This article develops a biosemiotic ´hyper-narrative model´ for the purposes of investigating emergent motor behaviors. It proposes to understand such behaviors in terms of the following associations: the organization of information acquired from the environment, focusing on narrative; the organizational dynamics of epigenetic mechanisms that underly the neural processes facilitating the processing of information; and the evolution of emergent motor behaviors that enable the informational acquisition. The article describes and explains these associations as part of a multi-ordered and multi-causal generative (...) principle of biological phenotype emergence that supersedes the theory of the arbitrary coding of life. Preceeding from narrative’s operations in a biological dimension, the article presents scientific research dealing with the associations of action-oriented organization of narrative information and underlying psychological and physiological dynamics and depicts the relations with a distributed multi-directional mapping dynamic. The article presents the explanatory implications of such a hyper-narrative dynamic model on an example of emergent motor behaviors – bruxism. Central to this discussion is the exploration of the possible mechanisms of emergence and etiopathogenesis of bruxism, based on its neurobiology. The article takes the perspective that complex systems dynamics themselves with a tendency to narrative form are found not to be underlain merely by arbitrary coded mechanisms but, rather, biological neural networks that render context-dependent bio-informational mapping analogous to that of the narrative possible. (shrink)

The article reviews the book Słowa i zbawienie. Dyskurs religijny w perspektywie filozofii Hilarego Putnama [Words and Salvation: Religious Discourse in the Perspective of Hilary Putnam's Philosophy], by Piotr Sikora.

In this study, we explore the impact of Machiavellian rhetoric on fundraising within the increasingly important context of online crowdfunding. The “all-or-nothing” funding model used by the world’s largest crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter, may be an attractive context in which entrepreneurs can utilize Machiavellian rhetoric to reach their funding goal, lest they get no funding at all. This study uses data from 76,847 crowdfunding projects posted on kickstarter.com and develops a dictionary for computer-aided text analysis (CATA) of Machiavellian rhetoric to measure (...) the relationship between the frequency of Machiavellian rhetoric use and crowdfunding performance, operationalized as either reaching a funding goal or the number of backers who funded the project. Machiavellian rhetoric is segregated into eight facets, which are categorized into hard and soft influence tactics. Hard tactics include revenge, intimidation, betrayal, and manipulation. Soft tactics include ingratiation, supplication, self-disclosure, and persuasion. Results reveal that signals of revenge, self-disclosure, and intimidation have negative effects, whereas signals of ingratiation and persuasion have mixed positive effects on crowdfunding performance. Ingratiation is found to increase the number of backers, but not funding success. Conversely, persuasion is found to increase funding success, but not the number of backers. Surprisingly, betrayal rhetoric is positively related to both measures of crowdfunding performance. Thus, this article complements the literature on backer decision-making, entrepreneurial methods, reward-based crowdfunding, and ethics in entrepreneurship by demonstrating how the displays of potentially negative phenomena, such as Machiavellianism, have complex consequences for entrepreneurial outcomes. (shrink)

Paradoxes are an unavoidable part of work life. The unusualness of attempting to simultaneously satisfy contradictory imperatives can result in creative outcomes that simultaneously satisfy both imperatives by inducing search for, and selection of, novel and useful solutions. Likewise, extant research suggests that paradoxes can also result in anxiety, defensiveness, and persistence of old ways of doing things. However, there is little work attempting to describe how paradoxes affect cognition and when it results in higher or lower creativity. To tackle (...) this issue, a theory of paradoxical creativity is developed. Paradoxical creativity is the attempt by an individual to creatively resolve a contradiction by simultaneously achieving competing demands. The theory is implemented into a computational model and a simulation is used to describe how paradoxes affect creative cognitive process and how these processes in turn result in higher or lower degrees of creativity. The results show that creative output is enhanced when paradoxes have a balanced effect on the cognitive processes responsible for an individual’s capacity to search for new information and willingness to tolerate new ideas. Hence, individuals with high baseline levels of creative cognition are more likely to suffer negative creative performance consequences resulting from contradictory demands. For those individuals, contradictory demands may produce more alternatives, which increases uncertainty and time to insight (if insight is ever reached). This suggests that incentives or rewards to resolve contradictions may have the unintentional effect of reducing creative output in some circumstance. (shrink)

