This study describes the results of experiments motivated by an attempt to understand spectral processing in the cerebral cortex (DeValois and DeValois, 1988; Pribram, 1971, 1991). This level of inquiry concerns processing within a restricted cortical area rather than that by which spatially separate circuits become synchronized during certain behavioral and experiential processes. We recorded neural responses for 55 locations in the somatosensory (barrel) cortex of the rat to various combinations of spatial frequency (texture) and temporal frequency stimulation of their (...) vibrissae. The recordings obtained from single and multi-unit bursts of spikes were mapped as surface distributions of local dendritic potentials. The distributions showed a variety of patterns that are asymmetric with respect to the spatial and temporal parameters of stimulation, and were, therefore, not simply reflecting whisker flick rate. Next, a simulation of our results showed that these surface distributions of local dendritic potentials can be described by Gabor-like functions much as in the visual system. The results provide support for a model of distributed cortical processing that imposes a physiologically derived frame (the limited extent of a dendritic patch) and an anatomically derived (axonal) sampling of the distributed process. This combination provides a complex Gabor wavelet that encodes phase, which is necessary to processing such details as edges and texture in a scene. The synchronization across cortical areas that make the Gabor wavelet processes within restricted cortical areas available to one another (the binding problem) proceed at a ''higher order'' level of integration. Both levels of distributed processing accomplish computation in the conjoint spacetime and spectral domain. (shrink)

Discerning the motives that lead businesspeople to make ethical decisions in economic contexts is important, for it aids the moral evaluation of such decisions. But conventional economic theory has for too long assumed an egoist model of motivation, to which many contrast an altruist view of ethical choices. The result is to see business decision making as implying dilemmas. On the other hand, we argue, if one assumes multiple motives, economic and ethical, in ordinary business decisions, a more (...) fruitful model of ethical motivation in such decisions emerges. In this paper multiple motives are assumed to be the norm in a world of large organizations, complex decisions and stakeholder management. An example of a technology acquisition decision, with environmental overtones is presented in illustration of this approach. A method for discerning motives, primarily in terms of behavioural efficacy is presented. On this basis a two step approach to morally evaluating mixed motives in business decisions is proposed. First, the fit of motives with substantive ethical values should be ascertained, and then the efficacy of moral motives in yielding ethical behaviour and outcomes should be determined. This approach, we conclude, offers a much more concrete model of the actual role of moral motives in business decision making. It also signals the importance of moral learning in organizations. (shrink)

The thought that creativity is a kind of virtue is an attractive one. Virtues are valuable traits that are praised and admired, and creativity is a widely celebrated trait in our society. In philosophical ethics, epistemology, and increasingly aesthetics, virtue-theoretical approaches are influential, so an account of creativity as a virtue can draw on well-established theories. Several philosophers, including Linda Zagzebski, Christine Swanton and Matthew Kieran, have argued for the claim that creativity is a virtue, locating this claim within a (...) broader picture of intellectual, ethical and aesthetic virtues respectively. Moreover, a prominent research programme in psychology, led by Teresa Amabile, holds that people have an intrinsic motivation when they are creative, and this seems seamlessly to fit with the view that creativity is a virtue, for it is often held that a requirement for a trait to be a virtue is that the virtuous agent acts from an intrinsic motivation. (shrink)

We develop a theory of joint intention in contexts in which participants have mixed motives that can manifest in all-things-considered reasons to deviate from contributing to the desired project, e.g., contexts with collective action problems. Our theory is based on strategic equilibrium-based reasoning, which links the characterization of joint intention in terms of individual intentions with conditions on strategy profiles of the underlying strategic games. We use elements of equilibrium reasoning to construct a counterfactual account of joint intention (...) in the mixed-motive contexts, which extends the reach of the notion of joint intention considerably beyond that of previous formulations. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is, by process of elimination, to elucidate and defend an account of how ordinary people act on their values. I will be making both a descriptive claim about our psychology and a further claim about its effectiveness and rational status. I want to suggest that the way in which most of us in fact put our values into practice is, over time, preferable to the ways which initially seem required or at least desirable.

There are two seemingly unrelated paradoxes of democracy. The older one is the doctrinal paradox or the discursive dilemma. or a comprehensive bibliography, see List 1995. The younger one is the mixed motivation problem introduced by Jonathan Wolff (1994) in this journal. In the mixed motivation problem, we have voters with mixed Benthamite and Rousseauian motivations who reach a majority on an issue that is neither in the self-interest of a majority of the voters, nor considered to (...) be conducive to the common good by a majority of the voters. What has gone unnoticed so far is that both of these paradoxes share a common structure. (shrink)

The category of heroic action is important in both everyday life and the wider social context. This article argues that interest in the notion of heroic actions and heroic defeats also brings out an important set of sociological problems, such as disagreements on identity, norms, and rational choice explanations. Illustrations are provided from recent analyses of union militancy in Britain and Italy, and of the student movement in Beijing. Different versions of the critique of rational choice theory often take norm-guided (...) action as a point of departure. Another version of this critique is represented by theories of new social movements and identity maintenance. The article suggests that rational choice theory is more useful than some of its opponents would have it; yet the general argument favors a mixed motivation approach. The discussion points out some of the strengths and limitations of different explanatory perspectives, and some of the links between them. (shrink)

