W ostatniej dekadzie można zaobserwować postępującą w naukach społecznych kodyfikację i instytucjonalizację etyki badań. Powstaje coraz więcej kodeksów etycznych, które standaryzują zasady etycznego prowadzenia badań oraz komisji etycznych kontrolujących projekty badawcze. Za kodyfikacją oraz instytucjonalizacją etyki naukowych badań społecznych stoi między innymi przekonanie, że kodeksy i komisje etyczne znacząco przyczynią się do etycznego postępowania badaczek i ochronią podmioty zaangażowane w badania, szczególnie ich uczestników, przed krzywdą. W artykule argumentuję, że to nie wystarczy, gdyż zarówno osoby prowadzące badania, jak i komisje (...) etyczne powinny kierować się w swoich decyzjach etycznych wyobraźnią moralną. (shrink)

This paper deals with Gärdenfors’ theory of conceptual spaces. Let \({\mathcal {S}}\) be a conceptual space consisting of 2-type fuzzy sets equipped with several kinds of metrics. Let a finite set of prototypes \(\tilde{P}_1,\ldots,\tilde{P}_n\in \mathcal {S}\) be given. Our main result is the construction of a classification algorithm. That is, given an element \({\tilde{A}}\in \mathcal {S},\) our algorithm classifies it into the conceptual field determined by one of the given prototypes \(\tilde{P}_i.\) The construction of our algorithm uses some physical analogies (...) and the Newton potential plays a significant role here. Importantly, the resulting conceptual fields are not convex in the Euclidean sense, which we believe is a reasonable departure from the assumptions of Gardenfors’ original definition of the conceptual space. A partitioning algorithm of the space \(\mathcal {S}\) is also considered in the paper. In the application section, we test our classification algorithm on real data and obtain very satisfactory results. Moreover, the example we consider is another argument against requiring convexity of conceptual fields. (shrink)

Confidentiality represents a core principle of research ethics and forms a standard practice in social research. However, what should a researcher do if they learn about illegal activities or harm during the research process? Few systematic studies consider researchers’ attitudes and reactions in such situations. This paper analyzes this issue on the basis of in-depth interviews with Polish sociologists and anthropologists who conduct qualitative research with vulnerable participants. It discusses the experiences and opinions of researchers concerning the maintenance or breaking (...) of confidentiality in the context of knowledge about illegal activities and harm. It also examines the ways in which the researchers justified their decisions. Most of my interviewees respected confidentiality in spite of knowledge of crime or harm, and referred to their epistemological perspectives regarding the role of the researcher, implicit consequentialist ethical reasoning and personal values. Where researchers did break confidentiality, this owed to their personal values and willingness to protect their informants, especially in cases of minor levels of harm as opposed to serious crime. Therefore, their experiences indicate the failure of both obligatory unconditional assurances of confidentiality and the requirement for researchers to assure confidentiality to the extent permitted by law. I argue that researchers do not need constrictive and potentially punitive rules about confidentiality, but rather sensitizing frameworks about how to contemplate and anticipate the many complexities and moral shadings of situations in the field. (shrink)

The importance of ethics in social research has increased in recent years, something reflected, among other things, in the progressive codification and institutionalization of research ethics and the growing literature on this topic. We argue that despite increasing ethical regulation and ethical reflection in social research, ethical challenges also arise, i.e., difficult situations connected with selecting ethically appropriate behavior. The aim of this special issue is to invite social researchers to reflect upon and discuss ethical challenges in contemporary social research. (...) The contributions in this issue concern vulnerability (one critically analyzing it, and another adapting the vulnerability concept to conducting research with people after a laryngectomy), the researcher and participant relationship, research ethics in multilingual world, and the ethicality of data representation where language plays a particular role in creating a form of activist research. (shrink)

Not all of the stimuli that we encounter are unequivocal; some of them may be ambiguous. In a series of two experiments, we investigated how people perceive and assess the emotionality of the words ambiguous on three emotional spaces: valence (dimensions of positivity and negativity), origin (automaticity and reflectiveness), and activation (arousal and subjective significance). Using two types of measurement – behavioural and webcam-based eye tracking – we compared words of moderate and high ambiguity on each of those spaces with (...) control (uniequivocal) words. The behavioural measurements indicated that reaction times were significantly longer for the control words than for all the ambiguous words; the emotionality of words of ambiguous valence and origin was rated as significantly lower than the control words and words of ambiguous activation. The eye-tracking measurements indicated that words of ambiguous valence and origin caused significantly more and longer eye fixations than control words and words of ambiguous activation. The results showed the visible distinctiveness of the ambiguous words compared with the control words; they also showed differences between words of various ambiguities, verifying the proposed new model for the emotional ambiguity and presenting the behavioral and eye tracking correlates for each of the three ambiguities. (shrink)

