The social facilitation of eating plays a significant role in influencing individuals’ eating decisions. However, how social eating cues are processed in health promotion messages is unclear. This study examined individuals’ food craving in response to social cues in images and emotional experiences, perceived threat, perceived efficacy, behavioral intentions, and motivational coactivation elicited by social eating cues in obesity prevention fear appeals. Results suggested that the presence of a group of people eating in an image facilitated food craving for the (...) presented foods. Moreover, fear appeals that presented obesity and its consequences with more social eating cues, versus individual eating cues, generated greater positive emotional responses, perceived threat severity, response and self-efficacy, and motivational coactivation indicating more attention and threat vigilance. However, these cues also generated fewer self-reported intentions to change unhealthy eating behaviors. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Résumé Aux années soixante-dix, Roland Barthes désigne le Zen japonais par « L’empire des signes », alors que la culture chinoise par la « fadeur des signes ». François Jullien reprend ultérieurement l’idée de la « fadeur » au niveau de son sens « non dualiste » dans le cadre de la philosophie comparée. Depuis les courants poststructuraliste et déconstructionniste, de plus en plus de recherches sémiotiques et philosophiques portent sur l’étude bouddhique, dont le point nodal se situe alors dans (...) un parallélisme au bénéfice des échanges interculturels. En vue d’une déspécialisation du jargon propre à chaque domaine, il semble impératif de mettre en relation les concepts de base en commun. Pour mettre en évidence l’apport de l’étude terminologique et méthodologique, cet article commence par les travaux philologiques sur la « traduction » des textes bouddhiques. Ensuite, la discussion se concentre sur la « dualité » à partir de la « réception » de l’exégétique saussurienne. Il s’agit concrètement d’une étude embryonnaire sur le terme propre couple « signifiant/signifié »: l’exégétique saussurienne s’est répandue efficacement en Chine grâce aux emprunts à la terminologie bouddhique, ce qui offrirait une perspective positive vis-à-vis du dialogue interculturel. En même temps, il serait aussi possible de traduire les termes bouddhiques par le biais sémiotique en regard d’une osmose transdisciplinaire. (shrink)

The discussion of collective agency involves the reduction problem of the concept of a collective. Individualism and Cartesian internalism have long restricted orthodox theories and made them face the tension between an irreducible concept of a collective and ontological reductionism. Heterodox theories as functionalism and interpretationism reinterpret the concept of agency and accept it as realized on the level of a collective. In order to adequately explain social phenomena that have relations as their essence, in this paper we propose a (...) relational, holistic account of collective agency and argue that functionalism and interpretationism can be integrated into such an account. (shrink)

These essays collectively present new perspectives on the history of modern science in China since 1900. Fa‐ti Fan describes how science under the Republic of China after 1911 exhibited a complex local and international character that straddled both imperialism and colonialism. Danian Hu focuses on the fate of relativity in the physics community in China after 1917. Zuoyue Wang hopes that a less nationalist political atmosphere in China will stimulate more transnational studies of modern science, which will in turn (...) reveal the underlying commonalities in different national contexts. Sigrid Schmalzer compares the socialist and the capitalist contexts for science in China and reopens the sensitive question of the “mass line” during the Cultural Revolution. Grace Shen describes the tensions early Chinese scientists felt when choosing between foreign models for modern geology and their own professional identities in China. Taken together, these accounts present us with a comparative history of modern science in China that is both globally and locally informed. (shrink)

Social cognition is the ability to identify, understand, and interpret mental states and emotions. Psychopathic traits are typically described in two ways; Primary: shallow affect, emotional detachment, and relationship difficulties, and Secondary Psychopathic Traits: antisocial traits, impulsiveness, and emotional dysregulation. People with high psychopathic traits tend to perform lower on measures of social cognition. This study investigated the relationship of social cognition to primary and secondary psychopathic traits in a non-clinical sample, and investigated the psychometric properties of the Reading the (...) Mind in the Eyes Test Short Forms. A community-based male sample was recruited through an online platform. Psychopathic traits were measured using Levenson, Kiehl, and Fitzpatrick's Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, and stratified into Primary and Secondary Psychopathic traits. Secondary validation of the RMET Short Forms was completed investigating scale reliability, and validity. Findings suggest excellent psychometrics in a large community cohort for the RMET Short Forms, with significant negative correlations on social cognitive performance and high self-report psychopathy. The item valence within the social cognitive measure was also examined, and correlated significantly with both Primary and Secondary Psychopathic traits. This study provides further validation of the RMET Short Forms, and adds to the literature on the scale by investigating performance on short-form specific valence. This study further suggests that in a non-clinical community sample of males, that higher psychopathic traits correlated significantly, and negatively, with social cognitive performance. (shrink)

