Communities often unite during a crisis, though some cope by ascribing blame or stigmas to those who might be linked to distressing life events. In a preregistered two-wave survey, we evaluated the dehumanization of Asians and Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our first wave revealed dehumanization was prevalent, between 6.1% and 39% of our sample depending on measurement. Compared to non-dehumanizers, people who dehumanized also perceived the virus as less risky to human health and caused less severe consequences for (...) infected people. They were more likely to be ideologically Conservative and believe in conspiracy theories about the virus. We largely replicated the results 1 month later in our second wave. Together, many Americans dehumanize Asians and Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic with related perceptions that the virus is less problematic. Implications and applications for dehumanization theory are discussed. (shrink)

Working parents in are struggling to balance the demands of their occupation with those of childcare and homeschooling during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, studies show that women are shouldering more of the burden and reporting greater levels of psychological distress, anxiety, and depression relative to men. However, research has yet to show that increases in psychological symptoms are linked to changes in stress during the pandemic. Herein, we conduct a small-N study to explore the associations between stress and psychological symptoms (...) during the pandemic among mothers using structural equation modeling, namely latent change score models. Thirty-three mothers completed questionnaires reporting current anxious and depressive symptoms, as well as stressful life experiences prior to-versus during the pandemic. Women endorsed significantly more stressful events during the pandemic, relative to the pre-pandemic period. Additionally, 58% of mothers scored as moderate-to-high risk for developing a stress-related physical illness in the near future because of their pandemic-level stress. Depressive symptoms were associated with the degree of change in life stress, whereas anxiety symptoms were more related to pre-pandemic levels of stress. The present study preliminarily sheds light on the nuanced antecedents to mothers’ experiences of anxious and depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although further work is needed in larger, more diverse samples of mothers, this study highlights the potential need for appropriate policies, and prevention and intervention programs to ameliorate the effects of pandemics on mothers’ mental health. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 6, June 2019, Page 73-75.

Through the ability to preview the future , people can anticipate how best to think, feel and act in just about any setting. But exactly what factors determine the contents of prospection? Extending research on action identification and temporal construal, here we explored how action goals and temporal distance modulate the characteristics of future previews. Participants were required to imagine travelling to Egypt to climb or photograph a pyramid. Afterwards, to probe the contents of prospection, participants provided a sketch of (...) their imaginary experience. Results elucidated the impact of goal type and temporal distance on mental imagery. While a climbing goal prompted participants to draw a larger pyramid in the near than distant future, a photographic goal influenced only the compositional complexity of the sketches. These findings reveal how action goals and temporal distance shape the contents of future simulations. (shrink)

Presentists argue that only the present is real. In this paper, I ask what duration the present has on a presentist’s account. While several answers are available, each of them requires the adoption of a measure and, with that adoption, additional work must be done to define the present. Whether presentists conclude that a reductionist account of duration is acceptable, that duration is not an applicable concept for their notion of the present, that the present has a duration of zero, (...) or that that the present has a duration, a more robust account of the present is required. I suggest that some of the most difficult questions about duration can be avoided at the cost of no longer viewing presentism as a theory about time, but rather as a theory about existence. In the conclusion, I suggest an interpretation of presentism that allows it to endorse the view that time is nothing more than the measure of change. (shrink)

This paper examines the concept and treatment of divorce in ancient Judea as a historical reality rather than a theological issue, focusing particularly on the idea of the wife as the active party in the divorce. Did women in Judea have the right to initiate divorce? It seems the answer might have been yes. The implications of several key documentary sources, including various marriage and legal contracts relating to divorce are discussed. The paper concludes with a brief look at several (...) scriptural precedents for divorce. Both the historical merit and historiographical problems with these ancient sources are addressed. (shrink)

Psychology's tendency to focus on confirmatory analyses before ensuring constructs are clearly defined and accurately measured is exacerbating the generalizability crisis. Our growing use of digital behaviors as predictors has revealed the fragility of subjective measures and the latent constructs they scaffold. However, new technologies can provide opportunities to improve conceptualizations, theories, and measurement practices.

Rechtsphilosophie der Aufklärung: Symposium Wolfenbüttel 1981.