ABSTRACTFacial features that resemble emotional expressions influence key social evaluations, including trust. Here, we present four experiments testing how the impact of such expressive features is qualified by their processing difficulty. We show that faces with mixed expressive features are relatively devalued, and faces with pure expressive features are relatively valued. This is especially true when participants first engage in a categorisation task that makes processing of mixed expressions difficult and pure expressions easy. Critically, we also demonstrate that (...) the impact of categorisation fluency depends on the specific nature of the expressive features. When faces vary on valence, trust judgments increase with their positivity, but also depend on fluency. When faces vary on social motivation, trust judgments increase with their approachability, but remain impervious to disfluency. This suggests that people intelligently use fluency to make judgments on val... (shrink)

The debate between motivational judgment internalism and motivational judgment externalism focuses on whether a moral judgment is sufficient for motivation, or if an additional conative state is required. It is clear from the literature that internalists and exernalists have different intuitions regarding moral judgments. Most individuals, however, seem to hold a mix of internalist and externalist intuitions. My aim in this paper is to offer an approach to the issue that can account for this mix of intuitions. Drawing on the (...) work of psychologist Augusto Blasi, I suggest that a shift in focus from conative states to moral identity may be worthwhile. I argue that Blasi’s ‘self model’ can provide a straightforward story about moral judgments and motivation that makes sense of our mix of intuitions while accounting for many of the longstanding concerns of the debate between internalism and externalism. (shrink)

In an attempt to move towards a non-linear dynamic system the present study concerns itself with investigating the applicability of sacred text motivation for general second language learners rather than specific learners with religious preferences. A mixed methods research was conducted with the help of 400 participants to examine the relationship between being motivated by sacred text and improving reading comprehension. The research confirms significance of relationship between STM-based treatment and improving reading comprehension as a result of quantitative analyses (...) and that the majority of participants hold positive opinion concerning the use of sacred texts in L2 learning to improve reading comprehension based on qualitative analyses. The analyses of the interviews conducted following the administered treatment revealed that the quantitative effect of STM-based treatment can be better explained through qualitative findings. (shrink)

The objective of this study is to reach a deeper understanding of the nature of the motivations behind social practices used by firms. The motivation-mix model is a proposal that attempts to classify the different reasons that may motivate the use of each practice. The article proposes that this motivation-mix can be examined as intrafirm, indicating a particular combination for each social practice within each firm, at a given moment. The article argues that the aggregate of motivation-mixes for all social (...) practices in use by the company at a certain point in time establishes the motivation position for the company as a whole. The author applies the concept of motivation-mix to business community involvement practices as an illustration. (shrink)

A variety of philosophical positions have been proposed and developed to motivate, justify, and guide mixed methods research. This chapter provides a brief overview of the main positions in the debate over the philosophical foundations of mixed methods research. It shows that ‘philosophical foundations’ means differently while different positions provide ‘philosophical foundations’ in different senses. It also highlights the significance of the collaboration between researchers and philosophers in the examination of the philosophical foundations of mixed methods research.

Weyl's tile argument purports to show that there are no natural distance functions in atomistic space that approximate Euclidean geometry. I advance a response to this argument that relies on a new account of distance in atomistic space, called "the mixed account," according to which local distances are primitive and other distances are derived from them. Under this account, atomistic space can approximate Euclidean space (and continuous space in general) very well. To motivate this account as a genuine solution (...) to Weyl's tile argument, I argue that this account is no less natural than the standard account of distance in continuous space. I also argue that the mixed account has distinctive advantages over Forrest's (1995) account in response to Weyl's tile argument, which can be considered as a restricted version of the mixed account. (shrink)

Aristotelian virtue ethics invests emotions and feelings with much moral significance. However, the moral and other conflicts that inevitably beset human life often give rise to states of emotional division and ambivalence with problematic implications for any understanding of virtue as complete psychic unity of character and conduct. For one thing, any admission that the virtuous are prey to conflicting passions and desires may seem to threaten the crucial virtue ethical distinction between the virtuous and the continent. One recent attempt (...) to sustain this distinction -- considered in this paper -- maintains that the contrary-to-virtue emotions and desires of the virtuous (by contrast with those of the continent) must relinquish their motive power as reasons for action. Following some attention to the psychological status of feelings and emotions -- in particular their complex relations with cognition and reason -- this paper rejects this solution in favour of a more constructive view of emotional conflict. (shrink)

We can call any reductive account of knowledge that appeals to both safety and ability conditions a mixed account of knowledge. Examples of mixed accounts of knowledge include Pritchard’s (2012) Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology, Kelp’s (2013) Safe-Apt account of knowledge, and Turri’s (2011) Ample belief account of knowledge. Mixed accounts of knowledge are motivated by well-known counterexamples to pure safety and pure ability accounts of knowledge. It is thought that by combining both safety and ability conditions we can (...) give an extensionally adequate reductive account of knowledge. In this paper I argue that the putative counterexamples to pure safety and pure ability accounts of knowledge fail to motivate mixed accounts of knowledge. In particular, I argue that if the putative counterexamples are problematic for safety accounts they are problematic for ability accounts and vice-versa. The reason for this, I argue, is that the safety condition and ability condition should be understood as alternative expressions of the same intuition — that knowledge must come from a reliable source. (shrink)

