This article addresses the growing industry of retail socially responsible investment (SRI) profiled mutual funds. Very few previous studies have examined the final consumer of SRI profiled mutual funds. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to, in an exploratory manner, examine the impact of a number of pro-social, financial performance, and socio-demographic variables on SRI behavior in order to explain why investors choose to invest different proportions of their investment portfolio in SRI profiled funds. An ordinal logistic regression (...) analysis on 528 private investors revealed that two of the three pro-social variables had a positive impact on how much the consumer invested in SRI profiled funds. Moreover, there was proof of a non-altruistic motive for investing in SRI as consumers who perceive that financial return of SRI is equal or better than "regular" mutual funds, invested a greater proportion of their portfolio in SRI profiled mutual funds. Furthermore, the results showed that women and better-educated investors were more likely to invest a greater proportion of their investment portfolio in SRI. Overall, the findings indicate that both financial perceptions and pro-social attitudes are connected to consumer investment in SRI. (shrink)

We explore how risk preferences affect pro-social behavior under uncertainty. We analyze a modified dictator game in which the dictator can, by reducing her own sure payoff, increase the odds that an unknown recipient wins a lottery. We first augment a standard social preferences model with reference-dependent risk attitudes and then test the model’s predictions for the dictator’s giving behavior using a laboratory experiment. Consistent with the predictions of the model, we find that the relationship between giving (...) behavior and a giver’s loss aversion is mediated by the strength of the giver’s pro-social preferences. Among more pro-social dictators, an increase in loss aversion increases the likelihood that a dictator contributes to a recipient. (shrink)

If the classic history of events is written in the spirit of winners, the approaches of collective mental reveal that wars are disasters and collective traumas for all of the involved communities. In the following pages we will present the decantation in long term memory of a relevant fact – the deportation of German ethnics from Romania to forced labor in the Soviet Union. On the base of a secret directive, sent by Stalin, approximately 75 000 Romanian citizens of German (...) ethnicity were forced to work three-four years, some even more, at the reconstruction of the “Soviet country”. The source of the decision, its place and extent, and also the way to atone for the “collective guilt” was hidden from the deportees. At the end of the punishment, they were forbidden to speak about the deportation in the public and private space. When they returned home, all of their material evidence of the years spent in the Soviet Union was confiscated and destroyed. In a project financed by the European Union, 50 interviews with survivors of deportation and their descendants were published. The resulting accounts allowed this psycho-sociological analysis of the memory of deportation, centered on ethical and religious aspects of the behaviors and attitudes of victims and their descendants. (shrink)

Experiences of contact with nature in school education might be beneficial for promoting ecological lifestyles and the wellbeing of children, families, and teachers. Many theories and empirical evidence on restorative environments, as well as on the foundations of classical pedagogical approaches, recognize the value of the direct experience with natural elements, and the related psychological and educational outcomes. In this work we present two studies focusing on the contact with nature in outdoor education interventions with primary and secondary school students (...) in Italy. A questionnaire measuring connectedness to nature, psycho-physical wellbeing, pro-environmental attitudes, students’ life satisfaction, pro-social behavior, empathy and anxiety was completed before and after the education program by the participants to the intervention group and by students of a control group. The students in the intervention groups participated in environmental education programs consisting in guided activities in contact with the nature during four visits in one of two natural protected areas. The students in the control groups attended the same schools as the intervention group but they were not involved in the environmental education program. The students in both the groups completed the questionnaire in the same weeks of the year. Findings show that taking part to the outdoor education program has positive outcomes on psycho-physical wellbeing, on connectedness to nature and on pro-social behavior of students in the intervention group, compared to the control group. The implications related to the effectiveness of outdoor education interventions and future directions of research and practice in environmental psychology and education are discussed. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the relationship between various Christian denominations and attitude and behavior regarding consumption of socially responsible products. Literature on the relationship between religiosity and pro-social behavior has shown that religiosity strengthens positive attitudes towards pro-social behavior, but does not affect social behavior itself. This seems to contradict the theory of planned behavior that predicts that attitude fosters behavior. One would therefore expect that if religiosity encourages attitude towards SR products, it would also (...) increase the demand for them. We test this hypothesis for four affiliations on a sample of 997 Dutch consumers, using structural equation modeling. We find that Christian religiosity, indeed, increases positive attitude towards SR products, except for the Orthodox Protestant affiliation. In accordance with the theory of planned behavior, attitude is found to increase the demand for SR products. We find no evidence of hypocrisy for any of the Christian denominations. (shrink)