The microbiota-gut-brain field holds huge potential for understanding behavioral development and informing effective early interventions for psychological health. To realize this potential, factors that shape the MGB axis in infancy must be integrated into a systemic framework that considers salient behavioral outcomes. This is best accomplished applying network analyses in large prospective, longitudinal investigations in humans.

English summary: The wide-ranging work of Ernst Fraenkel lead to the foundation of postwar political science. In his role as "American in Berlin," Fraenkel helped shape the foundation of modern comparative government theory. Fraenkel's impressive, and in retrospect exemplary, biography, from being a Jewish labor lawyer in the Third Reich to an emigrant to the United States, allowed for him to be described as a commanding figure of the young field of political science of the Adenauer era. Reinhard Dorn (...) illuminates Fraenkel's integrative state and constitutional understanding in two parts. In the first section, he presents foundations and individual components of constitutional-sociological thought, whereby he focuses particular attention on sociological and policy-sociological aspects. The second section documents the performance range of Fraenkel's constitution sociology by comparing Anglo-American and continental European constitutional thinking with its respective constitutional reality, all based on his own interdisciplinary analysis. German text. German description: Die Beschaftigung mit dem breit gefacherten Werk von Ernst Fraenkel fuehrt zu den Grundlagen der Nachkriegs-Politikwissenschaft. In seiner Rolle als Amerikaner in Berlin hat Fraenkel das Fundament der modernen vergleichenden Regierungslehre mitgestaltet. Dabei hat Fraenkels beeindruckende und im Rueckblick exemplarisch wirkende Biographie vom juedischen Arbeitsrechtler und Rechtsanwalt im Dritten Reich ueber den Emigranten in die USA zur Portalfigur der jungen Politikwissenschaft der Adenauer-Ara seine Verfassungsvergleiche erst ermoglicht.In zwei Teilen beleuchtet Reinhard Dorn Fraenkels integratives Staats- und Verfassungsverstandnis: Im ersten Abschnitt stellt er Grundlagen und einzelne Bestandteile seines verfassungssoziologischen Denkens dar, wobei er insbesondere auf soziologische und politiksoziologische Aspekte eingeht. Der zweite Abschnitt dokumentiert die Leistungsbreite von Fraenkels Verfassungssoziologie, indem - ausgehend von dessen eigenen interdisziplinaren Analysen - angloamerikanisches und kontinentaleuropaisches Verfassungsdenken der jeweiligen Verfassungsrealitat gegenuebergestellt wird. (shrink)

Science fiction is often used as a tool with which to think about actual science. While often this is depicted in terms of imaginary future potential, science fiction has also shown itself to be a poignant critique of existing science and a means of exploring our collective anxieties regarding the continued logic of current scientific development. This article explores the science fiction of organ transplantation, as mapped against scientific and medicolegal developments in actual organ transplantation. Explored through the lens of (...) Adorno’s work on cultural criticism, it is argued that science fiction serves as a tool with which we address (and critique) the ethical boundaries (and fears, often colonial in nature) of actual organ transplantation. Science fiction works such as Larry Niven’s Known Space Universe and Repo! The Genetic Opera are examined, demonstrating that in critiquing the science of organ transplantation, fictionists ultimately come to examine changing cultural understandings of selfhood and embodiment. (shrink)

Should the remains of aborted fetuses be treated as human corpses or medical waste? How can feminists defend abortion rights without erasing the experiences of women who mourn fetal death or lending support to pro-life constructions of fetal personhood? To answer these questions, I trace the role of abjection and mourning in debates over fetal remains disposal regulations. Critiquing pro-life views of fetal personhood while challenging feminists to develop richer and more compelling accounts of fetal remains, I argue that embracing (...) the ambiguity and diversity of pregnant bodies can strengthen rather than undermine reproductive autonomy. I conceptualize reproductive autonomy relationally, contending that it entails the pregnant subject’s authority to construct as well as to interpret her lived body, including the fetus. Additionally, because the embodied self is inextricable from social context, reproductive autonomy also requires community support. To support these claims, I develop an account of pregnant bodies as ontologically multiple and advocate embracing abjection rather than suppressing it. Finally, I object to fetal remains regulations because they inscribe fetal grievability into the law. (shrink)