In A New Form of Agent-Based Virtue Ethics , Daniel Doviak develops a novel agent-based theory of right action that treats the rightness (or deontic status) of an action as a matter of the action’s net intrinsic virtue value (net-IVV)—that is, its balance of virtue over vice. This view is designed to accommodate three basic tenets of commonsense morality: (i) the maxim that “ought” implies “can,” (ii) the idea that a person can do the right thing for the wrong reason, (...) and (iii) the idea that a virtuous person can have “mixed motives.” In this paper, I argue that Doviak’s account makes an important contribution to agent-based virtue ethics, but it needs to be supplemented with a consequentialist account of the efficacy of well-motivated actions—that is, it should be transformed into a mixed (motives-consequences) account, while retaining its net-IVV calculus. This is because I believe that there are right-making properties external to an agent’s psychology which it is important to take into account, especially when an agent’s actions negatively affect other people. To incorporate this intuition, I add to Doviak’s net-IVV calculus a scale for outcomes . The result is a mixed view which accommodates tenets (ii) and (iii) above, but allows for (i) to fail in certain cases. I argue that, rather than being a defect, this allowance is an asset because our intuitions about ought-implies-can break down in cases where an agent is grossly misguided, and our theory should track these intuitions. (shrink)

In a previous paper (see ‘Tolerant, Classical, Strict’, henceforth TCS) we investigated a semantic framework to deal with the idea that vague predicates are tolerant, namely that small changes do not affect the applicability of a vague predicate even if large changes do. Our approach there rests on two main ideas. First, given a classical extension of a predicate, we can define a strict and a tolerant extension depending on an indifference relation associated to that predicate. Second, we can use (...) these notions of satisfaction to define mixed consequence relations that capture non-transitive tolerant reasoning. Although we gave some empirical motivation for the use of strict and tolerant extensions, making use of them commits us to the view that sentences of the form ‘ p∨¬p ’ and ‘ p∧¬p ’ are not automatically valid or unsatisfiable, respectively. Some philosophers might take this commitment as a negative outcome of our previous proposal. We think, however, that the general ideas underlying our previous approach to vagueness can be implemented in a variety of ways. This paper explores the possibility of defining mixed notions of consequence in the more classical super/sub-valuationist setting and examines to what extent any of these notions captures non-transitive tolerant reasoning. (shrink)

As long-term childhood cancer survivors are at risk for late effects, ongoing medical care is crucial to detect and treat physical illnesses as early as possible. However, previous research from around the world has shown that many adult survivors did not participate in long-term medical follow-up. This study aimed to provide insight into German survivors’ care situation, with a particular focus on barriers to follow-up care. We investigated a sample of adult CCS drawn from the German Childhood Cancer Registry’s oldest (...) cohort. Our analyses included data from a standardized medical examination, a self-report questionnaire, and in-depth interviews with a subsample. Half of the participants reported participating in some kind of medical follow-up. In a logistic regression analysis, attendance of medical follow-up care was associated with higher age. Reasons for non-attendance were assigned to four categories: lack of information about medical follow-up and/or its purpose, termination by the health care provider, structural barriers, and emotional-motivational aspects. The interviews contributed to a better understanding of how these reported barriers played out in the care of individual survivors. Further, they revealed that some survivors currently in medical follow-up had had periods without follow-up care in the past—which were also in many cases related to a lack of information, both on the part of health care providers and CCS themselves. The results indicated that a large proportion of long-term CCS do not receive the recommended follow-up care. Further, there is a great need for more information regarding the aims of long-term medical follow-up and available offers. This is an important prerequisite for CCS to make informed decisions. (shrink)

When firm misconduct comes to light, CEOs are often faced with difficult decisions regarding whether and how to respond to stakeholder demands as they attempt to restore their firms’ legitimacy. Prior research largely assumes that such decisions are motivated by CEOs’ calculated attempts to manage stakeholder impressions. Yet, there are likely other motives, particularly those of a morally-relevant nature, that might also be influencing CEOs’ decisions. To address this limitation, we advance moral cleansing as an alternative explanation for how (...) and why CEOs lead their firms to respond to stakeholder demands following the firm’s misconduct and, in turn, whether they can successfully restore their firm’s legitimacy. In the context of firm misconduct, moral cleansing motives reflect CEOs’ desire to restore their threatened moral self-image resulting from the misconduct. We theorize that a CEO’s moral cleansing motives increase the likelihood that their firm will engage in a series of reparative responses that can restore the firm’s legitimacy (i.e., discovery, explanation, penance, and rehabilitation). In addition, we explicate the unique implications of CEOs’ moral cleansing in a post-misconduct context by theorizing how such motives may simultaneously improve one form of their firms’ legitimacy while hindering another. Specifically, we theorize that CEOs’ moral cleansing motives increase (decreases) the authenticity (strategic cognition) of their firm responses, which strengthens (weakens) the effectiveness of those responses on the firms’ ability to restore its moral (pragmatic) legitimacy with stakeholders. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this work. (shrink)

Truth pluralism is the view that there is more than one truth property. The strong version of it (i.e. strong pluralism) further contends that no truth property is shared by all true propositions. In this paper, I help strong pluralism solve two pressing problems concerning mixed discourse: the problem of mixed inferences (PI) and the problem of mixed compounds (PC). According to PI, strong pluralism is incompatible with the truth- preservation notion of validity; according to PC, strong (...) pluralists cannot find any appropriate truth property for mixed compound propositions, whose atomic constituents are from different domains of discourse (e.g., <sky is blue and chocolate is tasty>). I argue that the strong pluralist is motivated to take the truth predicate in truth-involving universal statements to be deflationary to avoid the two pressing problems. Such a move entails that the truth predicate in the platitude of validity (V) for any argument, it is valid if and only if necessarily its conclusion is true when its premises are all true does not denote any substantive truth property. Instead, it is merely an expressive device to help people generalize instances of (V) to (V). Analogous stories hold for the truth predicate in the platitudes of compound (e.g., conjunction). The upshot is that, the strong pluralist can solve PI and PC by further conceding that mixed compounds are true/false in a deflationary way. (shrink)