Charles Fourier propounded a socialist and, at the same time, libertarian utopia: a harmonious project of living together in solidarity, of cooperative work and sexual freedom. Historians interested in its reception in Spain have underlined the lack of thinkers capable of developing Fourier’s thinking along original lines or from a certain theoretical level. Moreover, it has been affirmed that Fourier’s original doctrine was impoverished in Spain because it was stripped of a large part of its utopian aspects and reduced to (...) a doctrinaire framework for social criticism and reform.1 Nonetheless, the evolution of Spanish Fourierism is comparable to that which the movement underwent in other countries, including France.. (shrink)

The attitudes of 164 United States and 151 South African managers towards corporate social responsibility were assessed. The United States managers held significantly more favourable attitudes towards corporate social responsibility. In addition, they agreed with more pro-responsibility arguments, whereas the South African managers agreed with more anti-responsibility arguments. The United States managers felt that their society expected more corporate involvement in social responsibility activities than the South African managers felt was expected from their society. The (...) results are explained in terms of the susceptibility of social responsibility attitudes to cultural norms and values — which reflect the different nature of the two societies. (shrink)

Utopianism has found expression in several ways throughout history and has reflected the peculiarities of the cultural, political, social, and economic settings in which it has come about. Spain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been no exception, because while the country has not occupied a significant place in the dominant historical narrative of utopias, recent research has begun to show that it was indeed where many tracts with utopian—and, by way of correlation, dystopian—content came on the scene. (...) Whether we look at the concept of utopia from a formal standpoint, in the sense of a specific literary genre, or we demand certain content features to discuss true utopias, we find that they thrived in.. (shrink)

Although similar environmental issues are present across the globe, residents of different countries vary in the extent to which they are concerned about and act upon these issues. Drawing on data from the 2010 Environment module of the International Social Survey Programme, this study tests the structural comparability of environmental attitudes across 32 countries and examines how pro-environmental behaviours are linked to relevant attitudes. A confirmatory factor analysis from structural equation modelling helps identify three latent constructs of (...) environmental attitudes: willingness to sacrifice, biospheric orientation and environmental scepticism. Further regression analyses reveal that the linkages between pro-environmental behaviours and the constructs of environmental attitudes converge in some countries but are less consistent in others. The findings help pinpoint signs of global convergence and national disparities, which merit more extensive analyses amid the recent surge in the availability of diverse empirical data from around the world. (shrink)

According to Tom Roberts and Joel Krueger's frustrated pro-attitude account of loneliness, loneliness is primarily characterized as an affective state in which individuals perceive certain social goods as unattainable. The frustration of pro-attitudes, or the desire for social connections, plays a significant role in understanding the nature of loneliness. However, in this article, I argue that the frustrated pro-attitude account falls short in explaining a specific type of loneliness known as clueless loneliness, wherein a person feels lonely (...) without experiencing a salient frustration of pro-attitude. By analyzing five cases of clueless loneliness—the case of desiring the wrong thing, the case of failing to form concrete desires, the case of having an illusion of desire fulfillment, the case of holding self-deceptive beliefs about need fulfillment, and the case of lacking a desire for social goods—I propose a revised account that acknowledges the complexity of loneliness and the potential disconnect between perceived social goods and the actual fulfillment of one's need for connection. My objective in this article is to demonstrate that this revised understanding of loneliness provides a more comprehensive framework for examining the nature of loneliness and its impact on different groups of people within society. (shrink)

