There are individual and cultural differences in how memories of our emotions are cognitively represented. This article examines the cognitive representation of emotions in different cultures, as a result of emotional (in)consistency in different cultures. Using a continuous semantic priming task, we showed in two studies that individuals who were less emotionally consistent across relationships have stronger associations of their emotions within those relationships. Further, we found (in Study 2) that in a culture characterised by higher levels of emotional inconsistency (...) across relationships (Singapore), stronger associations between emotions within relationships were found than in a culture characterised by emotional consistency (USA). This cultural difference in cognitive representation was fully mediated by individual differences in cross-situational consistency levels. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Asian American Christian Ethics: Voices, Methods, Issues eds. by Grace Y. Kao and Ilsup AhnAlex MikulichAsian American Christian Ethics: Voices, Methods, Issues Edited by Grace Y. Kao and Ilsup Ahn WACO, TX: BAYLOR UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2015. 355 PP. $44.95This volume opens new horizons in Christian ethics. Editors Grace Y. Kao and Ilsup Ahn suggest two ways of conceptualizing Asian American Christian ethics. They describe the first as "agency- (...) or advocacy-centered" and the second as "bringing Western and Asian philosophical, theological, and cultural traditions together in critical dialogue and for selective retrieval for Asian American Christian ethics" (11). While the contributors to this book rightfully develop agency and advocacy-centered approaches within complex histories of colonialism and oppression, they also emulate Michael Walzer's "connected critic" who is not naïvely or uncritically "neutral" or dispassionate. The contributors appropriately use co-critical approaches that make possible "new and creative 'traditioning'" that does not uncritically reinscribe some "purer" Asian past or "undefiled by Western contact" (15).Nearly every chapter unpacks the deeply problematic term "Asian American" that was originally employed by activists who sought a new identity as "self-determining subjects rather than as 'oriental objects' in the United States" (4). But the term obfuscates multiple diversities within richly divergent national, geographical, colonial, and cultural histories and traditions.Hoon Choi explores the complexity of gender and sexual identities through a richly textured intersectional approach, examines how these identities become intertwined in double and triple binds, and reinterprets Christ as the fullness of humanity against Western hegemony and Eastern sexism. Choi's vibrant reinterpretation of Jesus Christ is complemented by a wise and compassionate pastoral approach.Sharon M. Tan calls for a reinterpretation both of Christian and Asian traditions of marriage, family, and parenting that will "entail a bicultural approach to life" and "creative new ways of retelling their stories and imagining their futures" (42). Tan underscores the difficulty of describing a Pan-Asian approach to marriage, family, and parenting by exploring the complexities of "Tiger Mothers," multigenerational households, the "special case of refugees," transnational families, and biculturality and adaptation.Hannah Ka deconstructs a wide range of Christian approaches to environmental ethics and reinterprets Sallie McFague's Body of God ecological theology through a distinctive Asian American approach. Drawing on beautiful and challenging stories from her own family as well as Confucian and Taoist [End Page 215] thought, Ka suggests a reinterpretation both of existential and functional indebtedness between human beings and all living things. She contends that "humans cannot survive even a day without … all other inorganic and organic existents on earth, while [other existents] can flourish without humans. The life of the human species is not merely interdependent with, but utterly indebted to, all the other existents on earth, rendering humans more vulnerable than others" (221).These are only a few examples of how this volume exemplifies clear, cogent, and constructive Christian ethics. Chapters by Ilsup Ahn ("Virtue Ethics"), Keun-Joo Christine Pae ("Peace and War"), Christina A. Astorga ("Wealth and Prosperity"), Ki Joo (KC) Choi ("Racial Identity and Solidarity"), SueJeanne Koh ("Health Care"), Hak Joon Lee ("Immigration"), Irene Oh ("Education and Labor"), and Jonathan Tran ("Cosmetic Surgery") all expand the horizons of contemporary ethics. I highly recommend this text for scholars to engage new horizons of Christian ethics and to use for a wide variety of upper level undergraduate and graduate courses in Christian ethics as well as constructive and pastoral theology.Alex MikulichLoyola University New OrleansCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

This is the first book on practical philosophy of science and how to practically evaluate scientific findings that have life-and-death consequences. Showing how to uncover scores of scientific flaws -- typically used by special interests who try to justify their deadly pollution -- this book aims to liberate the many potential victims of environmentally-induced disease and death.

