Until recently, it was assumed that co-representation of others’ actions, an essential part in joint action, is biologically tuned. However, research demonstrated that we also simulate actions of non-biological interaction partners under certain conditions. In the present study, we investigated whether perceived intentionality or perspective taking is the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon. Participants saw a short video fragment of a non-biological agent as main character. The movements of this agent were either described as intentional or as unintentional. Furthermore, participants (...) were instructed to either take the perspective of this non-biological agent or not. Results show that perspective taking and perceived intentionality both lead to action co-representation of non-biological actions. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Until recently, it was assumed that co-representation of others’ actions, an essential part in joint action, is biologically tuned. However, research demonstrated that we also simulate actions of non-biological interaction partners under certain conditions. In the present study, we investigated whether perceived intentionality or perspective taking is the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon. Participants saw a short video fragment of a non-biological agent as main character. The movements of this agent were either described as intentional or as unintentional. Furthermore, participants (...) were instructed to either take the perspective of this non-biological agent or not. Results show that perspective taking and perceived intentionality both lead to action co-representation of non-biological actions. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Until recently, it was assumed that co-representation of others’ actions, an essential part in joint action, is biologically tuned. However, research demonstrated that we also simulate actions of non-biological interaction partners under certain conditions. In the present study, we investigated whether perceived intentionality or perspective taking is the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon. Participants saw a short video fragment of a non-biological agent as main character. The movements of this agent were either described as intentional or as unintentional. Furthermore, participants (...) were instructed to either take the perspective of this non-biological agent or not. Results show that perspective taking and perceived intentionality both lead to action co-representation of non-biological actions. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Developing social skills is essential to succeed in social relations. Two important social constructs in middle childhood, prosocial behavior and reactive aggression, are often regarded as separate behaviors with opposing developmental outcomes. However, there is increasing evidence for the co-occurrence of prosociality and aggression, as both might indicate responsivity to the social environment. Here, we tested whether a bi-dimensional taxonomy of prosociality and reactive aggression could predict internalizing and externalizing problems over time. We re-analyzed data of two well-validated experimental tasks (...) for prosociality and reactive aggression in a developmental population sample. Results revealed no associations between prosociality and reactive aggression, confirming the independence of those constructs. Interestingly, although prosociality and reactive aggression independently did not predict problem behavior, the interaction of both was negatively predictive of changes in externalizing problems over time. Specifically, only children who scored low on both prosociality and reactive aggression showed an increase in externalizing problems 1 year later, whereas levels of externalizing problems did not change for children who scored high on both types of behavior. Thus, our results suggest that at an individual level, reactive aggression in middle childhood might not always be maladaptive when combined with prosocial behavior, thereby confirming the importance of studying social competence across multiple dimensions. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Abilify MyCite was granted regulatory approval in 2017, becoming the world’s first “smart pill” that could digitally track whether patients had taken their medication. The new technology was introduced as one that had gained the support of patients and ethicists alike, and could contribute to solving the widespread and costly problem of patient nonadherence. Here, we offer an in-depth exploration of this narrative, through an examination of the origins and development of Abilify, the drug that would later become MyCite. (...) This history illuminates how an antipsychotic can become a top-selling drug and maintain its blockbuster status for more than a decade. It also provides a detailed case study for how knowledge is constructed within the logic of biomedical capitalism, providing impetus to reexamine claims regarding how MyCite addresses patient nonadherence, engenders patient support, and is ethicist-approved. (shrink)

Trends in moral psychology largely support the role that emotion plays in moral cognition with human lesion studies offering the most compelling evidence to date. Specifically, data from ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) patients on moral judgment tasks has suggested the necessity of having intact emotion to behave in morally appropriate ways. However, patients with vmPFC damage also have deficits in a variety of complex judgment and decision-making tasks, regardless of whether emotion is involved. This paper argues that a basic information (...) processing perspective of vmPFC functionality is a better interpretation of vmPFC patient deficits, specifically with the vmPFC being necessary for value assessment rather than being specific to emotion. (shrink)