Human culture is built upon nature to help humans adapt to their environment – first natural, but later natural-cultural. Cultural practices are aimed at aiding survival in changing environments, and in different settings they meet different environmental pressures, causing later changes in trajectories. According to cultural evolutionism, behaviours, ideas and artefacts are subject to inheritance, competition, accumulation of modifications, adaptation, geographical distribution, convergence and changes of function – these are mechanisms present also in biological evolution. In the following paper, we (...) examine women’s dance and physical exercise practices, which contain similar postures performed in comparable circumstances, as found in initiation ritual dances in chosen East African communities and in Slavic gymnastics for women in the Belarusian tradition. In times of globalization and the mixing of cultures, the position on knees and elbows is recontextualized in a visually attractive form of contemporary dances like Kangamoko and Baikoko, or more widely different variants of ‘twerking’ and reconstructed physical exercises. Approaching ‘twerking’ positions, especially on knees and elbows as a cross-genre performance, we find common roots in the communal support for women’s good wife and mother status teachings in various cultures, showing the importance of women’s circles, women’s health and well-being for the community. (shrink)

Inclusion of children in medical decision making, to the extent of their ability and interest in doing so, should be the default position, ensuring that children are routinely given a voice. However, optimizing the involvement of children in their health care decisions remains challenging for clinicians. Missing from the literature is a stepwise approach to assessing when and how a child should be included in medical decision making. We propose a systematic approach for doing so, and we apply this approach (...) in a discussion of two challenging clinical cases. The approach is informed by a literature review, and is anchored by case studies of teenagers' refusal of clinical care, regulatory requirements for research assent, and the accepted approach to involving cognitively impaired adults in medical decisions. (shrink)

The present study analyzes metaphors of life, self, emotional states, and relationships in forty life stories that differ in their communicative situations and narrative goals. Twenty interviews were conducted with people who were seeking psychological help. Another twenty interviews were conducted with Russian celebrities for publication in popular psychology magazines. Metaphors in happy stories were more numerous and diverse than in unhappy stories. Some conceptual metaphors (e.g., “LIFE IS A CONTAINER,” “LIFE IS A JOURNEY,” and “EMOTION IS A PHYSICAL IMPACT”) (...) were found in both happy and unhappy narratives. More specific metaphors demonstrated significant differences between the two types of narratives. The metaphors of life as a “purposeful journey,” self as “alive and flexible object,” and emotional states as “internal and controlled forces” were used more often in happy narratives. This may reflect higher levels of activity, responsibility, and awareness of the authors of happy narratives. Specific for unhappy stories were metaphors “LIFE IS DEATH” and “SELF IS A DEAD OBJECT,” which may indicate a low level of personal well-being and serve as specific markers of personal unhappiness. The results of our study suggest that metaphors may help to construct the subjective reality of happy and unhappy life. By telling their life stories people are able to redefine their past experiences and future perspectives. Specific metaphors play an important part in defining subjective happiness or unhappiness. (shrink)

Infertility Accepted treatment is replete with bioethical dilemmas regarding the limits of available medical therapies. Poland has no legal acts regulating the ethical problems associated with infertility treatment and work on such legislation has been in progress for a long time, arousing very intense emotions in Polish society. The purpose of the present study was to find out what Polish women undergoing infertility treatment think about the most disputable and controversial bioethical problems of assisted reproduction. An Attitudes towards Bioethical Problems (...) of Infertility Scale was constructed specifically for this study. Items were taken from the Bioethics Bills currently under discussion in Polish Parliament (Seym). 312 women were enrolled in the study. Women experiencing infertility favoured more liberal legislation. Participants disagreed, for example, with the following regulations: prohibition of embryo freezing, prohibition of preimplantation genetic diagnosis of embryos, age limits for women using in vitro fertilisation and prohibition of in vitro fertilisation for single women. The opinions of patients undergoing infertility treatment are an important voice in the Polish debate on the Bioethics Bills. (shrink)

One of the key behavioral effects of attractiveness is increased visual attention to attractive people. This effect is often explained in terms of evolutionary adaptations, such as attractiveness being an indicator of good health. Other factors could influence this effect. In the present study, we explored the modulating role of sexual orientation on the effects of attractiveness on exploratory visual behavior. Heterosexual and homosexual men and women viewed natural-looking scenes that depicted either two women or two men who varied systematically (...) in levels of attractiveness (based on a pre-study). Participants’ eye movements and attractiveness ratings towards the faces of the depicted people were recorded. The results showed that although attractiveness had the largest influence on participants’ behaviors, participants’ sexual orientations strongly modulated the effects. With the exception of homosexual women, all participant groups looked longer and more often at attractive faces that corresponded with their sexual orientations. Interestingly, heterosexual and homosexual men and homosexual women looked longer and more often at the less attractive face of their non-preferred sex than the less attractive face of their preferred sex, evidence that less attractive faces of the preferred sex might have an aversive character. These findings provide evidence for the important role that sexual orientation plays in guiding visual exploratory behavior and evaluations of the attractiveness of others. (shrink)

