Attitudes toward robots influence the tendency to accept or reject robotic devices. Thus it is important to investigate whether and how attitudes toward robots can change. In this pilot study we investigate attitudinal changes in elderly citizens toward a tele-operated robot in relation to three parameters: (i) the information provided about robot functionality, (ii) the number of encounters, (iii) personality type. Fourteen elderly residents at a rehabilitation center participated. Pre-encounter attitudes toward robots, anthropomorphic thinking, and personality were assessed. Thereafter the (...) participants interacted with a tele-operated robot (Telenoid) during their lunch (c. 30 min.) for up to 3 days. Half of the participants were informed that the robot was tele-operated (IC) whilst the other half were naïve to its functioning (UC). Post-encounter assessments of attitudes toward robots and anthropomorphic thinking were undertaken to assess change. Attitudes toward robots were assessed with a new generic 35-items questionnaire (attitudes toward social robots scale: ASOR-5), offering a differentiated conceptualization of the conditions for social interaction. There was no significant difference between the IC and UC groups in attitude change toward robots though trends were observed. Personality was correlated with some tendencies for attitude changes; Extraversion correlated with positive attitude changes to intimate-personal relatedness with the robot (r = 0.619) and to psychological relatedness (r = 0.581) whilst Neuroticism correlated negatively (r = -0.582) with mental relatedness with the robot. The results tentatively suggest that neither information about functionality nor direct repeated encounters are pivotal in changing attitudes toward robots in elderly citizens. This may reflect a cognitive congruence bias where the robot is experienced in congruence with initial attitudes, or it may support action-based explanations of cognitive dissonance reductions, given that robots, unlike computers, are not yet perceived as action targets. Specific personality traits may be indicators of attitude change relating to specific domains of social interaction. Implications and future directions are discussed. (shrink)

Excerpt from System des Moralischen Bewusstseins: Mit Besonderer Darlegung des Verha lnesses der Kritischen Philosohie zu Darwinismus und Socialismus Das neu erwachte Interesse fur die geistigen und individuellen Probleme des Menschenlebens hat im Zusammenhang mit den Fragen der social-okonomischen Entwicklung eine erhohte Teilnahme fur moralwissenschaftliche Untersuchungen hervorgebracht. Nachdem man eine Zeit lang das sociale Leben nur von politischen und wirtschaftlichen Gesichtspunkten betrachtet hat, beginnt man neuerdings auch einen sittlichen Massstab an dasselbe zu legen. Der an das naturliche und sociale Objekt (...) verlorene Menschengeist beginnt sich auf sich selber zu besinnen. Aus Zweifelsucht und Schopferdrang entspringt die Sehnsucht nach einem neuen Gewissen, das den gereifteren Zwecken und entwickelteren Bedurfnissen des gegenwartigen Menschen entspricht. Man reifst sich los von dem Zwang uberlieferter und konventioneller Sitten und durchschneidet mit den Waffen des Zweifels und der Kritik die Fesseln dogmatisch - religioser Lebensregeln. Aus den epochemachenden Forschungen der Naturwissenschaft, namentlich aus der Erkenntnis der naturgeschichtlichen Entstehung des Menschengeschlechts ringen sich neue moralische Aufklarungen und padagogisch wirksame Entwicklungsreize empor. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.". (shrink)

As a neo-liberal economy, India has become one of the new health tourism destinations, with commercial gestational surrogacy as an expanding market. Yet the Indian Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill has been pending for five years, and the guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research are somewhat vague and contradictory, resulting in self-regulated practices of fertility clinics. This paper broadly looks at clinical ethics in reproduction in the practice of surrogacy and decision-making in various procedures. Through empirical research in (...) New Delhi, the capital of India, from December 2011 to November 2012, issues of decision-making on embryo transfer, fetal reduction, and mode of delivery were identified. Interviews were carried out with doctors in eighteen ART clinics, agents from four agencies, and fourteen surrogates. In aiming to fulfil the commissioning parents’ demands, doctors were willing to go to the greatest extent possible in their medical practice. Autonomy and decision-making regarding choice of the number of embryos to transfer and the mode of delivery lay neither with commissioning parents nor surrogate mothers but mostly with doctors. In order to ensure higher success rates, surrogates faced the risk of multiple pregnancy and fetal reduction with little information regarding the risks involved. In the globalized market of commercial surrogacy in India, and with clinics compromising on ethics, there is an urgent need for formulation of regulative law for the clinical practice and maintenance of principles of reproductive ethics in order to ensure that the interests of surrogate mothers are safeguarded. (shrink)