As a metaethicist, I am interested in whether expressivism is true, and thus interested in whether the argument that people think they find in Hume is a sound one. Not being a Hume scholar (but merely a devoted fan), I am less interested in whether Hume really was an expressivist or whether he really did present an argument in its favor. Hume’s metaethical views are very difficult to nail down, and by a careful selection of quotes one can present him (...) as advocating expressivism, or cognitivist subjectivism, or moral skepticism, or a dispositional theory, or an ideal observer theory, or even utilitarianism. It is entirely possible that Hume’s position is indeterminate when considered against these terms of modern moral philosophy; it is also entirely possible that he was hopelessly confused (much as it pains me to admit it). However, I doubt very much that Hume should be interpreted as an expressivist in any straightforward manner, and therefore I am doubtful that he should be interpreted as arguing in its favor. Most of this paper does not discuss Hume directly at all: I critically discuss the motivation argument and I advocate a certain positive metaethical view—one that mixes elements of traditional expressivism with elements of cognitivism. This position is neutral between moral realism and radical moral skepticism. I close by wondering—very briefly— whether Hume might have held such a view. Given my reservations about the determinacy of Hume’s metaethical outlook, the case is not pressed with any vigor, but because it is an interpretation of Hume that has not, so far as I know, been articulated before, it may be of interest to note that it seems to be consistent with much of what he says—at least as much as any other precise interpretation. (shrink)

Weyl’s tile argument purports to show that there are no natural distance functions in atomistic space that approximate Euclidean geometry. I advance a response to this argument that relies on a new account of distance in atomistic space, called the mixed account, according to which local distances are primitive and other distances are derived from them. Under this account, atomistic space can approximate Euclidean space (and continuous space in general) very well. To motivate this account as a genuine solution (...) to Weyl’s tile argument, I argue that this account is no less natural than the standard account of distance in continuous space. I also argue that the mixed account has distinctive advantages over Forrest’s (Synthese 103:327–354, 1995) account in response to Weyl’s tile argument, which can be considered as a restricted version of the mixed account. (shrink)

Acts of helping others are often based on mixed motivations. Based on this claim, it has been argued that the use of a financial reward to incentivize organ donation is compatible with promoting altruism in organ donation. In its report Human Bodies: Donation for Medicine and Research, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics uses this argument to justify its suggestion to pilot a funeral payment scheme to incentivize people to register for deceased organ donation in the UK. In this article, (...) I cast a sceptical eye on the above Nuffield report's argument that its proposed funeral payment scheme would prompt deceased organ donations that remain altruistic . Specifically, I illustrate how this scheme may prompt various forms of mixed motivations which would not satisfy the report's definition of altruism. Insofar as the scheme produces an expectation of the reward, it stands diametrical to promoting an ‘altruistic perspective’. My minimal goal in this article is to argue that altruism is not motivationally compatible with reward as an incentive for donation. My broader goal is to argue that if a financial reward is used to incentivize organ donation, then we should recognize that the donation system is no longer aiming to promote altruism. Rewarded donation would not be altruistic but it may be ethical given a persistent organ shortage situation. (shrink)

My aim is to rekindle interest in David Lewis's (1983) infamous but neglected Mixed Theory of mental states. The Mixed Theory is a mix of physicalism and functionalism designed to capture the intuitions that both Martians and abnormal human Madmen can be in pain. The Mixed Theory is widely derided. But I offer a new development of the Mixed Theory immune to its most prominent objections. In doing so, I uncover a new motivation for the (...) class='Hi'>Mixed Theory: its unique ability to explain cases in which it is plausibly indeterminate whether something is in pain. The Mixed Theory, whether or not it is ultimately correct, at least deserves renewed attention. (shrink)

The paper reviews the current situation regarding a new theory of brain dynamics put forward by the authors in an earlier publication. Motivation for the theory is discussed in terms of two issues: the long-standing problem of accounting for the stability and nonlocal properties of memory, and the experimental and theoretical evidence against the classical theory of brain action. It is shown that the new theory provides an explanation and a conceptually unifying framework for phenomena of brain action that resist (...) classical explanation. Further independent experiments provide strong additional support for the theory. The fact that this theory incorporates quantum mechanisms in an essential way is considered to be of wide scientific interest in view of the unique status of the brain in relation to the physical, biological, and mental orders in nature. (shrink)

The proposed study is based on a double causality, such as: the need to improve the counselling tools for high school students for the appropriate choice of a career development path; the existence of the category of disadvantaged students from an economic perspective, whose difficulties in choosing a training path for their career have been augmented during the pandemic. Our research provides an analysis of how the motivational essay can be substantiated as a useful tool in career counselling activities, as (...) well as how it can be integrated into counselling approaches for the economically disadvantaged teenagers to choose the academic development path. We have used a mixed research methodology, which complements the peer review approach with the qualitative analysis of a set of motivation essays developed by the 11th and 12th Grade students. The research aims to identify the level of development of self-analysis, self-reflection and self-assessment of motivational factors, which may be decisive in choosing a future career. The essay analysis highlights a series of elements, which reflects the dynamics of the change of motivational resources in the context of the digitalisation acceleration, of the upheavals on the labour market generated by the new social and economic context. The obtained results allow the formulation of conclusions: confirming the need for such an approach; certifying the possibility and usefulness of integrating the motivational essay into the career counsellor’s methodological portfolio and professional counselling approaches; illustrating useful effects and limits of the reflective effort generated during the essay. (shrink)

