Objective: This study is a meta-analysis that considers the association between dyadic coping and emotional functioning, and between dyadic coping and the quality of the relationship as perceived by cancer patients and their life partners.Methods: A systematic search was conducted in the electronic databases PsycINFO, PubMed, ScienceDirect and those peer-reviewed cross-sectional and longitudinal studies published up until April 2020 that investigated these relationships were selected.Results: A total of 1,168 studies were identified, of which 10 met the inclusion criteria. These evidenced (...) statistically significant positive relationships between common dyadic coping and emotional functioning and between common dyadic coping and the quality of the relationship as perceived by patients and their partners. There was also a statistically significant positive association between stress communication, supportive dyadic coping, and the quality of the relationship. In addition, a statistically significant negative association was found between negative dyadic coping and the quality of the relationship as perceived by patients' partners and also between negative dyadic coping and the quality of the relationship as perceived by patients.Conclusions: The results suggest the existence of a significant association between dyadic coping and emotional functioning and between dyadic coping and the quality of the relationship as perceived by members of couples facing cancer. However, these results must be interpreted with caution due to the small number of studies included in the analysis. Clinically, an understanding of the existence of such relationships is helpful for the implementation, and study of the effectiveness of, interventions aimed at improving dyadic coping in order to improve both quality of life and quality of relationship in couples where there is an oncological diagnosis. (shrink)

Legaz Lacamba, L. José Ignacio de Alcorta, filósofo de nuestro tiempo.--Semblanza del profesor Alcorta.--Rodríguez Resina, A. El realismo trascendental, introducción a la filosofía de J. I. de Alcorta.

Transformations in the economy have led to significant changes in the recreational sphere of the macroregion. The introduction of market relations in the process of use, conservation, improvement and protection of natural recreational resources in the Carpathian macroregion has significantly exacerbated the solution of environmental, social and economic problems. Reproduction of natural resources in the recreational sphere requires the introduction of new theoretical and methodological principles. First of all, it concerns the qualitative distribution of resources suitable for the organization of (...) recreation between the consumer spheres. This is the conceptual basis for establishing the limits of their use in order to prevent degradation and exhaustion. Exploring the ecological and economic principles of reproduction of natural recreational resources, two areas are identified: intra-industry, which characterizes the reproduction of studied resources within the recreational economy and intersectoral, which relates to the reproduction of attractive natural resources, which at the time of study are subject to economic activities. It is scientifically substantiated that the institutes functioning in the recreational sphere of the macroregion do not provide the proper solution of the set tasks. Institutional changes are needed, taking into account such prerequisites as: transition to a market model of management; intensification of the development of the recreational sphere in the conditions of insufficient experience; ecological situation in the macroregion; environment for the development of recreation in the context of globalization. (shrink)

Research on moral cleansing and moral self-licensing has introduced dynamic considerations in the theory of moral behaviour. Past bad actions trigger negative feelings that make people more likely to engage in future moral behaviour to offset them. Symmetrically, past good deeds favour a positive self-perception that creates licensing effects, leading people to engage in behaviour that is less likely to be moral. In short, a deviation from a is balanced with a subsequent action that compensates the prior behaviour. We model (...) the decision of an individual trying to reach the optimal level of moral self-worth over time and show that under certain conditions the optimal sequence of actions follows a regular pattern which combines good and bad actions. To explore this phenomenon we conduct an economic experiment where subjects play a sequence of giving decisions (dictator games). We find that donations in the previous period affect present decisions and the sign is negative: participants' behaviour in every round is negatively correlated to what they did in the past. Hence donations over time seem to be the result of a regular pattern of self-regulation: moral licensing (being selfish after altruistic) and cleansing (altruistic after selfish). (shrink)

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 has resulted in an increase in known risk factors for mental health problems. Mexico adopted lockdown and physical distancing as a containment strategy with potential consequences on day to day life, such as social isolation, loss of income and loneliness that can have important consequences in terms of mental health.Objective: We aimed to examine the effect of the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic on psychological distress, well-being and perceived physical health among Mexican-base respondents and to (...) examine whether coping strategies would play a potential intermediating role in relation to these variables. Under the Existential Positive Psychology perspective, an emphasis was made on meaning-centered coping.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted between April 30 and June 16th 2020 among 604 Mexicans-base respondents of which 471 were women and 132 men. Data was collected by using online questionnaires. Psychological distress was measured using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale. The Brief COPE Inventory was used to assess problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies. We also used the Meaning-Centered Coping Scale. PERMA-Profiler was used to assess well-being, perceived physical health, and loneliness. Profiler and Descriptive analyses and bivariate linear regression were performed to examine the association of variables.Results: 45.9% of the participants reported moderate to extremely severe psychological distress. Our results demonstrate that problem-focused and emotion-focused coping were positively related to psychological distress, whereas meaning-centered coping was negatively associated with distress. Furthermore, psychological distress played a potential negative role in the perceived physical health, while meaning-centered coping and well-being buffered the negative influence of psychological distress on perceived physical health (completely standardized indirect effect = –0.01, SE: 0.012, 95% CI [−0.065; −0.017].Conclusion: Meaning-centered coping was found to suppress the negative influence of psychological distress on sensation of decreased physical health corroborating the critical role of meaning in life in promoting well-being. Future studies can further examine the value of the critical role of meaning in life in promoting well-being as a protective factor against severe distress during traumatic events. Findings of this study can be used to orient policies and interventions aimed to alleviate suffering in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