Strike action in healthcare has been a common global phenomenon. As such action is designed to be disruptive, it creates substantial ethical tension, the most cited of which relates to patient harm, that is, a strike may not only disrupt an employer, but it could also have serious implications for the delivery of care. This article systematically reviewed the literature on strike action in healthcare with the aim of providing an overview of the major justifications for strike action, identifying relative (...) strengths and shortcomings of this literature and providing direction for future discussions, and theoretical and empirical research. Three major themes emerged related to (1) the relationship between healthcare workers, patients and society; (2) the consequences of strike action; and (3) the conduct of strike action. Those who argue against strike action generally cite the harms of such action, particularly as it relates to patients. Many also argue that healthcare workers, because of their skills and position in society, have a special obligation to their patients and society more generally. Those who see this action as not only permissible but also, in some cases, necessary have advanced several points in response, arguing that healthcare workers do not necessarily have any special obligation to their patients or society, and even if so, this obligation is not absolute. Overwhelmingly, when talking about the potential risks of strike action, authors have focused on patient welfare and the impact that a strike could have. Several directions for future work are identified, including greater explorations into how structural and systemic issues impact strike action, the need for greater consideration about the contextual factors that influence the risks and characteristics of strike action and finally the need to tie this literature to existing empirical evidence. (shrink)

Background The Constitutional Court of South Korea declared that an abortion ban was unconstitutional on April 11, 2019. The National Health Care System will provide abortion care across the country as a formal medical service. Conscientious objection is an issue raised during the construction of legal reforms. Methods One hundred sixty-seven perioperative nurses responded to the survey questionnaire. Nurses’ perception about conscientious objection, support of legislation regarding conscientious objection, and intention to object were measured. Logistic regression was used to explore (...) the factors associated with support of the legislation and the intention to conscientiously object. Results Only 28.8% of the responding nurses were aware of health care professionals’ conscientious objection. The majority felt that patients’ rights should be prioritized over health care professionals’ conscientious objection. On the other hand, 45.8% supported the legislation on conscientious objection to abortion, and 42.5% indicated a willingness to refuse to participate in an abortion case if conscientious objection was permitted. Religion, awareness of conscientious objection, and prioritizing of nurses’ right to conscientious objection were significantly associated with supporting the legislation. Moreover, religion and prioritizing nurses' rights were significantly associated with the intention to conscientiously object. Conclusions This study provides information necessary for further discussion of nurses’ conscientious objection. Nursing leaders, researchers, and educators should appeal to nurses and involve them in making policies that balance a women's right to non-discrimination and to receiving appropriate care with nurses' rights to maintain their moral integrity without compromising their professional obligation. (shrink)

Climate science denial results from ignorance and perpetuates ignorance about scientific facts and methods of inquiry. In this paper, I explore climate science denial as a type of active ignorance...

There is widespread and growing concern among U.S. consumers about the treatment of farmed animals, and consumers are consequently paying attention to food product labels that indicate humane production practices. However, labels vary in their standards for animal welfare, and prior research suggests that consumers are confused by welfare-related labels: many shoppers cannot differentiate between labels that indicate changes in the way animals are raised and those that do not. We administered a survey to 1,000 American grocery shoppers to better (...) understand the extent to which consumers purchase and pay more for food with certain labels based on an assumption of welfare improvement. Results showed that 86% of shoppers reported purchasing at least one product with the following labels in the last year: “cage or crate-free”, “free-range”, “pasture-raised”, “natural”, “organic”, “no hormone”, “no antibiotic”, “no rBST”, “humane”, “vegetarian-fed”, “grass-fed”, “farm-raised”. Of those who purchased one of the aforementioned labels, 89% did so because they thought the label indicated higher-welfare production practices, and 79% consciously paid more for the product with the label because they thought that the label indicated better-than-standard animal welfare. However, many of these labels lack uniform standards for the production practices they represent, and some labels represent production practices that do not influence animal welfare, thus the degree of the animal welfare impact of a given label is highly variable. These results indicate that labels need to clearly and accurately specify their animal welfare benefits to improve the consumers’ ability to purchase products that align with their expectations. (shrink)

Issues of race have traditionally been addressed in medical school curricula in a didactic manner. However, medical school curricula often lack adequate opportunity for the application of learning material relating to race and culture. When confronted with acts of racism in clinical settings, students are left unprepared to respond appropriately and effectively. Forum Theatre offers a dynamic platform by which participants are empowered to actively engage with and become part of the performance. When used in an educational context, Forum Theatre (...) can be a powerful tool for students to interact with a wide variety of social issues. This paper describes the process by which one medical school designed a workshop in the Forum Theatre style to equip students to respond to racism observed in clinical settings. Based on real student experiences, the Responding to Racism in the Clinical Setting workshop was designed to give students an opportunity to combine cultural humility, communication theory and conflict resolution skills in order to prepare for interactions in clinical stages of medical education. As a result of workshop evaluations, surveys, and written reflections, the authors propose that Forum Theatre is a novel teaching modality for incorporating issues of race and culture into medical curriculum. (shrink)