The present study aimed at investigating the motivational factors affecting Iranian learners’ learning of English as a Foreign Language across differing levels of language proficiency. To this end, 110 males and 70 females with an age range of 18–31 took part in the study and a mixed-methods approach was adopted. First, the researchers administered Oxford Placement Test to determine the proficiency level of the participants and placed them into three levels of language proficiency. Elementary, intermediate, and advanced. Next, as (...) for the quantitative part of the study, the Attitude/Motivation Test Battery questionnaire was distributed among all the participants to delve into the motivational factors. Finally, a semi-structured interview was conducted to qualitatively probe into EFL learners’ motivational factors affecting their learning of English. It was found that the motivational factors which encouraged EFL learners resulted from either intrinsic or extrinsic tendencies. The recognized intrinsically-based motivational factors were personal enjoyment, social prestige, and being challenged. The extrinsically-oriented factors as the source of motivation to learn English were getting a job, pursuing education, earning more money, traveling to foreign countries, pursuing academic careers, making efficient use of technology, and effectively interacting with native speakers. It was concluded that beginner and intermediate English language learners tended to learn English more based on extrinsic factors whereas advanced learners were found to be more intrinsically motivated. (shrink)

This article considers the motivations of teachers to pursue ongoing professional learning. During recent decades, the international policy context has been characterised by high-stakes accountability, but the implications of this agenda for teachers’ motivations toward professional learning remains under-explored. In this mixed methods study, combining a large teacher survey and in-depth teacher interviews, a new and significant concept of ‘instrumental motivation’ is generated to capture how high-stakes performance management policies damage the motivation of teachers to learn professionally. This innovative (...) approach, employing ordinal factor analysis and inductive/deductive hybrid thematic analysis inclusive of self-determination theory, reveals how the ‘instrumental motivation’ of teachers should be constrained and argues for the adoption of alternative motivational strategies to support effective professional learning in schools. (shrink)

BackgroundRandom acts of kindness can improve wellbeing. However, less is known about the impacts of giving and receiving acts of kindness with strangers on wellbeing and loneliness. Therefore, this study’s objectives were to evaluate a participatory public mental health project involving sending and receiving a card with goodwill messages, to understand how such acts of kindness influence wellbeing and loneliness, and to investigate the potential mechanisms underlying the project’s impacts.Materials and MethodsThis study was an analysis of anonymized service evaluation data (...) collected in the ‘Kindness by Post’ project in 2020. It used a mixed-methods single-group design and data from 289 participants. Changes in wellbeing, loneliness, sense of belonging and hope from baseline to follow-up were analyzed using linear or multinomial logistic regression. Regression models also examined the associations between changes in wellbeing and baseline loneliness or participation level. Free text responses about experiences and suggestions for the project were analyzed using thematic analysis.ResultsParticipants had a small, but statistically significant improvement, in wellbeing equating to 0.21 standard deviations after taking part in the project, as well as improvements in loneliness, sense of belonging and hope. How lonely a participant was at baseline and whether participants both sent and received a kindness card were not associated with improvements in wellbeing. In the qualitative analysis, a desire to help others emerged as the main motivator to take part in the card exchange. Participants reported enhanced personal fulfillment, leading to improvements in wellbeing. Receiving a card could make people feel special and cherished, which was reported to establish a sense of connection with others, with potential benefits for reducing loneliness.ConclusionThis study provided preliminary evidence that the KBP project might improve wellbeing, loneliness, sense of belonging and hope. Sending a kindness card in this project played a predominant role in wellbeing enhancement, and receiving a kindness card could reduce loneliness. This study suggests that the KBP project can be replicated in more contexts in the future, and might improve wellbeing and loneliness in large communities. (shrink)

Mixed emotions are conceptualized as involving the co-occurrence of states opposite in valence. One might expect that combinations of opposites would show diminished overall emotion intensity. But is this always the case? If not, when will mixed emotions be characterized by high intensity, and when by low intensity? In this article, theories of emotion-eliciting appraisal and emotion intensity are employed to understand mixed emotions and phenomena of passion. It is proposed that intense emotions are produced by transformative (...) events: perceived motive-relevant changes that are important, large, and rapid. Transformative events that can move a person between greatly motive-inconsistent and greatly motive-consistent outcomes constitute one potent path to passion. Illustrative phenomena of passion, mixed emotions, and related research are discussed. (shrink)

Social and medical scientists frequently produce empirical generalizations that involve concepts partly defined by value judgments. These generalizations, which have been called ‘mixed claims’, raise interesting questions. Does the presence of them in science imply that science is value-laden? Is the value-ladenness of mixed claims special compared to other kinds of value-ladenness of science? Do we lose epistemically if we reformulate these claims as conditional statements? And if we want to allow mixed claims in science, do we (...) need a new account of how to reconcile values with objectivity? Alexandrova (2017, 2018) offers affirmative answers to these questions. In responding to Alexandrova’s arguments, this discussion note motivates negative ones and in doing so casts new light on mixed claims. (shrink)

