Growth of the Hispanic consumer population in America is changing the marketplace landscape. Due to their considerable buying power, a better understanding of Hispanic consumer behavior has become a necessity. The marketing literature has examined issues regarding religiosity and attitude toward business in regards to consumer ethical beliefs as well as research differentiating consumers on the basis of ethnicity due to their inherently different religious principles. Therefore, the present study contributes to the existing consumer ethics literature by examining the roles (...) of religiosity and attitude toward business in determining consumer ethical beliefs. Furthermore, this study compares the relationships among religiosity, attitude toward business, and ethical beliefs at the sub-cultural level (i.e., between Hispanic and Anglo-American consumers). Survey data compare a sample of 187 predominately Catholic Hispanic consumers with a sample of 127 predominately protestant Anglo consumers. Results suggest a positive relationship between intrinsic religiousness and beliefs that questionable consumer activities are unethical. However, extrinsic religiousness does not impact consumer views as to the ethicality of consumer practices. Hispanics exhibit higher levels of extrinsic religiousness than Anglos, but no difference in terms of their intrinsic religiousness. Results also suggest that Hispanics have a more negative attitude toward business than Anglos do. Implications of these results are discussed. (shrink)

The lymphatic vasculature plays a critical role in the regulation of body fluid volume and immune function. Extensive research into the molecular mechanisms that control blood vessel growth has led to identification of molecules that also regulate development and growth of the lymphatic vessels. This is generating a great deal of interest in the molecular control of the lymphatics in the context of embryogenesis, lymphatic disorders and tumor metastasis. Studies in animal models carried out over the past three years have (...) shown that the soluble protein growth factors, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)‐C and VEGF‐D, and their cognate receptor tyrosine kinase, VEGF receptor‐3 (VEGFR‐3), are critical regulators of lymphangiogenesis. Furthermore, disfunction of VEGFR‐3 has recently been shown to cause lymphedema. The capacity to induce lymphangiogenesis by manipulation of the VEGF‐C/VEGF‐D/VEGFR‐3 signaling pathway offers new opportunities to understand the function of the lymphatic system and to develop novel treatments for lymphatic disorders. BioEssays 24:1030–1040, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In early 2013, the Indian government introduced new rules governing the conduct of clinical trials involving human participants. Among other provisions, the law requires that sponsors of research compensate participants who are injured during the course of their research participation. This article examines the effects of India's compensation law and the efforts that policymakers in India have made to tailor the law since its passage. I use the legal concept of acoustic separation as a framework to explain and justify the (...) approach that India has taken in refining its regulation of research related injuries. I conclude that India's example may provide useful lessons for research sponsors and lawmakers in other regulatory states seeking to promote a well-regulated biomedical research industry. (shrink)

The ethical recruitment of participants with neurological disorders in clinical research requires obtaining initial and ongoing informed consent. The purpose of this study is to characterize barriers faced by research personnel in obtaining informed consent from research participants with neurological disorders and to identify strategies applied by researchers to overcome those barriers. This study was designed as a web-based survey of US researchers with an optional follow-up interview. A subset of participants who completed the survey were selected using a stratified (...) purposeful sampling strategy and invited to participate in an in-depth qualitative interview by phone or video conference. Data were analyzed using a mixed methods approach, including content analysis of survey responses and thematic analysis of interview responses. Over 1 year, 113 survey responses were received from US research personnel directly involved in obtaining informed consent from participants in neurological research. Frequently identified barriers to informed consent included: cognitive and communication impairments (e.g. aphasia), unrealistic expectations of research participants, mistrust of medical research, time constraints, literacy barriers, lack of available social support, and practical or resource-related constraints. Strategies to enhance informed consent included: involving close others to support participant understanding of study-related information, collaborating with more experienced research personnel to facilitate training in obtaining informed consent, encouraging participants to review consent forms in advance of consent discussions, and using printed materials and visual references. Beyond conveying study-related information, researchers included in this study endorsed ethical responsibilities to support deliberation necessary to informed consent in the context of misconceptions about research, unrealistic expectations, limited understanding, mistrust, and/or pressure from close others. Findings highlight the importance of training researchers involved in obtaining informed consent in neurological research to address disease-specific challenges and to support the decision-making processes of potential research participants and their close others. (shrink)

The Anglican Thirty Nine Articles join catholic Christendom in affirming that: There is but one living and true God…and in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

In an incisive critique of Professor Hick's Evil and the God of Love , Professor Puccetti claims to ‘carry the campaign as well as the battle’—i.e. to show that, with respect to evil, theists ‘are either “explaining it away” or saying it cannot be explained at all. And in both cases they are in effect admitting they have no rational defence to offer. Which means that despite appearances they really are abandoning the battlefield.’.

