This paper critiques the view, widely held by philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists, that psychological explanation is a matter of ascribing propositional attitudes (such as beliefs and desires) towards language-like propositions in the mind, and that cognitive mental states consist in intentional attitudes towards propositions of a linguistic quasi-linguistic nature. On this view, thought is structured very much like a language. Denial that propositional attitude psychology is an adequate account of mind is therefore, on this view, is (...) tantamount to eliminative materialism, the denial that human beings are thinking beings. -/- I dispute this on the basis of recent work in cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. Mental models theory, on which thought is better understood as nonpropositional intentional psychology, accords better with the evidence and offers an alternative view to propositional attitude psychology -- one that means that the denial that that is propositional is not eliminative. However, I argue that propositional attitude psychology is a useful idealization, as classical mechanics is of relativity theory, strictly but not radically false, and useful for prediction and indeed, as long as its idealized character is born in mind, for explanation of behavior. (shrink)

This study adopted an empirical method to investigate lay people’s attitudes toward the bioethical issues of human-animal chimeric brains. The results of online surveys showed that (1) people did not entirely reject chimeric brain research, but showed slightly more negative responses than ordinary animal testing; and that (2) their ethical concerns arose in connection with the perception that chimerism in the brain would humanize the animal. This means that people’s psychology was consistent with the ethical argument that crossing the (...) human-animal boundary would bring moral confusion to our society. Meanwhile, it was not in line with another argument that moral status depended on having high capacities, and that chimerism would cause a problem if it enhanced animals’ capacities. Furthermore, this study analyzed additional psychological factors related to people’s moral judgment and the relationship among those factors. Several psychological factors, such as the perception that chimeric brain research is unnatural, were identified as mediating the relationship between perception of animal humanization and ethical concerns about creating and using chimeric brains. Introducing an empirical approach to the ethics of human-animal chimeric brains brought two findings: (1) this study informed us of socially shared intuition regarding this novel technology; and (2) it unveiled the psychological processes behind people’s ethical concerns in more detail than they spontaneously mentioned. These findings will help to build normative arguments and future policies that are understandable and acceptable to society. (shrink)

How do we think about animals? How do we decide what they deserve and how we ought to treat them? Subhuman takes an interdisciplinary approach to these questions, drawing from research in philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, law, history, sociology, economics, and anthropology. Subhuman argues that our attitudes to nonhuman animals, both positive and negative, largely arise from our need to compare ourselves to them.

Eliminative materialism is a popular view of the mind which holds that propositional attitudes, the typical units of our traditional understanding, are unsupported by modern connectionist psychology and neuroscience, and consequently that propositional attitudes are a poor scientific postulate, and do not exist. Since our traditional folk psychology employs propositional attitudes, the usual argument runs, it too represents a poor theory, and may in the future be replaced by a more successful neurologically grounded theory, resulting in a drastic (...) improvement in our interpersonal relationships. I contend that these eliminativist arguments typically run together two distinct capacities: the folk psychological mechanisms which we use to understand one another, and scientific and philosophical guesses about the structure of those understandings. Both capacities are ontologically committed and therefore empirical. However, the commitments whose prospects look so dismal to the eliminativist, in particular the causal and logical image of propositional attitudes, belong to the guesses, and not necessarily to the underlying mechanisms. It is the commitments of traditional philosophical perspectives about the operation of our folk psychology which are contradicted by␣new evidence and modeling methods in connectionist psychology. Our actual folk psychology was not clearly committed to causal, sentential propositional attitudes, and thus is not directly threatened by connectionist psychology. (shrink)