Psychologists and philosophers who pose moral dilemmas to understand moral judgment typically specify outcomes as certain to occur in them. This contrasts with real-life moral decision-making, which is almost always infused with probabilities (e.g., the probability of a given outcome if an action is or is not taken). Seven studies examine sensitivity to the size and location of shifts in probabilities of outcomes that would result from action in moral dilemmas. We find that moral judgments differ between actions that result (...) in an equal increase in probability of harm (equal size), but have different end-states (e.g., an increase in harm probability from 25% to 50% or from 50% to 75%). This deviation from expected value is robust under separate evaluation, and increases when the comparison between shifts is made explicit under simultaneous evaluation. Consistent with the centrality of perceived harm in some models of moral judgment, perceived harm partially mediates sensitivity to location of harm probability shift. Unlike for shifts in harm probabilities, participants are insensitive to the location of shifts in probability of beneficial outcomes. They are also insensitive to the location of shifts in probability of analogous monetary losses and gains, suggesting an asymmetry between harm and benefit in moral reasoning, as well as an asymmetry between moral and monetary decision-making more broadly. Implications for normative philosophical theory and moral psychological theory, as well as practical applications, are discussed. (shrink)

It is only within the human world of culture and as a member of a community of persons that the individual can realize his native potentialities and become a person. As a member of this community he must learn to play many roles. Some he plays successively as he passes through the stages of his life; others he plays alternately or simultaneously. The playing of each calls for the exercise of special abilities and powers. It makes use of only a (...) part of the native resources of his individual endowment. An individual may be better fitted by nature to play one role than another. But in the playing of any, he undergoes a specialized development which may help or hinder the development essential to the playing of others. Roles differ widely in the demands they make and the opportunities they offer for the exercise of native powers and the realization of capacities for intelligence and feeling. But however great may be the demands it makes or the opportunities it provides, no role is exhaustive of all that a person has the potentiality for becoming or of what he has become as the person he is. To be a person he must play more than one role and combine the playing of many. (shrink)

The papers presented at the Chicago Darwin Centennial suggest a fresh approach to the philosophical problem of ends in nature. In order to avoid the implications of "teleology," assumed to refer only to the process of evolution as directed towards goals, the discussants use "teleonomy" in reference to the biological organism as end-directed (for reproduction). They accept "teleonomy" only as descriptive, and neglect its significance for theory. The present thesis is that each of the three recognized phases of universal evolution: (...) inorganic, organic, and post-organic initiated by the advent of man and his culture, is characterized and made possible by the emergence of a distinctive type of teleonomic organization. While the process of evolutionary change is not itself end-directed to any goal, the end-directed structures which arise are not only "in nature" but are themselves crucial factors in evolution, since it is on them that natural selection operates. By using the concept of teleonomy, it is argued, one can avoid the issue of "mechanism" versus "teleology.". (shrink)

