Research within the H2020 PROGRESSIVE project has identified good practices in user co-production strategies and methodologies. Early findings from research in the PROGRESSIVE project were shared with relevant stakeholders outside the consortium for consultation and review. The outcomes of that initial investigation highlighted the need to focus on the objectives, processes, and methods used in user and older people co-production. This guide adapts these insights and makes them relevant specifically for standardisation in ICT for active and healthy ageing. This guide (...) was approved by representatives of the PROGRESSIVE project on 22 February 2018. The consortium has requested comments from interested stakeholders in an enquiry from 1 March to 30 April 2018. The PROGRESSIVE guide was approved on 5 June 2018. (shrink)

When people are engaged in social interaction, they can repeat aspects of each other’s communicative behavior, such as words or gestures. This kind of behavioral alignment has been studied across a wide range of disciplines and has been accounted for by diverging theories. In this paper, we review various operationalizations of lexical and gestural alignment. We reveal that scholars have fundamentally different takes on when and how behavior is considered to be aligned, which makes it difficult to compare findings and (...) draw uniform conclusions. Furthermore, we show that scholars tend to focus on one particular dimension of alignment (traditionally, whether two instances of behavior overlap in form), while other dimensions remain understudied. This hampers theory testing and building, which requires a well‐defined account of the factors that are central to or might enhance alignment. To capture the complex nature of alignment, we identify five key dimensions to formalize the relationship between any pair of behavior: time, sequence, meaning, form, and modality. We show how assumptions regarding the underlying mechanism of alignment (placed along the continuum of priming vs. grounding) pattern together with operationalizations in terms of the five dimensions. This integrative framework can help researchers in the field of alignment and related phenomena (including behavior matching, mimicry, entrainment, and accommodation) to formulate their hypotheses and operationalizations in a more transparent and systematic manner. The framework also enables us to discover unexplored research avenues and derive new hypotheses regarding alignment. (shrink)

Depressive symptoms and disorders are major public health concerns, affecting many adolescents and young adults. Despite extensive research, depression prevention programs for youth show limited effectiveness. Moreover, the maximal potential of youth psychotherapy — on which depression prevention programs are based — may have been reached. Commercial video games may offer an engaging alternative vehicle for youth to practice emotional and social skills vital to mental health. The current study investigated the potential for the commercial video game Journey to prevent (...) the exacerbation of depressive symptoms. A pre-registered randomized controlled trial tested the effectiveness of Journey as an indicated depression prevention approach compared to a control game condition and a passive control condition. Additionally, potential action mechanisms for depression prevention using video games were examined. Participants aged 15 to 20 years old with elevated depressive symptoms were given 4 weeks to play Journey or the control game, Flower. Results showed no beneficial effects of playing the commercial video game, Journey, on youth’s change in depressive symptoms above and beyond the active and passive control conditions up to 12-months after the intervention. Additionally, no action mechanisms were found specifically for Journey. Nevertheless, over the whole study, participants decreased in depressive symptoms, became less sensitive to rejection, and experienced more hope and optimism. Moreover, participants who during the study decreased in rejection sensitivity or rumination or who increased in hope and optimism or in distraction and problem solving showed the strongest decrease in depressive symptoms. Although results do not support the use of the studied commercial game as an effective indicated depression prevention strategy, our results do suggest that rejection sensitivity, hope, optimism, rumination, distraction, and problem solving are promising targets for future depression prevention efforts. We conclude with important lessons for future research on games to promote mental health. Particularly, encouraging careful consideration of research designs to explore for whom and how potential action mechanisms and associated game mechanics may be effective. (shrink)

This article explores the republican critiques of commercial society of Jean‐Jacques Rousseau and Adam Ferguson, focusing on their kindred analyses of social alienation. The joint study of these thinkers reveals a Rousseauean strand of eighteenth‐century republicanism that effectively combined a traditional (yet idiosyncratic) Stoic view of human flourishing with an innovative, proto‐sociological analysis and critique of quintessentially modern social phenomena. Rousseau and Ferguson regard alienation as a loss of wholeness, both in humans individually and in their relations to their (social) (...) surroundings. The article addresses two specific aspects of alienation in commercial society as the two thinkers see it. The first aspect concerns the insincerity underpinning the new moral vocabulary of polite sociability; the second aspect concerns the division of labor. According to Rousseau and Ferguson, this division threatens true human flourishing as well as political liberty. Finally, the conservative dimension of their republican solutions for overcoming alienation and bolstering liberty is considered. (shrink)

This article undertakes a comparative study of the conjectural histories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Ferguson, focusing on the convergences in the moral and political ideals expressed and grounded in these histories. In comparison with Scots like Adam Smith and John Millar, the conjectural histories of Ferguson and Rousseau follow a similar historical trajectory as regards the development and progress of commercial, political and cultural arts. However, their assessment of the moral progress of humanity does not, or in a much (...) more limited way than in Smith and Millar, correlate with this trajectory. Rousseau and Ferguson see a candour and vigour in savage and barbarian societies that is much less easily supported by the complex socio-economic framework of modern, commercial societies. It is argued that the convergences in their conjectural histories arise from a similar fusion of these histories with Stoic and republican perspectives. While Rousseau and Ferguson do not see history as cyclical, they think that the forces that push towards moral decline are strong and can, on the political level, only be countered by firm republican policies. Furthermore, their shared Stoic ideal of the life lived according to nature informs their solutions for modern societies. (shrink)

