Author Samuel Smiles coined the phrase self-help with this bestseller, originally published in 1859. Smiles envisions a world in which the lowliest members of a community can reach the heights of society through merit and hard work. A firm believer in the value of sustained effort, he emphasizes the pleasure of engaging in self-improvement for its own sake rather than strictly as a means to worldly advancement. The capacity of work well done to ennoble the life of any man, however (...) humble, is Smiles' main thesis, illustrated with examples of wisdom gleaned from the biographies of notable self-starters. Written at the close of the Industrial Revolution, this book was influenced by the technological advances of the previous century, in which new manufacturing processes and scientific advances enabled greater accomplishments by determined, hard-working individuals. Citing incidents from the lives of prominent inventors and entrepreneurs, Smiles exhorts readers to draw upon their internal resources to get ahead in the world. The book celebrates the traits of perseverance and ingenuity, advocating in self-belief despite hardships and failures, with many illustrations of the value of patience and optimism. The founding work of the self-help movement, this volume retains the capacity to inspire."-- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Publication date: 15 October 2018 Source: Author: Smiles I. Ume, C.I. Ezeano, R.O. Anozie Role of off-farm income in agricultural production and its environmental effect in Southeast, Nigeria was studied. Two hundred and forty respondents were selected through multi stage random sampling techniques. The objectives of the study were captured using percentage responses, multiple regression and factor analyses. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. The result of socio-economic characteristics of commercial motor cycle riders showed that most (...) riders were youthful, single and experienced. Also, most of the riders used their money generated in the business in hiring labour, procurements of farm inputs, family welfare, expansion of business and procurement of equipment. As well, the menaces caused by motor cycle to the riders and the general society were accidents, traffic jam, crimes, health challenges and gang beating. More so, the determinant factors to the motor cycle riders’ income generated were number of years of experience and marital status. In addition, the effects of motor cycle operations to the environment were dusty and noisy situations, soil erosion, vegetation loss and oil spillage. The avenues in alleviating the affects of motor cycle operations on the environment were use of gadgets, educational programme, ban on the use of big motor cycle, use of traffic control and cleanliness of vehicular emission. The major problems encountered by the riders were extortions by the police, emblem, high cost of fuel and high cost of spare parts. Based on the findings the following recommendations were proffered. There is need to enhance riders’ access to hearing and head protective devices and goggle gadget at affordable prices. Also, experienced and novice riders should be encouraged to remain in business through among others provision of motor cycle parts at affordable prices and rehabilitation of rural roads by the government. Finally, all forms of extortions of the riders should be checkmated and the culprits brought to book. (shrink)

This book has been written in the hopes of equipping teachers-in-training—that is, teacher candidates—with the skills needed for action research: a process that leads to focused, effective, and responsive strategies that help students succeed.

In _The Smile of Tragedy_, Daniel Ahern examines Nietzsche’s attitude toward what he called “the tragic age of the Greeks,” showing it to be the foundation not only for his attack upon the birth of philosophy during the Socratic era but also for his overall critique of Western culture. Through an interpretation of “Dionysian pessimism,” Ahern clarifies the ways in which Nietzsche sees ethics and aesthetics as inseparable and how their theoretical separation is at the root of Western nihilism. Ahern (...) explains why Nietzsche, in creating this precursor to a new aesthetics, rejects Aristotle’s medicinal interpretation of tragic art and concentrates on Apollinian cruelty as a form of intoxication without which there can be no art. Ahern shows that Nietzsche saw the human body as the vessel through which virtue and art are possible, as the path to an interpretation of “selflessness,” as the means to determining an order of rank among human beings, and as the site where ethics and aesthetics coincide. (shrink)

Conference environments enable diverse roles for academics. However, conferences are hardly entered into by participants as equals. Academics enter into and experience professional environments differently according to culture, gender, race, ethnicity, class, and more. This paper considers from a philosophical perspective entering and initiating culturally into academic conferences as a woman. It discusses theories of gender and emotional labor and emotional management, focusing on Arlie Hochschild’s foundational work, and affect in gendered social relations, considering Sara Ahmed’s theorization of the feminist (...) killjoy and the affect alien. It applies these lenses to explore problematic experiences of women initiates at conferences. The paper proceeds with a theoretical discussion of gender, emotional labor, and affect. Then the paper discusses women academics’ experiences generally and at conferences, including educational research conferences, with reference to relevant higher education research as well as anecdotal evidence, relating these experiences to the theories. It thus aims to tie together theoretical insights, higher education scholarship, and ordinary real-life experiences of gendered social relations in conference activities. (shrink)