Propositional attitudes, states like believing, desiring, intending, etc., have played a central role in the articulation of many of our major theories, both in philosophy and the social sciences. Until relatively recently, psychology was a prominent entry on the list of social sciences in which propositional attitudes occupied center stage. In this century, though, behaviorists began to make a self-conscious effort to expunge "mentalistic" notions from their theorizing. Behaviorism has failed. Psychology therefore is again experiencing "formative years," and (...) two themes have caught the interest of philosophers. The first is that psychological theories evidently must exploit a vast array of relations obtaining among internal states. The second is that the use of mentalistic idioms seems to be explicit again in much of current theorizing. These two observations have led philosophers to wonder about the probable as well as the proper role of propositional attitudes in future psychological theories. Some philosophers wonder, in particular, about the role of the contents of propositional attitudes in the forthcoming theories. Their strategy is in part to discern what sorts of theory psychologists now will want to construct, and then discern what role propositional attitude contents might play in theories of those sorts. I consider here two sorts of theory, what I call minimal functional theories and what is known as propositional attitude psychology. ;I outline these two kinds of theory, and show how each defines a role for contents. Contents are ultimately eliminable in minimal functional theories. Although they play an apparently ineliminable role in propositional attitude psychology, they do so at an apparent cost. Propositional attitude psychology does not seem to accommodate a certain methodological principle, a principle of individualism in psychology, which is endorsed even by some of the philosophers most enamored of the approach. Such philosophers have two options: they can attempt to show that the conflict between the approach and the principle is not genuine, or they can reject the principle. I argue that the conflict is real, and recommend a qualified rejections of the principle. (shrink)

Bernard Williams charges that the moral psychology built into R. M. Hare’s utilitarianism is incoherent in virtue of demanding a bifurcated kind of moral thinking that is possible only for agents who fail to reflect properly on their own practical decision making. I mount a qualified defence of Hare’s view by drawing on the account of the ‘reactive attitudes’ found in P. F. Strawson’s ‘Freedom and Resentment’. Against Williams, I argue that the ‘resilience’ of the reactive attitudes ensures that (...) our taking an instrumental view of our dispositions to experience guilt and compunction, as Hare calls for us to do while engaged in ‘critical’ moral thinking, will not prevent us from experiencing these feelings as people ordinarily do while we are thinking ‘intuitively’. I also consider the implications of my argument for consequentialism more generally and (briefly) Kantianism. (shrink)

Psychological consequences of money and money attitudes in dictator game According to the research conducted by Vohs, Mead, and Goode, reminders of money cause people to behave self-sufficiently, and especially to reveal a reduced tendency to charitable behaviour. In this study, we wanted to establish if this tendency would be present in the dictator game, and if so, whether money activation would just change behaviour, or whether it would also change people's evaluation of their own decisions. We assumed that people (...) who revealed symbolic and instrumental money attitudes would react differently to money activation. As expected, money priming caused smaller money transfers compared to the control condition, and this effect was significant among those with symbolic attitudes toward money. Moreover, participants who transferred at least half of the sum after money activation declared stronger negative emotions and lower satisfaction with the decision than those who made similar transfers in the control condition. (shrink)

1. Over the last 50 years or so, and especially over the last few decades, the U.S. and many other societies have undergone a large, rapid, and broad decline in anti-gay attitudes. The magnitude, s...

Aside from brute force, there are several philosophically respectable ways of eliminating the mental. In recent years the most popular elimination strategy has been directed against our common sense or folk psychological understanding of the mental. The strategy goes by the name of eliminative materialism (or eliminativism, in short). The motivation behind this strategy seems to be the following. If common sense psychology can be construed as the principled theory of the mental, whose vocabulary and principles implicitly define what (...) counts as mental, then eliminating the theory is eliminating its subject matter. If the theory is shown to be false, then its subject matter does not exist. If, in other words, common sense psychology can be shown to describe and explain nothing real in human cognition, then the mental itself is a fiction. (shrink)

