Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = 13,579), (...) as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates. (shrink)

Unfounded—conspiracy and health—beliefs about COVID-19 have accompanied the pandemic worldwide. Here, we examined cross-nationally the structure and correlates of these beliefs with an 8-item scale, using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. We obtained a two-factor model of unfounded (conspiracy and health) beliefs with good internal structure (average CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.04), but a high correlation between the two factors (average latent factor correlation = 0.57). This model was replicable across 50 countries (total N = 13,579), (...) as evidenced by metric invariance between countries (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMS = 0.07) as well as scalar invariance across genders (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03) and educational levels (CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.04, SRMS = 0.03). Also, lower levels of education, more fear of COVID-19, and more cynicism were weakly associated with stronger conspiracy and health beliefs. The study contributes to knowledge about the structure of unfounded beliefs, and reveals the potential relevance of affective (i.e., fear of COVID-19) and cognitive (i.e., cynicism) factors along with demographics, in endorsing such beliefs. In summary, we obtained cross-cultural evidence for the distinctiveness of unfounded conspiracy and health beliefs about COVID-19 in terms of their structure and correlates. (shrink)

Parental burnout is a unique and context-specific syndrome resulting from a chronic imbalance of risks over resources in the parenting domain. The current research aims to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Parental Burnout Assessment across Spanish-speaking countries with two consecutive studies. In Study 1, we analyzed the data through a bifactor model within an Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling on the pooled sample of participants obtaining good fit indices. We then attained measurement invariance across both gender (...) and countries in a set of nested models with gradually increasing parameter constraints. Latent means comparisons across countries showed that among the participants’ countries, Chile had the highest parental burnout score, likewise, comparisons across gender evidenced that mothers displayed higher scores than fathers, as shown in previous studies. Reliability coefficients were high. In Study 2, we tested the relations between parental burnout and three specific consequences, i.e., escape and suicidal ideations, parental neglect, and parental violence toward one’s children. The medium to large associations found provided support for the PBA’s predictive validity. Overall, we concluded that the Spanish version of the PBA has good psychometric properties. The results support its relevance for the assessment of parental burnout among Spanish-speaking parents, offering new opportunities for cross-cultural research in the parenting domain. (shrink)

The humanitarian sector continually faces organizational and operational challenges to respond to the needs of populations affected by war, disaster, displacement, and health emergencies. With the goal of improving the effectiveness and efficiency of response efforts, humanitarian innovation initiatives seek to develop, test, and scale a variety of novel and adapted practices, products, and systems. The innovation process raises important ethical considerations, such as appropriately engaging crisis-affected populations in defining problems and identifying potential solutions, mitigating risks, ensuring accountability, sharing benefits (...) fairly, and managing expectations. This paper aims to contribute to knowledge and practice regarding humanitarian innovation ethics and presents two components related to a value-sensitive approach to humanitarian innovation. First is a mapping of how ethical concepts are mobilized in values statements that have been produced by a diverse set of organizations involved in humanitarian innovation. Analyzing these documents, we identified six primary values (do-no-harm, autonomy, justice, accountability, sustainability, and inclusivity) around which we grouped 12 secondary values and 10 associated concepts. Second are two proposed activities that teams engaged in humanitarian innovation can employ to foreground values as they develop and refine their project’s design, and to anticipate and plan for challenges in enacting these values across the phases of their project. A deliberate and tangible approach to engaging with values within humanitarian innovation design can help to ground humanitarian innovation in ethical commitments by increasing shared understanding amongst team members, promoting attentiveness to values across the stages of innovation, and fostering capacities to anticipate and respond to ethically challenging situations. (shrink)

ResumoO objetivo deste artigo é produzir uma reflexão crítica sobre a produção de Gilberto Freyre, mais verticalizada em dois aspectos. Em primeiro lugar, buscar-se-á entender a seleção feita por esse antropólogo de uma certa mestiçagem e adaptação cultural, símbolos da singularidade brasileira. Em segundo lugar, procura-se entender de que maneira esse tipo de interpretação desloca a análise de fenômenos mais sociais e econômicos, investindo profundamente na esfera privada. Como se costuma dizer, Freyre teria descrito a escravidão brasileira, tendo como foco (...) apenas os cativos domésticos. Para tanto, começar-se-á com a análise do clássico Casa Grande & Senzala, mas a insistência se dará na interpretação do livro Novo mundo nos trópicos, obra em que o estudioso procura sintetizar suas conclusões para um público estrangeiro. Aí estariam condensadas as suas máximas e grandes linhas de interpretação.Palavras-chave: Adaptação. Mestiçagem. Novo mundo nos trópicos. Gilberto Freyre. AbstractThe aim of this paper is to produce a critical reflection on Gilberto Freyre’s work, which is more vertical in two respects. First, I will seek to understand the selection made by the anthropologist of a certain cultural miscegenation and adaptation, symbols of Brazilian singularity. Second, I’ll try to understand how such an interpretation shifts the analysis of rather social and economic phenomena, deeply invested in the private. As it is said, Freyre would have described Brazilian slavery focusing only on the domestic slaves. Thus, the analysis begins with the classic Casa Grande & Senzala, but the emphasis will be in the interpretation of the book in the New world in the tropics [Novo mundo nos Trópicos], a work in which the scholar seeks to synthesize his findings to a foreign audience. There it would be condensed his maxima and broad lines of interpretation.Key words: Adaptation. Miscegenation. New world in the tropics. Gilberto Freyre. (shrink)