Conference environments enable diverse roles for academics. However, conferences are hardly entered into by participants as equals. Academics enter into and experience professional environments differently according to culture, gender, race, ethnicity, class, and more. This paper considers from a philosophical perspective entering and initiating culturally into academic conferences as a woman. It discusses theories of gender and emotional labor and emotional management, focusing on Arlie Hochschild’s foundational work, and affect in gendered social relations, considering Sara Ahmed’s theorization of the feminist (...) killjoy and the affect alien. It applies these lenses to explore problematic experiences of women initiates at conferences. The paper proceeds with a theoretical discussion of gender, emotional labor, and affect. Then the paper discusses women academics’ experiences generally and at conferences, including educational research conferences, with reference to relevant higher education researc... (shrink)

Recent application of theories of embodied or grounded cognition to the recognition and interpretation of facial expression of emotion has led to an explosion of research in psychology and the neurosciences. However, despite the accelerating number of reported findings, it remains unclear how the many component processes of emotion and their neural mechanisms actually support embodied simulation. Equally unclear is what triggers the use of embodied simulation versus perceptual or conceptual strategies in determining meaning. The present article integrates behavioral research (...) from social psychology with recent research in neurosciences in order to provide coherence to the extant and future research on this topic. The roles of several of the brain's reward systems, and the amygdala, somatosensory cortices, and motor centers are examined. These are then linked to behavioral and brain research on facial mimicry and eye gaze. Articulation of the mediators and moderators of facial mimicry and gaze are particularly useful in guiding interpretation of relevant findings from neurosciences. Finally, a model of the processing of the smile, the most complex of the facial expressions, is presented as a means to illustrate how to advance the application of theories of embodied cognition in the study of facial expression of emotion. (shrink)

The assumption that a complex and fuzzy notion like smile can be the basis of a scientific, rather than semantic, inquiry can only lead to confused and inconclusive results. It would be more productive to start with the well-defined and measurable patterns of the clearly visible contrasts that are produced on the human face by various muscular contractions around the white patches formed by the sclera and the teeth. These features are universal, whereas a common word, in whatever language, is (...) necessarily ambiguous, culture-dependent, and historically rather than biologically determined. (shrink)

'Walter Pagel's last book is more arcane and difficult, certainly as erudite and inimitable, and perhaps as rewarding as all his others. In a strange alchemical mixture of alter ego, familiar and doppelgänger, Paracelsus was Pagel's cross and his torch.' With 'The Smiling Spleen', Walter Pagel reconfirms his position as a leading authority on Paracelsus and the influence of his doctrines and practice on the development of modern science and medicine. In this final work of his life, Pagel concentrates (...) on Paracelsianism as a historical phenomenon, giving major attention to the lesser-known figures who characterized the 'storm and stress' of the Paracelsian reform movement during the 16th and 17th centuries. (shrink)

We present evidence that smiling is positively associated with positive affect in women and negatively associated with negative affect in men. In line with Vigil's model, we propose that, in women, smiling signals warmth (trustworthiness cues), which attracts fewer and more intimate relationships, whereas in men, smiling signals confidence and lack of self-doubt (capacity cues), which attracts numerous, less-intimate relationships.

Smiling can be interpreted as a costly signal of future benefits from cooperation between the individual smiling and the individual to whom the smile is directed. The target article by Niedenthal et al. gives little attention to the possible mechanisms by which smiling may have evolved. In our view, there are strong reasons to think that smiling has the key characteristics of a costly signal.

We investigate whether smile mimicry and emotional contagion are evident in non-text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC). Via an ostensibly real-time audio-visual CMC platform, participants interacted with a confederate who either smiled radiantly or displayed a neutral expression throughout the interaction. Automatic analyses of expressions displayed by participants indicated that smile mimicry was at play: A higher level of activation of the facial muscle that characterises genuine smiles was observed among participants who interacted with the smiling confederate than among participants who (...) interacted with the unexpressive confederate. However, there was no difference in the self-reported level of joviality between participants in the two conditions. Our findings demonstrate that people mimic smiles in audio-visual CMC, but that even though the diffusion of emotions has been documented in text-based CMC in previous studies, we find no convincing support for the phenomenon of emotional contagion in non-text-based CMC. (shrink)