Changing human behavior is critical to mitigating the increasingly severe environmental harm. Although numerous studies focus on private-sphere or generalized pro-environmental behavior, relatively little research examines explicitly public-sphere PEB from a collective action perspective. This study incorporates trust and identity into the Attitude-Behavior-Context theory to investigate Chinese residents’ participation in public-sphere PEB. Primary data collected from 648 residents in China tested the model empirically. The results indicate that social trust, environmentalist self-identity, and politicized identity positively predict public-sphere PEB and (...) that institutional trust positively impacts non-activist behaviors but negatively relates to environmental activism. There is also evidence that trust and identity are moderators of attitude and public-sphere PEB. Specifically, social trust and environmentalist self-identity strengthen the effect of attitude on public-sphere PEB. Politicized identity increases the impact of attitude on environmental activism but not on non-activist behaviors, and there is no significant moderating effect of institutional trust. The findings deepen the understanding of public-sphere PEB and make more targeted policies accordingly. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Ahmadis: Community, Gender, and Politics in a Muslim Society. By Antonio Gualtieri. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi + 192. Hardcover $65.00. Paper Cdn $24.95 / U.S. $19.95.American Knees. By Shawn Wong. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2005. Pp. xxi + 229. Paper $14.95.The Art of Worldly Wisdom. By Baltasar Gracian and translated by Joseph Jacobs. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. (...) xiii + 114. Paper $5.95.Bashō's Journey: The Literary Prose of Matsuo Bashō. Translated by David Landis Barnhill. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. xvii + 191. Hardcover $59.50. Paper $17.95.Bringing the Gods to Mind: Mantra and Ritual in Early Indian Sacrifice. By Laurie L. Patton. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Pp. xv + 289. Hardcover $49.95/£32.50.Buddhist Inclusivism: Attitudes Towards Religious Others. By Kristin Beise Kiblinger. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005. Pp. viii + 145. Hardcover $89.95.A Chinese Ethics for the New Century: The Ch'ien Mu Lectures in History and Culture, and Other Essays on Science and Confucian Ethics. By Donald J. Munro. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2005. Pp. xlv + 158. Hardcover $33.00.Chinese Theories of Reading and Writing: A Route to Hermeneutics and Open Poetics. By Ming Dong Gu. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. xiv + 334. Hardcover $85.00.A Dictionary of Cantonese Slang: The Language of Hong Kong Movies, Street Gangs, and City Life. By Christopher Hutton and Kingsley Bolton. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. Pp. xxiv + 492. Paper $28.00.Ghazālī and the Poetics of Imagination. By Ebrahim Moosa. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Pp. xiii + 349. Hardcover $59.95. Paper $22.50.Going Forth: Visions of Buddhist Vinaya. Edited by William M. Bodiford. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. Pp. x + 317. Hardcover $48.00.The Harem: Inside the Grand Seraglio of the Turkish Sultans. By N. M. Penzer. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. 277. Paper $14.95.Ideals of the East: The Spirit of Japanese Art. By Kakuzo Okakura. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. xiv + 106. Paper $5.95. [End Page 365]An Illustrated Chinese Materia Medica. By Jing-Nuan Wu. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. 706. Price not given.Jews and Arabs: A Concise History of Their Social and Cultural Relations. By S. D. Goitein. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. xv + 263. Paper $12.95.The Logic of Nothingness: A Study of Nishida Kitarō. By Robert J. J. Wargo. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. Pp xi + 241. Paper $25.00.The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi. By Raghavan N. Iyer. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii + 449. Paper Rs 520.00.Nietzsche's Epic of the Soul: Thus Spoke Zarathustra. By T. K. Seung. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005. Pp. xxviii + 370. Hardcover $83.00. Paper $27.95.Of Guilds, Companies, Corporations, and Governance: A Conceptual Sketch. By Leonardo R. Silos. Makati City, Philippines: Asian Institute of Management, 2005. Pp. xvi + 238. Price not given.The Path to Rome. By Hilaire Belloc. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. Pp. ix + 251. Paper $12.95.The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgātā : A Study based on the Evaluation of the Commentaries of Śamkara, Rāmānuja and Madhva. By S. M. Srinivasa Chari. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 2005. Pp. xxvi + 294. Hardcover Rs 575.00.The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore. By Kalyan Sen Gupta. Burlington, VT: Ash-gate Publishing Company, 2005. Pp. ix + 103. Hardcover $79.95.The Pristine Dao: Metaphysics in Early Daoist Discourse. By Thomas Michael. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Pp. xi + 170. Hardcover $60.00. Paper $21.95.Three Mountains and Seven Rivers: Prof. Musashi Tachikawa's Felicitation Volume. Edited by Shoun Hino and Toshihiro Wada. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. 2004. Pp. xx + 903. Hardcover Rs. 1800.The Unity of Mystical Traditions: The Transformation of Consciousness in Tibetan and German Mysticism. By Randall Studstill. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005. Pp. xii + 304. Hardcover @89/$127.00.Writing the World: On Globalization. Edited by David... (shrink)