In recent years, cross-national collaboration in medical research has gained increased policy attention. Policies are developed to enhance data sharing, ensure open-access, and harmonize international standards and ethics rules in order to promote access to existing resources and increase scientific output. In tandem with this promotion of data sharing, numerous ethics policies are developed to control data flows and protect privacy and confidentiality. Both sets of policy making, however, pay limited attention to the moral decisions and social ties enacted in (...) the everyday routines of scientific work. This paper takes its point of departure in the practices of a Danish laboratory with great experience in international collaboration regarding genetic research. We focus on a simple query, what makes genetic material and health data flow, and which hopes and concerns travel along with them? We explore what we call the flows, the nonflows, and the overflows of material and information, and we document the work producing the flows of health data and biomaterial. We call this work “ethics work” and argue that it is crucial for data sharing though it is rarely articulated in ethics policies, remains inadequately funded, and lacks acknowledgment in policies promoting international data sharing. (shrink)

When does an English businessman's ‘yes’really mean ‘no’, ‘maybe’, ‘later’, or perhaps ‘probably not’? And how much of this is unethical stringing along or part of a puzzling English business culture? Why can't they say what they mean? Dr Djursaa is Associate Professor with responsibility for British political and social studies at the Business Language Faculty of Copenhagen Business School, Dalgas Have 15, DK‐2000 Copenhagen F, Denmark. She gained her doctorate at the University of Essex and spent a period as (...) visiting fellow at Cranfield School of Management. Her major field of research, on which she here reflects, is cultural factors in Anglo‐Danish business relations. (shrink)

Patient‐centred care has gained ground in health service following a health policy initiative aimed at changing the paternalistic culture towards one with more patient involvement. Development of knowledge relating to people's lived experiences of illness is important in this context. Literature in the field of health science describes methods for exploring what is at stake for people affected by illness, and the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur has been a significant source of inspiration. Especially, Ricoeur's interpretation theory has been construed and (...) applied in different, often schematic, methodological variations, whereas his narrative philosophy is a little used source of inspiration. Health science has been characterized by a biomedical awareness of method and the idea that there is a direct and immediate path to patients' experiences, a viewpoint that can be traced back to Descartes and the philosophy of subjectivism. Opposed to Descartes, Ricoeur says that we are already embedded in a world of traditions and meanings over which we have no control. According to Ricoeur, we leave traces when we express ourselves, and traces are formed by the world of meanings and traditions to which we belong. Often, the sense in the traces is hidden, making it impossible to directly understand individual's experiences. Reflection on an individual's lived experiences must take place via the narratives in which the individual expresses themselves. The centrepiece of Ricoeur's narrative philosophy is the threefold mimesis, which is an approach to understanding the meaning of peoples' lived experiences. The philosophical hermeneutics of Gadamer plays an important role in Ricoeur's theory of interpretation, although he has criticized Gadamer for failing to include one dimension in his philosophy; he finds this dimension in Habermas' ideology critique. Ricoeur's ideology critique is absent in health science research, which is why it has been made a focal point in this article. (shrink)

Across the European research area and beyond, efforts are being mobilized to align research and innovation processes and products with societal values and needs, and to create mechanisms for inclusive priority setting and knowledge production. A central concern is how to foster a culture of “Responsible Research and Innovation” among scientists and engineers. This paper focuses on RRI teaching at higher education institutions. On the basis of interviews and reviews of academic and policy documents, it highlights the generic aspects of (...) teaching aimed at invoking a sense of care and societal obligation, and provides a set of exemplary cases of RRI-related teaching. It argues that the Aristotelian concept of phronesis can capture core properties of the objectives of RRI-related teaching activities. Teaching should nurture the students’ capacity in terms of practical wisdom, practical ethics, or administrative ability in order to enable them to act virtuously and responsibly in contexts which are often characterized by uncertainty, contention, and controversy. (shrink)