Trust can be thought of as a three place relation: A trusts B to do X. Trustworthiness has two components: competence (does the trustee have the relevant skills, knowledge and abilities to do X?) and willingness (is the trustee intending or aiming to do X?). This chapter is about the willingness component, and the different motivations that a trustee may have for fulfilling trust. The standard assumption in economics is that agents are self-regarding, maximizing their own consumption of goods and (...) services. This is too restrictive. In particular, people may be concerned with the outcomes of others, and they may be concerned to follow ethical principles. I distinguish weak trustworthiness, which places no restrictions on B’s motivation for doing X, from strong trustworthiness, where the behaviour must have a particular non-selfish motivation, in finance the fiduciary commitment to promote the interests of the truster. I discuss why strong trustworthiness may be more efficient and also normatively preferable to weak. In finance, there is asymmetric information between buyer and seller, which creates a need for trustworthy assessment of products. It also creates an ambiguity about whether the relationship is one of buyer and seller, governed by caveat emptor, or a fiduciary relationship of advisor and client. This means that there are two possible reasons why trust may be breached: because the trustee didn’t realise that the truster framed the relationship as a fiduciary one, or because the trustee did realise but actively sought to take advantage of the trust. Correspondingly, there are two possible types of agent: normal people who are not always self-regarding and who are trust responsive (if they believe that they are being trusted then they are likely to fulfill that trust), and knaves, after Hume’s character who is always motivated by his own private interest. We can increase the trustworthiness of normal people by getting them to re-frame the situation as one of trust, so they will be strongly trustworthy (i.e. change of institutional culture), and by providing non-monetary incentives (the correct choice of incentive will depend on exactly what their non-selfish motivation is). Knaves need sanctions, which can make them weakly trustworthy. However, this is a delicate balance because sanctions can crowd out normative frames. We can also increase the trustworthiness of financiers by making finance less attractive to knaves; changing the mix of types in finance could help support the necessary cultural change. (shrink)

Farm to institution (FTI) efforts aim to increase the amount of locally produced foods, typically fruits and vegetables, served by institutions such as schools, colleges, hospitals, senior meal sites, and correctional facilities. Scholars have cited these efforts as contributing to public health and community-based food systems goals. Prior research has found that relationships based on shared values have played a critical role in motivating and sustaining FTI efforts. We review previous studies, discussing values that motivate participation, and affect practices and (...) relationships in FTI supply chains. We use semi-structured interviews to better understand supply chain actors’ values and motivations and how they affect behaviors, with the aim of informing efforts to increase the scope and effectiveness of FTI efforts. All participants are currently engaged in FTI efforts. We find a mix of social and economic values were present for farmers, distributors, and buyers. Our implications focus on the importance of shared values and relationships, the benefit of local food for businesses along the supply chain, and the potential of non-school institution markets as entry points for farmers. (shrink)

This article explores impact investing within the renewable energy sector. Drawing on ethical decision making and sensemaking, this article contributes to an enhanced understanding of the complex ethical sensemaking process of impact investors when facing plausible situations in a world of contested truths. Addressing the ethical tensions faced by impact investors with mixed motives, this study investigates the way decision makers use context-specific reasons to make sense of and shape the renewable energy investment process. This represents an initial (...) attempt to understand ethical sensemaking in impact investing made within the renewable energy sector using a multi-stakeholder approach. Our findings show that prosocial, personal, reputational, and economic motives are the main drivers of REI, with prosocial and personal motives being value-based, and reputational and economic motives being evidence-based. We find three different modes of ethical sensemaking, allowing for the construction of the four motives noted above. These motives are based on the context-specific reasons of impact investing decision makers in the RE sector. This article contributes to the academic discourse on ethical sensemaking with some key processes involved in ethical decision making, and a better understanding of the underlying motivations of impact investing in the RE sector. (shrink)

Commercial video games are popular entertainment media and part of students’ media reality. While commercial video games’ main purpose is not learning, they nonetheless could and should serve as objects of reflection in formal educational settings. Teachers could guide student learning and reflection as well as motivate students with commercial video games, but more evidence from formal educational settings is required. We conducted two mixed methods case studies to investigate students’ reflection processes using commercial video games in regular formal (...) high school teaching. In a double lesson, 29 students of a 10th-grade biology course and 17 students of a 12th-grade advanced course on history played and discussed a commercial video game related to the current curricular topic. We examined the reflection processes of students in terms of their reactions to the teachers’ game-related statements and questions. Regarding teachers’ statements, students discussed several topics related to game enjoyment and the games’ representation of topic-related content. Regarding teachers’ questions, students discussed multiple goals in each game, how the games represented topic-related content, and how the games could be appropriate for learning. In Study 2, students additionally discussed emotions, stereotypes, violence, and the narrative related to the digital history game. We found that the discussions provided students opportunities to reflect on their game experiences and the current curricular topic as well as to practice media criticism. We further provide quantitative results on students’ perceived topic knowledge, on several facets of their learning motivation, and on their acceptance of video games. Overall, our findings illustrate the educational value of using commercial video games as objects of reflection. (shrink)

The profile of volunteering in English Higher Education [HE] has been enhanced in recent years through various initiatives that have not only funded activities, but have sought to expand the range of volunteering opportunities available to students and recognise the contribution that volunteering can make to students ' employability. This expansion has also brought about emergent interest in understanding the conditions of student volunteering, in particular why students volunteer and what they seek to achieve through their involvement. This paper adds (...) to this growing literature on indentifying student motivations through analysis of both survey and interview data on student volunteering. The use of mixed methods allows for a detailed interrogation of motivations and how students make sense of their own experiences with respect to dominant discourses about what volunteering can achieve. In particular the paper argues that students are reflective about why they volunteer, their motives can change over time and that for many students volunteering is not necessarily part of a strategic goal to enhance CVs or even 'do good'. (shrink)