This article undertakes a comparative study of the conjectural histories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Ferguson, focusing on the convergences in the moral and political ideals expressed and grounded in these histories. In comparison with Scots like Adam Smith and John Millar, the conjectural histories of Ferguson and Rousseau follow a similar historical trajectory as regards the development and progress of commercial, political and cultural arts. However, their assessment of the moral progress of humanity does not, or in a much (...) more limited way than in Smith and Millar, correlate with this trajectory. Rousseau and Ferguson see a candour and vigour in savage and barbarian societies that is much less easily supported by the complex socio-economic framework of modern, commercial societies. It is argued that the convergences in their conjectural histories arise from a similar fusion of these histories with Stoic and republican perspectives. While Rousseau and Ferguson do not see history as cyclical, they think that the forces that push towards moral decline are strong and can, on the political level, only be countered by firm republican policies. Furthermore, their shared Stoic ideal of the life lived according to nature informs their solutions for modern societies. (shrink)

This article undertakes a comparative study of the conjectural histories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Ferguson, focusing on the convergences in the moral and political ideals expressed and grounded in these histories. In comparison with Scots like Adam Smith and John Millar, the conjectural histories of Ferguson and Rousseau follow a similar historical trajectory as regards the development and progress of commercial, political and cultural arts. However, their assessment of the moral progress of humanity does not, or in a much (...) more limited way than in Smith and Millar, correlate with this trajectory. Rousseau and Ferguson see a candour and vigour in savage and barbarian societies that is much less easily supported by the complex socio-economic framework of modern, commercial societies. It is argued that the convergences in their conjectural histories arise from a similar fusion of these histories with Stoic and republican perspectives. While Rousseau and Ferguson do not see history as cyclical, they think that the forces that push towards moral decline are strong and can, on the political level, only be countered by firm republican policies. Furthermore, their shared Stoic ideal of the life lived according to nature informs their solutions for modern societies. (shrink)

This paper affirms the central role of religion in Adam Ferguson's practical thought by offering a new reading of his view on the interrelations between true religion, science, moral progress, and immortality. Fergusonian true religion, it is shown, originates in the understanding of wise, benevolent Providence which the physical and moral sciences offer when they become comprehensive. This understanding, in turn, grounds a neo-Stoic religious ethic. Having true religion then means: knowing the providential order, and virtuously acting upon a proper (...) understanding of one's place, potential, and limits in this order. For Ferguson, it is argued, it is each individual's own responsibility to morally progress on the basis of true religion. The paper thus opposes interpretations of Ferguson's view of moral progress as the irreversible result of the species’ ever-increasing insight in the details of nature as a providential order. Human societies can only offer a fertile backdrop that enables individuals to live rationally and virtuously. The highest possible degree of human moral-religious progress is to be realized in the afterlife – if the individual has lived sufficiently virtuously on earth so as to merit entrance to the afterlife's progressive scene. Nevertheless, Ferguson's focus remains firmly on religion's value for this life. (shrink)

This paper starts from the premise that Spinoza and Hume share a realisticnaturalistic approach to human nature. Human beings are finite parts of nature, and as such strongly interdependent creatures. This interdependence is reflected in the central social-psychological principles that Hume and Spinoza employ, respectively sympathy and affectuum imitatio. Both principles show the immediacy of the communication of passions, and the strong influence that other people’s passions exert over our own affective lives. Central to this paper are an analysis and (...) comparison of the working of sympathy and imitation of affects. As it turns out, both philosophers consider humans to be limitedly social beings. Social, because we tend to be moved by the pains and pleasures of our fellows. Limitedly social, because our egoistic side limits the scope of our fellow-feeling, and may turn the other’s pain into our pleasure and vice versa. This puts a pressure on groups; their living together can never be truly harmonious without external interference. Spinoza and Hume, therefore, regard a further stabilisation and harmonisation of collective affective life as a key political concern. As will finally be argued, the precise way in which this concern is fleshed out in their political theories makes them occupy a shared, distinctive position in early modern political thought. (shrink)