“Integrative Social Robotics” (ISR) is a new approach or general method for generating social robotics applications in a responsible and “culturally sustainable” fashion. Currently social robotics is caught in a basic difficulty we call the “triple gridlock of description, evaluation, and regulation”. We briefly recapitulate this problem and then present the core ideas of ISR in the form of five principles that should guide the development of applications in social robotics. Characteristic of ISR is to intertwine a mixed method approach (...) (i.e., conducting experimental, quantitative, qualitative, and phenomenological research for the same envisaged application) with conceptual and axiological analysis as required in professional studies in applied ethics; moreover, ISR is value-driven and abides by the “Non-Replacement Principle”: Social robots may only do what humans should but cannot do. We briefly compare ISR to other value-sensitive or value-directed design models, with a view to the task of overcoming the triple gridlock. Finally, working from an advanced classification of pluridiscplinary research, we argue that ISR establishes a research format that can turn social robotics into a new transdiscipline. (shrink)

Technological development plays a critical role in society’s ability to address environmental issues. Building on Teece’s profiting from innovation framework, we articulate how a double-externality problem weakens the appropriability regime surrounding pollution reduction technology (PRT). We then develop a theoretical framework articulating how weak appropriability induces firms to modify their innovation strategies for PRT development by increasing the extent to which they engage in organizational exploration (rather than exploitation) and emphasizing incremental (rather than radical) technologies. Noting that the effects of (...) weak appropriability are unlikely to be static, we detail how the accumulation of organizational capabilities for reducing pollution diminishes the extent to which firms modify their innovation strategies for PRT. That is, firms become less exploratory and less focused on incremental technology as they gain experience with pollution reduction. Results of broad-sample empirical analyses of 206,277 patents held by 203 U.S. manufacturing firms over a 20-year period provide support for our framework. (shrink)

Evaluating the feasibility and first perceived outcomes of a newly developed clinical ethics support instrument called CURA. This instrument is tailored to the needs of nurses that provide palliative care and is intended to foster both moral competences and moral resilience. This study is a descriptive cross-sectional evaluation study. Respondents consisted of nurses and nurse assistants (n = 97) following a continuing education program (course participants) and colleagues of these course participants (n = 124). Two questionnaires with five-point Likert scales (...) were used. The feasibility questionnaire was given to all respondents, the perceived outcomes questionnaire only to the course participants. Data collection took place over a period of six months. Respondents were predominantly positive on most items of the feasibility questionnaire. The steps of CURA are clearly described (84% of course participants agreed or strongly agreed, 94% of colleagues) and easy to apply (78–87%). The perceived outcomes showed that CURA helped respondents to reflect on moral challenges (71% (strongly) agreed), in perspective taking (67%), with being aware of moral challenges (63%) and in dealing with moral distress (54%). Respondents did experience organizational barriers: only half of the respondents (strongly) agreed that they could easily find time for using CURA. CURA is a feasible instrument for nurses and nurse assistants providing palliative care. However, reported difficulties in organizing and making time for reflections with CURA indicate organizational preconditions ought to be met in order to implement CURA in daily practice. Furthermore, these results indicate that CURA helps to build moral competences and fosters moral resilience. (shrink)

This article presents an ethics support instrument for healthcare professionals called CURA. It is designed with a focus on and together with nurses and nurse assistants in palliative care. First, we shortly go into the background and the development study of the instrument. Next, we describe the four steps CURA prescribes for ethical reflection: (1) Concentrate, (2) Unrush, (3) Reflect, and (4) Act. In order to demonstrate how CURA can structure a moral reflection among caregivers, we discuss how a case (...) was discussed with CURA at a psychogeriatric ward of an elderly care home. Furthermore, we go into some considerations regarding the use of the instrument in clinical practice. Finally, we focus on the need for further research on the effectiveness and implementation of CURA. (shrink)