Smiles provide information about a social partner’s affect and intentions during social interaction. Although always encountered within a specific situation, the influence of contextual information on smile evaluation has not been widely investigated. Moreover, little is known about the reciprocal effect of smiles on evaluations of their accompanying situations. In this research, we assessed how different smile types and situational contexts affected participants’ social evaluations. In Study 1, 85 participants rated reward, affiliation, and dominance smiles embedded within either enjoyable, polite, (...) or negative (unpleasant) situations. Context had a strong effect on smile ratings, such that smiles in enjoyable situations were rated as more genuine and joyful, as well as indicating less superiority than those in negative situations. In Study 2, 200 participants evaluated the situations that these smiles were perceived within (rather than the smiles themselves). Although situations paired with reward (vs. affiliation) smiles tended to be rated more positively, this effect was absent for negative situations. Ultimately, the findings point toward a reciprocal relationship between smiles and contexts, whereby the face influences evaluations of the situation and vice versa. (shrink)

Smiling is a universal human practice, although readiness to smile at strangers varies according to culture. In Australia, where being open and friendly to strangers is not unusual, the city of Port Phillip, an area covering some of the bayside suburbs of Melbourne, has been using volunteers to find out how often people smile at those who pass them in the street. It then put up signs that look like speed limits, but tell pedestrians that they are in, for (...) example, a “10 Smiles Per Hour Zone.â€. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue that, contrary to what is generally assumed in the debate on expressive action, we do not have good reasons to exclude facial and bodily expressions of emotion such as smiling or frowning from the category of actions. For this purpose, I will compare facial and bodily expressions of emotion with simple expressive actions, such as jumping for joy or covering one’s face in shame. I will try to show that simple expressive actions cannot (...) be presented as actions while excluding facial and bodily expressions of emotion from this condition. My contention will then be that either both sorts of behaviour are to be identified as actions or neither is. The latter sounds rather implausible, though, as we would have to assimilate jumping for joy or covering one’s face in shame to spasms, which conflicts with the way we relate to such behaviours. My conclusion will then be that both simple expressive actions and facial and bodily expressions of emotion should be included within the category of actions, at least on the basis of the main assumptions in the current debate on expressive action. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to trace the development of a particular current of thought known under the label ‘pragmatism’ in the last part of the Twentieth century and the beginning of the Twenty-first. I address three questions about this current of thought. First, what is its actual historical development? Second, does it constitute a single, coherent, philosophical outlook? Third, in what form, if any, does it constitute an attractive philosophical outlook. In the course of addressing these questions I (...) identify a potential tension between the two main proponents of this current of thought (Huw Price and Simon Blackburn), namely the attitude they take to what I refer to as their ‘naturalist master narrative’. (shrink)

Recent work in social robotics, which is aimed both at creating an artificial intelligence and providing a test-bed for psychological theories of human social development, involves building robots that can learn from ‘face-to-face’ interaction with human beings — as human infants do. The building-blocks of this interaction include the robot’s ‘expressive’ behaviours, for example, facial-expression and head-and-neck gesture. There is here an ideal opportunity to apply Wittgensteinian conceptual analysis to current theoretical and empirical work in the sciences. Wittgenstein’s philosophical psychology (...) is sympathetic to embodied and situated Artificial Intelligence (see Proudfoot, 2002, 2004b), and his discussion of facial-expression is remarkably modern. In this chapter, I explore his approach to facial-expression, using smiling as a representative example, and apply it to the canonical interactive face robot, Cynthia Breazeal’s Kismet (see e.g. Breazeal, 2009, 2002). I assess the claim that Kismet has expressive behaviours, with the aim of generating philosophical insights for AI. (shrink)

The SIMS model offers an embodied perspective to cognition and behaviour that can be applied to organizational studies. This model enriches behavioural and brain research conducted by social scientists on emotional work (also known as emotional labour) by including the key role played by body-related aspects in interpersonal exchanges. Nevertheless, one could also study a more vocal aspect to smiling as illustrated by the development of strategies in organizations. We propose to gather face-to-face and voice-to-voice interactions in an embodied (...) perspective taking into account Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) theory of conceptual metaphors. (shrink)