Ethics committees enjoy both a long history and a strong presence in Anglophone countries, although simultaneously their functioning provokes debate in the social research community. In this paper, I analyse selected contested issues that revolve around three questions: 1) Who do ethics committees protect, and who should they? 2) Should ethics committees protect all research participants in the same way? 3) When can ethics committees intervene in the methodology of the research project under review? Analysing these disputes is important since (...) it may help to improve the functioning of ethics committees for social research in Poland. Their number has increased significantly in the last decade, but this has not been accompanied by a broader reflection on either their functioning or the concerns associated with this kind of control. (shrink)

The ability to detect deception is one of the most intriguing features of our minds. Cognitive load can surprisingly increase the accuracy of detection when there is a substantial load compared to when the detection is performed without cognitive load. This effect was tested in two experiments. In the first experiment, the participants were asked to watch truth/lie videos while completing a concurrent task (N‐back in a 3‐back version; intuitive processing), providing verbal reasoning after watching each video (deliberative processing), or (...) watching the videos alone (control group). The cognitive load caused by the concurrent task led to a higher accuracy in deception detection compared to the other conditions. In the second experiment, we examined how this effect worked under various amounts of cognitive load. Participants watching truth/lie videos were assigned to one of three experimental conditions (N‐back in three versions: 1, 3, and 5‐back) or to a control group. The participants in the 3‐back and 5‐back conditions exhibited a significantly higher accuracy in deception detection than those in the 1‐back and control groups. Thus, the effect of increased accuracy in deception detection is due to cognitive load and is related to the amount of cognitive load present. (shrink)

“Normal science” is a concept introduced by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In Kuhn’s view, normal science means “puzzle solving”, solving problems within the paradigm—framework most successful in solving current major scientific problems—rather than producing major novelties. This paper examines Kuhnian and Popperian accounts of normal science and their criticisms to assess if normal science is good. The advantage of normal science according to Kuhn was “psychological”: subjective satisfaction from successful “puzzle solving”. Popper argues for an “intellectual” (...) science, one that consistently refutes conjectures and offers new ideas rather than focus on personal advantages. His account is criticized as too impersonal and idealistic. Feyerabend’s perspective seems more balanced; he argues for a community that would introduce new ideas, defend old ones, and enable scientists to develop in line with their subjective preferences. The paper concludes that normal science has no one clear-cut set of criteria encompassing its meaning and enabling clear assessment. (shrink)

The program of Evolutionary Ethics (EE) is based on the assumption that our moral features constitute adaptations and as such are to be explained in terms of the evolutionary process of natural selection. However, the fundamental assumption of EE was seriously put into question: the level of analysis relevant for moral features is essentially ontogeny and culture, while the explanation using natural selection applies to the level of phylogeny and genes (Sober, 1995; Ayala, 1995; Okasha, 2009). To the discussion on (...) the validity of the program of EE we propose to bring the recent program of Extended Synthesis (ES, Pigliucci & Muller, 2010), because it attempts to account for the role of the ontogeny in evolution. We conclude, nevertheless, that ES fails to properly account for the importance of ontogeny in evolutionary processes because by extending the notion of inheritance it (con-)fuses the notions of unit of inheritance and of unit of selection (against the well-known distinction made by Hull, 1980). (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyze those theories that interpret misidentification delusions in terms of mentalization. The hypothesis under examination holds that a mentalization framework is useful for describing misidentification delusions when identification is thought to be partially based on mentalization. The article provides both a characterization and possible interpretations of such delusions, and possible relations between misidentification and mentalization are scrutinized. Whether the mentalization approach may explain or describe such kinds of mental disorders is considered, with the (...) conclusion that while this approach is unsatisfactory, there is some room for future improvement. (shrink)