Digital piracy is costly to creative economies across the world. Studies indicate that anti-piracy messages can cause people to pirate more rather than less, suggesting the presence of psychological reactance. A gender gap in piracy behavior and attitudes towards piracy has been reported in the literature. By contrast, gender differences in message reactance and the moderating impact of attitudes have not been explored. This paper uses evolutionary psychology as a theoretical framework to examine whether messages based on real-world anti-piracy (...) campaigns cause reactance and whether this effect is explained by gender and pre-existing attitudes. An experiment compares one prosocial and two threatening messages against a control group to analyze changes in piracy intention from past behavior for digital TV/film. Results indicate that the prosocial message has no significant effect, whereas the threatening messages have significantly opposing effects on men and women. One threatening message influences women to reduce their piracy intentions by over 50% and men to increase it by 18%. We find that gender effects are moderated by pre-existing attitudes, as men and women who report the most favorable attitudes towards piracy tend to demonstrate the most polarized changes in piracy intentions. The practical implications of the results are that men and women process threatening messages differently, therefore behavioral change messages should be carefully targeted to each gender. Explicitly, threatening messages may be effective on women, but may have the reverse effect on men with strong favorable attitudes towards the target behavior. (shrink)

We investigated the relation between economic and social attitudes and the psychological underpinnings of these attitudes in candidates (N = 9515) in the Finnish 2017 municipal elections. In this politically elite sample, right-wing economic attitudes and social conservatism were positively correlated (r =.41), and this correlation was predominantly driven by those on the economic left being socially liberal, and vice versa. In terms of underlying psychological processes, consistent with dual process models of political ideology, the anti-egalitarian aspect of social dominance (...) orientation was more strongly associated with right-wing economic attitudes, and the conventionalism and aggression aspects of right-wing authoritarianism with social conservatism. Our results show that even in a non-US context in which the masses organize their political attitudes on two independent dimensions, these dimensions are moderately aligned among certain parts of the political elite, and that the political attitudes of the political elite can be traced to underlying psychological motivations. We argue that equality concerns could play a role in explaining why the left-right and liberal-conservative dimensions are more strongly aligned among those on the left and those more liberal. (shrink)

The current study aimed to highlight the factors that may influence teachers' psychological resistance to digital technologies in entrepreneurship and business schools. Theoretically grounded in the diffusion of innovations theory and the theory of planned behavior, the current research investigates teachers' psychological resistance to digital innovation, school culture and climate, and moderation of teacher attitudes toward educational technologies. A cross-sectional field survey of 600 business and entrepreneurship school teachers was conducted in Jordan. In this study, partial least square-structural equation modeling (...) was used to assess the variables' “direct and moderating impacts” using the Smart PLS software 3.0. According to the results, school culture and school innovation climate had a considerable positive impact on teachers' resistance to digital innovation. Additionally, teachers' attitudes toward educational technologies moderated the relationship between study constructs in the framework. The study is a significant advance to the literature related to entrepreneurship, business education, and digital innovation. Several key policy insights and recommendations for further research, as well as theoretical and practical implications, are suggested. (shrink)

In "Freedom and Resentment," P.F. Strawson argues that since the reactive attitudes are psychologically unavoidable, they do not stand in need of justification from philosophical theorizing about the metaphysical conditions necessary for free action. After reviewing and criticizing this line of argument, we develop an alternative account of how the reactive attitudes can be justified through a feature of our psychology. This new account focuses upon a collection of cognitive mechanisms identified by cognitive neuroscience, which recognize human beings (and (...) other minded beings) and which also give rise to a gut feeling that certain entities are possible targets for the reactive attitudes. By focusing on the justificatory power of this gut feeling, we arrive at an account of moral responsibility that places psychology before metaphysics in a manner broadly similar to Strawson's original account, but in a way that avoids some of the shortcomings of that account. (shrink)