In a series of recent publications Jerry Fodor has attacked what many believe is the core of Darwinian theory of evolution – the theory of natural selection. Not surprisingly, Fodor’s attack has provoked a strong negative reaction. Fodor’s critics have insisted both that his main argument is unsound and that his central claim that the theory of natural selection “can’t explain the distribution of phenotypic traits in biological populations” is untenable. I can generally agree with the first part of the (...) launched criticism: Fodor’s “putative argument” does rely on controversial premises which make it unsound. However, I don’t think that Fodor’s critics have succeeded in their attempts to refute his central claim. The refutation strategy that most of them have undertaken is to show examples of successful evolutionary explanations by natural selection. In what follows, two of these examples are put into scrutiny. The analysis reveals that: (1) The theory of natural selection should be only partially credited with the explanatory success of evolutionary explanations by natural selection because these explanations rely on additional empirical hypotheses which might be true or false. That means that the selectionist explanations are fallible statements the truth value of which depends crucially on the truth value of the empirical assumptions which have been premised. (2) In both cases alternative non-selectionist explanations can be found that fit the same empirical data and no reason has been given (or could be given) why these alternative explanations should be ignored a priori as inferior. The observations (1) and (2) stand against the claim that theory of natural selection is the only legitimate explanance for the distribution of phenotypic traits. This does not mean, of course, that natural selection does not play any explanatory role or that the theory of natural selection is a false theory (as Fodor is inclined to argue for). This only means that there is indeed a problem of understanding the proper explanatory role of natural selection and that this problem is not only Fodor’s problem. The paper ends with a suggestion of what should be admitted in order to get to a better understanding of the proper role that the theory of natural selection plays in evolutionary explanations. (shrink)

The article offers an account of the author's participation in secret filming in three small residential care homes for older people. The author gained access to the homes as a resident and made video-recordings that were used as part of a television documentary in 1994 that exposed the poor practice and lack of regulation in these types of homes in England at that time. The author discusses her motivations for taking on this undercover role, and some of the unexpected ethical (...) challenges she faced when considering the impact of the exposure of these homes for the residents, their families, the owners and the staff. (shrink)

This article evaluated the effects of an interpersonal skills program based on artistic expressions to reduce intimate partner violence in college students. The research was of explanatory type, quasi-experimental design and used the Dating Abuse questionnaire (adapted by Osorio, 2014), the Interpersonal Skills questionnaire with reliability of 0.81 having as results in the entry test in terms of violence a mean of 88. 16 and after the program was applied it decreased to 81.2, in interpersonal skills the mean of 46.6 (...) increased to 53.3 with large effect size according to Cohen's d 7.889 CI95% (6.246-9.532), statistically significant differences were found in terms of violence. (shrink)

Mediante el análisis de las relaciones de parentalidad en Tiempo de vida, El cuerpo en que nací y ¿Por qué ser feliz cuando puedes ser normal?, de Marcos Giralt Torrente, Guadalupe Nettel y Jeanette Winterson respectivamente, se expondrá cómo la literatura autoficcional, en tanto ejercicio artístico, adquiere también una función capaz de reconfigurar la realidad patriarcal y, así, contribuir a desmontar un esencialismo estructural. La incipiente actualidad de estos autores constituye también una propuesta de escrituras descentralizadas o marginales leídas desde (...) el Sur: literatura de los hijos parentales, literatura de mujeres y literatura con perspectiva homoerótica. Para ello, partiendo de una metodología comparatista literaria desde epistemologías de género del Sur, se ejemplifican y visibilizan costumbres heteronormativas de un contexto capitalista que deteriora la identidad de un yo relacional, en un sistema político, social y económico jerárquico y represor. Se realiza un análisis de personajes que rompen con la idea estereotípica de relaciones familiares, permitiendo así esbozar nuevas concepciones de identidad a partir de una serie de autores clave en el tema de la ruptura heteronormativa. La presente es una apuesta en favor de la literatura como un arte que, además de brindar goce estético, puede constituir una poderosa vía de concientización y transformación epistémica –es decir, del desplazamiento del deseo–, a partir de la experiencia humana, en general y, en particular, a través de la experiencialidad ficcional (cargada de tintes autobiográficos) de un yo-relacional que da cuenta de vicisitudes relacionadas con el mandato de masculinidad, entendido como “la obligación de dominio que recae sobre los hombres” de algunos personajes literarios. Tal obligación [y la] “investidura [social que se impone] a quienes cargan un cuerpo masculino” son cuestionadas e incluso transformadas en los textos seleccionados que, cuando son explorados en el marco de la educación superior, pueden contribuir a la educación inclusiva en el Sur global. (shrink)

