Much indirect evidence supports the hypothesis that transformations of mental images are at least in part guided by motor processes, even in the case of images of abstract objects rather than of body parts. For example, rotation may be guided by processes that also prime one to see results of a specific motor action. We directly test the hypothesis by means of a dual-task paradigm in which subjects perform the Cooper-Shepard mental rotation task while executing an unseen motor rotation in (...) a given direction and at a previously learned speed. Four results support the inference that mental rotation relies on motor processes. First, motor rotation that is compatible with mental rotation results in faster times and fewer errors in the imagery task than when the two rotations are incompatible. Second, the angle through which subjects rotate their mental images, and the angle through which they rotate a joystick handle are correlated, but only if the directions of the two rotations are compatible. Third, motor rotation modifies the classical inverted V-shaped mental rotation response time function, favoring the direction of the motor rotation; indeed, in some cases motor rotation even shifts the location of the minimum of this curve in the direction of the motor rotation. Fourth, the preceding effect is sensitive not only to the direction of the motor rotation, but also to the motor speed. A change in the speed of motor rotation can correspondingly slow down or speed up the mental rotation. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis work explores financial edgework by professional speculative traders as an explanation for the persistence of rogue trading in financial markets. The article joins in the scholarly application of “edgework,” the social psychological study of voluntary risk, to speculative trading. The discussion focuses on the origins and persistence of that subset of behavior wherein the trader knowingly creates the condition in which he or she endangers the brokerage house that employs them and even, at times, threatens the public's perception of (...) the integrity of the securities industry. Going over the edge between risk taking and unauthorized rogue trading is explained by looking at five inducements to escalate risk taking provided in the securities industry. This examination of financial edgework demonstrates how and, to a lesser degree, why rogue trading is a result of the security industry's pursuit of and desire to capitalize upon yet not publicize an occupational culture stressing a “risk‐and‐win” ethos. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of the dynamics of secrecy and the secrets business. Secrets are defined as bits of information that, for one reason or another, are kept hidden or controlled so as to elude attention, observation or comprehension. Three conceptual lenses — the micro-analytic focusing on self-deception, the social-psychological focusing on self-disclosure, and the macro-analytic focusing on public secrets — are probed. Secrecy at each of the three levels is revealed to be a janusfaced issue providing undeniable benefits (...) to Homo sapiens in their efforts to adapt to a changing world yet also creates undeniable problems. While secrecy provides the occasion for the demonstration of loyalty and intimacy, it also generates the conditions for exclusion and betrayal. The contemporary impulse to create public forums in which all is revealed, in which sunlight prevails, is too simple a panacea to those who use the topic of secrecy as an occasion to correct social, political and economic problems. (shrink)

The target article distinguishes between modal and amodal emulators (the former predict future sensory states from current sensory states and motor actions, the latter operate on more abstract descriptions of the environment), and motor and environment emulators (the former predict the results of one's own actions, the latter predict all changes in the environment). I question the applicability of modal emulators, and the generalization to environment emulators.

This article draws attention to the origins, forms, and implications of “toxic discourse” as a genre central to the understanding of the public sphere in business in society. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring is used as a pivotal cultural document establishing “toxic discourse” as an ongoing form of moral narrative rooted in the rationality of counterpublics. Toxic discourse is framed within a center/periphery model in which toxic discourse gains salience in periods of economic dislocation and uncertainty. In these periods, toxic discourse (...) draws together those on the periphery or counterpublics who otherwise would not unite in their opposition to the center. The article critically examines how stakeholder theory, despite making sense of the public sphere for agents of organizations, glosses counterpublics and relegates toxic discourse, as evident in the “Occupy Movement,” to the ephemeral role of temporary, disruptive protest groups with very little of substance to communicate. (shrink)

This article investigates the social accounts employed by 11 highly paid professionals and managers for neutralizing the moral stigma of losing their job due to resume fraud. This ethnographic study, based on 66 hours of interviews, explores the retrospective sense making used by resume fraudsters to justify, personally pardon and excuse behaviour seen as morally problematic by others. In this study the resume fraudsters sampled were selected because they all found high-paying jobs after their public humiliation, and each one morally (...) disengages. They put their transgressions behind them, not by seeing the light of day or asking for forgiveness, but by pointing to the ubiquity of information distortion in their companies, the victimless nature of their so-called transgression, and, most interesting, a portrayal of themselves and their act of resume fraud as the very type of risk taking required to instil capitalism with a passion and a will to succeed. The article closes with a discussion of how moral disengagement enlarges the zone of indifference in populations and reinforces cultures in which the pursuit of amorality thrives. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article takes an interdisciplinary lens to the treatment of regulatory capture . RC ensues when government bureaucrats, regulators, and public sector agencies receive adverse publicity for ceasing to serve the wider collective public interest. The work is divided into four sections. The first takes the point of view of each of the participants in the capture situation and provides an overview of the three variations on the RC story. Each subsequent section focuses on a version of the story. RC (...) 1, the libertarian free market version celebrates capture as inevitable and desirable. RC 2, the regulators' communitarian take on capture places it in the context of a cycle story with regulators dutifully doing the public's shifting will. In the RC 3 version, the public finds it difficult to piece together a coherent version of the morally charged narrative. The article concludes with a discussion of the relevance of each of these three versions of RC in order to understand dominant–submissive relationships between business and government. (shrink)