Monogenesis of language is widely accepted, but the conventional argument seems to be mistaken; a simple probabilistic model shows that polygenesis is likely. Other prehistoric inventions are discussed, as are problems in tracing linguistic lineages. Language is a system of representations; within such a system, words can evoke complex and systematic responses. Along with its social functions, language is important to humans as a mental instrument. Indeed, the invention of language,that is the accumulation of symbols to represent emotions, objects, and (...) acts may be the most important event in human evolution, because so many developments follow from it. For example, Edward Sapir speculated that some embryonic form of language must have been available to early man to help him fashion tools from stone (Sapir,1921). Sophisticated biface stone tools date to early Homo erectus some 1.5 million years ago, suggesting a similar age for language. This paper considers whether the invention of language occurred at only one pre-historic site or at several sites. In other words, did language emerge by monogenesis or polygenesis? Early thinkers believed in monogenesis, against a background of divine creation. Perhaps the best known account is the biblical story of Adam giving names to plants and animals in the Garden of Eden. Similar legends are found among many peoples. Modern linguists too assume monogenesis, but on probabilistic grounds (see, for instance, Southworth and Daswani, 1974, p.314). The argument seems to be that the invention of language is an extremely unlikely event, because symbolization involves abstraction and requires synchronized insight by several individuals; therefore, the probability of occurrence at more than one site must be vanishingly small. We have found no explicit quantitative treatment of this question in the literature, but the underlying logic has to be the multiplication of probabilities. If p is small at one site,then p.p for two sites is smaller still, and so on. This reasoning is false, as we show here. The fallacy lies in the focus on two particular sites rather than consideration of all pairs of sites. (shrink)

Collaboration requires agents to coordinate their behavior on the fly, sometimes cooperating to solve a single task together and other times dividing it up into sub‐tasks to work on in parallel. Underlying the human ability to collaborate is theory‐of‐mind (ToM), the ability to infer the hidden mental states that drive others to act. Here, we develop Bayesian Delegation, a decentralized multi‐agent learning mechanism with these abilities. Bayesian Delegation enables agents to rapidly infer the hidden intentions of others by inverse planning. (...) We test Bayesian Delegation in a suite of multi‐agent Markov decision processes inspired by cooking problems. On these tasks, agents with Bayesian Delegation coordinate both their high‐level plans (e.g., what sub‐task they should work on) and their low‐level actions (e.g., avoiding getting in each other's way). When matched with partners that act using the same algorithm, Bayesian Delegation outperforms alternatives. Bayesian Delegation is also a capable ad hoc collaborator and successfully coordinates with other agent types even in the absence of prior experience. Finally, in a behavioral experiment, we show that Bayesian Delegation makes inferences similar to human observers about the intent of others. Together, these results argue for the centrality of ToM for successful decentralized multi‐agent collaboration. (shrink)

Part one of this article introduces the conception of friendship and its connection with forgetfulness in Derrida and the Zhuangzi. Part two deals with the ethical focus of the discourse of friendship in Derrida and the Zhuangzi, which addresses the underlying relationship of oneself-other. Part three reveals how temporality and fleetingness are recognized as elements of friendship by Derrida and the Zhuangzi. While the Zhuangzi lacks the Derridean melancholic tone, this recognition helps both take the disruption, otherness and mourning of (...) friendship into account. Part four relates the Zhuangzian mutual forgetfulness of friends through effortless action (wuwei) to the Derridean criticism of classical friendship as ‘the second self’ and his assumption of difference, distance and disruption for friendship. Embracing these three ‘D’s’ leads Derrida to the structural ineluctability of forgetting to friendship. However, the Zhuangzi characterizes its ideal friendship in a style of simplicity, calmness, openness, desiring less and avoiding extremity, to emphasize naturalist suitability. (shrink)

The research study explores the philosophical viewpoints on cultural hybridity and considers how they affect the development of identities, moral behaviour, epistemological criticism, and real-world applications in a variety of fields. Cultural hybridity, which is defined as the blending of different cultural aspects, calls into question established ideas about identity and encourages us to reevaluate the flexibility and diversity that are fundamental to the human self. For measuring, the research study used the Smart PLS Algorithm Model related to variables through (...) this software run results included descriptive statistics, correlation coefficient, and the Smart PLS Algorithm Model between them. Philosophical investigations into cultural hybridity shed light on the dynamic interactions between identity and alterity, ethics and epistemology, and draw on the works of philosophers like Stuart Hall, Emmanuel Levinas, and Homi K. Bhabha. Cultural hybridity is an ethical imperative that requires us to shift our perspective towards the Other and welcome cultural variety with warmth and kindness. From an epistemological point of view, cultural hybridity upends hegemonic knowledge frameworks and creates pluralistic modes of knowledge creation that provide voice to underrepresented groups. Philosophical viewpoints on cultural hybridity have practical implications in urban planning, education, diplomacy, and intercultural communication. Overall result found that there is a direct and significant link between philosophical perspectives on the cultural hybridity related to dynamics of identity and alterity. These applications promote inclusive societies, social cohesion, and creativity. We began a revolutionary route towards a more globalized, compassionate, and linked society by accepting cultural hybridity. (shrink)