El presente trabajo elucida el axioma de “la pluralidad necesaria” a partir de algunas calas y notas del pensamiento de Judith Butler y algunos cruces procedentes de la filosofía de Michel Foucault y Friedrich Nietzsche, así como el influjo postnietzscheano contemporáneo, en contraste con el pensamiento mestizo subalterno latinoamericano de Gloria Anzaldúa. La hipótesis central es explicada en estos términos: no existe ningún fundamento metafísico que sustente al mundo; todo es una construcción cultural, resultado del poder predominante en un determinado (...) contexto histórico. El poder es el que establece lo que es normal o anormal, lo que está permitido o no está permitido. En este contexto, se postula la necesidad de someter a los dispositivos de poder reinantes, en las sociedades contemporáneas, bajo una revisión crítica que permita transformarlos en dispositivos de poder que hagan posible sociedades plurales e incluyentes. Y justo aquí, en la apertura de un nuevo horizonte postmetafísico y post-humanista es retomada la perspectiva mestiza subalterna de Gloria Anzaldúa como una forma radical de repensar la condición humana más allá del euro-logo-falocentrismo desde los márgenes de América Latina. La pluralidad necesaria, lejos de ser un título contradictorio, es, antes bien, un título que expresa una afirmación, a saber, la necesidad de una realidad social plural, inclusiva, en la que las diferencias entre los seres humanos sean respetadas, siguiendo el ideal de una sociedad democrática en la que se cultive la apertura a los otros, en un ambiente de convivencia y diálogo. (shrink)

The United States is one of the most charitable nations, yet comprises some of the most materialistic citizens in the world. Interestingly, little is known about how the consumer trait of materialism, as well as the opposing moral trait of gratitude, influences charitable giving. We address this gap in the literature by theorizing and empirically testing that the effects of these consumer traits on charitable behavior can be explained by diverse motivations. We discuss the theoretical implications, along with implications for (...) charitable organizations, and offer suggestions for future research. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 5, May 2022.

At conceptual and linguistic levels of cognition, events are said to be represented in terms of abstract categories, for example, the sentence Jackie cut the bagel with a knife encodes the categories Agent (i.e., Jackie) and Patient (i.e., the bagel). In this paper, we ask whether entities such as the knife are also represented in terms of such a category (often labeled “Instrument”) and, if so, whether this category has a prototype structure. We hypothesized the Proto-instrument is a tool: a (...) physical object manipulated by an intentional agent to affect a change in another individual or object. To test this, we asked speakers of English, Dutch, and German to complete an event description task and a sentence acceptability judgment task in which events were viewed with more or less prototypical instruments. We found broad similarities in how English, Dutch, and German partition the semantic space of instrumental events, suggesting there is a shared concept of the Instrument category. However, there was no evidence to support the specific hypothesis that tools are the core of the Instrument category—instead, our results suggest the most prototypical Instrument is the direct extension of an intentional agent. This paper supports theoretical frameworks where thematic roles are analyzed in terms of prototypes and suggests new avenues of research on how instrumental category structure differs across linguistic and conceptual domains. (shrink)

The aging of the population presents modern Western society with a variety of different challenges, especially in the areas of health and medicine. On the one hand, there is the demand of the elderly patients to receive medical treatments that are supposed to improve or preserve the existing quality of life and to prevent the extension of a life without quality, with suffering and pain. On the other hand, aging is accompanied by the appearance and exacerbation of chronic illnesses, reduces (...) the treatment benefits of medical activities and increases the risks of irreversible physical dependence. Furthermore, the lack of consensus among the physicians regarding the willingness of treatment and the proper timing of the treatment of the elderly – pose questions about the quality of the treatment for the elderly. Thus, in the opinion of different care-providers and in comparison to other age groups in modern Western society, the elderly do not enjoy the treatment advantages of medical activities proven in the treatment of other age groups in society. (shrink)