Memrise is an educational tool available both online and for mobile devices. Memrise uses flashcards and mnemonic techniques to aid in teaching foreign languages and memorizing information from other subjects, e.g. geography, law or mathematics. Memrise courses are created by its users through the process of crowdsourcing; therefore they are tailored to the individual needs of the users and may focus on the specific content of a particular coursebook or classes. The paper will attempt to present possibilities of using memrise (...) in teaching and learning legal English vocabulary during a tertiary course leading to TOLES certificate examination. The paper will look at various types of exercises which facilitate memorizing vocabulary, learning collocations, prepositional phrases, develop the skill of paraphrasing and defining legal terms of art in plain English. Application of the crowdsourcing method enables the learners to participate in the process of the course creation and constitutes for them a supplementary, out of class exposure to the target language. The second part of the paper will discuss the results of the research conducted by the author among her law students. The aim of the research was to investigate the students′ opinions about memrise as a tool which might facilitate individual learning of the specialist language, as well as to assess whether memrise may influence the test results achieved by the students during the legal English course. The paper will contrastively analyse the progress tests results achieved by the students who have used memrise to revise and recycle language material and those who have chosen traditional methods of learning. The research also attempted to address the question whether the students who had been the contributors to the content of memrise courses had performed better in tests than those who had only been the users. (shrink)

Organizational culture paves the way for employees, shows how one should function in a given organization – it aims to keep it together by adhering to similar values. Thanks to conditions prevailing there, specific rules employees know how they can perform their duties, properly cooperate with others and also how looks like the possibility of professional development, which is very important in the development of human capital. Human capital is people, their skills, creativity and qualifications. Development of capital through competence (...) development has a positive impact on further functioning of the organization, but also on the satisfaction of employees themselves. In the case of retired officers of the Polish Army, who acquired specialized knowledge and valuable skills during their service, it is important to use their capital after the end of service. They can be supplemented with additional courses, training that will enrich their existing potential, and also enable them to find work in the civilian market. A survey was conducted among retired Army officers and employers/supervisors hiring retired officers from 2019 to 2021. The snowball method was used. A qualitative method was used – a survey questionnaire. (shrink)

This paper presents and discusses design studio outcomes developed in response to a studio brief linked to the Fun Palace Futures initiative of the Royal British Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in honour of architect Cedric Price and artist Joan Littlewood. The studio brief was collaboratively developed by the authors. Its core question was: How could the thoughts that guided the development and design of the Fun Palace – a project that was never built but is still today cited as (...) a model for thinking flexible and open architecture – be re-interpreted and renewed for the future? This line of thinking guided the initial and experimental research phase, during which students developed an understanding of what indeterminacy is or could be. The paper shows that through the translation of some of the essential principles of the Fun Palace project into pedagogical instruments, students were enabled to approach the questions of indeterminacy in an open and innovative manner. The paper argues that the use of a variety of media, which often went far beyond the conventional architectural pallet, and the introduction of media shifts were crucial in assisting the students in developing their own tools for creating a new kind of open and flexible architecture. The paper presents this pedagogic approach. We show that the conditions of indeterminacy, uncertainty, chance and change, hold potential for framing the design and creation of a new kind of dynamic architecture, and for initiating experimental architectural thinking in a design studio setting. (shrink)

The selection of papers in the 6th Volume of the ESPES journal focusus on the development, analyses and critique of Arnold Berleant’s ideas on aesthetic engagement, social aesthetics, negative aesthetics, and environmental aesthetics. These issues are aproached by researchers from various continents showing the inspirational potential of Berleant’s perspective, inviting metaphors, opening paths for individual developmet in the field of art philosophy and aesthetics.

Niniejszy artykuł dotyczy słuszności diagnozy dokonanej przez McKenziego, że w filozofii Herberta Marcusego jest mowa o tym, co dzisiaj nazywa się performansem organizacyjnym. Ale głównym celem niniejszych rozważań jest znalezienie odpowiedzi na pytanie, czy propozycja stworzenia nowej cywilizacji przedstawiona przez Marcusego oraz próba teoretycznego pogodzenia zasady przyjemności z zasadą rzeczywistości jest możliwa. Marcuse przedstawia wizję nowego społeczeństwa jako alternatywę dla dotychczasowego społeczeństwa przemysłowego. Łączy on perspektywę Marksowską z Freudowską, a to dlatego, że uznał on, iż dopiero połączenie teorii sił wytwórczych (...) i rozważań psychoanalitycznych pomoże ustalić niezbędne warunki do powstania nowej, nierepresywnej rzeczywistości. Nawoływał do stworzenia projektu nowej zasady rzeczywistości, która nie wykluczałaby zasady przyjemności. Wydaje się jednak, że nie zauważył on faktu, iż siły mutacyjne niemalże niepostrzeżenie przechodzą w siły normatywne. To, czego spodziewał się Marcuse, z jednej strony spełniło się, z drugiej zaś stworzyło szereg wątpliwości, jak i niedogodności praktycznych, których nie przewidział. (shrink)