Evaluating the feasibility and first perceived outcomes of a newly developed clinical ethics support instrument called CURA. This instrument is tailored to the needs of nurses that provide palliative care and is intended to foster both moral competences and moral resilience. This study is a descriptive cross-sectional evaluation study. Respondents consisted of nurses and nurse assistants (n = 97) following a continuing education program (course participants) and colleagues of these course participants (n = 124). Two questionnaires with five-point Likert scales (...) were used. The feasibility questionnaire was given to all respondents, the perceived outcomes questionnaire only to the course participants. Data collection took place over a period of six months. Respondents were predominantly positive on most items of the feasibility questionnaire. The steps of CURA are clearly described (84% of course participants agreed or strongly agreed, 94% of colleagues) and easy to apply (78–87%). The perceived outcomes showed that CURA helped respondents to reflect on moral challenges (71% (strongly) agreed), in perspective taking (67%), with being aware of moral challenges (63%) and in dealing with moral distress (54%). Respondents did experience organizational barriers: only half of the respondents (strongly) agreed that they could easily find time for using CURA. CURA is a feasible instrument for nurses and nurse assistants providing palliative care. However, reported difficulties in organizing and making time for reflections with CURA indicate organizational preconditions ought to be met in order to implement CURA in daily practice. Furthermore, these results indicate that CURA helps to build moral competences and fosters moral resilience. (shrink)

When does an English businessman's ‘yes’really mean ‘no’, ‘maybe’, ‘later’, or perhaps ‘probably not’? And how much of this is unethical stringing along or part of a puzzling English business culture? Why can't they say what they mean? Dr Djursaa is Associate Professor with responsibility for British political and social studies at the Business Language Faculty of Copenhagen Business School, Dalgas Have 15, DK‐2000 Copenhagen F, Denmark. She gained her doctorate at the University of Essex and spent a period as (...) visiting fellow at Cranfield School of Management. Her major field of research, on which she here reflects, is cultural factors in Anglo‐Danish business relations. (shrink)

Background: The surge in the development of social robots gives rise to an increased need for systematic methods of assessing attitudes towards robots. Aim: This study presents the development of a questionnaire for assessing attitudinal stance towards social robots: the ASOR. Methods: The 37-item ASOR questionnaire was developed by a task-force with members from different disciplines. It was founded on theoretical considerations of how social robots could influence five different aspects of relatedness. Results: Three hundred thirty-nine people responded to the (...) survey. Factor analysis of the ASOR yielded a three-factor solution consisting of a total of 25 items: “ascription of mental capacities”, “ascription of socio-practical capacities”, and “ascription of socio-moral status”. This data was further triangulated with data from interviews (n = 10). Conclusion: the ASOR allows for assessment of three distinct facets of ascription of capacities to social robots and offers a new type of assessment of attitudes towards social robots. It appeared that ASOR not only assesses ascription of capacities to social robots but it also gauged overall positive attitudes towards social robots. (shrink)

Background: Clinical ethics support instruments aim to support healthcare professionals in dealing with moral challenges in clinical practice. CURA is a relatively new instrument tailored to the wishes and needs of healthcare professionals in palliative care, especially nurses. It aims to foster their moral resilience and moral competences. Aim: To investigate the effects of using CURA on healthcare professionals regarding their Moral Resilience and Moral Competences. Design: Single group pre-/post-test design with two questionnaires. Methods: Questionnaires used were the Rushton Moral (...) Resilience Scale measuring Moral Resilience and the Euro-MCD, measuring Moral Competences. Respondents mainly consisted of nurses and nurse assistants who used CURA in daily practice. Forty-seven respondents contributed to both pre- and post-test with 18 months between both tests. Analysis was done using descriptive statistics and Wilcoxon signed rank tests. This study followed the SQUIRE checklist. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Amsterdam UMC. Informed consent was obtained from all respondents. Results: The total Moral Resilience score and the scores of two subscales of the RMRS, that is, Responses to Moral Adversity and Relational Integrity, increased significantly. All subscales of the Euro-MCD increased significantly at posttest. Using CURA more often did not lead to significant higher scores on most (sub) scales. Conclusion: This study indicates that CURA can be used to foster moral resilience and moral competences of healthcare professionals. CURA therefore is a promising instrument to support healthcare professionals in dealing with moral challenges in everyday practice. (shrink)