In his commentary onBacchae439, lemma γελῶν, E.R. Dodds writes: ‘the actor who plays the Stranger no doubt wore a smiling mask throughout’. In addition to this passage, Dodds citesBacch.380 andHymn. Hom. Bacch.14. Referringto Bacch.1021, he expands: ‘it is an ambiguous smile—here the smile of a martyr, afterwards the smile of the destroyer.’ The idea seems to originate either from Dodds himself or from R.P. Winnington-Ingram, whoseEuripides and Dionysus cites the smile as well. Winnington-Ingram's book, according to the Preface, was (...) substantially complete by 1938, and he and Dodds were in close contact at the time of writing, so the idea could have come from either one or the other, or from their conversations. Whatever its source, the smiling mask is taken as fact by both, and through their works entered the mainstream of post-war scholarship onBacchae. (shrink)

Smiles play an important role in social perception. However, it is unclear whether a similar role is played by static facial features associated with smiles. In dental science, maxillary dental protrusions increase the baring of the teeth and thus produce partial facial features of a smile even when the individual is not choosing to smile, whereas mandibular dental protrusions do not. We conducted three experiments to assess whether individuals ascribe positive evaluations to these facial features, which are not genuine emotional (...) expressions. In Experiment 1, participants viewed facial photographs of maxillary and mandibular protrusions and indicated the smiling and emotional status of the faces. The results showed that, while no difference was observed in participants’ perception of the presence of a smile across both types of dental protrusion, participants felt more positive to faces with maxillary than mandibular protrusions. In Experiment 2, participants completed an Implicit Association Test test measuring implicit attitudes toward faces with maxillary vs. mandibular protrusions. The results showed that participants had more positive attitude toward faces with maxillary than mandibular protrusions. In Experiment 3, individuals with either maxillary or mandibular protrusions completed the same IAT test to assess whether any preference would be affected by in-group/out-group preferences. The results showed both groups had more positive attitudes toward faces with maxillary protrusion, indicating that this preference is independent of the group effect. These findings suggest that facial features associated with smiles are viewed positively in social situations. We discuss this in terms of the social-function account. (shrink)

The parent-infant dyad, characterized by contingent social interactions that develop over the first three months postpartum, may depend heavily on parental brain responses to the infant, including the capacity to smile. A range of brain regions may subserve this social key function in parents and contribute to similar capacities in normal infants, capacities that may go awry in circumstances of reduced care.

This essay evaluates two arguments found in John Morreall’s Taking Laughter Seriously: That Christianity is incompatible with a sense of humor since the latter requires that a person take nothing with absolute seriousness, and that God can have no sense of humor because he is omniscient. I point out that seriousness about something is a necessary condition of humor and that what people find funny is in part a function of what they take seriously. I illustrate these points with examples (...) from Samuel Johnson and SorenKierkegaard. Then I show how ultimate seriousness is compatible with a sense of humor, by appeal to Kierkegaard’s notion of a “way out” of responsibility for the object of one’s seriousness. Here I illustrate with St. Francis of Assisi, William James, and Kierkegaard.Morreall’s claim that God’s omniscience rules out his having a sense of humor turns on the thesis, fundamental to his book, that humor depends on “psychological shift,” which he mistakenly identifies with surprise. I distinguish these concepts, show that humor should not be construed even in terms of the (weaker) concept of psychological shift, and suggest a way of understanding God’s omniscience such that it is compatible with his sense of humor. (shrink)

The gendered assumptions embedded in the construction of the rational individual are well established in Western feminist thought but inapplicable to describe societies operating on different principles, such as East European state socialism. This article identifies the communist subject as the building block of communist political ideology and argues that this formulation was no less male biased than its counterpart, the rational individual under liberal capitalism. In state socialist Hungary this male bias came to be expressed differently: Women were integrated (...) into society through membership in a social group perceived as relatively homogeneous regarding interests and obligations and with gender-specific qualities and privileges. These qualities were considered inferior to men's since women—because of household responsibilities—were not capable of total devotion to the communist party. The author explores this construction of the female communist subject through a content analysis of classified materials from the archives of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party. (shrink)

Understanding the very nature of the smile with an integrative approach and a novel model is a fertile ground for a new theoretical vision and insights. However, from this perspective, I challenge the authors to integrate culture and race in their model, because both factors would impact upon the embodying and decoding of facial expressions.