The dialectical approach to teaching critical thinking is centred on a comparative evaluation of contending arguments, so that generally the strength of an argument for a position can only be assessed in the context of this dialectic. The identification of fallacies, though important, plays only a preliminary role in the evaluation to individual arguments. Our approach to fallacy identification and analysis sees fallacies as argument patterns whose persuasive power is disproportionate to their probative value.

Learning disabilities are highly prevalent on college campuses, yet students with learning disabilities graduate at lower rates than those without disabilities. Academic and psychosocial supports are essential for overcoming challenges and for improving postsecondary educational opportunities for students with learning disabilities. A holistic, multi-level model of campus-based supports was established to facilitate culture and practice changes at the institutional level, while concurrently bolstering mentors’ abilities to provide learning disability-knowledgeable support, and simultaneously creating opportunities for students’ personal and interpersonal development. Mixed (...) methods were used to investigate implementation of coordinated personal, interpersonal, and institutional level supports for undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students with learning disabilities. A one-group pre-test post-test strategy was used to examine undergraduate outcomes. Participants included 52 STEM undergraduates with learning disabilities, 57 STEM graduate student mentors, 34 STEM faculty mentors, and 34 university administrators and personnel as members of a university-wide council. Enrolled for two years, undergraduates were engaged in group meetings involving psychoeducation and reflective discussions, development of self-advocacy projects, and individual mentorship. Undergraduates reported improved self efficacy (p =.001), campus connection (p <.001), professional development (p ≤.002), and self advocacy (p <.001) after two academic years. Graduate student mentors increased their understanding about learning disabilities and used their understanding to support both their mentees and other students they worked with. Council members identified and created opportunities for delivering learning disability-related trainings to faculty, mentors and advisors on campus, and for enhancing coordination of student services related to learning and related disorders. Disability-focused activities became integrated in broader campus activities regarding diversity. This research explicates a role that college campuses can play in fostering the wellbeing and the academic and career development of its students with developmental learning and related disorders. It offers an empirically tested campus-based model that is multilevel, holistic, and strengths-based for supporting positive outcomes of young people with learning disabilities in STEM. Moreover, findings advance the knowledge of supports and skills that are important for self-regulating and navigating complex and multi-faceted disability-related challenges within both the post-secondary educational environment and the young adults’ sociocultural context. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce a detailed and multi-faceted characterization of misunderstandings. The proposal attempts to capture the structure of misunderstandings in terms of several constructs: the message as intended by the speaker, the message as construed by the hearer, and the message as understood by an `objective' judge. In addition, we suggest that the message the speaker intends the hearer to retrieve and the hearer's perception of the speaker's intentions should also be taken into account. Misunderstandings can also be (...) classified according to the phase of the comprehension process at which they occur. (shrink)

A child is a developing person with evolving capacities that include autonomy, mental capacity and capacity to assume responsibility. Hence, children are entitled to participatory rights in South Africa as observed in the Children’s Act 38 of 2005. According to section 129 of the Act a child may consent to his or her own medical treatment provided that he or she is over the age of 12 years and is of sufficient maturity and decisional capacity to understand the various implications (...) of the treatment including the risks and benefits thereof. However, the Act does not provide a definition for what qualifies as ‘sufficient maturity’ nor does it stipulate how health professionals ought to assess the decisional capacity of a child. In addition, South Africa is a culturally diverse country. The Western liberal notion of autonomy may not necessarily find equal prominence in the mores of people with a different worldview. Hence we demonstrate a few salient comparisons between legal liberal moral theory and African communitarianism as pertinent to the autonomy of the child. Children are rights-holders by virtue of their humanity. Their dignity as individual human persons affords them the entitlement to human rights as contemplated under the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. However, contrary to the traditional Western notion of individual autonomous persons African societies hold a communalistic notion of person hence there is less regard for individual autonomy and rights with more emphasis on the communal good and maintaining the continuity of relationships and interdependencies shared within a community. A child considered in this view is not regarded as a full person. This implies that decisions concerning the child, including consent to medical treatment are discussed and determined by the community to which the child belongs. Lastly, in this article, we draw on the notion of capacity for responsibility to produce a pragmatic definition of sufficient maturity. It seems reasonable to suggest a move away from a general legal age of consent for medical treatment toward more individualised, context-specific approaches in determining the maturity of a child patient to consent to medical treatment. Perhaps, decision-making with respect to consent to the medical treatment of a child belonging to a traditional African community where the notion of a person is embedded in communitarianism ought to involve the child’s parents/guardians/caregivers where possible provided that the best interests of the child are awarded priority. (shrink)

