In the reported, experiment participants hit a ball to aim at the vertex of a Müller–Lyer configuration. This configuration either remained stable, changed its shaft length or the orientation of the tails during movement execution. A significant illusion bias was observed in all perturbation conditions, but not in the stationary condition. The illusion bias emerged for perturbations shortly after movement onset and for perturbations during execution, the latter of which allowed only a minimum of time for making adjustments . These (...) findings indicate that allocentric information is exploited for online control when people make rapid adjustments in response to a sudden change in the environment and not when people guide their limb movements to interact with a stable environment. (shrink)

Despite growing concerns that children tend to avoid the news, the reasons why have received little research attention. Therefore, the current study aims to develop and test a model conceptualizing the relations between children’s news consumption, news avoidance, emotional responses, and parent and child mitigation strategies. The model was tested using data collected during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The current, preregistered, survey study was part of a longitudinal project and used data from the second wave. Data were (...) collected in November/December 2020 among 510 children. Findings showed that children who consumed more news during the pandemic avoided pandemic news less often. Children who experienced more anxiety-related behaviors regarding pandemic news avoided pandemic news more often. The relation between news consumption and emotional responses was stronger for children who experienced restrictive parental mediation more often, indicating that this was not an effective parental mediation strategy for tempering their emotional responses. Children with higher levels of emotional responses used reactive coping strategies more often. However, this did not seem to be an effective strategy against pandemic news avoidance because none of the strategies had a negative relation with pandemic news avoidance. Distancing was even positively related to pandemic news avoidance. Although the current study was not able to fully unravel how news avoidance-related constructs relate to one another, we were able to get some important insights guiding future research. Specifically, it is of crucial importance to unravel the mechanisms that increase the chance of children’s news avoidance and those that mitigate it, to build interventions to counteract news avoidance and to protect children from the negative emotional consequences by news consumption. (shrink)

Martens vs. KIRAC: les extrêmes se touchent? This paper discusses the relationship between art and politics by taking Walter Benjamin’s famous formulation on the ‘politicization of art’ and the ‘aestheticization of politics’ as a starting point. The work of Dutch artist Renzo Martens and the work of art collective KIRAC are considered to be exemplifying the two sides of Benjamin’s formulation, and at the same time as representative of wider tendencies of the contemporary art world. I argue that, in their (...) extreme and contradictory positions, these sides also share a common, art-hostile moment, one that I counter with a conception of art as ‘acting as if’ (doen alsof) – with the dual dimension of acting (a form of praxis or performance) and ‘as if’ (imagined). Based on this idea of ‘acting as if’ I argue that art’s relationship to politics is one of productive contradiction. (shrink)

Thijs Lijster considers the thought of Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno on such key topics as the relationship between art and historical experience, between avant-garde art and mass culture, and between the intellectual and the public.

Is het niet vreemd om te zeggen dat een verhaal uit de achtste eeuw voor Christus ons iets kan vertellen over onze hedendaagse westerse cultuur? Hoe kan de beschrijving van een wereld die geregeerd wordt door goden, heksen, nimfen en allerlei mythische gedrochten bijdragen aan ons zelfbegrip? Dat is minder vreemd dan het lijkt. Juist omdat Homeros helemaal aan het begin van onze beschaving stond, kunnen wij in retrospectief herkennen wat de nieuwe wereld scheidde van de oude. De homerische epen (...) vormen een eerste definitie van de westerse cultuur, zij geven de contouren aan van een manier van denken en handelen die de wereld tot op de dag van vandaag beheerst. (shrink)

The metaphor of base and superstructure has been one of the most controversial elements in Marxist aesthetics. In this text I discuss some of the many questions it raises. Today, many theorists believe that its problems are so extensive that it has lost all plausibility. I believe, however, that in rejecting the Marxist framework, aesthetics and cultural theory risks throwing out the baby with the bath water and jeopardizes its critical potential. Drawing on the work of Fredric Jameson and Slavoj (...) Žižek, I will propose a heuristic reinterpretation of the metaphor of base and superstructure. (shrink)

A content analysis of 601 commercials was conducted in order to identify the appeals that characterize commercials aimed at children and teenagers. Our findings demonstrated that the use of appeals showed strong age differences and was highly gender-role stereotyped, particularly in commercials aimed at children. The most typical appeals in commercials aimed at male children were action-adventure, sports, and play, whereas commercials aimed at female children emphasized nurturing, physical attractiveness, friendship, and romance. Having the best, competition, and achievement were the (...) dominant appeals in commercials aimed at male teenagers, whereas romance, sexuality, and belonging to a group were emphasized in commercials aimed at female teenagers. (shrink)

In both the academic and societal debates, it is widely assumed that cognitive advertising defenses can reduce children's susceptibility to advertising effects. Empirical evidence supporting this crucial assumption is however missing. It is precisely this gap that the present study aims to fill In a survey of 296 children, we investigate whether children's cognitive defenses reduce the relationship between the amount of television advertising they are exposed to and their desire for advertised product categories. Interaction analysis in regression shows that (...) of all the cognitive defense variables, only understanding advertising's persuasive intent was effective in reducing the impact of advertising exposure on children's advertised product desire. However, this only applies to the older children in the sample. For the younger children, understanding the persuasive intent even increased the impact of advertising. (shrink)

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has created ethical challenges for intensive care unit (ICU) professionals, potentially causing moral distress. This study explored the levels and causes of moral distress and the ethical climate in Dutch ICUs during COVID-19.MethodsAn extended version of the Measurement of Moral Distress for Healthcare Professionals (MMD-HP) and Ethical Decision Making Climate Questionnaire (EDMCQ) were online distributed among all 84 ICUs. Moral distress scores in nurses and intensivists were compared with the historical control group one year before COVID-19. ResultsThree (...) hundred forty-five nurses (70.7%), 40 intensivists (8.2%), and 103 supporting staff (21.1%) completed the survey. Moral distress levels were higher for nurses than supporting staff. Moral distress levels in intensivists did not differ significantly from those of nurses and supporting staff. “Inadequate emotional support for patients and their families” was the highest-ranked cause of moral distress for all groups of professionals. Of all factors, all professions rated the ethical climate most positively regarding the culture of mutual respect, ethical awareness and support. “Culture of not avoiding end-of-life-decisions” and “Self-reflective and empowering leadership” received the lowest mean scores. Moral distress scores during COVID-19 were significantly lower for ICU nurses (p < 0.001) and intensivists (p < 0.05) compared to one year prior.ConclusionLevels and causes of moral distress vary between ICU professionals and differ from the historical control group. Targeted interventions that address moral distress during a crisis are desirable to improve the mental health and retention of ICU professionals and the quality of patient care. (shrink)

Studies of mediation practices typically focus on parental mediation, but during adolescence parents’ impact decreases relative to that of peers. This study compares perceived parental and peer mediation in the context of media portrayals of risk behavior and adolescents’ perceptions thereof. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 278 adolescents aged 12 to 17 (M = 14.18, SD = 1.62, 51.4 % girls) using Hayes’s process macro (model 4) to investigate direct and indirect associations between mediation, media-related cognitions, and social norms. (...) Findings indicate that perceived parental and peer mediation are related to adolescents’ media-related cognitions and perceived social norms in equally important but different ways. (shrink)