The frustration in Polish society arising from excessive costs of conducting court proceedings and lengthy delays for dispute resolution has resulted in a genuine limitation in access to judicial justice for citizens. This paper argues that the answer to the dilemma between ensuring both justice and efficiency lies in language being a tool for the active participation of the parties in building mutual trust and shaping solutions in conflictual circumstances. How should the postulate of effective communication leading to dispute resolution (...) in modern justice be achieved? The authors present the advantages of oral communication in proceedings on the way to finding agreement, pointing out the content and quality of language that make dispute resolution possible. (shrink)

The extensive community use of complementary medicine can no longer be overlooked in the practice of hospital medicine. Protocols need to be developed and implemented so that health professionals can deal with the issues surrounding the use of CM. Policy development has generally focussed on the supply of CM in hospital but another approach, which is based on consideration of the ethical and legal context, is presented here. Such an approach demands clarification of institutional policy for individuals who are competent (...) and those who are incapable of self-administration or non-competent. (shrink)

Every kind of exploration is touched in some way by a philosophy of persons; touched and often vitally enhanced. This collection sets out to mine this rich seam of influence, bringing together authors keen to strike new developments and applications. Together, they have put their philosophy of persons to work in fields as wide-ranging as the moral and the metaphysical, the practical and the political, the cultural and the cosmological. In doing so, they have drawn on and illustrated the depth (...) and breadth of modern Personalist thought, demonstrating its crucial relevance to debates across the entire philosophical spectrum. (shrink)

Adverse childhood experiences are prevalent in many western populations. Large studies have put the likelihood of having at least one ACE above 50% of the general population. ACEs and the associated experience of chronic stress, moreover, have been consistently linked with a variety of negative physical and psychological health outcomes across the lifespan from behavioral problems and cognitive difficulties early on, to greater chance of suffering from a mental health disorder and engaging in self destructing behaviors. The literature puts forward (...) several protective factors, such as mother-child relations, parental health, and community engagement. In this perspective paper we put forward the potential of regular nature engagement as a possible additional protective factor. Nature’s therapeutic potential has been well documented, for many psychopathologies and mental health difficulties. Yet studies looking at the protective and therapeutic potential of nature with people with ACEs are remarkably limited in numbers. In this perspective piece we conduct a search of the literature to find previous applications of nature as a protective or therapeutic intervention for people with ACEs. We highlight the gap in the current literature, and put forward various mechanisms of action that justify a closer exploration of this area in further research. (shrink)

Anger, indignation, guilt, rumination, victim compensation, and perpetrator punishment are considered primary responses associated with justice sensitivity. However, injustice and high JS may predispose to further responses. We had N = 293 adults rate their JS, 17 potential responses toward 12 unjust scenarios from the victim’s, observer’s, beneficiary’s, and perpetrator’s perspectives, and several control variables. Unjust situations generally elicited many affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses. JS generally predisposed to strong affective responses toward injustice, including sadness, pity, disappointment, and helplessness. It (...) impaired trivialization, victim-blaming, or justification, which may otherwise help cope with injustice. It predisposed to conflict solutions and victim compensation. Particularly victim and beneficiary JS had stronger effects in unjust situations from the corresponding perspective. These findings add to a better understanding of the main and interaction effects of unjust situations from different perspectives and the JS facets, differences between the JS facets, as well as the links between JS and behavior and well-being. (shrink)

Visions of and narratives about the future energy system influence the actual creation of innovations and are thus accompanying the current energy transition. Particularly in times of change and uncertainty, visions gain crucial relevance: imagining possible futures impacts the current social reality by both creating certain spaces of action and shaping technical artifacts. However, different actors may express divergent visions of the future energy system and its implementation. Looking at a particular innovation site involving multiple stakeholders over an 8-year period, (...) we empirically analyze the collective negotiation process of vision making, its shifting over time, and how visions eventually unfold performativity. Adopting a process perspective, we identify four different phases and the respective functions of visions and visioneering related to the site’s development by exploring the question: Why do certain visions gain importance and eventually lead to substantial changes of the project in process? Qualitative data from documents and interviews analyzed with reference to science and technology studies show the interweaving conditions that influence the visioneering and the linkage to the actual development of material artifacts. Against the backdrop of innovation projects, this paper explores visioneering as an ongoing, transformative and collective process and reveals its moments of stabilization. (shrink)