In this piece, I propose a reading of Plato’s Gorgias that pays special attention to the role that the fictional audience plays in the unfolding of the dialogue. To this end, I use some of the insights that Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts–Tyteca conveyed in their seminal work, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation in order to argue that thinking about the way in which Socrates’ arguments are shaped by the different audiences that Gorgias, Polus, and Callicles aim to (...) address and represent provides us with a new hermeneutical understanding of what is at stake in each of the different interactions Socrates engages in throughout the dialogue. In unpacking the way in which Socrates appropriates Gorgias’ particular audience, transforms Polus’ universal audience, and challenges Callicles’ elite audience, I provide an outline of the difficulties that Plato’s Socrates has to overcome in order to achieve the ‘community of minds’ that Perelman and Olbrechts–Tyteca identify as the bedrock of fruitful argumentation. Having done this, in the last section I turn to Plato’s Phaedrus, for the purpose of making evident that thinking about Plato’s deployment of rhetorical audiences is a crucial step in the effort to expose the implicit continuity that links the discussion of rhetoric delivered by the Gorgias to that of the Phaedrus. (shrink)

A widespread need to explain the behavior and outcomes of AI-based systems has emerged, due to their ubiquitous presence. Thus, providing renewed momentum to the relatively new research area of eXplainable AI (XAI). Nowadays, the importance of XAI lies in the fact that the increasing control transference to this kind of system for decision making -or, at least, its use for assisting executive stakeholders- already affects many sensitive realms (as in Politics, Social Sciences, or Law). The decision-making power handover to (...) opaque AI systems makes mandatory explaining those, primarily in application scenarios where the stakeholders are unaware of both the high technology applied and the basic principles governing the technological solutions. The issue should not be reduced to a merely technical problem; the explainer would be compelled to transmit richer knowledge about the system (including its role within the informational ecosystem where he/she works). To achieve such an aim, the explainer could exploit, if necessary, practices from other scientific and humanistic areas. The first aim of the paper is to emphasize and justify the need for a multidisciplinary approach that is beneficiated from part of the scientific and philosophical corpus on Explaining, underscoring the particular nuances of the issue within the field of Data Science. The second objective is to develop some arguments justifying the authors’ bet by a more relevant role of ideas inspired by, on the one hand, formal techniques from Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, and on the other hand, the modeling of human reasoning when facing the explanation. This way, explaining modeling practices would seek a sound balance between the pure technical justification and the explainer-explainee agreement. (shrink)

Notwithstanding universities’ many laudable aims, incidents of serious bullying, academic harassment and sexual harassment in academic settings are reported with increasing regularity globally. However, the human rights violations involved in bullying and academic harassment have not received attention by the literature. In this article, we pierce the veil of silence surrounding university environments and provide a systematic account of the breaches of international and European human rights law involved in academic bullying and harassment. By adopting a socio-legal lens, we shed (...) light onto such practices and tactics, the breaches of specific human rights and norms and the reluctance of states and regulators to intervene in what is perceived to be universities’ ‘sovereign’ sphere of jurisdiction in order to prevent human rights’ violations and to protect the victims of human rights abuse. We call for a multi-faceted and multi-agency approach to tackle academic bullying and harassment, and make a number of institutional and policy recommendations to ensure universities’ compliance with human rights standards and the effective protection of academics under attack. (shrink)

This article aims to give an overview of Jewish archives and archival sources in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Besides describing significant existing collections, the article looks into ongoing archival projects, digitizing and infrastructure programs, and maps out future challenges.

We conducted a thorough investigation of the impact of representativeness on reasoning and metacognitive processes by employing the Linda problem. In congruent versions, the more representative res...

This paper focuses on the consolidation of Molecular Evolution, a field originating in the 1960s at the interface of molecular biology, biochemistry, evolutionary biology, biophysics and studies on the origin of life and exobiology. The claim is made that Molecular Evolution became a discipline by integrating different sorts of scientific traditions: experimental, theoretical and comparative. The author critically incorporates Timothy Lenoir’s treatment of disciplines , as well as ideas developed by Stephen Toulmin on the same subject. On their account disciplines (...) are spaces where the social and epistemic dimensions of science are deeply and complexly interwoven. However, a more detailed account of discipline formation and the dynamics of an emerging disciplinary field is lacking in their analysis. The present essay suggests focusing on the role of scientific concepts in the double configuration of disciplines: the social/political and the epistemic order. In the case of Molecular Evolution the concepts of molecular clock and informational molecules played a central role, both in differentiating molecular from classical evolutionists, and in promoting communication between the different sorts of traditions integrated in Molecular Evolution. The paper finishes with a reflection on the historicity of disciplines, and the historicity of our concepts of disciplines. (shrink)