What is the value of an early diagnosis of dementia in the absence of effective treatment? There has been a lively scholarly debate over this question, but until now patients have not played a large role in it. Our study supplements biomedical research into innovative diagnostics with an exlporation of its meanings and values according to patients. Based on seven focusgroups with patients and their care-givers, we conclude that stakeholders evaluate early diagnostics with respect to whether and how they expect (...) it to empower their capacity to care. They value it, for instance, with respect to whether it explains experienced complaints, allows to start a process of psychological acceptance and social adaptation to the expected degeneration, contributes to dealing with anxieties, informs adequately about when to start preparing for the end of life, informs the planning of a request for euthanasia, or allows society to deal with a growing amount of dementia patients. Our study suggests that information about disease is considered ‘harmful’ or ‘premature’ when recipients feel unable to act on that information in their care. The results of this research offers input to further ethical research. It invites to adopt a care perspective in evaluation and to seek ways to prevent the ‘harm’ that such diagnostic methods can bring about. (shrink)

This is a dictionary of Descartes and Cartesian philosophy, primarily covering philosophy in the 17th century, with a chronology and biography of Descartes's life and times and a bibliography of primary and secondary works related to Descartes and to Cartesians.

The A to Z of Descartes and Cartesian Philosophy includes a chronology, an introduction, a bibliography, and cross-reference dictionary entries Descartes's writings, concepts, and findings, as well as entries on those who supported him, those who criticized him, those who corrected him, and those who together formed one of the major movements in philosophy, Cartesianism.

Max Picard (1888-1965) was a Swiss-German writer, who converted to Catholicism from Judaism. A doctor and psychologist, Picard worked in Berlin but retired in the 1920s to Switzerland. He is often regarded as a "wisdom thinker," and his rich and penetrating writings continue to speak to us in the twenty-first century. The Flight from God is an incisive, profound description of many of the problems facing modern culture, and its analysis resonates with us more today than when first published in (...) 1934. Picard illustrates that modern culture is essentially in Flight, and so the individual is under pressure to make a choice; in earlier generations only an individual could be in flight because the culture itself was not in flight but in Faith. The flight does not require courage or guilt; yet it is to be found in, and is often destructive of, many facets of life including human relationships, art, economics, science, entertainment, even religion. Because of this it leaves many in anguish, from which we seek alternative avenues of structure and meaning. Yet, in every person there is a residue that will not yield itself to the flight, and this is bound up with love, which reminds us of God. Picard shows how God is always somehow present in the flight--just when we think we are arriving from the flight, we find that God is already there. Picard's identification and discussion of the roots of the distresses of modern culture, and its attempts to grapple with the spiritual dimension of human experience, along with tensions created by freedom and individuality, are clearly still of the greatest relevance for us today. (shrink)

This paper elaborates on conceptual, empirical and practical arguments why corporations need to focus on their social dimensions, in order to further enhance organizational performance. The paper starts with an introduction on the general trend towards inclusiveness and connectedness. It then elaborates on the phase-wise development of cultures and organizational structures. Managing corporate improvement by building cultures of trust is the central focus of this contribution. By showing the cultural dimensions of Great Places to Work and their workplace practices, worthwhile (...) experiences leading to organizational improvement and superior financial performance are demonstrated. (shrink)

This paper elaborates on conceptual, empirical and practical arguments why corporations need to focus on their social dimensions, in order to further enhance organizational performance. The paper starts with an introduction on the general trend towards inclusiveness and connectedness. It then elaborates on the phase-wise development of cultures and organizational structures. Managing corporate improvement by building cultures of trust is the central focus of this contribution. By showing the cultural dimensions of Great Places to Work and their workplace practices, worthwhile (...) experiences leading to organizational improvement and superior financial performance are demonstrated. (shrink)

This article gives a practice-based and theoretical overview of the transformation from a traditional hierarchical organization in the care and cure sector towards a so-called Community-driven organization providing human happiness to 6000 elderly people. The actual case study is intertwined with conceptual information for better understanding of the innovative transition which took place at Humanitas. The case description includes its initial situation, its new core values, mission and objectives and shows the sequence of emerging policies and interventions that resulted in (...) a stakeholder oriented business model for the care sector. The selected concepts are Graves' Emerging Cyclical Level of Existence Theory (or Spiral Dynamics), Ken Wilber's Four Quadrant Model, Roberts Simons' Four Levers of Control and various elements from the European Corporate Sustainability Framework sponsored by the European Commission. The conclusion marks the match between theory and practice in transforming Humanitas Rotterdam into providing cure, care, housing and well-being to elderly people. (shrink)