The text concerns the role of emotions in delusion formation. Provided are definitions from DSM-V and DSM-IV-R and the problems found in those definitions. One of them, the problem of delusion formation, is described when providing cognitive theories of delusions. The core of the paper is a presentation of the emotional and affective disorders in delusions, especially Capgras delusion and Cotard delusion. The author provides a comparison of the kinds of delusions and the conclusions taken from neuroimaging studies. As a (...) result of the fact that an explanation of delusion formation focusing on emotional problems turns out to be insufficient, the author provides examples of the reasoning impairments which coexist with them. At the end of the article, some hypotheses are proposed concerning the role of emotions and reasoning in delusion formation and the relation between belief disorders and emotional disorders. (shrink)

This article argues that we could improve the design of research protocols by developing an awareness of and a responsiveness to the social contexts of all the actors in the research enterprise, including subjects, investigators, sponsors, and members of the community in which the research will be conducted. ?Social context? refers to the settings in which the actors are situated, including, but not limited to, their social, economic, political, cultural, and technological features. The utility of thinking about social contexts is (...) introduced and exemplified by the presentation of a hypothetical case in which one central issue is limitation of the probability of injury to subjects by selection of individuals who are not expected to live long enough for the known risks of the study to become manifest as harms. Benefits of such considerations may include enhanced subject satisfaction and cooperation, community acceptance, and improved data quality, among other desirable consequences. (shrink)

This article asks how people come to interpret themselves and others as autonomous given their multiple dependencies. We draw on a cross-case comparison of ethnographic studies with two populations for whom autonomy is both central and problematic: elderly patients in post-acute care, and young adults with disabilities in an independent living program. Analyzing the institutional efforts to make their clients “as independent as possible,” we find that staff members at each organization formulate autonomy as a temporal project through an ongoing (...) calibration of open futures, ideal pasts, and situational competence. Constantly adjusting and fine-tuning where in time autonomy “really” is, workers arrange present dependence so that the contours of the future remain open for their clients. In other words, they make use of temporal markers to produce recognizable autonomous subjects whose dependencies are momentary. Theorizing this temporal project enables us to see more clearly how all of us engage in the constant business of “doing” autonomy, and to better understand the role of institutions in producing autonomous selves. (shrink)

This book contains essays presented at a symposium on evidence and data presented by the America Philosophical Society. The essays discuss the role of evidence in interpreting anthropological fieldwork; human psychology; the mechanisms of artificial intelligence; and claims about the past. The natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities are all represented.

W niniejszym artykule proponujemy przegląd stanowisk wobec „ucieleśnienia” jako kategorii metodologicznej w humanistyce i naukach społecznych, rozważając, jak różnie bywa to pojęcie używane i co stanowi trzon „podejścia ucieleśnionego”. Teksty zebrane w niniejszym zbiorze egzemplifikują te historycznie rozbieżne tradycje, dając obraz badań nad ucieleśnieniem jako samodzielnego pola refleksji.

This study was designed to determine the quality of service through the evaluation of hospitalized patients. An analysis of hospitalized patients’ subjective feelings towards service quality was carried out, in the context of the application of the SERVQUAL method. The pilot study was conducted in a Silesian hospital in a group of 29 young patients diagnosed with kidney disease. The study used a standard sheet of 22 SERVQUAL statements and an analysis of the significance of the 5 areas of quality (...) material important for the patient. According to the respondents, the most important of the 5 features that influence the quality of life is the ability of the ward staff to provide adequate medical services The least important were the aesthetics and ergonomics of rooms. Service quality gaps were seen in all the five dimensions as well as in the overall service quality. Hence, the following conclusions could be made: 1. The SERVQUAL method helps to identify discrepancies between perceptions of patients’ expectations in all the dimensions of quality of medical services. 2. For patients, the least important is the material dimension, whereas the one most affecting them is the dimension associated with the reliability of medical services. 3. An improvement of the level of satisfaction with the quality of medical services requires proper planning and effectiveness of implementation of health care services. 4. Research should be conducted on a larger population of patients. (shrink)

In this Matters Arising article, we outline how the recent article “The impact on patients of objections by institutions to assisted dying: a qualitative study of family caregivers’ perceptions” (White et al., 2023 Mar 13;24(1):22) informed Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) implementation in our large Australian public health setting, where objections do not emanate from, but within, the institution. In reporting the harms to patients and caregivers created by institutional objection, White et al. provide an evidenced-based road map for potential potholes (...) or risks associated with VAD implementation. We discuss the complexities emerging from the diverse views of health professionals and the ethical tensions arising from such, especially within certain specialties, and how we developed systemic strategies that support patients, caregivers and staff alike. We highlighted the need to shift from “Do you support VAD?“ to “How can we support you as healthcare professionals to integrate VAD into your practice, in a way that complies with the legislation, meets the needs of patients and caregivers, and feels safe and does not compromise your moral stance?“. (shrink)