More and more tech-savvy learners are expanding the language learning environment with mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL).From the perspective of epistemological philosophy, this paper examines the relevance of the smartphone application effect, receptive vocabulary knowledge, and receptive language ability in the development of English vocabulary knowledge in Chinese college English learners. Fifty-four freshman English learners were divided into two groups. One group used a smartphone app, and the other used traditional memorization methods. The results showed that, first, there was a (...) significant difference in scores between the two groups, and the longer the experimental group used the app, the higher their scores on both long-term and short-term memory tests. Second, there is a high correlation and significant between the short-term and long-term vocabulary memory test scores of the two groups of students and the pre-test and post-test reading and listening scores. Thirdly, the role of motivation in learners' emotional factors may be related to the development of receptive vocabulary knowledge and receptive language skills. It is effective for freshmen of English universities in China to correctly use smartphone applications for vocabulary development. Vocabulary learning based on mobile devices positively impacts learners' emotional factors, so it is related to the increase of motivation. (shrink)

Based on social exchange and customer relationship marketing theory, this study examines how ethical leadership contributes to inter-organizational conflict management (task conflict (TC) and relationship conflict), and the moderating role of task interdependence in these relationships. Data was collected from 81 suppliers and 45 corresponding managers of a large group company in China. Results show that ethical leadership is negatively associated with the levels of inter-organizational conflict, whether task or relationship. Task interdependence significantly moderates the relationship between ethical leadership and (...) TC. Managerial implication in terms of creating sound buyer–supplier relationship through an ethical perspective is discussed. (shrink)

This investigation sought to find the relationships among multiple dimensions of personality and multiple features of language style. Unlike previous investigations, after controlling for such other moderators as culture and socio-demographics, the current investigation explored those dimensions of naturalistic spoken language that most closely align with communication. In groups of five to eight players, participants from eight international locales completed hour-long competitive games consisting of a series of ostensible missions. Composite measures of quantity, lexical diversity, sentiment, immediacy and negations were (...) measured with an automated tool called SPLICE and with Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. We also investigated style dynamics over the course of an interaction. We found predictors of extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, but overall fewer significant associations than prior studies, suggesting greater heterogeneity in language style in contexts entailing interactivity, conversation rather than solitary message production, oral rather than written discourse, and groups rather than dyads. Extraverts were found to maintain greater linguistic style consistency over the course of an interaction. The discussion addresses the potential for Type I error when studying the relationship between language and personality. (shrink)

One of the crucial fields of study that is getting more attention is association rule mining. It is crucial to databases' knowledge discovery (KDD). KDD and association rule mining have a very broad use. It has evolved at a rapid rate over the past fifteen years. Association Rule Mining is a novel technology, although it is still in the discovery and development stages. Video is an illustration of interactive media data since it contains text, pictures, meta-data, visual, sound, and different (...) kinds of data. It is frequently used for a variety of important likely reasons, such as security and reconnaissance, amusement, healthcare, educational endeavours, and sports. One of the main issues for the local data-mining research community is video data mining, which aims to find and comprehend fascinating examples from the large volume of video data. Video data mining is still in its infancy when compared to mining other sorts of data. It is pivotal to grasp and naturally mine the information from video databases considering the continually extending computerized libraries and video databases. Differentiating association rules between components in a significant video library is critical in the field of video data mining. As per continuous imaginative work, association rule mining is being utilized rapidly in various tasks, including perception, social affairs, broadcast news, sports, records, films, clinical data, as well as on the web and individual media assortments. This exploration tries to give a far-reaching method to association rule extraction from video databases. (shrink)

What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism. This history can be related even now; for necessity i...

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, EarlyView.

Binarizing belief aggregation tackles the problem of aggregating individuals’ probabilistic beliefs on logically connected propositions into the group’s binary beliefs. One common approach to associating probabilistic beliefs with binary beliefs would be applying thresholds to probabilities. This paper aims to introduce and classify a range of threshold-based binarizing belief aggregation rules while characterizing them based on different forms of monotonicity and other properties.