Under the umbrella terms, ‘agnotology’, ’strategic ignorance’, and ‘willful ignorance’, scholars have identified and unpacked the mechanisms and strategies involved in producing and maintaining ignorance. These analyses tend to have in common that strategic ignorance is about avoiding, hiding, or rendering existing knowledge unreliable. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann’s sociological concept of communication, we supplement these accounts with an analysis of how ignorance can be produced and maintained by means of communicative selection. Taking the emergence of the zoonotic disease LA-MRSA in (...) Denmark as our empirical case, we explore the management of ignorance under conditions of non-knowing. Our analysis demonstrates how ignorance may be not only maintained but also multiplied without hiding knowledge, keeping secrets, or creating doubts. The analysis thus sheds new light on the dynamics through which ignorance is produced, while knowledge is on full display and acknowledged. The analysis furthermore shows how strategic interests are coupled to ignorance by means of communicative selection. (shrink)

The acquisition of syntactic categories is a crucial step in the process of acquiring syntax. At this stage, before a full grammar is available, only surface cues are available to the learner. Previous computational models have demonstrated that local contexts are informative for syntactic categorization. However, local contexts are affected by sentence-level structure. In this paper, we add sentence type as an observed feature to a model of syntactic category acquisition, based on experimental evidence showing that pre-syntactic children are able (...) to distinguish sentence type using prosody and other cues. The model, a Bayesian Hidden Markov Model, allows for adding sentence type in a few different ways; we find that sentence type can aid syntactic category acquisition if it is used to characterize the differences in word order between sentence types. In these models, knowledge of sentence type permits similar gains to those found by extending the local context. (shrink)

Tokenistic short-term economic success is not good indicia of long-term success. Sustainable business success requires sustained existence in a corporation's political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental contexts. Far beyond the traditional economic focus, consumers, governments and public interest groups alike increasingly expect the business sector to take on more social and environmental responsibilities. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the model in which economic, social and environmental responsibilities are fulfilled simultaneously. However, there is insufficient empirical evidence that demonstrates genuine widespread (...) adoption of CSR in practice, and its underlying reasons. Though research in CSR has been rapidly growing, its commercial reality and implications need to be further improved if it is to inspire corporations to voluntarily adopt CSR. In the literature, Carroll's four-dimensional (economic, legal, ethical and discretionary) CSR framework offers a theoretical basis for developing an empirically based model to explain why and how profit-motivated managers take up CSR voluntarily. Our study has developed a structural equation model to identify the key factors and their interactions that influence economically motivated managers to take on voluntary CSR, and validate Carroll's four-dimensional construct. The results support Carroll's four-dimensional CSR framework, with the exception of the link pertaining to the relationship between economic and discretionary/voluntary responsibility. This characterises the economic reality that financial market-driven economic responsibility does not automatically translate into social responsibility. Nevertheless, the empirical results demonstrate that corporations can be led to engage in more voluntary CSR activities to achieve social good when appropriate legal and ethical controls are in place. (shrink)

Healing Emotions is the record of an extraordinary series of encounters between the Dalai Lama and prominent Western psychologists, physicians, and meditation teachers that sheds new light on the mind-body connection. Edited by Pulitzer Prize nominee and best-selling author Daniel Goleman.

ObjectiveThis pilot study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of a digital cognitive behavioral therapy in patients with cancer experiencing sleep problems.MethodsA total of 57 participants aged 25–65 years were randomly assigned to three groups—21 participants to a dCBT program, 20 participants to an app-based attentional control program, and 16 participants to a waitlist control group—and evaluated offline before and after the program completion. Of the 57 participants, there were a total of 45 study completers, 15 participants in each group. The (...) dependent variables were sleep quality scores, measured by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and health-related quality of life scores, measured using the Short-Form 36, and attentional bias scores from a dot-probe computer task.ResultsFor both the intention-to-treat and study-completers analyses, a significant increase supported by a large effect size was found in the quality of sleep score of the HARUToday Sleep group compared to both the app-based attentional control and the waitlist control group. However, no significant changes were found in the quality of life and attentional bias scores.ConclusionOur results suggest that the HARUToday Sleep app has the potential to serve as an intervention module to enhance the sleep quality of patients with cancer experiencing sleep problems. (shrink)