Students’ cheating is a serious problem: It undermines the chance to adequately promote, support, and evaluate them. To explain cheating behavior, research seldom focuses on perceived teachers’ characteristics. Thus, we investigate the relationship between students’ cheating behavior and an important teacher characteristic, individual reference norm orientation. We examined cheating on written exams, on homework, and in oral exams among N = 601 students in N = 31 language classes. Results from doubly manifest multi-level analyses showed that, on the classroom level, (...) cheating on written exams and on homework occurred less frequently the more the classroom of students perceived their teachers as having an IRNO. We found no further evidence for other cheating factors or student characteristics. This supports the idea that teacher characteristics are associated with some forms of students’ cheating behavior. (shrink)

The Idea of Disability in the Eighteenth Century is a wide-ranging collection of essays that explores philosophy, biography, and texts about and by disabled people living in the eighteenth century. The book, which introduces and affirms the notion that disability studies predates most United States and United Kingdom findings by more than a hundred years, will be of interest to philosophers, historians, sociologists, and literary scholars.

BackgroundOrganizations worldwide increasingly adopt inclusive talent management, and this approach appears to rhyme particularly well with the Nordic welfare model. Questions about its value remain understudied, however. The inclusive approach is rooted in positive psychology and focuses on recognizing each employee's individual talents and assessing whether they fit the long-term needs of the organization, since a fit is assumed to be associated with employees' wellbeing. In the present study, we test this assumption focusing specifically on a key talent management practice, (...) talent identification, and the social dimension of employee wellbeing.MethodData were collected through an employee survey conducted within the Finnish units of four international manufacturing organizations and analyzed using logistic regression.ResultsWe found that the recognition of individual talents for long-term deployment by the organization is positively associated with social wellbeing in terms of supervisor support and social climate in the work unit, as perceived by the employees.ConclusionOur results tentatively suggest that inclusive talent management creates value through the identification of employees' individual talents as this practice can be associated with their enhanced wellbeing. (shrink)

AimThe aim was to explore the various associations between subjective well-being and internet use among older adults in two regions in Finland and Sweden.MethodsThe data was collected through a population-based survey as part of the GERDA project conducted in 2016. The connection between subjective well-being and internet use was studied by conducting binary regression analyses, calculating odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals. The analyses also controlled for key subjective well-being covariates.ResultsStatistically significant associations were found between perceived life meaningfulness and internet (...) use. When looking into the specific internet-based activities under study, activities related to leisure and entertainment showed statistically significant associations to perceived meaningfulness as well as perceived happiness, also after controlling for potential covariates. However, internet use and the different internet activities failed to show statistical significant associations to life satisfaction in the adjusted regression model.ConclusionThe things we do on the internet as well as how we conceptualize and measure subjective well-being in this type of research studies seem to matter when it comes to the relationship between subjective well-being and internet use in later life. Internet use and internet activities displayed various connections to the subjective well-being proxies used in this study. Therefore, the complexity and multidimensionality of both subjective well-being and internet use and related links need to be carefully explored in order to deepen our understanding of experienced well-being among older adults in a digitized world. (shrink)

Psychobiological responses to music have been examined previously in various naturalistic settings in adults. Choir singing seems to be associated with positive psychobiological outcomes in adults. However, evidence on the effectiveness of singing in children and adolescents is sparse. The COVID-19 outbreak is significantly affecting society now and in the future, including how individuals engage with music. The COVID-19 pandemic is occurring at a time when virtual participation in musical experiences such as singing in a virtual choir has become more (...) prevalent. However, it remains unclear whether virtual singing leads to different responses in comparison with in-person singing. We evaluated the psychobiological effects of in-person choral singing in comparison with the effects of virtual choral singing in a naturalistic pilot within-subject study. A group of children and young adolescents from a school in Salzburg, Austria were recruited to take part in the study. Subjective measures were taken pre- and post-singing sessions once a week. Additionally, salivary biomarkers and quantity of social contacts were assessed pre- and post-singing sessions every second week. Psychological stability, self-esteem, emotional competences, and chronic stress levels were measured at the beginning of in-person singing as well as at the beginning and the end of the virtual singing. We observed a positive impact on mood after both in-person and virtual singing. Over time, in-person singing showed a pre-post decrease in salivary cortisol, while virtual singing showed a moderate increase. Moreover, a greater reduction in stress, positive change in calmness, and higher values of social contacts could be observed for the in-person setting compared to the virtual one. In addition, we observed positive changes in psychological stability, maladaptive emotional competences, chronic stress levels, hair cortisol, self-contingency and quality of life. Our preliminary findings suggest that group singing may provide benefits for children and adolescents. In-person singing in particular seems to have a stronger psychobiological effect. (shrink)

