspirations lead to public policy reforms and public health outcomes. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on developing an experimental technique for inducing flow and creating instances of effortless action in the laboratory. The effort to experimentally induce flow involves two conditions which are correlated with the flow state: The firstis the idea that the challenges of a given task are well within one’s capabilities; the other involves perceived goals and immediate feedback from the given task. The chapter explores these factors along with other contextual factors, including autonomy and distractions, to experimentally induce (...) flow and demonstrate instances of effortless action in the laboratory. One of the most extensively used approaches for experimental induction of flow in the laboratory involves exploring difficulty levels of video games. (shrink)

Synaesthesia is a heterogeneous phenomenon, even when considering one particular sub-type. The purpose of this study was to design a reliable and valid questionnaire for grapheme-colour synaesthesia that captures this heterogeneity. By the means of a large sample of 628 synaesthetes and a factor analysis, we created the Coloured Letters and Numbers questionnaire with 16 items loading on 4 different factors . These factors were externally validated with tests which are widely used in the field of synaesthesia research. The questionnaire (...) showed good test–retest reliability and construct validity . Our findings are discussed in the light of current theories and new ideas in synaesthesia research. More generally, the questionnaire is a useful tool which can be widely used in synaesthesia research to reveal the influence of individual differences on various performance measures and will be useful in generating new hypotheses. (shrink)

Recently, swimming-style colour synaesthesia was introduced as a new form of synaesthesia. A synaesthetic Stroop test was used to establish its genuineness. Since Stroop interference can occur for any type of overlearned association, in the present study we used a modified Stroop test and psychophysiological synaesthetic conditioning to further establish the genuineness of this form of synaesthesia. We compared the performance of a swimming-style colour synaesthete and a control who was trained on swimming-style colour associations. Our results showed that behavioural (...) aspects of swimming-style colour synaesthesia can be mimicked in a trained control. Importantly, however, our results showed a psychophysiological conditioning effect for the synaesthete only. We discuss the theoretical relevance of swimming-style colour synaesthesia according to different models of synaesthesia. We conclude that swimming-style colour synaesthesia is a genuine form of synaesthesia, can be mimicked behaviourally in non-synaesthetes, and is best explained by a re-entrant feedback model. (shrink)

We investigated the competition between automatic and controlled processes in a word stem completion task. Prime-display duration and the prime-target interval were manipulated. On each trial a masked prime was displayed briefly, followed either immediately or after a delay by a word stem. The subjects were required to complete each stem with the first word that came to mind, to report any prime they could identify, and not to give as completion any identified prime. By the assumption that automatic processes (...) require less stimulus input and can be completed faster than consciously controlled processes we expected a stronger performance contribution from automatic processes with the shorter prime-display durations and in the immediate stems condition. The results confirmed this expectation. The findings highlight that consciously controlled processes require more time to run their course than unconscious automatic processes. (shrink)

Individuals who experience stereotype threat – the pressure resulting from social comparisons that are perceived as unfavourable – show performance decrements across a wide range of tasks. One account of this effect is that the cognitive pressure triggered by such threat drains the same cognitive resources that are implicated in the respective task. The present study investigates whether mindfulness can be used to moderate stereotype threat, as mindfulness has previously been shown to alleviate working-memory load. Our results show that performance (...) decrements that typically occur under stereotype threat can indeed be reversed when the individual engages in a brief mindfulness task. The theoretical implications of our findings are discussed. (shrink)

Domestic litigation has become a principal strategy for realizing international treaty obligations for the human right to health, providing causes of action for the public’s health and empowering individuals to raise human rights claims for HIV prevention, treatment, and care. In the past 15 years, advocates have laid the groundwork on which a rapidly expanding enforcement paradigm has arisen at the intersection of human rights litigation and HIV/AIDS policy. As this enforcement develops across multiple countries, human rights are translated from (...) principle to practice in the global response to HIV/AIDS, transforming aspirational declarations into justiciable obligations and implementing human rights through national policies and programs. (shrink)