This paper presents a study of Rāmacandra–Guṇacandra’s theory of aesthetics in light of the Kashmiri rasa ideology and demonstrates that the Jain authors offer a new and original conceptualization of aesthetic experience, in which the spectator remains cognitively active in the course of watching the drama. In their model, the relationship between rasa and pleasure is mediated by a cognitive error, and the feeling of pleasure does not coincide with the savoring of rasa but emerges after the savoring of rasa (...) ceases. This paper argues that Rāmacandra and Guṇacandra demystify the Kashmiri theory of aesthetics by identifying affinities between the lived world and the fictive world of drama and by rendering the regular means of knowledge, such as inference and memory, as instrumental for the experience of rasa. It further suggests that this new conceptualization, in which pleasure is contingent upon the dissolution of illusion, may have facilitated the development of playwrighting among Jain monks from the twelfth century on. (shrink)

Managers face increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous situations that are more and more challenging to navigate. Ethical decision-making has become particularly complicated considering that codes, frameworks and protocols have proven deficient in resolving moral dilemmas. Managers’ unpreparedness to handle such challenges reflects the ineffectiveness of business ethics education, calling for new approaches towards training managers. This article makes a case for transforming business ethics education by taking it back to its roots. This implies the re-incorporation of its foundational discipline: (...) philosophy. Philosophy offers a rigorous approach for decision-making, which helps managers face the unknown. It helps them analyse situations from different perspectives, reconsider how things are done and examine the underlying premises of their thinking. It can strengthen one of the most central managerial competencies: the ability to reason, especially ethically. As the foundational discipline of business, ethics and their intersect, philosophy is uniquely positioned to elevate business ethics education for managers at all levels. It can help current and future managers to reflect more deeply and critically on the ethical issues they face. (shrink)

The study investigated psychometric properties of the Sport Motivation Scale-6, assessing intrinsic regulation, four extrinsic regulation constructs, and amotivation among athletes competing at a regional and national level. In particular, we tested the factorial structure of SMS-6, its short-term stability, and the associations of SMS-6 constructs with self-efficacy, self-esteem, motivational climate, and satisfaction with sport performance. Participants were 197 athletes, representing team and individual disciplines. The measurement was repeated at the three-week follow-up. Results yielded support for the six first-order factor (...) structure. More autonomous forms of motivation were related to higher levels of self-efficacy, performance satisfaction, and taskoriented motivational climate in sport organizations. Sequential multiple mediation analysis showed that the association between general self-efficacy and performance satisfaction at a follow-up was mediated by introjected regulation and personal-barrier self-efficacy. (shrink)

Counter storytelling, used in critical race theory and narrative ethics, is a tool used to contradict and expose the oppression in a dominant narrative, by focusing attention on the stories of the...

Author: Horecka Aleksandra Title: THE CONCEPT OF AESTHETICAL VALUE IN TATARKIEWICZ’S PAPERS (Pojęcie wartości estetycznej w pracach Władysława Tatarkiewicza) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2011, vol:.13/14, number: 2011/2-3, pages: 601-615 Keywords: WŁADYSŁAW TATARKIEWICZ, AESTHETICAL VALUE, ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORY Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:The purpose of this paper is to report and analyse the main theses of Tatarkiewicz’s theory of aesthetic value. We concentrate on ontological problems – what is aesthetical value and (...) what is the ontological category of valuable object. Tatarkiewicz claims, that: “The term ‘value’ refers to an abstract: property of thing, or to a concrete: to thing endowed with this property”. Many types of aesthetic value (aesthetic value in narrow sense, literary value and poetical value) exist. The only difference between using concept of aesthetic value only in positive sense and using concept of aesthetic value both – in positive and negative sense – is formal. Concerning thesis (1) we claim, that expression “thing” in Tatarkiewicz’s theory is the synonym for “physical object”; not only material objects, but also physical events and processes are Tatarkiewicz’s things as well. In our opinion the concept of aesthetic value proposed by Tatarkiewicz is objective, therefore formulation of thesis of aesthetic subjectivity, which Tatarkiewicz also did, is problematical. Using Tatarkiewicz’s terminology, we construct concept of value as a state of affairs (that some object is endowed with value-property) and we accept monocathegoriality of values (value is a property, a thing endowed with this property or a state of affairs). Concerning thesis (2) we divide all objects into semantic and asemantic and we claim, that in Tatarkiewicz’s theory, only asemantic objects or semantic but semantically uninterpreted object could be endowed with aesthetic value in narrow sense. The aesthetic value in narrow sense is its property considering its appearance or structure. As to the literary and poetical values – they are ascribed to semantic object in consideration of represented object. Concerning thesis (3) we argue, that it is significant whether we use concept of value only in positive sense or both – in positive and negative sense. Only in language with both expressions (“positive aesthetic value” and “negative aesthetic value”) we can formulate the theses about aesthetically neutral objects. (shrink)