The potential of mitigating the spreading rate and consequences of the coronavirus disease 2019 currently depends on adherence to sanitary protocols. The current study aimed to investigate the role of fatalism and comparative optimism for adherence to COVID-19 protocols. We also tested whether these factors are directly associated with adherence or associated through attitudinal mediation. The results were based on a web survey conducted among university students in Tehran, Iran. The respondents completed a multidimensional measure of fatalism and measures of (...) comparative optimism, attitudes toward COVID-19 health measures, and adherence. The estimated structural equation model explained approximately 40% of the total variance in attitudes toward COVID-19 protocols and adherence. As expected, high internality was associated with stronger adherence, whereas luck was associated with weaker adherence. Comparative optimism was more strongly associated with adherence than fatalism, and somewhat unexpectedly comparative optimism was associated with stronger adherence. Analyses of direct and indirect effects suggested that fatalism was mainly mediated through attitudes, whereas comparative optimism had both direct and mediated effects. The findings are discussed in relation to the role of these social psychological factors for COVID-19 mitigation. (shrink)

Due to the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019, taking online courses has become a “new normality” for college students. This study paid particular attention to the role of college students’ attitude toward online courses in shaping their psychological distress during the COVID-19 epidemic in China. Participants were from a national panel survey that has been administered before and during the COVID-19 epidemic. Besides bivariate analysis, a multivariate regression model while adjusting for a lagged dependent variable was estimated to show (...) the association between ATOC and during-COVID distress. We found that respondents from a disadvantaged family background were more likely to have an “unsupportive” ATOC. Moreover, both bivariate and multivariate analyses confirmed that respondents with a “neutral” or “unsupportive” ATOC had greater during-COVID psychological distress, compared to their counterparts with a “supportive” ATOC. Given the persistent spread of the COVID-19 worldwide and the profound onsite-online transition in course delivery in higher education, students’ perceptions and evaluations of the massive online courses should be carefully considered and integrated into curriculum reforms in both present and post COVID-19 situations. (shrink)

The main aim of the paper is to present the results of research concerning psychological and socio-cultural risk factors for development of negative anti-health attitude toward one’s body in young Polish women. The study comprised 120 women, of 20 to 25 years of age, with similar socio-demographic status who so far in the course of their lives have not disclosed mental or somatic disturbances. The theoretical theses for the research model were the contemporary cognitive concepts, as well as socio-cultural (...) concepts. The following have been used in the study: thematic drawings, the Contour Drawing Rating Scale developed by - developed by Thompson & Gray, the Eating Disorder Inventory created by D. Garner, The Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire 3, and questionnaire for behaviour towards the body. The results confirmed the existence of negative attitude toward one’s own body, as well as development of inclinations for compensation-generating behaviour. A group of risk factors has been identified, which may lead to the development of the above attitudes and behaviours toward one’s body in healthy women, who at the same time do not accept the image of their real bodies. (shrink)

Care-dependency constitutes an important issue with regard to the approval of end-of-life decisions, yet attitudes towards assisted suicide and euthanasia are understudied among care-dependent older adults. We assessed attitudes towards assisted suicide and euthanasia and tested empirical correlates, including socio-demographics, religiosity, physical illness, psychological distress and social isolation. A nationwide cross-sectional survey among older care allowance recipients in private households in Austria was conducted in 2016. In computer-assisted personal interviews, 493 respondents were asked whether or not they approved of the (...) availability of assisted suicide and euthanasia in case of long-term care dependency and whether or not they would consider using assisted suicide or euthanasia for themselves. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to assess the impact of potential determinants of attitudes towards assisted suicide and euthanasia. About a quarter of the sampled care-dependent older adults approved of the availability of assisted suicide and euthanasia respectively indicated the will to make use of assisted suicide or euthanasia. Attitudes towards assisted suicide were most favourable among care-dependent older adults living in urban areas, those who did not trust physicians, those who reported active suicide ideation, and individuals with a strong fear of dying. With regard to euthanasia, living alone, religiosity and fear of dying were the central determinants of acceptance. Positive attitudes towards and will to use assisted suicide and euthanasia were expressed by a substantial minority of care-dependent older adults in Austria and are driven by current psychological suffering and fear of the process of dying in the future. Community-based psychosocial care should be expanded to address psychological distress and fears about end-of-life issues among care-dependent older adults. (shrink)