Background: Dementia care at home often involves decisions in which the caregiver must weigh safety concerns with respect for autonomy. These dilemmas can lead to situations where caregivers provide care against the will of persons living with dementia, referred to as involuntary treatment. To prevent this, insight is needed into how family caregivers of persons living with dementia deal with care situations that can lead to involuntary treatment. Objective: To identify and describe family caregivers’ experiences regarding care decisions for situations (...) that can lead to involuntary treatment use in persons living with dementia at home. Research design: A qualitative descriptive interview design. Data were analysed using the Qualitative Analysis Guide of Leuven. Participants and research context: A total of 10 family caregivers providing care for 13 persons living with dementia participated in in-depth semi-structured interviews. Participants were recruited by registered nurses via purposive sampling. Ethical consideration: The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University Hospitals Leuven and the Medical Ethical Test Committee Zuyderland. Findings: Family caregivers experience the decision-making process concerning care dilemmas that can lead to involuntary treatment as complicated, stressful and exhausting. Although they consider safety and autonomy as important values, they struggle with finding the right balance between them. Due to the progressive and unpredictable nature of dementia, they are constantly seeking solutions while they adapt to new situations. Family caregivers feel responsible and experience social pressure for the safety of persons living with dementia. They may be blamed if something adverse happens to the persons living with dementia, which increases an already stressful situation. Their experience is influenced by characteristics of the care triad such as practical and emotional support, knowledge, and previous experiences. Discussion and conclusion: To prevent involuntary treatment, professionals need to proactively inform family caregivers, and they need to support each other in dealing with complex care situations. (shrink)

Anger is often primarily portrayed as a negative emotion that motivates antagonistic, aggressive, punitive, or hostile behavior. We propose that this portrayal is too one-sided. A review of the literature on behavioral consequences of anger reveals evidence for the positive and even prosocial behavioral consequences of this emotion. We outline a more inclusive view of anger and its role in upholding cooperative and moral behavior, and suggest a possible role of equity concerns. We also suggest new predictions and lines of (...) research derived from our perspective. (shrink)

ABSTRACTReceiving favors is often a mixed blessing and commonly triggers two emotions: the positive emotion gratitude and negative emotion indebtedness. In three studies, we examined the hypothesis that gratitude and indebtedness have distinct functions in social exchange. Contrary to current views, we believe that the function of gratitude does not primarily reside in facilitating social exchange. Instead, we propose that indebtedness motivates people to repay favours received, and thus accounts for most of the prosocial effects commonly attributed to gratitude. On (...) the other hand consistent with current views, we believe that gratitude signals the potential for developing a relationship and fosters proximity seeking. Supporting these assumptions, in Study 1 we found that gratitude and indebtedness were associated with aspects of the favour that reflect the concern for relationship and the level of inequity. Studies 2 and 3 provided causal support for these relations, and revealed the unique associations... (shrink)

Do people share their feelings of guilt with others and, if so, what are the reasons for doing this or not doing this? Even though the social sharing of negative emotional experiences, such as regret, has been extensively studied, not much is known about whether people share feelings of guilt and why. We report three studies exploring these questions. In Study 1, we re-analysed data about sharing guilt experiences posted on a social website called “Yahoo Answers”, and found that people (...) share intrapersonal as well as interpersonal guilt experiences with others online. Study 2 found that the main motivations of sharing guilt (compared with the sharing of regret) were “venting”, “clarification and meaning”, and “gaining advice”. Study 3 found that people were more likely to share experiences of interpersonal guilt and more likely to keep experiences of intrapersonal guilt to themselves. Together, these studies contribute to a further understanding of the social sharing of the emotion guilt. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPride is seen as both a self-conscious emotion as well as a social emotion. These categories are not mutually exclusive, but have brought forth different ideas about pride as either revolving around the self or as revolving around one’s relationship with others. Current measures of pride do not include intrapersonal elements of pride experiences. Social comparisons, which often cause experiences of pride, contain three elements: the self, the relationship between the self and another person, and the other person. From the (...) literature on pride, we distilled three related elements; perceptions and feelings of self-inflation, other-distancing, and other-devaluation. In four studies, we explored whether these elements were present in pride experiences. We did so at an implicit and explicit level, in an academic setting with in vivo and imagined pride experiences. The data consistently revealed that the exper... (shrink)