Communication in law provides a space for alternatives, a Third Space, wherein boundaries between various systems are strongly anchored to a country’s language, history and societal development. Transfers, modifications, and integrations of such systems into other target languages may result in many effects of distortions and appropriations, reformulations and renewals as well as of misinterpretations in communication. Hence, Third Space is a necessary prerequisite for negotiation, transformation and translation from culture A to culture B, since it operates as a multi-stage (...) dynamic where such mechanisms should be analyzed in a fair and equitable manner. (shrink)

A robot's decision to harm a person is sometimes considered to be the ultimate proof of it gaining a human‐like mind. Here, we contrasted predictions about attribution of mental capacities from moral typecasting theory, with the denial of agency from dehumanization literature. Experiments 1 and 2 investigated mind perception for intentionally and accidentally harmful robotic agents based on text and image vignettes. Experiment 3 disambiguated agent intention (malevolent and benevolent), and additionally varied the type of agent (robotic and human) using (...) short computer‐generated animations. Harmful robotic agents were consistently imbued with mental states to a lower degree than benevolent agents, supporting the dehumanization account. Further results revealed that a human moral patient appeared to suffer less when depicted with a robotic agent than with another human. The findings suggest that future robots may become subject to human‐like dehumanization mechanisms, which challenges the established beliefs about anthropomorphism in the domain of moral interactions. (shrink)

Artykuł stawia dwa pytania: jaki rodzaj etyki ekologicznej daje się wyprowadzić z posthumanistycznej refleksji i jak taka etyka mogłaby działać w konkretnej przestrzeni – ogrodzie działkowym. Interesuje mnie pole teoretyczne, kt.re wyznacza troska i namysł nad światem poza człowiekiem. Jako punktu wyjścia używam schematu trzech traum opisanego przez Zygmunta Freuda. Sytuacja człowieka po trzech traumach odczytana zostaje jako krajobraz postapokaliptyczny, w którym możliwe jest budowanie nowej etyki ekologicznej. Omawiając spektrum posthumanizmu, zwracam uwagę na problem granicy i dualizmu. Oprócz wskazania przykład.w (...) etycznych praktyk ogrodniczych, proponuję, aby w proces kształtowania struktury ogrodu włączyć śmierć ogrodników. (shrink)

Figurativity has attracted scholars' attention for thousands of years and yet there are still open questions concerning its nature. Figurativity and Human Ecology endorses a view of figurativity as ubiquitous in human reasoning and language, and as a key example of how a human organism and its perceived or imagined environment co-function as a system. The volume sees figurativity not only as embedded in an environment but also as a way of acting within that environment. It places figurativity within an (...) ecological context, and approaches it as a phenomenon which cuts across bodily, psychological, linguistic, social, cultural and natural environments. Figurativity and Human Ecology will appeal to those interested in the analysis of the all-encompassing creativity of the human mind and in the methodological difficulties associated with the study of cognition. (shrink)

PurposeThe aim of the study was to establish the differences in affective states of swimmers depending on the subjective rank of the competition and the relationship between affective states and performance in sports competitions of low, medium and high subjectively perceived rank.MethodsThe respondents aged from 15 to 23 years were studied using the psychological questionnaires Perceived Stress Scale, Profile of Mood State, and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule during sports events. 362 measurements using POMS and 232 measurements using PANAS before (...) the starts were collected. The significance of intergroup differences was determined using the Kruskal-Wallis test. A stepwise regression analysis was used to determine the emotional predictors of sports results.ResultsSubjective rank of sports competition differentiated significantly anger, confusion, depression, fatigue, vigour, positive emotions, and negative emotions. Regression analysis showed the influence of mood states and positive emotions on the sports result.ConclusionThe swimmers’ affective state changed depending on the subjective rank of the competition. Depression and positive emotional state made it possible to predict the result in medium- and high-rank competition. (shrink)

The article deals with the concept of educational mobility and its role in the modern educational process. Due to the insufficient development of this concept in the theory and practice of school education, the author creates a universal structural and functional model for the formation of this skill, which is why special attention was paid to the complex of pedagogical conditions that can ensure the effective functioning of all elements of the system.