This study explored the relationship between egoistic, altruistic and biospheric values and pro-environmental attitudes, as well as their impact on the pro-environmental behaviours of Indian consumers. India is currently facing the burgeoning challenge of a rapidly increasing urban population, which is leading to waste segregation issues in households and the need for sustainable green products due to rising awareness among consumers. The goal of this research was to understand the effect of Indian consumers’ values and pro-environmental attitudes on (...) the following three specific behaviours: waste-sorting intention, green-consumption intention and social-activity intention. The authors found that values were positively related to pro-environmental attitudes, which in turn positively impacted the three pro-environmental behaviours. These findings suggest that, in order to strengthen individuals’ perceptions of the individual benefits of a cleaner and better environment, marketers should promote responsible consumption in tandem with government policymakers. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Since the United Kingdom’s referendum on European Union (EU) membership in 2016, a new political cleavage of Remainers and Leavers has developed (Kelley, N. [2019]. British social attitudes survey: Britain’s shifting identities and attitudes. (36). National Centre for Research). This paper explores how five pro-Brexit newspapers discursively construct political division in Britain in relation to two key events in the final year of Britain’s EU membership: the extension of the withdrawal process past the original date of (...) March, and the introduction of the Benn Act in September. The paper reveals two primary discursive constructions of division in Britain: a divide between incompetent and arrogant political officials and an innocent, suffering public, and an identity cleavage between pro-Remain ‘elites’ and ‘ordinary’ Leave-voting citizens. The study argues that the construction of these divisions threatens a collective national identity in Britain at a time when it is most required. It concludes that by apportioning blame for socio-political divisions, the newspapers obfuscate their role in contributing to disunity in the UK. (shrink)

Most consumers are aware that climate change is a growing problem and admit that action is needed. However, research shows that consumers’ behavior often does not conform to their value and orientations. This value-behavior gap is due to contextual factors such as price, product design, and social norms as well as individual factors such as personal and hedonic values, environmental beliefs, and the workload capacity an individual can handle. Because of this conflict of interest, consumers have a hard time (...) identifying the true drivers of their behavior, as they are either unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge the processes at play. Therefore, consumer neuroscience methods might provide a valuable tool to uncover the implicit measurements of pro-environmental behavior (PEB). Several studies have already defined neurophysiological differences between green and non-green individuals; however, a behavior change intervention must be developed to motivate PEB among consumers. Motivating behavior with reward or punishment will most likely get users engaged in climate change action via brain structures related to the reward system, such as the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, and (pre)frontal cortex, where the reward information and subsequent affective responses are encoded. The intensity of the reward experience can be increased when the consumer is consciously considering the action to achieve it. This makes goal-directed behavior the potential aim of behavior change interventions. This article provides an extensive review of the neuroscientific evidence for consumer attitude, behavior, and decision-making processes in the light of sustainability incentives for behavior change interventions. Based on this review, we aim to unite the current theories and provide future research directions to exploit the power of affective conditioning and neuroscience methods for promoting PEB engagement. (shrink)