Global governance has become a topic of interest to many contemporary political theorists. Issues arising from the nature of global markets and multinational corporations can no longer be locally contained. These developments signal the decline of the nation state and therewith the end of the liberal moral and political theory that justified national institutions. The alternative possible orders appear bleak, including anarchy, hegemonic power or the most horrific of all specters, the liberty crushing “world state.” Kant’s cosmopolitan theory of justice (...) can provide a third way between nationalism and its bleak alternatives, providing a measureof global governance upheld by nations without recourse to a world state. My thesis is that a juridical society of states is necessarily founded upon cosmopolitan right having universal jurisdiction and that the implementation of the norms of hospitality underlying cosmopolitan right requires global institutions based upon democratic representation and accountability. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Kant's concept of cosmopolitan right is the philosophical basis for contemporary international human rights. The law of world citizenship or cosmopolitan right is necessary in order to secure hospitable interactions between individuals and states. Such interactions in turn create an international civil culture or "cosmopolitan condition" which 1 is the source of the further specification and eventual codification of human rights. Human rights, I conclude, are universal because of their international significance and scope and (...) are inherently linked to cosmopolitan values. (shrink)

In contrast with his major ethical works, Kant’s writings on history are replete with the theme of the social character of moral development and the interdependence of individual and community. I argue that historical-moral progress is an important part of Kant’s comprehensive ethical theory. However, in order to link the moral goals of humanity with the moral goals of individuals, judgement must have a dimension that can apprehend the purposiveness of those human achievements which are social in their significance and (...) socially transmitted. In other words, such achievements transcend individual intention. The ‘historical signs’ of such moral purposiveness provide moral orientation through the conflicting claims that arise within and between complex and historically evolving human communities. I explore the role of disinterested judgement in providing this orientation and in marking the moral disposition of the species. (shrink)

A growing body of research has demonstrated significant heterogeneity of hospital ethics committee (HEC) size, membership and training requirements, length of appointment, institutional support, clinical and policy roles, and predictors of self identified success. Because these studies have focused on HECs at a single point in time, however, little is known about how the composition of HECs changes over time and what impact these changes have on committee utilization. The current study presents 20 years of data on the evolution of (...) the Massachusetts General Hospital HEC. Between 1993 and 2012, the average number of committee members per year was 38 ± 3 and the average length of membership was 4.8 ± 0.4 years. During that time, the committee performed 934 consults, averaging 47 ± 3 per year. Attendance rates fell from 61.5 to 23.8 % over the study period and were inversely correlated with the total number of members. Between 1993 and 2012, the committee saw substantial growth in the diversity of the professional backgrounds of its members. Multivariate analysis, however, suggests that substantial changes in committee composition did not impact its utilization and that other factors are more likely to explain fluctuations in consultation volume. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss the relevance of considering context for critical thinking. We argue that critical thinking is best viewed in terms of ‘critical inquiry’ in which argumentation is seen as a way of arriving at reasoned judgments on complex issues. This is a dialectical process involving the comparative weighing of a variety of contending positions and arguments. Using the model which we have developed for teaching critical thinking as critical inquiry, we demonstrate the role played by the following (...) aspects of context: (1) knowledge of the dialectical context (the debate around an issue, both current and historical); (2) an understanding of the current state of practice and belief surrounding an issue; (3) an understanding of the intellectual, political, historical and social contexts in which an issue is embedded; (4) knowledge of the relevant disciplinary context; (5) information about the sources of an argument; (6) awareness of one’s own beliefs and biases. (shrink)

This paper will describe a participatory design process by which individuals from many levels of hierarchy and diverse technical background envisioned and then determined the design criteria for the software system to support the delivery of high quality nursing services.

Rho, a member of the Ras superfamily of small GTPases, has multiple biological roles: it regulates signal trasduction pathways linking extracellular growth factors to the assembly of actin stress fibres and focal adhesion complexes; it is required for G1 progression and activates the SRF transcription factor when quiescent fibroblasts are stimulated to grow; and it plays a role later in the cell cycle during cytokinesis. Two groups have recently succeeded in identifying downstream effectors of Rho that may mediate some of (...) these biological effects. One protein identified by both groups is protein kinase N (PKN), a serine/threonine kinase whose catalytic domain is closely related to that of protein kinase C(1,2). (shrink)