The paper deals with the problem of translating selected insolvency terminology from Polish into English and from English into Polish. The re- search corpora encompassed the Insolvency Act 1986 as amended and Ustawa z dnia 28 lutego 2003. Prawo upadłościowe i naprawcze [the Act on Polish Insolvency and Rehabilitation Law of 28th February 2003 as amended]. The research methods included: the comparison of parallel texts, the method of axiomatisation of the legal linguistic reality, the termino- logical analysis of the corpus (...) material, the concept of adjusting the target text to the communicative needs and requirements of the community of recipients and the techniques of providing equivalents for non-equivalent terminology. The research hypothesis has been so formulated that the parametrisation of legal reality may assist in finding more adequate equivalents and determine differences in meaning of compared source and target language terms, which in turn facilitates the choice of a more adequate technique of providing equivalents for non-equivalent or partially equivalent legal terminology meeting the com- municative needs of translation recipients. The research results revealed that insolvency terminology is highly system-bound and available equivalents may often be misleading for the community of target text recipients. (shrink)

The author intends to present evolutionary and revolutionary changes in legal terminology. Legal terminology changes as a result of language usage, technological development, political and social changes and even economy reasons. The following research methods have been applied: the terminological analysis of the research material and the analysis of pertinent literature. The research material included legislation from the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada and Australia. The author focuses on terminological changes resulting from social transformations. Selected terms and (...) their transformation in respect to meaning and form are elaborated on in the paper. Finally, the author draws conclusions that translation of such terminology should aim at communication precision and many of them may be false friends in interlingual communication. (shrink)

This article explores the concept of minor or general psychotherapy championed by physicians seeking to popularise psychotherapy in the post-Stalin Soviet Union. Understood as a set of skills and principles meant to guide behaviour towards and around patients, this form of psychotherapy was portrayed as indispensable for physicians of all specialities as well as for all personnel of medical institutions. This article shows how, as a result of Soviet teaching on the power of suggestion to influence human organisms, every interaction (...) with patients was conceptualised as a form of psychotherapy, leading to the embrace of placebo as a legitimate form of therapy, and to the blurring of the boundary between therapy and other activities in the clinic. The principles of minor psychotherapy reveal a concept of psychotherapy that is much wider, and rooted in different priorities, than the dominant understanding of this type of treatment found in Western Europe and North America. This article addresses the ethical principles implicit in the Soviet perspective, demonstrating that despite fighting against the uncaring and dismissive attitude of other physicians, Soviet psychotherapists remained rooted in the paternalistic tradition. Finally, it traces the efforts to establish minor psychotherapy as standard practice in medical institutions, which, like many other plans and ambitions of Soviet psychotherapists, were constrained by a lack of resources in the healthcare system. (shrink)

Though a common language of science allows for easier communication of the results among researchers, the use of lingua franca also comes with the cost of losing some of the diverse ideas and results arising from the plurality of languages. Following Quine’s famous thesis about the indeterminacy of translation, we elaborate on the inherent loss of diverse ideas when only one language of science is used. Non-native speakers sometimes experience epistemic injustice due to their language proficiency and consequently, their scientific (...) insights get marginalized. Thus, it is important epistemically to include the results of all researchers independent of their native language. As a solution, we promote epistemic equity and inclusion both on the individual level and on the level of the scientific community. Epistemic equity means that researchers who suffer disadvantages because of their language skills get support from the rest of the scientific community that will compensate for their disadvantage and at the same time facilitate their epistemic inclusion. This can be achieved through the introduction of mitigating agents – the individuals and organizations that ought to serve as a communication bridge between individual researchers and the scientific community. (shrink)