Hedgehog proteins are of pivotal importance for development and maintenance of tissue patterns in adult organisms. Despite the role of Hedgehogs in differentiation and tumorigenesis, signal transduction of Hedgehog remains a relatively uncharted area of signalling biochemistry. For proper Hedgehog distribution into tissues, two highly unusual covalent modifications are necessary, palmitoylation of a secreted protein and the attachment of a cholesterol group, making Hedgehog the only established sterolated protein in nature. Hedgehog exerts its function via two membrane‐bound receptors, Patched and (...) Smoothened; presumably, Patched transports a cholesterol derivate out of cells which inhibits Smoothened. Binding of Hedgehog to Patched impedes this proposed pump function and thus Inhibition of Smoothened, which leads to expression of genetic Hedgehog targets via relief of transcriptional repression. These atypical features make Hedgehog physiology unique in biology and may explain why this field has attracted such significant attention. BioEssays 26:387–394, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This paper explores the common ground in the views on natural law, justice and sociopolitical development in Hume and Spinoza. Spinoza develops a radically revisionary position in the natural law debate, building upon the bold equation of right and power. Hume is best interpreted as offering a skeptical–empirical reworking of traditional natural law theories, which maintains much of the practical purport of these theories, while providing it with a new, metaphysically less firm, but also less problematic, foundation. What the two (...) philosophers have in common is that they formulate realist revisions of the natural law tradition in the light of their more general naturalistic, secular philosophical commitments. Both philosophers, moreover, point to the slow development of man’s insight in the laws of nature, arising through a gradual accumulation of experiential insights. These insights are never wholly ‘liberated’ from the historical and imaginative perspective in which they arise. Accordingly, although rational progress brings the systems of justice and politics of different groups of people closer to each other, they necessarily retain, sometimes fundamentally incompatible, divergences. In the tradition of Machiavellian political realism, therefore, both Spinoza and Hume plead for judging political orders according to their own merits: do they, in their own specific ways, bring about a sufficient degree of order and liberty? (shrink)

This paper deals with the relation between politics and ethics in Spinoza’s philosophy. The first question that I address, is what Spinoza’s notion of political freedom entails. Is political freedom just a condition of peace and security for the collective, or does it also entail the moral freedom of the Ethics? The former interpretation seems plausible, since Spinoza’s politics is chiefly concerned with peace and security. Yet certain passages of the political works echo the moral ideal of the Ethics, namely (...) that of a free life through an adequate understanding of Nature and our place in it. I therefore argue that Spinoza’s political notions of reason and freedom are ultimately to be identified with their moral counterparts. They cannot be wholly reduced to peace. This interpretation immediately leads to a second problem - how can Spinoza combine his professed realism in politics with his moral perfectionism? It seems that collective moral freedom must be illusory to someone who claims to describe humans as they are, not as they ought to be. Through a detailed analysis of Spinoza’s view of the development of political freedom, I argue that this is in fact a coherent view. First, I show how living in a Spinozist state may stimulate a basic rational disposition in people. Then I turn to Spinoza’s view of rational development in the Ethics, and argue that he is in that work very aware of the limits that our finite existence puts on the moral ideal. This brings me to the suggestion that, if this ideal is to have any practical relevance, it must not be wholly separated from the sphere of the imagination. If we accept this, then the narratives that bring harmony to a collective - consisting of both imaginative and rational elements – may also be considered as sources of moral freedom. This prevents Spinoza’s politics from being utopian, since it roots his quest for collective freedom firmly in tradition. (shrink)

Preventing future crime has become an increasingly dominant function of the criminal law of many liberal democracies. This “preventive turn” has led to a profound debate on the legal and ethical boundaries of the “preventive state.” However, the concept at the core of preventive justice—the dangerousness of the offender—has attracted relatively little attention in the current debate. This is remarkable, as the legal establishment of dangerousness permits intrusive preventive measures, such as preventive detention for an indeterminate period of time. In (...) the past, various concepts of dangerousness have been developed by criminal law scholars. We discuss these concepts in a chronological order to demonstrate how the meaning of dangerousness has evolved over time, and how it has been shaped by concurrent developments in forensic psychiatry and penology. Our description of the state of the art of legal scholarship on the concept of dangerousness also shows the lack of a fully developed theory of dangerousness, and therefore the necessity of further research. We identify five “aspects” of the concept of dangerousness on which scholars have widely diverging views. These five aspects are intended to guide further research on the concept of dangerousness in preventive criminal law. (shrink)

A team of renowned philosophers and a new generation of thinkers come together to offer the first book-length examination of the relationship between philosophical anthropology and animal studies.

A team of renowned philosophers and a new generation of thinkers come together to offer the first book-length examination of the relationship between philosophical anthropology and animal studies.

A fundamental fact about human minds is that they are never truly alone: all minds are steeped in situated interaction. That social interaction matters is recognized by any experimentalist who seeks to exclude its influence by studying individuals in isolation. On this view, interaction complicates cognition. Here, we explore the more radical stance that interaction co-constitutes cognition: that we benefit from looking beyond single minds toward cognition as a process involving interacting minds. All around the cognitive sciences, there are approaches (...) that put interaction center stage. Their diverse and pluralistic origins may obscure the fact that collectively, they harbor insights and methods that can respecify foundational assumptions and fuel novel interdisciplinary work. What might the cognitive sciences gain from stronger interactional foundations? This represents, we believe, one of the key questions for the future. Writing as a transdisciplinary collective assembled from across the classic cognitive science hexagon and beyond, we highlight the opportunity for a figure-ground reversal that puts interaction at the heart of cognition. The interactive stance is a way of seeing that deserves to be a key part of the conceptual toolkit of cognitive scientists. (shrink)