Background Care-dependency constitutes an important issue with regard to the approval of end-of-life decisions, yet attitudes towards assisted suicide and euthanasia are understudied among care-dependent older adults. We assessed attitudes towards assisted suicide and euthanasia and tested empirical correlates, including socio-demographics, religiosity, physical illness, psychological distress and social isolation. Methods A nationwide cross-sectional survey among older care allowance recipients in private households in Austria was conducted in 2016. In computer-assisted personal interviews, 493 respondents were asked whether or not they approved (...) of the availability of assisted suicide and euthanasia in case of long-term care dependency and whether or not they would consider using assisted suicide or euthanasia for themselves. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to assess the impact of potential determinants of attitudes towards assisted suicide and euthanasia. Results About a quarter of the sampled care-dependent older adults approved of the availability of assisted suicide and euthanasia respectively indicated the will to make use of assisted suicide or euthanasia. Attitudes towards assisted suicide were most favourable among care-dependent older adults living in urban areas, those who did not trust physicians, those who reported active suicide ideation, and individuals with a strong fear of dying. With regard to euthanasia, living alone, religiosity and fear of dying were the central determinants of acceptance. Conclusions Positive attitudes towards and will to use assisted suicide and euthanasia were expressed by a substantial minority of care-dependent older adults in Austria and are driven by current psychological suffering and fear of the process of dying in the future. Community-based psychosocial care should be expanded to address psychological distress and fears about end-of-life issues among care-dependent older adults. (shrink)

Interpersonal contexts can be complex because they can involve two or more people who are interdependent, each of whom is pursuing both individual and shared goals. Interactions consist of individual and joint behaviors that evolve dynamically over time. Interactions are likely to affect people’s attitudes because the interpersonal context gives conversation partners a great deal of opportunity to intentionally or unintentionally influence each other. However, despite the importance of attitudes and attitude change in interpersonal interactions, this topic remains understudied. (...) To shed light on the importance of this topic. We briefly review the features of interpersonal contexts and build a case that understanding people’s sense of psychological safety is key to understanding interpersonal influences on people’s attitudes. Specifically, feeling psychologically safe can make individuals more open-minded, increase reflective introspection, and decrease defensive processing. Psychological safety impacts how individuals think, make sense of their social world, and process attitude-relevant information. These processes can result in attitude change, even without any attempt at persuasion. We review the literature on interpersonal threats, receiving psychological safety, providing psychological safety, and interpersonal dynamics. We then detail the shortcomings of current approaches, highlight unanswered questions, and suggest avenues for future research that can contribute in developing this field. (shrink)

Many philosophers hold that beliefs and desires are theoretical entities postulated for the sake of predicting and explaining people's behaviors. This paper offers a very different perspective on the nature of beliefs and desires. According to this, the first step is to understand the nature of assertion and command. Then, to understand the nature of belief and desire, what one must do is extend one's understanding of assertion and commandto assertions and commands on behalf of others; for to attribute a (...) belief is to make an assertion on someone's behalf, and to attribute a desire is to make a command on someone's behalf. From this perspective we can recognize that explanation and prediction are not the primary rationale for attributions of beliefs and desires. A number of foundational issues will also be addressed, having to do with cognition, semantics and ontology. (shrink)

According to the fitting attitude (FA) analysis of value concepts, to conceive of an object as having a given value is to conceive of it as being such that a certain evaluative attitude taken towards it would be fitting. Among the challenges that this analysis has to face, two are especially pressing. The first is a psychological challenge: the FA analysis must call upon attitudes that shed light on our value concepts while not presupposing the mastery of these (...) concepts. The second challenge is normative: the FA analysis must account for the fittingness of the relevant attitudes in terms of a kind of normativity intimately related to these attitudes, but again without presupposing the mastery of the relevant value concepts. In this paper, we show that real progress is possible if we pay close attention to the nature of the attitudes recruited by the analysis. More specifically, we claim that an FA analysis that appeals to emotions conceived as evaluative attitudes — as opposed to, for instance, evaluative judgements or evaluative perceptions — has the best prospects of meeting the two challenges and of putting the FA analysis on a strong footing. (shrink)