The competition in higher education has increased, while lecturers are involved in multiple assignments that include teaching, research and publication, consultancy, and community services. The demanding nature of academia leads to excessive work load and stress among academicians in higher education. Notably, offering the right motivational mix could lead to job satisfaction and performance. The current study aims to demonstrate the effects of extrinsic and intrinsic motivational factors influencing job satisfaction and job performance among academicians working in Malaysian private higher (...) educational institutions. Cross-sectional data were collected from the Malaysian PHEIs and the randomly selected 343 samples. The data analysis was performed with the dual analysis of partial least square structural equation modeling and artificial neural network analysis. As a result, it was found that financial rewards, promotion, performance appraisal, classroom environment, and code of conduct significantly predicted job satisfaction. The code of conduct, autonomy, and self-efficacy strongly influenced job performance. The relationship between job satisfaction and job performance was highly moderated by self-efficacy. It was suggested from the ANN analysis that the three prominent factors influencing job satisfaction are financial rewards, performance appraisal, and code of conduct. The analysis supported three significant factors influencing job performance: self-efficacy, performance appraisal, and code of conduct. The management of PHEIs should build the correct policies to transform job satisfaction into job performance. Self-efficacy plays an essential role in activating job performance. Other significant motivating factors that promote job satisfaction and performance, such as emotional intelligence, mindfulness, and other personal traits, should be included in future studies. In addition, future research could use a mixed-method or multi-respondent approach to investigate the important variables and their impact on lecturers’ job satisfaction and performance. (shrink)

The aim of this mixed methods field study was to gain a better understanding of how psychological factors can contribute to success in intervention-induced behavior change over time. While it can be difficult to change behavior, the use of interventions means that most participants succeed in change during the intervention. However, it is rare for the immediate change to automatically transform into maintained behavior changes. Most research conducted on health-related behavior change interventions contains quantitative studies that investigate key intervention (...) components on a group level. Hence, to bring more knowledge about maintained intervention-induced behavior change, there is need for a study approach that enhances the understanding of individual participants' experiences during and after the intervention. Therefore, the present study, which was conducted in Sweden, used a mixed methods design (triangulation) consisting of pre-, post-, and follow-up quantitative data (questionnaires and body measurements) and qualitative data (interviews), where the individuals' accounts are used to broaden the understanding of the intervention and the behavior change process. All study participants were enrolled in a volitional (fee-based and non-manipulated) intervention given by certified gyms. The quantitative data collection included 22 participants who completed questionnaires and body measurements before and after the intervention, plus 13 complete body measurements 6 months after the intervention. The qualitative data included pre-interviews with 12 participants and six follow-up-interviews. The questions in both questionnaires and interviews related to expectations, efficacy, motivation, goals, achievements, behavior change, and future. Overall, the results show that levels of expectations, efficacy, and motivation cannot be used in isolation to predict maintained intervention-induced behavior change. To successfully extend and maintain immediate change, it was crucial to experience goal achievement (but not BMI change). Furthermore,enabling talkwas salient in the pre-interviews with participants reporting successful immediate (and maintained) change. By contrast, pre-interviewdisabling talkturned out to be evident in interviews, with participants not responding to follow-up. When the qualitative and quantitative results are summarized and integrated, it appears that subjective goal achievement, combined with enabling self-talk, were crucial factors in successful maintained behavior change. (shrink)

Although various scholars underscore the importance of innovating responsibly in view of today's societal challenges, less attention has been paid to the entrepreneurial skillset, that is, the range of individual skills and organizational capabilities, that innovation-based organizations mobilize to deliver new responsible products and services. This paper thus explores the relationships between the entrepreneurial skillsets of 16 Canadian and Brazilian for-profit and not-for-profit organizations producing Responsible Innovations in Health (RIH) and their degree of responsibility. Our mixed methods study includes (...) interviews with entrepreneurs (n = 23) and fieldnotes as well as quantitative results from the RIH Assessment Tool. Our findings identify four skillset orientations—Technical, Technical + Business, Social, and Social + Business—that not only reflect (co)founders' training and entrepreneurial motivations but also a proclivity toward the consolidation of either “Technical” or “Social” skills and capabilities. Such consolidation is made possible by recruiting high-level executives with diverse backgrounds or by tapping on external knowledge sources (e.g., boards of directors, incubators, or volunteers). As five enterprises had no formal business skills, patterns associated to their overall RIH score (ranging from 1 to 5) reveal intriguing results. Organizations with a Social + Business skillset have a slightly lower RIH score (4.1) than those with a Social skillet (4.4) and those with a Technical + Business skillset have a slightly higher score (3.5) than those with a Technical skillset (3.0). The presence of business skills thus appears to mediate the relationship between entrepreneurial skillsets and the degree of responsibility, which may be linked to the distinct roles of ordinary (“doing things right”) and dynamic capabilities (“doing the right things”). These exploratory findings have scholarly and practical implications. First, the tensions and synergies characterizing responsible value creation should be approached by examining the complementary skills and capabilities that need to be assembled and consolidated. Second, the eight cases with a Social + Business skillset clarify the unique capabilities needed to produce highly responsible health innovations. Third, entrepreneurs with a scientific or engineering background should recognize that a Technical skillset is not enough. Fourth, recognizing that “falling in love with the cause” of RIH is not sufficient, investors and boards of directors should adequately support responsible entrepreneurs towards the proper orchestration of skills and capabilities that can reconcile economic and social goals. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to know the role of learning tasks within the pedagogical content knowledge of novel sports coaches in initial stages of sports training of children/young people and their impact on their daily work. Participants are two coaches in their first or second working year. A mixed methodology was used by means of polar coordinates analysis. The results agree with previous studies that established that PCK of novel coaches presents deficits in task selection and modification, (...) motivation is the key factor determining tasks selection process, and they do not know how much time they should dedicate to each task. Even so, better development was found in the PCK of the coaches. (shrink)