The doctrine of hell, stated with a little care, entails that some persons never achieve their greatest good, fail to really flourish and never reach the end for which they were created. If that doctrine is true, and it is tragic that persons never achieve their greatest good, then there are tragic states of affairs whose tragedy is never overcome.

Appeal to experience for rational justification of religious belief is probably as old as the question whether religious belief has any rational support. The issues relevant to such appeal range widely, and I will have to be content to deal with only a few of them.

The process of dehumanization, or thinking of others as less than human, is a phenomenon with significant societal implications. According to Haslam's model, two concepts of humanness derive from comparing humans with either animals or machines: individuals may be dehumanized by likening them to either animals or machines, or humanized by emphasizing differences from animals or machines. Recent work in cognitive neuroscience emphasizes understanding cognitive processes in terms of interactions between distributed cortical networks. It has been found that reasoning about (...) internal mental states is associated with activation of the default mode network and deactivation of the task positive network ; whereas reasoning about mechanical processes produces the opposite pattern. We conducted two neuroimaging studies. The first examined the neural bases of dehumanization and its relation to these two brain networks, using images and voice-over social narratives which either implicitly contrasted or implicitly likened humans to either animals or machines. The second study addressed a discrepancy between findings from the first study and prior work on the neural correlates of dehumanization: using a design similar to prior work we examined neural responses to pictures of humans, animals and machines, presented without any social context. In both studies, human and humanizing conditions were associated with relatively high activity in the DMN and relatively low activity in the TPN. However, the non-human and dehumanizing conditions deviated in different ways: they demonstrated more marked changes either in the DMN or in the TPN. Notably, differences between the animal dehumanizing and humanizing conditions were most evident in regions associated with mechanistic reasoning, not in the mentalizing network. Conjunction analysis of contrasts from both paradigms revealed that only one region was consistently more active when participants saw human, a medial parietal region regarded as the central hub of the DMN. These findings provide a neural basis for Haslam's distinction between two types of dehumanization, and suggest that the DMN and TPN play opposing roles in creating a sense of moral concern. (shrink)

Dementia is a growing issue at the end of life that presents unique challenges for advance care planning. Advance directives are a useful and important component of end-of-life planning, but standard advance directives have less utility in cases of loss of capacity due to dementia. An advance directive designed to specifically address end-of-life issues in the setting of dementia can provide patients with increased autonomy and caregivers with improved information about the desires of the individual in question. The Dartmouth Dementia (...) Directive is a dementia-specific advance directive, available online, that seeks to address common concerns of individuals who are planning for dementia-related end-of-life care. This directive was piloted in a community-based workshop, which provided important details and perspective on the best use of dementia-specific advance directives in the greater population. (shrink)

Limited research has been done among pregnant people participating in investigational drug trials. To enhance the ethical understanding of pregnant people’s perspectives on research participation, we sought to describe motives and risk perceptions of participants in a phase 1 trial of ledipasvir/sofosbuvir treatment for chronic Hepatitis C virus during pregnancy. Pregnant people with chronic HCV infection enrolled in an open-label, phase 1 study of LDV/SOF participated in semi-structured, in-depth interviews to explore their reasons for participation and experiences within the study. (...) Pregnant people took 12 weeks of LDV/SOF and were interviewed at enrollment and at the end of study. We recorded the interviews, transcribed them verbatim, coded them using NVivo software, and performed inductive thematic analysis. Nine women completed the study yielding 18 interview transcripts. We identified two themes regarding motives and one regarding risk perception. Motives— Women conceptualized study participation as part of the caregiving role they associate with motherhood; participating was viewed as an act of caregiving for their infants, their families, themselves, and other pregnant women with chronic HCV. Women also noted that they faced multiple barriers to treatment prior to pregnancy that created a desire to receive therapy through trial participation. Risk perception— Women acknowledged personal and fetal risk associated with participation. Acceptance of risk was influenced by women’s concepts of motherhood, preexisting knowledge of HCV and medical research, family members, intimate partners, or by the study design. Women enrolled in a phase 1 trial for chronic HCV therapy during pregnancy acknowledged risks of participation and were motivated by hopes for fetal and personal benefit and by lack of prenatal access to treatment. Ethical inclusion of pregnant people in research should acknowledge structural factors that contribute to vulnerability and data deficiencies for treatment in pregnancy. (shrink)