Background: The surge in the development of social robots gives rise to an increased need for systematic methods of assessing attitudes towards robots. Aim: This study presents the development of a questionnaire for assessing attitudinal stance towards social robots: the ASOR. Methods: The 37-item ASOR questionnaire was developed by a task-force with members from different disciplines. It was founded on theoretical considerations of how social robots could influence five different aspects of relatedness. Results: Three hundred thirty-nine people responded to the (...) survey. Factor analysis of the ASOR yielded a three-factor solution consisting of a total of 25 items: “ascription of mental capacities”, “ascription of socio-practical capacities”, and “ascription of socio-moral status”. This data was further triangulated with data from interviews (n = 10). Conclusion: the ASOR allows for assessment of three distinct facets of ascription of capacities to social robots and offers a new type of assessment of attitudes towards social robots. It appeared that ASOR not only assesses ascription of capacities to social robots but it also gauged overall positive attitudes towards social robots. (shrink)

We studied retrieval-induced forgetting for past or future autobiographical experiences. In the study phase, participants were given cues to remember past autobiographical experiences or to think about experiences that may occur in the future. In both conditions, half of the experiences were positive and half negative. In the retrieval-practice phase, for past and future experiences, participants retrieved either half of the positive or negative experiences using cued recall, or capitals of the world. Retrieval practice produced recall facilitation and enhanced memory (...) for the practised positive and negative past and future experiences. While retrieval practice on positive experiences did not impair the recall of other positive experiences, we found inhibition for negative past and future experiences when participants practised negative experiences. Furthermore, retrieval practice on positive future experiences inhibited negative future experiences. These positivity biases for autobiographical memory may have practical implications for treatment of emotional disorders. (shrink)

This article addresses resilience in relation to climate change. Currently, our communities are not resilient to climate changes due to a strikingly limited political and scientific framing of climate change as solely a problem of emissions and individual behaviour. Owing to vulgarized interpretations of individual incentives for climate action, contextual barriers to action and the efficiency of individual climate action, this causes an action deficit on both collective and individual levels. We argue that a paradigm shift is needed in order (...) to engage with more adequate academic analysis and efficient policies. This new paradigm should focus on the capacities of societal institutions, which reflect precisely the level of climate resilience in a society. Resilience is not about societal and political immovability when faced with crisis of the dimensions of the climate crisis. It is about changing our society and politics and building institutions that enable us to properly respond to crisis. (shrink)

Across the European research area and beyond, efforts are being mobilized to align research and innovation processes and products with societal values and needs, and to create mechanisms for inclusive priority setting and knowledge production. A central concern is how to foster a culture of “Responsible Research and Innovation” (RRI) among scientists and engineers. This paper focuses on RRI teaching at higher education institutions. On the basis of interviews and reviews of academic and policy documents, it highlights the generic aspects (...) of teaching aimed at invoking a sense of care and societal obligation, and provides a set of exemplary cases of RRI-related teaching. It argues that the Aristotelian concept of phronesis can capture core properties of the objectives of RRI-related teaching activities. Teaching should nurture the students’ capacity in terms of practical wisdom, practical ethics, or administrative ability in order to enable them to act virtuously and responsibly in contexts which are often characterized by uncertainty, contention, and controversy. (shrink)

The present narrative review seeks to unravel where we are now, and where we need to go to delineate the active ingredients in psychotherapy delivered by conversational agents (e.g., chatbots). While psychotherapy delivered by conversational agents has shown promising effectiveness for depression, anxiety, and psychological distress across several randomized controlled trials, little emphasis has been placed on the therapeutic processes in these interventions. The theoretical framework of this narrative review is grounded in prominent perspectives on the active ingredients in psychotherapy. (...) Based on search terms derived from various theoretical perspectives, we conducted a systematic literature search of four scientific databases and identified 17 studies. Across the selected studies, three themes emerged: relationship variables, emotional venting, and cognitive factors. While methodological issues compromise the epistemic value of this evidence base, core questions also remain to be answered. Such questions include, but are not limited to, whether humans can form affectionate bonds to inanimate beings and whether these kind of mental health treatments should be understood as psychotherapy or something else. Researchers should therefore be cautious when applying theories of psychotherapy in the realm of conversational agents. We conclude the paper by introducing recommendations for future research, which we hope will help instigate methodologically sound studies in this field. (shrink)