It is common practice within primary classrooms for teachers to spilt children into different ability groups so that children of similar level are taught together. Whilst this practice is used across the globe, research is mixed on the benefits of such grouping strategy. This paper presents data collected from mixed methods research which investigated teachers use of grouping strategies and social comparison, the act of comparing oneself with others. It focuses on when, why and with whom children from (...) different ability groups compare themselves and the impact this has on their self-perceptions. Drawing upon data from children aged between 10 and 11 years from 12 primary schools, social comparison was found to play a significant role in daily classroom life for some children. The study identified different strands of the social comparison process including acknowledgment, topic, target, and direction, and it revealed positive and negative effects of social comparison. A difference by ability group was identified. Children within the low ability group were particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of social comparison and found to engage in more frequent and intentional social comparisons which were heavily relied upon for self-evaluation and performance evaluation. The paper discusses the educational implications of social comparison regarding pupil ability grouping strategies, motivation, engagement, and academic performance. Implications for teacher education and professional development is discussed. (shrink)

In this essay, it is argued that naturalism of an even moderate sort speaks strongly against a certain widely held thesis about the human mental (and cognitive) architecture: that it is divided into two distinct levels, the personal and the subpersonal, about the former of which we gain knowledge in a manner that effectively insulates such knowledge from the results of scientific research. -/- An empirically motivated alternative is proposed, according to which the architecture is, so to speak, flattened from (...) above. On this flattened view, although the states and processes typically associated with the personal level likely appear in our best models of the production of human behavior, they appear alongside states and processes normally associated with the subpersonal level. Moreover, the success of such models depends nowise on a levels-based distinction between the various causal contributors. It is argued that the flattened view has methodological implications of significant import. (shrink)

This paper revisits the issue of whether responsibility is essentially historical. Roughly, the leading question here is this: Do ways in which we can acquire pertinent antecedents of action, such as beliefs, desires, and values, have an essential bearing on whether we are responsible for actions that are suitably related to these antecedents? I argue, first, that Michael McKenna’s interesting case for nonhistoricism is indecisive, and, second, his brand of modest historicism, while highly insightful, yields results concerning responsibility that ought (...) to be resisted. I conclude by motivating a hybrid view: it implies that responsibility does not require that one have a past, but should one have a past, it must be a past of a certain sort. (shrink)

Accumulating research has identified the interactive effects of catechol-O-methyltransferase gene Val158Met polymorphism and environmental factors on aggression. However, available evidence was mainly based upon correlational design, which yields mixed findings concerning who are more affected by environmental conditions and has been challenged for the low power of analyses on gene–environment interaction. Drawing on a mixed design, we scrutinized how COMT Val158Met polymorphism impacts on aggression, assessed by hostility, aggressive motivation, and aggressive behavior, under different social conditions in a (...) sample of 70 Chinese male undergraduate students. We found that both Val/Val homozygote and Met alleles carriers showed differences in the feelings of hostility and aggressive motivation under conditions of exclusion versus inclusion, but these differences were more pronounced for Met allele carriers. These findings implied that COMT Val158Met polymorphism did not respond to environmental stimuli in an all-or-none way and shed light on the importance of examining the gene–environment interaction using a mixed design. (shrink)

This study investigated the reasons that leaders have given for their leader role occupancy. By using a mixed-method approach and large leader data, we aimed to provide a more nuanced picture of how leader positions are occupied in real life. We examined how individual leadership motivation may associate with other reasons for leader role occupancy. In addition, we aimed to integrate the different reasons behind leader role occupancy into the framework of sustainable leader careers and its two indicators: leader’s (...) health and performance. The survey data consisted of 1,031 leaders from various sectors of working life. Qualitative analysis revealed that leaders mention various factors behind their leader role occupancy, resulting 26 themes. After inductive investigation of the data, theory-driven analysis focused on the sustainable career components and agency vs. non-agency. Qualitative data was quantitized based on the theory-driven categories for statistical analysis. Based on the these analysis, we found out that only Affective-Identity MTL predicted all of the studied reasons behind leader role occupancy, whereas the other motivation types did not. All of the reasons for leader role occupancy except non-agentic ones were related to both leaders’ own and their followers’ occupational well-being. Leaders with more person-related and agentic reasons for leader role occupancy experienced better occupational well-being. Person- and context-related and agentic reasons behind leader role occupancy associated also with followers’ occupational well-being, but the associations differed from those of leaders’ well-being: person-related and agentic reasons associated with followers’ exhaustion, but this association was not found among leaders. Our study provided important information for practitioners in the field of human resources and development, as it has shown that if the reasons for leader role occupancy mainly reflect circumstances or other non-person-related reasons, the experienced occupational well-being and person-career fit may remain weak. It is necessary to try to support the leadership motivation for those leaders, or to shape the job description in such a way that it can also offer the experiences of meaningfulness from aspects other than self-realization through a managerial role. (shrink)