We examined an account of vicarious shame that explains how people can experience a self-conscious emotion for the behaviour of another person. Two divergent processes have been put forward to explain how another's behaviour links to the self. The group-based emotion account explains vicarious shame in terms of an in-group member threatening one's social identity by behaving shamefully. The empathy account explains vicarious shame in terms of empathic perspective taking; people imagine themselves in another's shameful behaviour. In three studies using (...) autobiographical recall and experimental inductions, we revealed that both processes can explain why vicarious shame arises in different situations, what variation can be observed in the experience of vicarious shame, and how all vicarious shame can be related to a threat to the self. Results are integrated in a functional account of shame. (shrink)

Anger has traditionally been associated with aggression and antagonistic behavior. A series of studies revealed that experiences of third-party anger can also lead to prosocial behavior. More specifically, three studies, hypothetical scenarios as well as a behavioral study, revealed that third-party anger can promote compensation of the victim. The results also showed a preference for such prosocial behaviors over antagonistic behaviors. We conclude that behaviors stemming from anger, whether antagonistic or prosocial, are reactions to inequity, albeit determined by the constraints (...) of the situation. (shrink)

Various theories on personal goal striving rely on the assumption that failure raises doubts about the goal. Yet, empirical evidence for an association between objective failure experiences and doubts about personal long-term goals is still missing. In a longitudinal field study, applicants for a job as a police trainee (n = 172, Mage = 25.15, 55 females and 117 males) were accompanied across three measurement times over a period of five months. We investigated the effects of failure and initial expectation (...) of success (in the standardized selection process) on doubts regarding the superordinate goal of becoming a police officer. As hypothesized, both failure and low initial expectation of success as well as their interaction led to increased goal-related doubts over time. The findings provide first empirical evidence for the role of failure in the emergence of goal-related doubts in personal long-term goals and, therefore, the disengagement process as it is hypothesized in various theories on goal striving and life-span development. (shrink)

Research suggests that to restore equity, third parties prefer compensation of a victim over the punishment of a perpetrator. It remains unclear, however, whether this preference for compensation is stable or specific to certain situations. In six experimental studies, we find that adjustments in the characteristics of the situation or in the available behavioral options hardly modify the preference of compensation over punishment. This preference for compensation was found even in cases where punishment might refrain a perpetrator from acting unfairly (...) again in the future, and even when punishment has a greater impact in restoring equity than compensation does. Thus, the preference of compensation over punishment appears to be quite robust. Implications and ideas for future research are discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBoth auditory and visual emotional memories can be made less emotional by loading working memory during memory recall. Taxing WM during recall can be modality specific (giving an audit...

In January 2023, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock forward to 90 s before midnight.

ABSTRACTAt present, the consequences and functions of experiences of shame are not yet well understood. Whereas psychology literature typically portrays shame as being bad for social relations, motivating social avoidance and withdrawal, there are recent indications that shame can be reinterpreted as having clear social tendencies in the form of motivating approach and social affiliation. Yet, until now, no research has ever put these alternative interpretations of shame-motivated behaviours directly to the test. The present paper presents such a test by (...) studying the extent to which shame motivates a preference for social withdrawal versus a preference for social approach. Two studies using different shame inductions both showed people experiencing shame to prefer to be together with others over being alone. In addition, the preference for a social situation was found to be unique for shame; it was not found for the closely related emotion of gui... (shrink)

> Wealthy nations must do much more, much faster. The United Nations General Assembly in September 2021 will bring countries together at a critical time for marshalling collective action to tackle the global environmental crisis. They will meet again at the biodiversity summit in Kunming, China, and the climate conference 26) in Glasgow, UK. Ahead of these pivotal meetings, we—the editors of health journals worldwide—call for urgent action to keep average global temperature increases below 1.5°C, halt the destruction of nature (...) and protect health. Health is already being harmed by global temperature increases and the destruction of the natural world, a state of affairs health professionals have been bringing attention to for decades.1 The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1.5°C above the preindustrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.2 3 Despite the world’s necessary preoccupation with COVID-19, we cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions. Reflecting the severity of the moment, this editorial appears in health journals across the world. We are united in recognising that only fundamental and equitable changes to societies will reverse our current trajectory. The risks to health of increases above 1.5°C are now well established.2 Indeed, no temperature rise is ‘safe’. In the past 20 years, heat-related mortality among people aged over 65 has increased by more than 50%.4 Higher temperatures have brought increased dehydration and renal function loss, dermatological malignancies, tropical infections, adverse mental health outcomes, pregnancy complications, allergies, and cardiovascular and pulmonary morbidity and mortality.5 6 Harms disproportionately affect the most vulnerable, including children, older populations, ethnic minorities, poorer communities and those with underlying health problems.2 4 Global heating is also contributing to the decline in …. (shrink)