Crowdfunding is regarded a financing mechanism that could improve the funding opportunities of businesses with a pro-social orientation. Indeed, it is assumed that on digital platforms, citizens are inclined to provide more support to projects with a social benefit than to those without such an orientation, with significant ethical implications for the common good. Yet, extant empirical evidence regarding such a claim is still inconclusive. To advance this discussion, the present paper analyzes the conditions that influence crowd support (...) for projects displaying a pro-social orientation on a reward-based crowdfunding platform. To build our hypotheses, we adopt the lens of framing theory, and we relate it to the digital context. Beginning from the premise that, on crowdfunding platforms, information about projects has a hierarchical structure, we argue that a project’s success crucially depends on how much its proponent emphasizes the pro-social cues within this structure. Moreover, we propose that because pro-social cues demarcate a project over others, the effectiveness of pro-social framing is enhanced when the number of projects on the platform, i.e., its crowdedness, increases. Logit estimates on 8631 Kickstarter projects indicate that pro-social framing is positively associated with success as we expected, yet only when it is moderately emphasized. Further, we find that crowdedness on the platform positively moderates the effect of pro-social orientation on success. (shrink)

Religiosity is one of the most prominent and extensive social factors influencing one’s behavior; however, there is a lack of research analyzing the religiosity impact on pro-environmental behavior, particularly for women in rural areas. To narrow the research gap, this study established a theoretical research model by incorporating religiosity into the Theory of Planned Behavior to explore factors affecting rural female facilitators’ pro-environmental behavior. The extended Theory of Planned Behavior model was consequently tested by empirical data collected from 110 (...) rural female facilitators in Qom Province in the center of Iran. The results of structural equation modeling indicated that subjective norms and environmental attitude were positively and significantly related to pro-environmental intentions. In addition, pro-environmental intentions and perceived behavioral control were found to be significantly associated with pro-environmental behaviors. The results revealed that there was a direct and indirect relationship between religiosity and pro-environmental behaviors via perceived behavioral control. In addition, there was an indirect relationship between religiosity and pro-environmental intentions via subjective norms and environmental attitudes. Therefore, this study revealed that religiosity as social pressure plays an important role in determining pro-environmental intentions and behaviors among rural female facilitators in Iran. Thus, in order to promote pro-environmental behavior, the religiosity aspects should be considered and people should be stimulated to act in a more environmentally friendly mode via religious prism. (shrink)

Background:Nurses are in a key position for reproduction health service delivery. Therefore, it is thought that it would be important to inspect opinions of student nurses, who will be health employees in the future, about self-induced abortion to develop women health and public health.Objectives:The goal of this study is to inspect opinions of nursing students with different sociocultural specialties, about self-induced abortions.Research design:It is qualitative type and planned with ethnographic research pattern.Participants and research context:The study was conducted with 20 last-term (...) students of Kırşehir Ahi Evran University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Nursing, who were chosen by maximum diversity sampling technique. Interviews were made with semi-structured interview form and voice records during the study; data were analyzed with content analyzing method.Ethical considerations:Permission from the organization, university ethics committee, and personal approvals were taken from participants to conduct the research.Findings:Based on the analysis, two major themes on self-induced abortion in Turkish nursing students were found: dilemma of traditional perspective and professional identity and occupational awareness.Discussion and conclusion:It is seen that there is a dilemma between traditional point of view and professional identities about self-induced abortion for nursing students, but they had occupational awareness. It should be recommended to give information about national and international licit legislations for reproductive health, self-induced abortion, and setting up ethical discussion environments for nursing students. (shrink)

This paper seeks to develop the rhetorical approach to the study of social psychology, by looking at the rhetorical aspects of British attitudes towards the monarchy. The rhetorical approach stresses that attitudes are stances in public controversy and, as such, must be understood in their wider historical and argumentative context. Changes in this context can lead to changes in attitudinal expression, such as the phenomenon of Taking the Side of the Other, which should be distinguished from the (...) sort of attitudinal changes normally described by social psychological theories of attitudes. One needs to assume that attitudinal stances contain both explicit and implicit aspects, and also that these may be contrary to each other. The change in James Gillray's cartoons from anti-monarchical themes in 1792 to pro-monarchical themes in 1793 is discussed as an example of Taking the Side of the Other in response to changing historical contexts. Contemporary monarchical attitudes are also examined to show the rhetorical nature of implicit criticisms and justifications, as well as the rhetorical complexity of these attitudes. General implications for the rhetorical study of implicit and explicit aspects of attitudes are discussed. (shrink)