The diversified methodology and expertise of interdisciplinary research teams provide the opportunity to overcome the limited perspectives of individual disciplines. This is particularly true at the interface of Robotics, Neuroscience, and Psychology as the three fields have quite different perspectives and approaches to offer. Nonetheless, aligning backgrounds and interdisciplinary expectations can present challenges due to varied research cultures and practices. Overcoming these challenges stands at the beginning of each productive collaboration and thus is a mandatory step in cognitive neurorobotics. In (...) this article, we share eight lessons that we learned from our ongoing interdisciplinary project on human-robot and robot-robot interaction in social settings. These lessons provide practical advice for scientists initiating interdisciplinary research endeavors. Our advice can help to avoid early problems and deal with differences between research fields, prepare for and anticipate challenges, align project expectations, and speed up research progress, thus promoting effective interdisciplinary research across Robotics, Neuroscience, and Psychology. (shrink)

Guilt and shame are self-conscious emotions with implications for mental health, social and occupational functioning, and the effectiveness of sports practice. To date, the assessment and role of athlete-specific guilt and shame has been under-researched. Reporting data from 174 junior elite cricketers, the present study utilized exploratory factor analysis in validating the Athletic Perceptions of Performance Scale, assessing three distinct and statistically reliable factors: athletic shame-proneness, guilt-proneness, and no-concern. Conditional process analysis indicated that APPS shame-proneness mediated the relationship between general (...) and athlete-specific distress. While APPS domains of guilt-proneness and no-concern were not significant mediators, they exhibited correlations in the expected direction with indices of psychological distress and well-being. The APPS may assist coaches and support staff identify players who may benefit from targeted interventions to reduce the likelihood of experiencing shame-prone states. (shrink)

In its literal meaning, the term ἔκστασις (ekstasis) indicates a displacement, ‘being out of immobility’, and ultimately being outside oneself. To some extent, this term takes on a mystical connotation in late Antiquity, notably in book VI.9.11.24 of Plotinus’ Enneads, where ekstasis is described as a non-ordinary way of seeing. The notion of ecstasy, often inseparable from the concept of vision, would keep its mystical role, though altered in some ways, over the centuries, conceptualizing a specific kind of knowledge, which (...) goes beyond the subject-object opposition, addressing the epistemological issues of perceiving and knowing the divine, and often challenging the nature of the self. This issue offers some attempts to track the constant reshaping and migration of the notions of ecstasy and intellectual or spiritual vision over the history of Western thought, unearthing their structural and constant persistence, from the Middle Ages to the contemporary ages, recurrently in many different non-ultimately-dialectical metaphysical systems. The papers in this volume provide some illustrative examples of the tangled history of the divergent meanings that the notions of ecstasy and vision have taken on, and their considerable reassessments and adaptations to constantly evolving conceptual frameworks, often redefining further notions such as those of rapture, prophecy, sleep, dream, and death. -/- . (shrink)

Tradicionalmente, “racionalidade” é o exercício da faculdade superior de conhecimento e ação, “razão”, e a propriedade dos produtos resultantes desse exercício, “razões”. Buscar o significado da “racionalidade” pressupõe perscrutá-la “em ação” – não há como “sair fora” do racional para encontrá-la. O valor de face que apresenta é o lado “direito” de sua tessitura. Mas a condição (auto)reguladora da racionalidade demanda que se lhe busque também o “avesso”, lado nem sempre visível das costuras que dão a feitura do “direito”. Em (...) face da contextualidade da racionalidade “em ação”, cabe examinar essa distinção através de dois “casos exemplares”: a visão aristotélica de racionalidade e a argumentação de Charles Darwin na Origem das espécies. De um lado, encontramos uma outra vertente da Retórica aristotélica, mostrando a interpenetração de demonstrar e persuadir no “avesso” da racionalidade; de outro, encontramos no “avesso” da argumentação científica darwiniana a essencialidade de procedimentos ditos “retóricos”. Cruzam-se as fronteiras. Palavras-chave: Racionalidade, argumentação, retórica, ciência, Aristóteles, Charles Darwin. (shrink)