We demonstrate that social capital is associated with positive food security outcomes, using survey data from 378 households in rural Uganda. We measured food security with the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale. For social capital, we measured cognitive and structural indicators, with principal components analysis used to identify key factors of the concept for logistic regression analysis. Households with bridging and linking social capital, characterized by membership in groups, access to information from external institutions, and observance of norms in groups, (...) tended to be more food secure. Households with cognitive social capital, characterized by observance of generalized norms and mutual trust, were also more food secure than others. However, we established that social capital is, by itself, insufficient. It needs to be complemented with human capital enhancement. We recommend that development interventions which focus on strengthening community associations and networks to enhance food security should support activities which enhance cognitive social capital and human capital skills. Such activities include mutual goal setting, trust building and clear communication among actors. Education efforts for community members, both formal and non-formal, should also be supported such that they potentially strengthen social capital to improve food security in rural Uganda. (shrink)

This Response focuses on the strength of the testosterone (T) dominance relationship, the circumstances under which aggression accompanies dominance, the viability of the basal model, mediators and moderators of the T-dominance relationship, and the research that is needed.

The aim of our study was to test the effectiveness of the “three good things for others” intervention. We used the randomized controlled trial method, with four measurements (pretest, posttest, follow-up after 2 weeks, follow-up after 4 weeks) and with random assignment of participants to experimental and placebo control groups. We investigated the effects of the intervention on prosocial behavior, and in addition on positive and negative affect, and positive orientation (a general tendency to approach reality in a positive way). (...) The results showed an increase in positive affect and a decrease in negative affect in the experimental group a day after the intervention. These effects, however, did not endure over the next 2 or 4 weeks. We also observed a statistically significant increase in prosocial behavior in the placebo control group, in which participants were engaged in a task of recalling childhood memories. The results are discussed and recommendations for future studies are proposed. (shrink)

People regularly make decisions about how often and with whom to interact. During an epidemic of communicable disease, these decisions gain new weight, as individual choices exert more direct influence on collective health and wellbeing. While much attention has been paid to how people’s concerns about the health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic affect their engagement in behaviors that could curb the spread of the disease, less is understood about how people’s concerns about the pandemic’s impact on their social lives (...) affect these outcomes. Across three studies, we find that individuals’ estimates of the pandemic’s social impact are associated with an unwillingness to curtail social interaction and follow other Centers for Disease Control guidelines as the pandemic spreads. First, these associations are present in self-report data of participants’ own behaviors and behavior across hypothetical scenarios; second, participants’ estimates of the pandemic’s impact on social life in their location of residence are associated with movement data collected unobtrusively from mobile phones in those locations. We suggest that perceptions of social impact could be a potential mechanism underlying, and therefore potential intervention target for addressing, disease-preventing behavior during a pandemic. (shrink)

In men, high levels of endogenous testosterone (T) seem to encourage behavior intended to dominate other people. Sometimes dominant behavior is aggressive, its apparent intent being to inflict harm on another person, but often dominance is expressed nonaggressively. Sometimes dominant behavior takes the form of antisocial behavior, including rebellion against authority and law breaking. Measurement of T at a single point in time, presumably indicative of a man's basal T level, predicts many of these dominant or antisocial behaviors. T not (...) only affects behavior but also responds to it. The act of competing for dominant status affects male T levels in two ways. First, T rises in the face of a challenge, as if it were an anticipatory response to impending competition. Second, after the competition, T rises in winners and declines in losers. Thus, there is a reciprocity between T and dominance behavior, each affecting the other. We contrast a reciprocal model, in which T level is variable, acting as both a cause and effect of behavior, with a basal model, in which T level is assumed to be a persistent trait that influences behavior. An unusual data set on Air Force veterans, in which data were collected four times over a decade, enables us to compare the basal and reciprocal models as explanations for the relationship between T and divorce. We discuss sociological implications of these models. (shrink)