The cognitive purpose of the research presented in the article is to identify the propensity for pro-social and altruistic behavior among first-year military students in three simulated situations of need for help to other people. It raised the question contained in the main research problem: to what extent do military students at universities tend to behave in a pro-social and altruistic way in situations that pose a threat to the other people’s life and health, and what is the (...) relationship between these behaviors and socialization in the civil environment? At the outset, the hypothesis was adopted that the candidates for professional soldiers show a higher propensity for this type of behavior. For its verification, the population of the first-year military students during their basic training was assumed as a research area. The study covered 246 people selected randomly from among military students in the first year of studies of the command profile of all military specialties and the medical profile. The selection of the research sample based on first-year students during the basic training aimed to identify the impact of environmental factors on the tendency to altruistic and pro-social behavior in two different groups of candidates for professional soldiers. (shrink)

This study investigates the relationships among Machiavellianism, attitudes towards the perceived importance of corporate ethics and social responsibility, referred to here as PRESOR attitudes, and certain attitudes toward environmental responsibility, i.e., support for corporate environmental accountability and environmentally motivated purchasing intentions, amongst undergraduate students. Data were collected from a survey of all final year undergraduate students at a university in Hong Kong. Structural equations analyses were used to investigate the associations amongst the variables. The study finds (...) that Machiavellianism and belief in the importance of CESR play important roles in the development of university students’ attitudes toward certain environmental issues. Specifically, high Machiavellian students expressed lower levels of belief in the importance of CESR, which in turn were associated with weaker pro-environment views. The findings suggest that educational efforts to cultivate students’ PRESOR attitudes and/or reduce their levels of Machiavellianism would enhance their pro-environment views. (shrink)

There is converging evidence that over the course of the second year children become good at various fairly sophisticated forms of pro-social activities, such as helping, informing and comforting. Not only are toddlers able to do these things, they appear to do them routinely and almost reliably. A striking feature of these interventions, emphasized in the recent literature, is that they show precocious abilities in two different domains: they reflect complex ‘ theory of mind’ abilities as well as ‘altruistic (...) motivation’. Our aim in this paper is to present a theoretical hypothesis that bears on both kinds of developments. The suggestion is that children’s ‘instrumental helping’ reflects their budding understanding of practical reasons. We can put the basic idea in the familiar terminology of common coding : toddlers conceive of the goals of others’ actions in the same format as the goals of their own actions: in terms of features of their situation that provide us with reasons to act. (shrink)

Previous literature has shown contradictory results regarding the relationship between economic liberalism at the country level and firms’ engagement in corporate social action. Because liberalism is associated with individualism, it is often assumed that firms will engage in mostly symbolic rather than substantive social and environmental actions; in other words, they will practice “greenwashing.” To understand how cultural beliefs in the virtues of liberalism affect the likelihood of greenwashing, we disentangle the effects of the distinct and co-existing beliefs (...) in the virtues of economic liberalism. We begin by conducting an exploratory qualitative analysis of managers’ sentiments on this matter, based on a focus group methodology. We then use these investigative elements to articulate a comparison of the conflicting theoretical arguments: in liberal contexts, are firms, as social entities, inherently selfish or pro-active when it comes to CSA? We empirically test our hypotheses on a large-scale dataset. Finally, we show paradoxically that in countries where beliefs in the virtues of competition are strong, firms are more likely to greenwash, while in countries where beliefs in the virtues of individual responsibility are prominent, firms are more likely to focus on concrete actions. These findings suggest that in contexts where weak governments are seen as ideal, firms might feel the need to step into fill institutional voids, in contexts in which competitive mindsets dominate, this tendency is counterbalanced. (shrink)