According to the fitting attitude (FA) analysis of value concepts, to conceive of an object as having a given value is to conceive of it as being such that a certain evaluative attitude taken towards it would be fitting. Among the challenges that this analysis has to face, two are especially pressing. The first is a psychological challenge: the FA analysis must call upon attitudes that shed light on our value concepts while not presupposing the mastery of these (...) concepts. The second challenge is normative: the FA analysis must account for the fittingness of the relevant attitudes in terms of a kind of normativity intimately related to these attitudes, but again without presupposing the mastery of the relevant value concepts. In this paper, we show that real progress is possible if we pay close attention to the nature of the attitudes recruited by the analysis. More specifically, we claim that an FA analysis that appeals to emotions conceived as evaluative attitudes — as opposed to, for instance, evaluative judgements or evaluative perceptions — has the best prospects of meeting the two challenges and of putting the FA analysis on a strong footing. (shrink)

Euthanasia has become the subject of ethical and political debate in many countries including Mexico. Since many physicians are deeply concerned about euthanasia, due to their crucial participation in its decision and implementation, it is important to know the psychological meaning that the term ‘euthanasia’ has for them, as well as their attitudes toward this practice. This study explores psychological meaning and attitudes toward euthanasia in 546 Mexican subjects, either medical students or physicians, who were divided into three groups: a) (...) beginning students, b) advanced students, and c) physicians. We used the semantic networks technique, which analyzed the words the participants associated with the term ‘euthanasia’. Positive psychological meaning, as well as positive attitudes, prevailed among advanced students and physicians when defining euthanasia, whereas both positive and negative psychological meaning together with more ambivalent attitudes toward euthanasia predominated in beginning students. The findings are discussed in the context of a current debate on a bill proposing active euthanasia in Mexico City. (shrink)

High turnover rate is one of the striking features of the hotel industry and one of the most significant challenges. High turnover rate causes substantial costs for recruitment, selection and training in hotels, on the other hand, it also leads to negative consequences such as the decline of organizational performance and service quality. Thus, it is necessary to search for the root causes of turnover and put forward solutions. This study was designed to examine the impact of psychological capital, organizational (...) commitment, and job satisfaction on turnover intention among hotel employees. Additionally, it aimed to test the mediating roles of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The data were obtained from 228 hotel customer-contact employees with a time lag of two weeks in three waves in Kuala Lumpur based on convenience sampling. A series of structural equation modeling analyses were utilized to investigate hypothesized relationships. The results reveal that there exists a significant and negative impact of PsyCap on employees’ turnover intention and this correlation is partially mediated through two job attitudes. That is to say, to retain hotel talents, five-star hotel management should take proper measures to help employees obtain and maintain positive psychological resources such as PsyCap, on the other hand, how to cultivate positive job attitudes and strengthen their sense of identification and belonging for their organizations is supposed to be more focused on. (shrink)

Euthanasia has become the subject of ethical and political debate in many countries including Mexico. Since many physicians are deeply concerned about euthanasia, due to their crucial participation in its decision and implementation, it is important to know the psychological meaning that the term ‘euthanasia’ has for them, as well as their attitudes toward this practice. This study explores psychological meaning and attitudes toward euthanasia in 546 Mexican subjects, either medical students or physicians, who were divided into three groups: a) (...) beginning students, b) advanced students, and c) physicians. We used the semantic networks technique, which analyzed the words the participants associated with the term ‘euthanasia’. Positive psychological meaning, as well as positive attitudes, prevailed among advanced students and physicians when defining euthanasia, whereas both positive and negative psychological meaning together with more ambivalent attitudes toward euthanasia predominated in beginning students. The findings are discussed in the context of a current debate on a bill proposing active euthanasia in Mexico City. (shrink)