Research on escalation of commitment has predominantly been studied in the context of a single decision without consideration for the psychological consequences of escalating. This study sought to examine a) the extent to which people escalate their commitment to a failing course of action in a sequential decision-making task, b) confidence and anger as psychological consequences of escalation of commitment, and c) the reciprocal relationship between escalation of commitment and confidence and anger. Participants were 110 undergraduate students who completed a (...) series of investment decisions regarding a failing endeavor. Results revealed that although a high proportion of individuals escalate through all decisions, the extent to which they escalated decreased with each decision as they were less willing to invest money in the project. Furthermore, as participants escalated, confidence in one’s decision decreased and anger increased. Lastly, the analyses revealed that the relationship between escalation and confidence is reciprocal. Escalation was negatively associated with confidence, and confidence predicted escalation in the subsequent decision. These results highlight the importance of considering both the determinants and psychological consequences of escalation of commitment. (shrink)

In this target article by Morain and Largent (2023), the authors focus on an investigator’s duty to patient-subjects specifically regarding incidental or collateral findings within the context of e...

At present, the market for books about resilience appears to be immense1—and resilient. There are books about everyday resilience, resilience in response to unusual opportunities and special challenges, and resilience in the face of trauma, suffering, disease, and pandemics. These books about resilience often are addressed to persons in particular careers: government office holders and politicians; military leaders and warriors; students and teachers; doctors, lawyers, engineers, fund-raisers and philanthropists, farmers, business leaders and their organizations and supply chains, or writers. And (...) some of these books are addressed to people in specific family... (shrink)

Despite the growing body of literature on training in the responsible conduct of research, few studies have examined the effectiveness of delivery formats used in ethics courses. The present effort sought to address this gap in the literature through a meta-analytic review of 66 empirical studies, representing 106 ethics courses and 10,069 participants. The frequency and effectiveness of 67 instructional and process-based content areas were also assessed for each delivery format. Process-based contents were best delivered face-to-face, whereas contents delivered online (...) were most effective when restricted to compliance-based instructional contents. Overall, hybrid courses were found to be most effective, suggesting that ethics courses are best delivered using a blend of formats and content areas. Implications and recommendations for future development of ethics education courses in the sciences are discussed. (shrink)

Much research in the last two decades has demonstrated that human responses deviate from the performance deemed normative according to various models of decision making and rational judgment (e.g., the basic axioms of utility theory). This gap between the normative and the descriptive can be interpreted as indicating systematic irrationalities in human cognition. However, four alternative interpretations preserve the assumption that human behavior and cognition is largely rational. These posit that the gap is due to (1) performance errors, (2) computational (...) limitations, (3) the wrong norm being applied by the experimenter, and (4) a different construal of the task by the subject. In the debates about the viability of these alternative explanations, attention has been focused too narrowly on the modal response. In a series of experiments involving most of the classic tasks in the heuristics and biases literature, we have examined the implications of individual differences in performance for each of the four explanations of the normative/descriptive gap. Performance errors are a minor factor in the gap; computational limitations underlie non-normative responding on several tasks, particularly those that involve some type of cognitive decontextualization. Unexpected patterns of covariance can suggest when the wrong norm is being applied to a task or when an alternative construal of the task should be considered appropriate. Key Words: biases; descriptive models; heuristics; individual differences; normative models; rationality; reasoning. (shrink)

The idea that we might be robots is no longer the stuff of science fiction; decades of research in evolutionary biology and cognitive science have led many esteemed scientists to the conclusion that, according to the precepts of universal Darwinism, humans are merely the hosts for two replicators that have no interest in us except as conduits for replication. Richard Dawkins, for example, jolted us into realizing that we are just survival mechanisms for our own genes, sophisticated robots in service (...) of huge colonies of replicators to whom concepts of rationality, intelligence, agency, and even the human soul are irrelevant. Accepting and now forcefully responding to this decentering and disturbing idea, Keith Stanovich here provides the tools for the "robot's rebellion," a program of cognitive reform necessary to advance human interests over the limited interest of the replicators and define our own autonomous goals as individual human beings. He shows how concepts of rational thinking from cognitive science interact with the logic of evolution to create opportunities for humans to structure their behavior to serve their own ends. These evaluative activities of the brain, he argues, fulfill the need that we have to ascribe significance to human life. We may well be robots, but we are the only robots who have discovered that fact. Only by recognizing ourselves as such, argues Stanovich, can we begin to construct a concept of self based on what is truly singular about humans: that they gain control of their lives in a way unique among life forms on Earth—through rational self-determination. (shrink)

This study investigates the role that moral identity, religiosity, and the institutionalization of ethics play in determining the extent of justification of norm violating behavior among business practitioners. Moral justification is where a person, rather than assuming responsibility for an outcome, attempts to legitimize ethically questionable behavior. Results of the study indicate that both the internalization and symbolization dimensions of moral identity as well as intrinsic religiosity and the explicit institutionalization of ethics within the organization are significant determinants of the (...) moral justification of unethical behaviors. (shrink)

Responds to the idea that humans are merely survival mechanisms for their own genes, providing the tools to advance human interests over the interests of the replicators through rational self-determination.