Domestic litigation has become a principal strategy for realizing international treaty obligations for the human right to health, providing causes of action for the public’s health and empowering individuals to raise human rights claims for HIV prevention, treatment, and care. In the past 15 years, advocates have laid the groundwork on which a rapidly expanding enforcement paradigm has arisen at the intersection of human rights litigation and HIV/AIDS policy. As this enforcement develops across multiple countries, human rights are translated from (...) principle to practice in the global response to HIV/AIDS, transforming aspirational declarations into justiciable obligations and implementing human rights through national policies and programs. (shrink)

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health continues a trajectory of U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence that undermines the normative foundation of public health — the idea that the state is obligated to provide a robust set of supports for healthcare services and the underlying social determinants of health. Dobbs furthers a longstanding ideology of individual responsibility in public health, neglecting collective responsibility for better health outcomes. Such an ideology on individual responsibility not only enables a shrinking of public health infrastructure for reproductive (...) health, it facilitates the rise of reproductive coercion and a criminal legal response to pregnancy and abortion. This commentary situates Dobbs in the context of a long historical shift in public health that increasingly places burdens on individuals for their own reproductive health care, moving away from the possibility of a robust state public health infrastructure. (shrink)

The United Nations (UN) General Assembly High-Level Meeting (HLM) on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response (PPPR) was a missed opportunity to bring high-level commitment and momentum to the global governance of health emergencies. Intended to bring much-needed attention to a policy issue that is rapidly slipping down the international agenda, the fraught diplomacy among member states, lack of consensus on key issues, and weak UN Political Declaration in New York foreshadow a difficult road ahead for upcoming negotiations under the World (...) Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva. This column chronicles the evolving engagement of the UN in global health governance, examines the diplomatic process leading to the UN HLM on PPPR, and assesses the contributions and missed opportunities of its resulting Political Declaration. (shrink)

Despite a recent wave in global recognition of the rights of transgender and gender-diverse populations, referred to in this text by the umbrella label of trans*, international law continues to presume a cisgender binary definition of gender — dismissing the lived realities of trans* individuals throughout the world. This gap in international legal recognition and protection has fundamental implications for health, where trans* persons have been and continue to be subjected to widespread discrimination in health care, longstanding neglect of health (...) needs, and significant violations of bodily autonomy. (shrink)

The emotion of anger, when chronic, is especially problematic. Frequent and intense experiences of anger predict quite a few adverse health outcomes and are especially implicated in cardiovascular...

In confronting the insalubrious ramifications of globalization, human rights scholars and activists have argued for greater national and international responsibility pursuant to the human right to health. Codified seminally in Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the right to health proclaims that states bear an obligation to realize the “highest attainable standard” of health for all. However, in pressing for the highest attainable standard for each individual, the right to health has been ineffective in (...) compelling states to address burgeoning inequalities in underlying determinants of health, focusing on individual medical treatments at the expense of public health systems. This article contends that the paradigm of individual health, focused on a right to individual medical care, is incapable of responding to health inequities in a globalized world and thereby hampers efforts to operationalize health rights through public health systems. While the right to health has evolved in international discourse over time, this evolution of the individual right to health cannot address the harmful societal ramifications of economic globalization. Rather than relying solely upon an individual right to medical care, envisioning a collective right to public health – a right applied at the societal level to address underlying determinants of health – would alleviate many of the injurious health inequities of globalization. (shrink)

