Little is known about the impact of context on the meaning of emotion words. In the present study, we used a semantic profiling instrument to investigate features representing five emotion components of 11 emotion words in situational contexts involving success or failure. We compared these to the data from an earlier study in which participants evaluated the typicality of features out of context. Profile analyses identified features for which typicality changed as a function of context for all emotion words, except (...) contentment, with appraisal features being most frequently affected. Those context effects occurred for both hypothesised basic and non-basic emotion words. Moreover, both data sets revealed a four-dimensional structure. The four dimensions were largely similar. The results suggest that context may not change the underlying dimensionality but affects facets of the meaning of emotion words. (shrink)

During the last several years we have witnessed heightened interest in the issue of CSR, which has been frequently raised at numerous conferences. In addition, a growing number of enterprises have become increasingly aware of the relevance of socially responsible actions and begun including them in the conducted business activity. CSR is gradually becoming an integral part of the company strategy. It is best demonstrated in companies with a large share of foreign capital, where Polish subsidiaries adopt patterns from the (...) parent companies. In the first two parts, the paper outlines the programs of CSR, their key elements and premises, as well as introduces the importance of the company strategy. The final part attempts to convince the reader that along the development of the CSR concept, a gradual process of converting theory into practice is taking place. The CSR programs are becoming an important element of the business strategy. Companies, bigger ones in particular, have begun to take account of the strategies closely interlinked with the very CSR programs. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the ways in which Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising (1963) and Steven Spielberg’s Duel (1971) draw on and challenge selected road movie conventions by adhering to the genre’s traditional reliance on cultural critique revolving around the themes of rebellion, transgression and roguery. In particular, the films seem to confront the classic road movie format through their adoption of nomadic narrative structure and engagement in a mockery of subversion where the focus on social critique is intertwined with a deep (...) sense of alienation and existential loss “laden with psychological confusion and wayward angst” (Laderman 83). Following this trend, Spielberg’s film simultaneously depoliticizes the genre and maintains the tension between rebellion and tradition where the former shifts away from the conflict with conformist society to masculine anxiety, represented by middle class, bourgeois and capitalist values, the protagonist’s loss of innocence in the film’s finale, and the act of roguery itself. Meanwhile, Anger’s poetic take on the outlaw biker culture, burgeoning homosexuality, myth and ritual, and violence and death culture approaches the question of roguery by undermining the image of a dominant hypermasculinity with an ironic commentary on sacrilegious and sadomasochistic practices and initiation rites in the gay community. Moreover, both Duel’s demonization of the truck, seen as “an indictment of machines” or the mechanization of life (Spielberg qtd. in Crawley 26), and Scorpio Rising’s (homo)eroticization of a motorcycle posit elements of social critique, disobedience and nonconformity within a cynical and existential framework, hence merging the road movie’s traditional discourse with auteurism and modernism. (shrink)

Expectations in the form of promises and concerns contribute to the sense-making and valuation of emerging nanotechnologies. They add up to what we call ‘de facto assessments’ of novel socio-technical options. We explore how de facto assessments of nanotechnologies differ in the application domains of water and food by examining promises and concerns, and their relations in scientific discourse. We suggest that domain characteristics such as prior experiences with emerging technologies, specific discursive repertoires and user-producer relationships, play a key role (...) in framing expectations of nanotechnology-enabled options. The article concludes by suggesting that domain-specific discourses may lead to undesirable lock-ins into specific de facto assessments pre-structuring anticipatory strategies of actors. (shrink)

Verifying that conceptualisations of emotions are consistent across languages and cultures is a critical precondition for meaningful cross-cultural research on emotional experience. For achievement...

Affective effects on breadth of attention have been related to aspects of different components of affective states such as the arousal and valence of affective experience and the motivational intensity of action tendency. As none of these explanations fully aligns with existing evidence, we hypothesised that affective effects on breadth of attention may arise from the appraisal component of affective states. Based on this reconceptualisation, we tested the effects of conduciveness and power appraisals on two measures of breadth of attention. (...) In two web-based experiments, we manipulated these appraisals in a 2 × 2 design using a game-like arithmetic task where participants could (1) gain or lose rewards (goal conducive vs. obstructive) based on (2) either their action or the actions of a “robot” (high vs. low power). Breadth of attention was assessed using the flanker task (Experiment 1; n = 236) and the Navon task (Experiment 2; n = 215). We found that appraisals did not directly influence breadth of attention even though high power appraisal significantly improved the overall performance in both experiments indicating successful appraisal manipulation. We discuss ways in which these findings inform future efforts to explain the origins of affective effects on attentional breadth. (shrink)

Problem: Visions of technology, future scenarios, guiding visions represent imaginations of future states of affairs that play a functional role in processes of technological research, development and innovation—e.g. as a means to create attention, communication, coordination, or for the strategic exertion of influence. Since a couple of years there is a growing attention for such imaginations of futures in politics, the economy, research and the civil society. This trend concerns technology assessment as an observer of these processes and a consultant (...) on the implications of technology and innovation. TA faces increasing demands to assess imaginations of futures that circulate in the present and to participate in shaping these through scenarios or foresights. More than ever, this raises the question, which propositions can be made based on these imaginations by TA and how this can be used in advisory practices. Imaginations of futures are relevant for TA not as predictions but in their significance and effectiveness in the present, which need to be understood and assessed.Contents: This discussion paper outlines how present significance and effects of imagined futures in technological research and innovation processes can be conceived and analyzed. In this paper, all forms of imaginations of technology futures will be called “socio-technical futures” because within them technological developments and social changes are interwoven and inseparably interrelated. In this paper, we discuss why TA should analyze socio-technical futures, how such analyses can grasp the societal conditions that are expressed in the imagined futures and how these become effective in processes of technology development, communication, decision making etc. We raise the question which self-reflexive positioning or possible realignment of TA is needed as a response to its increased concern with assessing and even co-producing socio-technical futures. The latter is often demanded regarding the growing attention by politics and publics to imaginations of futures with wide temporal and spatial reach.Addressee of this paper is the TA community in a broader sense. The aim is to sensitize colleagues for the topic and its challenges, to consolidate discussions and to provide theoretical and methodical suggestions for research in TA and related advisory practices with respect to socio-technical futures. This paper has been originally initiated during the workshop “The present of technological futures-theoretical and methodical challenges for Technology Assessment”, in which all of the paper’s authors participated. The contents of this discussion paper are preliminary results that shall initiate and guide further discussions. (shrink)