This essay evaluates two arguments found in John Morreall’s Taking Laughter Seriously: That Christianity is incompatible with a sense of humor since the latter requires that a person take nothing with absolute seriousness, and that God can have no sense of humor because he is omniscient. I point out that seriousness about something is a necessary condition of humor and that what people find funny is in part a function of what they take seriously. I illustrate these points with examples (...) from Samuel Johnson and SorenKierkegaard. Then I show how ultimate seriousness is compatible with a sense of humor, by appeal to Kierkegaard’s notion of a “way out” of responsibility for the object of one’s seriousness. Here I illustrate with St. Francis of Assisi, William James, and Kierkegaard.Morreall’s claim that God’s omniscience rules out his having a sense of humor turns on the thesis, fundamental to his book, that humor depends on “psychological shift,” which he mistakenly identifies with surprise. I distinguish these concepts, show that humor should not be construed even in terms of the (weaker) concept of psychological shift, and suggest a way of understanding God’s omniscience such that it is compatible with his sense of humor. (shrink)

We are defined by our faces. They give identity but, equally importantly, reveal our moods and emotions through facial expression. So what happens when the face cannot move? This book is about people who live with Mbius Syndrome, which has as its main feature an absence of movement of the muscles of facial expression from birth.

"Sir, there's a drawing pin under your chair." Spoon grins. It is funny and also a bit silly to shout out 'drawing pin' in the classroom during a test. Maybe it is a better idea to leave the pin, when they go home in the afternoon and the teacher still has some marking to do. And then to say nothing, go to the woods and there scream with laughter.

The present article is a primary introduction to the semi-structured interviewing method SMILE_PH, an acronym for Sense-Making Interviews Looking at Elements of Philosophical Health. Beyond grounding this new methodology theoretically (a work that is started here but will in the future necessitate several developments), the main motivation here is pragmatic: to provide the recent philosophical health movement with a testable method and show that philosophically-oriented interviews are possible in a manner that can be reproduced, compared, tested and used systematically with (...) a population that has received no training in philosophy. The SMILE_PH approach was conceived by the author during an ethically approved pilot study focused on the philosophy of life of persons living with spinal cord injury (SCI), with the intention of rectifying the epistemic obstacles generated by rationalist, Socratic or unstructured ways of in-depth interviewing. The six-step structure of the method is also inspired by hundreds of individual dialogue sessions with philosophical counselees, led by the author between 2018 and 2022: the SMILE_PH method progressively gathers phenomenological data about 1 – our bodily sense, 2 – our sense of self, 3 – our sense of belonging, 4 – our sense of the possible, 5 – our sense of purpose and 6 – our philosophical sense. (shrink)

The rise and development of the interdisciplinary academic discipline of cultural studies is part of a broader cultural turn in the humanities and social sciences that represents a fare- well to mono-causal and reductionist methodologies in favor of a more complex, holistic and dialectical analysis of social and cultural processes. In so-called ‘critical theory’ this has led to a shift from economic and political sources of social inequality and struggles towards the persistence and irreducible complexity of cultural difference or otherness, (...) evidenced by important studies of the role of nationalism, the aestheticization of everyday life or the growing influence of new media of communication and imagination. This cultural turn in humanities and social sciences is related to a growing influence of cultural and at the same time post-political forms of power in everyday life, exemplified by the dominance of a meritocratic culture of ‘positive thinking’ in different areas of society, or in other words: of a neoliberal culture and ideology. In cultural studies historical awareness of this growing influence of cultural power is combined with anthropological research into the specificities of contemporary everyday culture and with a strong sensibility for the tensions, inequalities and contradictions in that culture, due to an ever growing globalization of its conditions. This inter- or transdisciplinary perspective on the power of culture finally cannot do without a serious rethinking of the aesthetic quality or dimension of everyday culture – and at the same time a rethinking of the scope and substance of aesthetics itself. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Humor as Aesthetic Experience Humor and Other Ways of Enjoying Cognitive Shifts: The Funny, Tragic, Grotesque, Macabre, Horrible, Bizarre, and Fantastic Tragedy vs. Comedy: Is Heavy Better than Light? Enough with the Jokes: Spontaneous vs. Prepared Humor.

This study investigated attitudes toward the use of deception in negotiation, with particular attention to the distinction between deception regarding the informational elements of the interaction (e.g., lying about or misrepresenting needs or preferences) and deception about emotional elements (e.g., misrepresenting one's emotional state). We examined how individuals judge the relative ethical appropriateness of these alternative forms of deception, and how these judgments relate to negotiator performance and long-run reputation. Individuals viewed emotionally misleading tactics as more ethically appropriate to use (...) in negotiation than informational deception. Approval of deception predicted negotiator performance in a negotiation simulation and also general reputation as a negotiator, but the nature of these relationships depended on the kind of deception involved. (shrink)