I argue that rather than dismiss Foucault’s first book, Mental Illness and Personality, as an “apologetic exposition of Pavlov’s reflexology,” we ought see it as a valuable source documenting Foucault’s change of attitude towards psychology and the history of science in the early 1950s. I argue that there are two distinguishable strands that make up the text. The ‘frame’ of the book—the introduction, first chapter of the second part and conclusion of the book—is expressive of a critical (...) class='Hi'>attitude towards psychology, and indicative of rather sophisticated conception of the history of science as a critical history aimed at bringing into view the unscientific forces that shape scientific labor. The ‘main body’ of the text—the first part and the second chapter of the second part—by contrast, reads as the history of the steady dialectical progress of the psychological sciences towards an ever more accurate understanding of mental illness. It is thus indicative to a naïve approach to psychology and to its history. The tension between the two strands of the book thus documents the starting point of Foucault’s then shifting attitudes toward the psychological sciences and the history of science, and the set of questions and sources that lead him to problematize his understanding of and approach to the latter. (shrink)

It has been 2 years since the first outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, and continuous efforts and measures have been exerted and implemented to halt its spread, such as the introduction of vaccination programs. However, as with the consumption of other products and services, some people hold different beliefs, consequently affecting their attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccination. Thus, vaccine unwillingness and hesitancy remain an enormous concern for many countries. This paper explores the effects of anxiety, individual resilience, and conspiracy beliefs on (...) attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines among the population of Malaysia—with a focus on Muslim individuals. We used survey data from 438 respondents to assess the research model. To conduct the multi-group analysis, we used partial least square structural equation modeling in SmartPLS 3. The results suggest that anxiety is positively associated with COVID-19 vaccination attitudes, whereas conspiracy beliefs have an inverse effect on vaccination attitudes, while an individual’s resilience is also positively associated with vaccination attitudes. Furthermore, it is found that the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and vaccination attitudes is weakened for an individual with a higher level of resilience. The findings also reveal the differences and similarities between males and females. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to simultaneously explore and demonstrate the effects of COVID-19-related anxiety, conspiracy beliefs and resilience with people’s attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines and to examine the homogeneity of both males and females—especially among Malaysia’s Muslim population—thereby offering a valuable contribution to the literature. (shrink)

ObjectivesTo examine implicit and explicit attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women among heterosexual undergraduate and graduate psychology and nursing students.MethodsImplicit attitudes were measured via the Implicit Association Test and explicit attitudes via the Attitudes Toward Lesbian Women and Gay questionnaire.Main resultsAll groups held negative implicit attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women. Among undergraduates, nursing students reported holding more negative explicit attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women than psychology students.ConclusionThe curricula in both nursing and psychology (...) studies need to address the medical and paramedical needs and issues of sexual minorities. (shrink)

Elective abortion has become an issue of ethical and political debate in many countries including Mexico. As gynecologists are directly involved in the practice of abortion, it is important to know the psychological meaning that the term ‘elective abortion’ has for them. This study explores the psychological meaning and attitudes toward elective abortion of one hundred and twenty‐three Mexican gynecologists. We used the semantic networks technique, which analyzed the words the participants associated with the term ‘elective abortion’.The defining words most (...) frequently used by participants implied a negative sanction. There were important differences by gender and religiosity: male gynecologists, as well as those with strong religious beliefs (mainly Catholics), revealed a more negative psychological meaning and more negative attitudes than females or physicians with weak religious beliefs. A contribution of the present study is that it highlights the importance of psychology to enhancing understanding of the issue of elective abortion. (shrink)

