The standard models for what doctors must tell their patients are based on the idea of informed consent: physicians must provide the information that patients need to make treatment decisions. In fact, though, they usually provide considerably more information than this model requires. And rightly so: patients should receive enough information that they will not be surprised by whatever happens...

Three studies examined the role of stereotype threat in boys' academic underachievement. Study 1 (children aged 4-10, n = 238) showed that girls from age 4 years and boys from age 7 years believed, and thought adults believed, that boys are academically inferior to girls. Study 2 manipulated stereotype threat, informing children aged 7-8 years (n = 162) that boys tend to do worse than girls at ...

This article explores how governmental public health authorities can contribute to public health efforts to address obesity by monitoring the prevalence of obesity and associated risk factors, investigating the contributing factors, informing the public, and working with the citizens in their jurisdiction to develop solutions that fit the needs and sensibilities of the people.

Jerome Bruner points out in his prologue to the first volume of the English translation of The Collected Works that Vygotsky flirts with the idea that language creates free will. This paper attempts to consider the influence of the Dutch seventeenth-century philosopher Spinoza on Vygotsky. An account of Spinoza's anti-Cartesian conception of will is given, to which Vygotsky recognises his indeb...

Human rabies is an ancient disease but in modern times has primarily been associated with dog rabies-endemic countries of Asia and Africa. From an African perspective, the inevitable and tragic consequences of rabies require serious reflection of the factors that continue to drive its neglect. Established as a major disease only after multiple introductions during the colonial era, rabies conti...

Corpus studies of native speaker and learner language have been influential in informing syllabus design and course content in foreign or second language (L2) teaching. Corpora can also be explored directly by the learner, in what Johns (1991) has called ―data-driven learning‖ (DDL). Such an approach is alleged to have many advantages, including fostering learner autonomy, increasing language a...

BACKGROUND When designing and analysing clinical trials, using previous relevant information, perhaps in the form of evidence syntheses, can reduce research waste. We conducted the INVEST (INVestigating the use of Evidence Synthesis in the design and analysis of clinical Trials) survey to summarise the current use of evidence synthesis in trial design and analysis, to capture opinions of triali...

Many healthy workplace interventions have been developed for healthcare settings to address the consistently low scores of healthcare professionals on assessments of mental and physical well-being. Complex healthcare settings present challenges for the scale-up and spread of successful interventions from one setting to another. Despite general agreement regarding the importance of the local set...

This is a response to Dr Charlotte Rosalind Blease's paper 'Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT), the Placebo Effect and Informed Consent', written by Julie K. Hersh who has had ECT. Hersh argues that placebo effect is impossible to prove without endangering the lives of participants in the study. In addition, informing potential ECT patients of unproven placebo effect could discourage patients from...