Hans Morgenthau was a founder of the modern discipline of International Relations, and his Politics among Nations was for decades the dominant textbook in the field. The character of his Realism has frequently been discussed in debates on methodology and the nature of theory in International Relations. Almost all of this discussion has mischaracterized his views. The clues given in his writings, as well as his biography, point directly to Max Weber’s methodological writings. Morgenthau, it is argued, was a sophisticated (...) user of Weber’s views who self-consciously applied them in the sphere of International Relations in such a way that Realism provided an ideal-typical model of the rational and responsible statesman. This interpretation both explains Morgenthau’s views and shows them to be a serious, complex, and compelling response to the issues which have animated the controversies over International Relations theory after Waltz’s presentation of the methodological basis for his neo-Realism. (shrink)

This article presents the ethical implications for social science research emerging from our study on interpersonal communication after a laryngectomy. By tracing the evolution of our approach through specific research experiences and participant feedback, we provide empirical support for a flexible, multidimensional, and relational understanding of key ethical concepts, such as vulnerability and the researcher-participant relationship. Our approach has shifted from institutionally imposed rigid categorizations and somewhat stereotypical treatment of both the research group and the researcher-participant relationship to an emphasis (...) on building relationships founded on mutual care and rapport. We argue that this revised perspective fosters ethical collaboration that is beneficial and secure for all parties involved, and we offer practical examples of its implementation in research practice. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to outline the concept of transcendentalising reduction and to demonstrate what role it plays in Thomistic metaphysics. An adaptive interpretation has been used in the analyses by applying phenomenological thinking based on epoche reduction to Thomistic metaphysics. It was used to present the structure of transcendentalising reduction, which consists of several different epoché. Consistently applied, this reduction should lead to a neutralised concept of being as a subject of metaphysics expressed in the formula “being (...) as being”. In conclusion, we note that the proposed interpretation opens the door to further research in which phenomenology could be used in metaphysical studies to a greater extent than has been the case to date. (shrink)

The most important issue remains: Whether attorneys should serve on HECs? Will they tend to inhibit the development of other discussions, ethical discussions, regarding the issues brought before the HEC? D. Niemira (17, p. 982) suggests that what a hospital needs is not necessarily an attorney to help in their ethical deliberations, but an ethicist. This suggestion should receive further analysis. What types of ethical deliberations to which attorneys have not been exposed in their legal training are important given the (...) broader attorney-role (beyond giving legal opinion) in HEC discussions?The pro-active attorney faces many challenges, both in the current setting (as cases are brought to the HEC) and as future questions are raised (due to innovations in medical technology). These questions remain unclarified by the courts. The nature of the attorney's role is ever challenging; he or she remains in a key position that is currently needed (regarding the uncharted areas of HEC decisionmaking) and important for the future (as new cases emerge and require extensive deliberations). (shrink)

Infertility is a global problem affecting 48 to 186 million couples of reproductive age. In Poland, it concerns approx. 1.5 million couples, which amounts to 20% of the population capable of reproducing. One of the factors influencing the incidence of fertility disorders may be lifestyle, understood as a multi-disciplinary accumulation of everyday behaviours and habits. In the study, a group of 201 young adults, students of medical and related faculties, were surveyed in order to check the actual level of knowledge (...) about the impact of lifestyle on reproductive health. The Kohonen network, which is an example of a self-learning neural network, was used to find non-obvious connections between the data. The trained Kohonen neural network formed 4 clusters with different characteristics. Based on analyses of the structure of each cluster, it was found that 2nd year students of Medicine are internally divided into 3 fractions. The first fraction declared a high level of knowledge, but did not have real knowledge. The second fraction was aware of their ignorance, as confirmed by the knowledge test. The last fraction was characterized by a high level of self-confidence regarding their knowledge about reproductive health and obtained a high result in the knowledge test. It was confirmed that people studying at the Medical faculty know more than students of the same year at faculties other than Medicine. Interesting results were obtained for a group of 3rd year students of first-cycle studies in Dietetics. They did not obtain a significantly better result in the knowledge test concerning the influence of diet and lifestyle on reproductive health. It would seem that one could expect at least a few highly knowledgeable students in a group of 3rd year students, but this was not confirmed by the study. In view of the obtained results, it was concluded that the Kohonen neural network is applicable to the analysis of data on the actual state of knowledge about the impact of lifestyle on reproductive health. (shrink)