BackgroundExisting clinical ethics support (CES) instruments are considered useful. However, users report obstacles in using them in daily practice. Including end users and other stakeholders in developing CES instruments might help to overcome these limitations. This study describes the development process of a new ethics support instrument called CURA, a low-threshold four-step instrument focused on nurses and nurse assistants working in palliative care. MethodWe used a participatory development design. We worked together with stakeholders in a Community of Practice throughout the (...) study. Potential end users (nurses and nurse assistants in palliative care) used CURA in several pilots and provided us with feedback which we used to improve CURA.ResultsWe distinguished three phases in the development process. Phase one, Identifying Needs, focused on identifying stakeholder and end user needs and preferences, learning from existing CES instruments, their development and evaluation, and identify gaps. Phase two, Development, focused on designing, developing, refining and tailoring the instrument on the basis of iterative co-creation. Phase three, Dissemination, focused on implementation and dissemination. The instrument, CURA, is a four-step low-threshold instrument that fosters ethical reflection.ConclusionsParticipatory development is a valuable approach for developing clinical ethics support instruments. Collaborating with end users and other stakeholders in our development study has helped to meet the needs and preferences of end users, to come up with strategies to refine the instrument in order to enhance its feasibility, and to overcome reported limitations of existing clinical ethics instruments. (shrink)

Although there is a growing acknowledgement of the potential of a more nuanced healthcare paradigm and practice, the discourses of health promotion—and with that nursing and other healthcare professionals’ practice—still tend to focus on the medical diagnosis, disease and the rationale of biomedicine. There is a need for shifting to a human practice that draws on a broader perspective related to illness. This requires a transformation of practices which can be constructed within a narrative understanding. A narrative approach appreciates the (...) importance of emotion and intersubjective relation in the telling and listening that occur in the clinical encounter. The essence of nursing lies in the creative imagination, the sensitive spirit and the intelligent understanding of the individuals’ possibilities of becoming empowered in his or her own life. This entails that the focus of the use of patients’ narratives is, ultimately, not the story itself, but the nurses’ and other healthcare professionals’ ability to support the patients in finding useful meaning in their stories. Herein, it is of particular importance to let the patients narrate about what is sparkling moments or events in the lived life. Stories with such focus can open up for patients’ hopes and dreams, which gives inspiration for finding meaningful ways to cope in life empowering personal recovery. It is, therefore, crucial to transform clinical settings into places that acknowledge the need for imagination and creativity, aiming at creating the opportunity for sensibility and vision essential to encouraging a narrative approach and thereby the ability to reflect upon and promote a healing process. (shrink)

‘Metaphysical painting’ (‘pittura metafisica’) is a paradoxical term: extrasensory sensuousness, as it were. Painting is the representation of visible surfaces; metaphysics rejects surfaces, as deceptive, in favour of the deeper essence. But Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) who coined the term ‘pittura metafisica’ in 1919 was a follower of the anti-essentialist Nietzsche. ‘Metaphysics’, then, is not about discovering the essence of things but about shaping their appearances, their ‘physique’. This is an intriguing concept and the corollary to a subtle artistic oeuvre.

Cet ouvrage prend pour objet les effets de la féminisation massive des activités équestres depuis l’après-guerre, tant au niveau statistique que du point de vue du contenu des pratiques. Le sous-titre choisi établit une certaine ambigüité sur la démarche adoptée : il pose la question d’une « avancée », c’est à dire d’un progrès que constituerait ou non la présence des femmes dans le domaine équestre. « Avancée » (mise ici en doute) pour qui? Pour les femmes? Pour les chevaux? (...) Pour l’activi... (shrink)