Showing papers by "Colby College published in 1974"

The Atlantic Slave Trade: A tentative economic model

Abstract: Two necessary conditions for the existence of New World slavery and the slave trade are an acute labour shortage and an elastic supply of coerced labour. Though the former condition has been the mainstay of hypotheses on slavery where high land/labour ratios were viewed as causal determinants, less attention has been given to the role of labour supply responses. This paper joins these conditions in a model which postulates that labour demand stemming from open resource pressures induced a politico–economic supply response in West Africa. The model shows a derived demand for labour evolving over time into a specific demand for slaves as entrepreneurs sought the lowest cost method of expanding the production of agricultural staples. Free and indentured labour were both characterized by inelastic supply, but the supply of slaves was elastic due to factors discussed within a vent for surplus framework. African governments and private traders responded to the new effective demand from the Americas with improved organization which widened the pre-existing market for slaves. The desire for imported goods, with firearms especially significant, plus various technical changes in transport, money, and credit all combined to ensure the further development of the slave trade and the continued maintenance of a longrun elastic supply pattern

Social interaction and stereotypic responses to homosexuals

Abstract: This work focuses on the variations in societal responses perceived by male homosexuals in different group settings of interaction and on the relationship of these responses to their social status and related behavioral characteristics. Based on the analysis of data collected from a sampling of 148 male homosexuals in and around a large midwestern city, it is concluded that (1) stereotypic responses are more likely to occur under the interactional prescripts characteristic of secondary groups due to the impersonal and almost “one-way” interaction which characterizes them and (2) lower-class homosexuals are more likely to perceive stereotypic responses because of their closer approximation to the stereotypic image of the homosexual. It is also suggested that exhibiting behavior which closely approximates the stereotype may be a manifestation of the lowerclass homosexual's desire to be clearly identified with the homosexual community and to conform to the sex role stereotypic expectations of the lower classes. Such behavior may provide for a meaningful self-definition and opportunity for upward mobility unattainable in the larger society.

Differentiation of hypothalamic feeding and killing

Abstract: Bipolar electrodes were chronically implanted in the posterior lateral hypothalamic-medial forebrain bundle area of male Long-Evans rats. Animals which displayed either stimulus-bound feeding or stimulus-bound killing were trained to self-stimulate and tested while given the opportunity to eat or kill during self-stimulation. Average duration of barpressing was greater in the presence of the goal object appropriate to the stimulus-bound behavior, suggesting a differentiation of hypothalamic mechanisms of feeding and killing.

Circadian changes in responses of newts, Notophthalmus viridescens , to ACTH

Abstract: Differential counts of the leucocytes of adult newts,Notophthalmus viridescens, maintained in constant darkness and at a temperature of 11.0∓0.5 ° C, were made at eight times during circadian periods. The relative numbers of white cells varied only slightly through these solar-days (Table 1). However, in animals living under the same constant conditions and injected during one of four different periods of 24-hour days with bovine ACTH, the levels of increases in neutrophils evoked by treatment with the hormone varied with solar frequency (Table 2). Decreases in lymphocytes, also apparent in ACTH-treated newts, were of similar degrees during 24-hour days (Table 2). The circadian changes in the severity of neutrophilia are discussed in relation to other cycles known forNotophthalmus.