This article focuses on the pragmatist feminist theories of social reformer Charlotte Perkins Gilman and cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead. It begins by delineating Gilman's understanding of how the material-cultural environment affects the lives of women. Believing the American way of life to be too individualistic, Gilman developed a theory of social change aimed at generating more collectivist ways of living and promoting the economic independence of women. To achieve these ends, Gilman advocated for the reconstruction of the Victorian nursery, which (...) she believed would afford women the choice to pursue a professional career outside of the home, and promote the health of the community. Gilman's social theory is contrasted with that of Margaret Mead, who believed that plans for social reform are best left to readers. Rather than advocate for the adoption of an entirely new cultural practice, Mead sought to acquaint her culturally diverse American readership with the Samoan way of life, so that they might collectively decide how to best address the problem of choice facing young women in the 1920s. (shrink)

Scientists, humanists, and art lovers alike value art not just for its beauty, but also for its social and epistemic importance; that is, for its communicative nature, its capacity to increase one's self-knowledge and encourage personal growth, and its ability to challenge our schemas and preconceptions. However, empirical research tends to discount the importance of such social and epistemic outcomes of art engagement, instead focusing on individuals' preferences, judgments of beauty, pleasure, or other emotional appraisals as the primary outcomes of (...) art appreciation. Here, we argue that a systematic neuroscientific study of art appreciation must move beyond understanding aesthetics alone, and toward investigating the social importance of art appreciation. We make our argument for such a shift in focus first, by situating art appreciation as an active social practice. We follow by reviewing the available psychological and cognitive neuroscientific evidence that art appreciation cultivates socio-epistemic skills such as self- and other-understanding, and discuss philosophical frameworks which suggest a more comprehensive empirical investigation. Finally, we argue that focusing on the socio-epistemic values of art engagement highlights the important role art plays in our lives. Empirical research on art appreciation can thus be used to show that engagement with art has specific social and personal value, the cultivation of which is important to us as individuals, and as communities. (shrink)

Two experiments probed the role of strategies used in social conflicts on perception of agency and communion. In study 1, persons who revealed prosocial orientation were perceived as less agentic, but more communal than those who revealed competitive orientation. In study 2 these findings were replicated in the context of organizational conflict, those who decided to use confrontational strategies were also perceived as more agentic, although less communal than these who used cooperative strategies. In line with the theory of power (...) effects on objectification of social targets, the perceived agency and communion were differently linked to superior’s and subordinate’s evaluation. While perceived agency predicted the subordinate’s evaluation, perceived communion predicted superior’s evaluation, but not the other way round. Moreover, perception of communion mediated the negative effect of confrontational strategies on supervisor’s evaluation. On the other hand, perceived agency suppressed the effect of strategies on subordinate’s evaluation. (shrink)

The paper provides an analysis of the impact of negative emotions on decision-making processes. It questions the common-sense view that negative emotions diminish rationality of decisions, i.e., increase the probability of making suboptimal choices. It is argued in the paper that this view is untenable on the grounds of neuroscience, cognitive science and evolutionary theory: the results provided by these sciences support the view that negative emotions in most instances of their occurrence, i.e. types of negative emotions, not only fail (...) to undermine rationality of decision-making but substantially contribute to it. This does mean saying that token-negative emotions never undermine rationality of decision-making. But, as is argued in the paper, the fact that token-negative emotions may have sometimes this kind of negative effect is fully consistent with the claim that, as a rule, the effect is positive, so that one can speak about the causal connection between types of negative emotion and rational decision-making. (shrink)

The aim of the study was to answer the question whether the words “zaskoczenie” [phon. zaskɔˈʧ̑ɛ̃ɲɛ]- “surprise” and “zdziwienie” [phon. ʑʥ̑iˈvjɛ̇̃ɲɛ]- “astonishment”, which are treated in the Polish language as synonyms, possess a fixed pattern of application, and whether the colloquial context of using these words differs in terms of its emotional valence. The theoretical background for this investigation was the triadic approach to language cognition that includes perception, conceptualization and symbolization, and corresponding to this approach concept of mental representation (...) of emotions. The obtained results have shown that people tend to use the word “zaskoczenie” to describe emotions that occur in positive situations, whereas the word “zdziwienie” is more frequently applied in negative situations. The observed emotive connotation of the investigated words has been explained by the rules of phonetic symbolism and implicative meaning of the words preserved in the popular/colloquial understanding. (shrink)