In confronting the insalubrious ramifications of globalization, human rights scholars and activists have argued for greater national and international responsibility pursuant to the human right to health. Codified seminally in Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the right to health proclaims that states bear an obligation to realize the “highest attainable standard” of health for all. However, in pressing for the highest attainable standard for each individual, the right to health has been ineffective in (...) compelling states to address burgeoning inequalities in underlying determinants of health, focusing on individual medical treatments at the expense of public health systems. This article contends that the paradigm of individual health, focused on a right to individual medical care, is incapable of responding to health inequities in a globalized world and thereby hampers efforts to operationalize health rights through public health systems. While the right to health has evolved in international discourse over time, this evolution of the individual right to health cannot address the harmful societal ramifications of economic globalization. Rather than relying solely upon an individual right to medical care, envisioning a collective right to public health – a right applied at the societal level to address underlying determinants of health – would alleviate many of the injurious health inequities of globalization. (shrink)

We applaud the goals and execution of the target article, but note that individual differences do not receive much attention. This is a shortcoming because individual differences can play a vital role in theory testing. In our commentary, we describe programs of research of this type and also apply similar thinking to the mechanisms proposed in the target article.

This paper is one of the four interrelated action agenda papers resulting from the National Summit on Public Health Legal Preparedness convened in June 2007 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and multi-disciplinary partners. Each of the action agenda papers deals with one of the four core elements of legal preparedness: laws and legal authorities; competency in using those laws; and coordination of law-based public health actions; and information.This action agenda offers options for consideration by those responsible for (...) or interested in ensuring that public health professionals, their legal counsels, and relevant partners understand the legal framework in which they operate and are competent in applying legal authorities to public health emergency preparedness.Competencies are critical to an individual's ability to make effective legal response to all-hazards public emergencies. (shrink)

This paper is one of the four interrelated action agenda papers resulting from the National Summit on Public Health Legal Preparedness convened in June 2007 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and multi-disciplinary partners. Each of the action agenda papers deals with one of the four core elements of legal preparedness: laws and legal authorities; competency in using those laws; and coordination of law-based public health actions; and information.This action agenda offers options for consideration by those responsible for (...) or interested in ensuring that public health professionals, their legal counsels, and relevant partners understand the legal framework in which they operate and are competent in applying legal authorities to public health emergency preparedness.Competencies are critical to an individual's ability to make effective legal response to all-hazards public emergencies. (shrink)

This is a pivotal moment in the global governance response to pandemic threats, with crucial global health law reforms being undertaken simultaneously in the coming years: the revision of the International Health Regulations, the implementation of the GHSA Legal Preparedness Action Package, and the negotiation of a new Pandemic Treaty. Rather than looking at these reforms in isolation, it will be necessary to examine how they fit together, considering: how these reforms can complement each other to support pandemic prevention, preparedness, (...) and response; what financing mechanisms are necessary to ensure sustainable health governance; and why vital norms of equity, social justice, and human rights must underpin this new global health system. (shrink)

Given current constraints on universal treatment campaigns, recent advances in public health prevention initiatives have revitalized efforts to stem the tide of HIV transmission. Yet, despite a growing imperative for prevention—supported by the promise of behavioral, structural and biomedical approaches to lower the incidence of HIV—human rights frameworks remain limited in addressing collective prevention policy through global health governance. Assessing the evolution of rights-based approaches to global HIV/AIDS policy, this review finds that human rights have shifted from collective public health (...) to individual treatment access. While the advent of the HIV/AIDS pandemic gave meaning to rights in framing global health policy, the application of rights in treatment access litigation came at the expense of public health prevention efforts. Where the human rights framework remains limited to individual rights enforced against a state duty bearer, such rights have faced constrained application in framing population-level policy to realize the public good of HIV prevention. Concluding that human rights frameworks must be developed to reflect the complementarity of individual treatment and collective prevention, this article conceptualizes collective rights to public health, structuring collective combination prevention to alleviate limitations on individual rights frameworks and frame rights-based global HIV/AIDS policy to assure research expansion, prevention access and health system integration. (shrink)

