18. GOALS FOR FELLOWSHIP TRAINING AND CAREER SUPERVISOR/EMPLOYER Linda Roberts David Stephens David Stephens David Stephens My goals for this fellowship training are three-fold. First, I would like to learn about skills, techniques, and important conceptual issues in comparative psychology. I will learn to use basic numerical and temporal distinction techniques, self-control procedures, and the expectancy violation paradigm. Second, I would like to interact with researchers at Harvard in other areas of psychology as well as economics and evolutionary biology. Finally, I would like to use this training to develop a unique research program integrating economics, evolutionary biology, and psychology into a long-term study of how psychological and economic constraints limit the evolution of behavior. This training will allow me to establish a career examining the overlooked interface between these three disciplines. I would like to pursue this goal at a research university where I have the opportunity to conduct important scientific research but also have the chance to educate students about the importance of science. -'lKo|li-'_'li 19. NAMEANDDEGREE(SM) arc D. Hauser. Ph.D. 20. POSITION/RANKProfessor of Psychology, Harvard University 21. RESEARCH INTERESTS/AREAS Cooperation, conceptual representation, and visual and acoustic communication in primates 22. DESCRIPTION (Do not exceed space provided) Altruism (donating goods or services with no immediate benefit) and reciprocity (taking turns behaving altruistically) are important topics in the behavioral sciences because individuals forego immediate benefits to gain larger, long-term rewards. Whereas reciprocity is a common part of human sociality, data suggests that it rarely occurs in non-human social systems. The proposed study explores the hypothesis that the psychological complexity involved in tracking debts owed and favors given prevents reciprocity in non-human animals. Despite a large literature that examines the effects of numerical ability (quantifying reward amounts and delay to reward) and self-control on individual choice behavior, psychological constraints on altruism in non-human animals has largely been ignored. This project first tests individual cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedious) in three tasks--number discrimination, temporal discrimination, and self-control--to establish constraints in psychological ability. The tamarins then play cooperative games using reward systems falling within and outside of the previously determined constraints to examine their influence on cooperative behavior. This project provides an innovative synthesis of mechanistic and evolutionary perspectives to provide a novel framework upon which future experiments on altruism and cooperation can build. PHS 416-1 (Rev. 12198) Form Page 2 BB cc NAME (Last, first, middle initial) Individual NRSA Application Table of Contents ========================================Section End===========================================
| Sotres-Bayon, Francisco; Bush, David E A; LeDoux, Joseph E (2007) Acquisition of fear extinction requires activation of NR2B-containing NMDA receptors in the lateral amygdala. Neuropsychopharmacology 32:1929-40 |