Two stages of the creative writing process were characterized through mobile scalp electroencephalography in a 16-week creative writing workshop. Portable dry EEG systems with synchronized head acceleration, video recordings, and journal entries, recorded mobile brain-body activity of Spanish heritage students. Each student's brain-body activity was recorded as they experienced spaces in Houston, Texas, and while they worked on their creative texts. We used Generalized Partial Directed Coherence to compare the functional connectivity among both stages. There was a trend of higher (...) gPDC in the Preparation stage from right temporo-parietal to left anterior-frontal brain scalp areas within 1–50 Hz, not reaching statistical significance. The opposite directionality was found for the Generation stage, with statistical significant differences restricted to the delta band. There was statistically higher gPDC observed for the inter-hemispheric connections AF07–AF08 in the delta and theta bands, and AF08 to TP09 in the alpha and beta bands. The left anterior-frontal recordings showed higher power localized to the gamma band for the Generation stage. An ancillary analysis of Sample Entropy did not show significant difference. The information transfer from anterior-frontal to temporal-parietal areas of the scalp may reflect multisensory interpretation during the Preparation stage, while brain signals originating at temporal-parietal toward frontal locations during the Generation stage may reflect the final decision making process to translate the multisensory experience into a creative text. (shrink)

There are possible artificially intelligent beings who do not differ in any morally relevant respect from human beings. Such possible beings would deserve moral consideration similar to that of human beings. Our duties to them would not be appreciably reduced by the fact that they are non-human, nor by the fact that they owe their existence to us. Indeed, if they owe their existence to us, we would likely have additional moral obligations to them that we don’t ordinarily owe to (...) human strangers – obligations similar to those of parent to child or god to creature. Given our moral obligations to such AIs, two principles for ethical AI design recommend themselves: (1) design AIs that tend to provoke reactions from users that accurately reflect the AIs’ real moral status, and (2) avoid designing AIs whose moral status is unclear. Since human moral intuition and moral theory evolved and developed in contexts without AI, those intuitions and theories might break down or become destabilized when confronted with the wide range of weird minds that AI design might make possible. (shrink)

We propose four policies of ethical design of human-grade Artificial Intelligence. Two of our policies are precautionary. Given substantial uncertainty both about ethical theory and about the conditions under which AI would have conscious experiences, we should be cautious in our handling of cases where different moral theories or different theories of consciousness would produce very different ethical recommendations. Two of our policies concern respect and freedom. If we design AI that deserves moral consideration equivalent to that of human beings, (...) that AI should be designed with self-respect and with the freedom to explore values other than those we might impose. We are especially concerned about the temptation to create human-grade AI pre-installed with the desire to cheerfully sacrifice itself for its creators’ benefit. (shrink)

We argue that religious ritual's ability to facilitate communication and the pervasiveness of its basic characteristics across societies, as well as its precedence in other social species, suggests that religious behavior is more than a mere by-product. Religious constructs constitute associationally conditioned mnemonics that trigger neuroendocrine responses which motivate religious behaviors. The adaptive value of these constructs resides in their utility as memorable and emotionally evocative primes.

We argue that ritual is not a by-product as Boyer & Lienard (B&L) claim, but rather an evolved adaptation for social communication that facilitates non-agonistic social interactions among non-kin. We review the neurophysiological effects of ritual and propose neural structures and networks beyond the cortical-striato-pallidal-thalamic circuit (CSPT) likely to be implicated in ritual. The adaptationist approach to ritual offers a more parsimonious model for understanding these effects as well as the findings B&L present. (Published Online February 8 2007).

The Covid-19 virus appeared very fast around the globe and caused many damages to all of us. It caused many troubles in different fields such as: economics, business, factories, education etc. Many institutions around the world faced challenges and tried to find solutions. But the most difficult challenge was about online teaching; most of the countries suggested many strategies and methods to teach students and learners through distinctive materials and online platforms. It was suggested to use online programs as Google (...) Classroom, Google Meet, Skype, Zoom and many other technological tools in order to help learners to continue with their studies. Using online platform in our country was very demanding because of many factors that influenced all of us. Although many teachers from different schools used many devices during the pandemic, ZOOM was the main one. Teachers had different experiences and challenges during their teaching process through online platforms. They had many problems especially in the assessment and evaluation part; it was very difficult to evaluate learners through technology instruments and grading them correctly. This study is about teachers’ experience with the ZOOM platform, to discover if teachers had difficulties with online teaching during the pandemic. This case study's outcomes present valuable information to the teachers and future researches because there is a limited number of studies in this field. (shrink)

This article is an exercise in theory-building about the stories that justify, feed upon, and reproduce systems of oppression. I argue that emotional narratives contribute to the constitution and reproduction of systems of oppression, and that different emotional narratives constitute different forms of oppression. I examine two of these emotional narratives: a narrative articulated around pity and a narrative that draws on fear. I propose that the former prevails when those in power do not perceive the members of the oppressed (...) group as posing a threat to their power structure, in turn inducing low-intensity charitable state action. Conversely, narratives that deploy fear prevail when the group in power believes that the oppressed group presents a threat to their power structure, in turn eliciting high-intensity repressive state action. While narratives of pity recur to the infantilization of the members of the disadvantaged group, narratives of fear animalize them. (shrink)