In the absence of centralized human rights leadership in an increasingly fragmented global health policy landscape, regional health offices have stepped forward to advance the rights-based approach to health. Reviewing the efforts of the Pan American Health Organization, this article explores the evolution of human rights in PAHO policy, assesses efforts to mainstream human rights in the Pan American Sanitary Bureau, and analyzes the future of the rights-based approach through regional health governance, providing lessons for other regional health offices and (...) global health institutions. This article explores PAHO's 15-year effort to mainstream human rights through PASB technical units, national capacity-building, the Inter-American human rights system, and the PAHO Directing Council. Through documentary analysis of PAHO policies and semi-structured interviews with key PASB stakeholders, the authors analyze the understandings and actions of policymakers and technical officers in implementing human rights through PAHO governance. Analyzing the themes arising from this narrative, the authors examine the structural role of secretariat leadership, state support, legal expertise, and technical unit commitment in facilitating a rights-based approach to the health in the Americas. Human rights are increasingly framing PAHO efforts, and this analysis of the structures underlying PAHO's approach provides an understanding of the institutional determinants of the rights-based approach to health, highlighting generalizable themes for the mainstreaming of human rights through regional health governance. With this regional-level understanding of health governance, future national-level research can begin to understand the causal forces linking regional human rights work with national policy reforms and public health outcomes. (shrink)

In the development of a rights-based approach to global health governance, international organizations have looked to human rights under international law as a basis for public health. Operationalizing human rights law through global health policy, the World Health Organization has faced obstacles in efforts to mainstream human rights across the WHO Secretariat. Without centralized human rights leadership in an increasingly fragmented global health policy landscape, regional health offices have sought to advance human rights in health governance and support states in (...) realizing a rights-based approach to health. Examining the efforts of the Pan American Health Organization, this article explores the evolution of human rights in PAHO policy, assesses the mainstreaming of human rights in the Pan American Sanitary Bureau, and analyzes the future of the rights-based approach through regional health governance. (shrink)

In spite of vast global improvements in living standards, health, and well-being, the persistence of absolute poverty and its attendant maladies remains an unsettling fact of life for billions around the world and constitutes the primary cause for the failure of developing states to improve the health of their peoples. While economic development in developing countries is necessary to provide for underlying determinants of health – most prominently, poverty reduction and the building of comprehensive primary health systems – inequalities in (...) power within the international economic order and the spread of neoliberal development policy limit the ability of developing states to develop economically and realize public goods for health. With neoliberal development policies impacting entire societies, the collective right to development, as compared with an individual rights-based approach to development, offers a framework by which to restructure this system to realize social determinants of health. The right to development, working through a vector of rights, can address social determinants of health, obligating states and the international community to support public health systems while reducing inequities in health through poverty-reducing economic growth. At an international level, where the ability of states to develop economically and to realize public goods through public health systems is constrained by international financial institutions, the implementation of the right to development enables a restructuring of international institutions and foreign-aid programs, allowing states to enter development debates with a right to cooperation from other states, not simply a cry for charity. (shrink)

Allocating attention determines what we remember later. Attentional demands vary in a task-switching paradigm, with greater demands for switch than for repeat trials. This also results in lower subsequent memory performance for switch compared to repeat trials. The main goal of the present study was to investigate the consequences of task switching after a long study-test interval and to examine the contributions of the two memory components, recollection and familiarity. In the study phase, the participants performed a task-switching procedure in (...) which they had to switch between two classifications tasks with pictures. After a short vs. a long study-test interval of a week, the participants performed a surprise memory test for the pictures and gave remember/know judgements. The results showed that recognition memory declined after 1 week and this was mainly due to a decrease in “remember” responses. The results also showed that the task-switching effect on memory was enduring. Whereas the results of the immediate test were mixed, the results of the delayed tests showed that the task-switching effect was based on recollection, expressed in more “remember” responses for repeat than for switch trials. As recollection is more sensitive to attention manipulations than familiarity, the results align with the notion that attentional requirements at study determine what we remember, in particular after a long study-test interval. (shrink)