In synesthesia, a certain stimulus (eg grapheme) is associated automatically and consistently with a stable perceptual-like experience (eg color). These associations are acquired in early childhood and remain robust throughout the lifetime. Synesthetic associations can transfer to novel inducers in adulthood as one learns a second language that uses another writing system. However, it is not known how long this transfer takes. We found that grapheme-color associations can transfer to novel graphemes after only a 10-minute writing exercise. Most subjects experienced (...) synesthetic associations immediately after learning a new Glagolitic grapheme. Using a Stroop task, we provide objective evidence for the creation of novel associations between the newly learned graphemes and synesthetic colors. Also, these associations generalized to graphemes handwritten by another person. The fast learning process and the generalization suggest that synesthesia begins at the semantic level of representation with the activation of a certain concept (the inducer), which then, uniquely for the synesthetes, activates representations at the perceptual level (the concurrent). Thus, the results imply that synesthesia is a much more flexible and plastic phenomenon than has been believed until now. (shrink)

We examined the role of work-related emotions and personal resources operationalised as psychological capital (PsyCap) in the relationship between events occurring at work and employees’ work engagement. Using affective events theory and broaden-and-build theory as theoretical frameworks, we theorise that the perceived frequency of positive and negative events at work and work engagement is mediated by positive and negative work-related emotions and moderated by PsyCap. The results of path analysis on a sample of US and Polish employees showed that PsyCap (...) moderated the relationship between the perceived frequency of negative work events and negative work-related emotions, however, we also found culture-specific effects of PsyCap. Our study contributes to the human resource development (HRD) literature by providing evidence of the role of personal resources in the event–emotion–engagement process in the workplace. Also, our findings deepen the understanding of HR developers in multinational organisations and provide suggestions on how they can implement PsyCap trainings based on culture-specific work environment. (shrink)

This paper offers a memoir of living with Zygmunt Bauman. It begins with the early encounter of Bauman and Aleksandra Kania in Warsaw in 1954, where both were Masters students working with the humanist Marxist Adam Schaff. Kania and Bauman followed their separate life paths for decades, though they were both postwar communists and reconstructionists. Much later, the loss of their partners led to union, in Leeds and across the globe in travel. This is a story of friendship and (...) mutual enthusiasms, then intimacy between two working sociologists. There are also some apparent differences, as between the Lark and the Owl, or between Phosphorous and Hesperus. Life together leads especially to Italy, and to Pope Francis. This is a reflection on what Bauman called the art of life. (shrink)

Sensory Individuals: Unimodal and Multimodal Perspectives provides an interdisciplinary, well-balanced, and comprehensive look at different aspects of unisensory and multisensory objects, using both nuanced philosophical analysis and informed empirical work. The research presented in this book represents the field's progression from treating neural sensory processes as primarily modality-specific towards its current state of the art, according to which perception, and its supporting neural processes, are multi-modal, modality-independent, meta-modal, and task-dependent. Even within such approaches sensory stimuli, properties, brain activations, and corresponding (...) perceptual phenomenology can still be characterized in a modality-specific way. The book examines the basic building blocks of human perception, and whether they are best understood as sense modality dependent units of different forms or multimodal perceptual objects. The book combines a variety of innovative and integrative angles to explore the topic and acts as a catalyst for an increasingly diverse field of research, which is in an exciting phase of growth and advancement. New questions are arising as quickly as they are being answered, and the collection Sensory Individuals provides an original and up-to-date addition to the field. (shrink)

This paper argues that the missing voice in clinical ethics is that of informal caregivers. Despite their substantial contribution to care provided to individuals with disabilities, chronic illness or dementia, informal caregivers are rarely thought of as members of the healthcare team and their narratives are rarely listened to and included in clinical and ethical decisions. Addressing this gap, this paper discusses the reasons for the systemic misrecognition of informal caregivers in healthcare systems and argues for their greater narrative inclusion (...) on the clinical, legal and social planes. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to discuss the legal language transformations from a diachronic perspective taking into account the following factors: (i) spatial and temporal, (ii) linguistic norm changes, (iii) political, (iv) social (customs), and (v) globalization as well as (vi) EU-induced. Spatial and temporal factors include legal relations influenced by climate and the cycles of nature. Linguistic factors include spelling reforms and grammatical changes each language undergoes, for example, as a result of usage. As far as the law (...) is concerned, normative changes can be observed when laws are amended. Other factors such as customs, usage, etc. cannot be neglected when discussing the language of the law. Analogously political correctness and usage can be observed in gender sensitive language and the introduction of such terms as chairperson instead of chairman. Social factors should not be overlooked. As a result of social changes, numerous terms have been introduced to legal lexicons in many countries starting with same-sex unions or same-sex-marriages. The so-called political correctness enforces some language changes and leads to the introduction of new terms and at the same time the abandonment of others. Consequently, some terms cease to be used and consequently become archaic. The aim of the article is to focus on diachronic changes in legal languages and present the communication problems resulting from them from intra- and inter-lingual perspectives. (shrink)