Previous research has yielded inconsistent findings concerning the relationship between envy and schadenfreude. Three studies examined whether the distinction between benign and malicious envy can resolve this inconsistency. We found that malicious envy is related to schadenfreude, while benign envy is not. This result held both in the Netherlands where benign and malicious envy are indicated by separate words (Study 1: Sample A, N = 139; Sample B, N = 150), and in the USA where a single word is used (...) to denote both types (Study 2, N = 180; Study 3, N = 349). Moreover, the effect of malicious envy on schadenfreude was independent of other antecedents of schadenfreude (such as feelings of inferiority, disliking the target person, anger, and perceived deservedness). These findings improve our understanding of the antecedents of schadenfreude and help reconcile seemingly contradictory findings on the relationship between envy and schadenfreude. (shrink)

Introduction It is increasingly considered important that people make an autonomous and informed decision concerning colorectal cancer screening. However, the realisation of autonomy within the concept of informed decision-making might be interpreted too narrowly. Additionally, relatively little is known about what the eligible population believes to be a 'good' screening decision. Therefore, we aimed to explore how the concepts of autonomous and informed decision-making relate to how the eligible CRC screening population makes their decision and when they believe to have (...) made a 'good' screening decision. Methods We conducted 27 semi-structured interviews with the eligible CRC screening population. The general topics discussed concerned how people made their CRC screening decision, how they experienced making this decision and when they considered they had made a 'good' decision. Results Most interviewees viewed a 'good' CRC screening decision as one based on both reasoning and feeling/intuition, and that is made freely. However, many CRC screening non-participants experienced a certain social pressure to participate. All CRC screening non-participants viewed making an informed decision as essential. This appeared to be the case to a lesser extent for CRC screening participants. For most, experiences and values were involved in their decision-making. Conclusion Our sample of the eligible CRC screening population viewed aspects related to the concepts of autonomous and informed decision-making as important for making a 'good' CRC screening decision. However, in particular the existence of a social norm may be affecting a true autonomous decision-making process. Additionally, the present concept of informed decision-making with its strong emphasis on making a fully informed and well-considered decision does not appear to be entirely reflective of the process in practice. More efforts could be made to attune to the diverse values and factors that are involved in deciding about CRC screening participation. (shrink)

This article gives a practice-based and theoretical overview of the transformation from a traditional hierarchical organization in the care and cure sector towards a so-called Community-driven organization providing human happiness to 6000 elderly people. The actual case study is intertwined with conceptual information for better understanding of the innovative transition which took place at Humanitas. The case description includes its initial situation, its new core values, mission and objectives and shows the sequence of emerging policies and interventions that resulted in (...) a stakeholder oriented business model for the care sector. The selected concepts are Graves'' Emerging Cyclical Level of Existence Theory (or Spiral Dynamics), Ken Wilber''s Four Quadrant Model, Roberts Simons'' Four Levers of Control and various elements from the European Corporate Sustainability Framework sponsored by the European Commission. The conclusion marks the match between theory and practice in transforming Humanitas Rotterdam into providing cure, care, housing and well-being to elderly people. (shrink)

Shame has been found to promote both approach and withdrawal behaviours. Shame theories have not been able to explain how shame can promote such contrasting behaviours. In the present article, the authors provide an explanation for this. Shame was hypothesised to activate approach behaviours to restore the threatened self, and in situations when this is not possible or too risky, to activate withdrawal behaviours to protect the self from further damage. Five studies with different shame inductions and different dependent measures (...) confirmed our predictions. We therefore showed that different behavioural responses to shame can be understood in terms of restore and protect motives. Implications for theory and behavioural research on shame are discussed. (shrink)