With the progress of social production, the competition for talents among enterprises is fierce, and the market often lacks capable leaders, which leads to the lack of management of enterprise employees and cannot bring more economic benefits to enterprises. Traditional leaders make subordinate employees work actively and achieve the common goal of the enterprise by exerting their own leadership characteristics and observing their subordinates, but they cannot take care of the psychological state of each employee, resulting in the employee's work (...) efficiency is not very high. In recent years, charismatic leadership has become an important economic leader in the new era, and the theoretical spirit of charismatic leadership can well guide employees to work actively. Artificial intelligence affective computing can well identify the psychological state of the subject, and the combination of artificial intelligence affective computing and charismatic leadership can achieve effective management of employees through the predictive analysis of employees' psychological state. This paper compares the psychological state prediction analysis of employees' work attitudes between charismatic leaders based on artificial intelligence affective computing and traditional leaders through experiments. The results show that: charismatic leaders based on artificial intelligence affective computing predictive analytics can improve sensitivity to employee needs, resulting in an 8.2% increase in employee trust in leadership, a 4.4% increase in employee commitment to achieving organizational goals, and a 19.3% increase in employee job satisfaction. The psychological state prediction analysis of charismatic leaders based on artificial intelligence affective computing on employees' work attitudes can improve the work efficiency of employees and the economic benefits of enterprises. (shrink)

Elective abortion has become an issue of ethical and political debate in many countries including Mexico. As gynecologists are directly involved in the practice of abortion, it is important to know the psychological meaning that the term ‘elective abortion’ has for them. This study explores the psychological meaning and attitudes toward elective abortion of one hundred and twenty-three Mexican gynecologists. We used the semantic networks technique, which analyzed the words the participants associated with the term ‘elective abortion’. The defining words (...) most frequently used by participants implied a negative sanction. There were important differences by gender and religiosity: male gynecologists, as well as those with strong religious beliefs (mainly Catholics), revealed a more negative psychological meaning and more negative attitudes than females or physicians with weak religious beliefs. A contribution of the present study is that it highlights the importance of psychology to enhancing understanding of the issue of elective abortion. (shrink)

Elective abortion has become an issue of ethical and political debate in many countries including Mexico. As gynecologists are directly involved in the practice of abortion, it is important to know the psychological meaning that the term ‘elective abortion’ has for them. This study explores the psychological meaning and attitudes toward elective abortion of one hundred and twenty‐three Mexican gynecologists. We used the semantic networks technique, which analyzed the words the participants associated with the term ‘elective abortion’.The defining words most (...) frequently used by participants implied a negative sanction. There were important differences by gender and religiosity: male gynecologists, as well as those with strong religious beliefs (mainly Catholics), revealed a more negative psychological meaning and more negative attitudes than females or physicians with weak religious beliefs. A contribution of the present study is that it highlights the importance of psychology to enhancing understanding of the issue of elective abortion. (shrink)

Recent work in moral philosophy has emphasized the foundational role played by interpersonal accountability in the analysis of moral concepts such as moral right and wrong, moral obligation and duty, blameworthiness, and moral responsibility (Darwall 2006; 2013a; 2013b). Extending this framework to the field of moral psychology, we hypothesize that our moral attitudes, emotions, and motives are also best understood as based in accountability. Drawing on a large body of empirical evidence, we argue that the implicit aim of the (...) central moral motives and emotions is to hold people - whether oneself or others - accountable for compliance with the demands of morality. Moral condemnation is based in a motive to get perpetrators to hold themselves accountable for their wrongdoing, not, as is commonly supposed, a mere retributive motive to make perpetrators suffer (�2). And moral conscience is based in a genuine motive to hold oneself accountable for behaving in accordance with moral demands, not, as is commonly supposed, a mere egoistic motive to appear moral to others (�3). The accountability-based theory of the moral motives and emotions we offer provides better explanations of the extant empirical data than any of the major alternative theories of moral motivation. Moreover, conceiving of moral psychology in this way gives us a new and illuminating perspective on what makes morality distinctive: its essential connection to our practice of holding one another accountable (�4). (shrink)