This book addresses a fundamental question in the philosophy of religion. Can religious experience provide evidence for religious belief? If so, how? Keith Yandell argues against the notion that religious experience is ineffable, while advocating the view that strong numinous experience provides some evidence that God exists. An attractive feature of the book is that it does not confine its attention to any one religious cultural tradition, but tracks the nature of religious experience across different traditions in both the (...) East and the West. (shrink)

Author note: Keith E. Yandell is Professor of Philosophy and South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

_Philosophy of Religion_ provides an account of the central issues and viewpoints in the philosophy of religion but also shows how such issues can be rationally assessed and in what ways competing views can be rationally assessed. It includes major philosophical figures in religious traditions as well as discussions by important contemporary philosophers. Keith Yandell deals lucidly and constructively with representative views from Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. This book will appeal to students of both philosophy and (...) religion as well as to the general reader interested in the subject. Unique features of _Philosophy of Religion_: * key reading and new reading in the subject area * questions at the ends of chapters * a glossary of philosophical terms * annotated further reading. (shrink)

_Philosophy of Religion_ provides an account of the central issues and viewpoints in the philosophy of religion but also shows how such issues can be rationally assessed and in what ways competing views can be rationally assessed. It includes major philosophical figures in religious traditions as well as discussions by important contemporary philosophers. Keith Yandell deals lucidly and constructively with representative views from Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. This book will appeal to students of both philosophy and (...) religion as well as to the general reader interested in the subject. Unique features of _Philosophy of Religion_: * key reading and new reading in the subject area * questions at the ends of chapters * a glossary of philosophical terms * annotated further reading. (shrink)

Natural myside bias is the tendency to evaluate propositions from within one's own perspective when given no instructions or cues (such as within-participants conditions) to avoid doing so. We defined the participant's perspective as their previously existing status on four variables: their sex, whether they smoked, their alcohol consumption, and the strength of their religious beliefs. Participants then evaluated a contentious but ultimately factual proposition relevant to each of these demographic factors. Myside bias is defined between-participants as the mean difference (...) in the evaluation of the proposition between groups with differing prior status on the variable. Whether an individual difference variable (such as cognitive ability) is related to the magnitude of the myside bias is indicated by whether the individual difference variable interacts with the between-participants status variable. In two experiments involving a total of over 1400 university students ( n = 1484) and eight different comparisons, we found very little evidence that participants of higher cognitive ability displayed less natural myside bias. The degree of myside bias was also relatively independent of individual differences in thinking dispositions. We speculate that ideas from memetic theory and dual-process theory might help to explain why natural myside bias is quite dissociated from individual difference variables. (shrink)

ABSTRACTHumans are cognitive misers because their basic tendency is to default to processing mechanisms of low computational expense. Such a tendency leads to suboptimal outcomes in certain types of hostile environments. The theoretical inferences made from correct and incorrect responding on heuristics and biases tasks have been overly simplified, however. The framework developed here traces the complexities inherent in these tasks by identifying five processing states that are possible in most heuristics and biases tasks. The framework also identifies three possible (...) processing defects: inadequately learned mindware; failure to detect the necessity of overriding the miserly response; and failure to sustain the override process once initiated. An important insight gained from using the framework is that degree of mindware instantiation is strongly related to the probability of successful detection and override. Thus, errors on such tasks cannot be unambiguously attributed to miserly processing – and corre... (shrink)

In their target article, Conley et al. (2023) appropriately highlight the ongoing conceptual and practical opacity of public engagement (PE) in the translation of human gene editing (HGE) (Conley e...

Elqayam & Evans (E&E) drive a wedge between Bayesianism and instrumental rationality that most decision scientists will not recognize. Their analogy from linguistics to judgment and decision making is inapt. Normative models remain extremely useful in the progressive research programs of the judgment and decision making field.

(2013). Why humans are (sometimes) less rational than other animals: Cognitive complexity and the axioms of rational choice. Thinking & Reasoning: Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 1-26. doi: 10.1080/13546783.2012.713178.