Measurement instruments assessing multiple emotions during epistemic activities are largely lacking. We describe the construction and validation of the Epistemically-Related Emotion Scales, which measure surprise, curiosity, enjoyment, confusion, anxiety, frustration, and boredom occurring during epistemic cognitive activities. The instrument was tested in a multinational study of emotions during learning from conflicting texts. The findings document the reliability, internal validity, and external validity of the instrument. A seven-factor model best fit the data, suggesting that epistemically-related emotions should be conceptualised in terms (...) of discrete emotion categories, and the scales showed metric invariance across the North American and German samples. Furthermore, emotion scores changed over time as a function of conflicting task information and related significantly to perceived task value and use of cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies. (shrink)

As one example of how modern Western societies are increasingly obliged to reconcile questions of civility and justice against common, indeed revered, practices that compromise nonhuman animals, this paper examines the recent history of public debate regarding the use of animals for public entertainment in the Canadian West. Using media-based public dialogue regarding the annual Calgary Stampede as a case study and couching the high-risk use of horses in the sociological language of “sports-related violence,” the paper explores the various arguments (...) for and against the continued use of horses at the self-proclaimed “Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth” despite unambiguous evidence of the harm that regularly, and sometimes graphically, occurs. (shrink)

Dieses Buch beleuchtet die Aktualitat der Philosophie Karl Poppers, des Kritischen Rationalismus, aus dem Gesichtspunkt verschiedener Disziplinen. Den Schwerpunkt bilden Weiterentwicklungen von Fragestellungen der Wissenschafts- und Erkenntnistheorie und der politischen und Sozialphilosophie, denen sich Popper vorwiegend widmete. Daruber hinaus nimmt auch die Ethik einen wichtigen Platz ein, weil Poppers Denken normativ gepragt und von starken moralischen Impulsen geleitet war. Anwendungen beinhalten unter anderem Uberlegungen zur Entscheidungstheorie, zur Religionskritik und zu den Grundlagen einer offenen Gesellschaft als politisches Gegenkonzept zu Totalitarismus und (...) Fundamentalismus.". (shrink)

Sustainable development (SD) – that is, “Development that meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs and aspirations” – can be pursued in many different ways. Stakeholder relations management (SRM) is one such way, through which corporations are confronted with economic, social, and environmental stakeholder claims. This paper lays the groundwork for an empirical analysis of the question of how far SD can be achieved through SRM. It describes the so-called SD–SRM (...) perspective as a distinctive research approach and shows how it relates to the wider body of stakeholder theory. Next, the concept of SD is operationalized for the microeconomic level with reference to important documents. Based on the ensuing SD framework, it is shown how SD and SRM relate to each other, and how the two concepts relate to other popular concepts such as Corporate Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility. The paper concludes that the significance of societal guiding models such as SD and of management approaches like CSR is strongly dependent on their footing in society. (shrink)

A revised core curriculum for medical ethics and law in UK medical schools has been published. The General Medical Council requires medical graduates to understand law and ethics and behave in accordance with ethical and legal principles. A parallel policy agenda emphasises accountability, the development of professionalism and patient safety. Given the renewed focus on teaching and learning law alongside medical ethics and the development of professional identity, this survey aimed to identify how medical schools are responding to the preparation (...) of medical students for practice in the future. Questions were asked about the location, content and methods of teaching and assessment of law in undergraduate medical education. Examples of course documentation were requested to illustrate the approaches being taken. A 76% response rate was achieved. Most responding schools integrate law teaching with medical ethics, emphasising both the acquisition of knowledge and its application in a clinical context. Teaching, learning and assessment of law in clinical attachments is much less formalised than that in non-clinical education. Coverage of recommended topic areas varies, raising questions about the degree to which students can embed their knowledge and skills in actual practice. More positively, teaching does not rely on single individuals and clear descriptions were offered for problem-based and small group case-based learning. Further research is required to explore whether there are optimum ways of ensuring that legal knowledge, and skills in its use, form part of the development of professionalism among doctors in training. (shrink)