Promotion of pro-social attitudes and moral behaviour is a crucial and challenging task for social orders. As traditional ways such as moral education have some, but apparently and unfortunately only limited effect, some authors have suggested employing biomedical means such as pharmaceuticals or electrical stimulation of the brain to alter individual psychologies in a more direct way — moral bioenhancement. One of the salient questions in the nascent ethical debate concerns the impact of such interventions on human (...) freedom. Advocates argue that moral bioenhancements do not pose a serious threat to freedom. This contention, however, is based on an overly narrow, if not impoverished, sense of freedom, which comprises only freedom of action and freedom of will. Mind-altering interventions primarily affect another sense of freedom: freedom of mind, a concept that has not received much attention although it should rank among the most important legal and political freedoms. The article introduces three senses of mental freedom potentially infringed upon by moral bioenhancement and places it in a broader perspective. Ignorance of mental freedom has far-ranging consequences for the shape of the political and legal order at large. As many advocates are apparently not aware of the freedoms they seek to undermine, their calls for moral enhancement programmes are dangerously premature. (shrink)

Teachers’ responses to bullying incidents are key in bullying intervention at school. Scholars have suggested that teacher responses can predict student cognitions that are associated with their bullying behaviors. However, little is known about whether and how teacher responses affect these cognitions. Therefore, the current study investigated the effects of four immediate teacher responses on four bullying-related student cognitions, using an experimental vignette design. Additionally, it was examined whether students’ own participant role behaviors in actual bullying moderated these effects. The (...) investigated teacher responses were non-response, comforting the victim, correcting the bully, and a combination of comforting the victim and correcting the bully. The investigated student cognitions were perceived teacher attitudes toward bullying, perceived teacher moral disengagement regarding bullying, student willingness to report bullying to the teacher and student expectations regarding bullying participant role behaviors in the classroom. Fourth-to-sixth grade students read a vignette describing a hypothetical teacher’s response to a same bullying incident, following random assignment to one of eight conditions. Afterward, students completed questionnaires about their social cognitions and manipulation checks. ANOVA demonstrated that students perceived stronger teacher anti-bullying attitudes and less teacher moral disengagement when the hypothetical teacher displayed an active response. These effects were even stronger when the teacher corrected the bully compared to when only the victim was comforted. Further, students were more willing to report bullying when the teacher corrected the bully than when the teacher only comforted the victim. Finally, students expected less pro-bullying behaviors, more defending and less victimization in the vignette’s classroom following active teacher response compared to non-response. The effects of teacher responses on student cognitions were not moderated by students’ own participant roles in bullying. Taken together, these findings emphasize the importance of active teacher responses to bullying, and especially, responses that clearly show that bullying is not tolerated. Teachers are encouraged to be aware that students can deduce beliefs from teacher responses which can, in turn, affect bullying processes in the classroom. (shrink)

This study aimed to explain the development of tourists’ pro-social intentions during heritage tourism within the pandemic context by combining the norm activation model and two significant variables in the theory of planned behavior. The quantitative data analysis results indicated that the proposed hypotheses have been partially supported, which resonated and enriched the existing studies on COVID-19-related pro-social tourism and tourist behaviors from a theoretical angle. Based on the research outcomes, the corresponding managerial implications for heritage tourism practitioners (...) and meaningful references for future researchers to promote sustainable and pro-social heritage tourism products have been discussed. (shrink)

For much of the first fifty years of its existence, analytic philosophy shunned discussions of normativity and ethics. Ethical statements were considered as pseudo-propositions, or as expressions of pro- or con-attitudes of minor theoretical significance. Nowadays, in contrast, prominent analytic philosophers pay close attention to normative problems. Here we focus our attention on the work of Searle, at the same time drawing out an important connection between Searle’s work and that of two other seminal figures in this development: H.L.A. (...) Hart and John Rawls. We show that all three thinkers tend to assume that there is but one type of normativity within the realm of social institutions – roughly, the sort of normativity that is involved in following the results of chess – and that they thereby neglect features that are of crucial significance for an adequate understanding of social reality. (shrink)

Pro-social basic human values and civic involvement. The moderating role of survival vs self-expression cultural context The present study investigated a hypothesis that the pro-social values differentiated by S. Schwartz's model of basic human values - universalism and benevolence - would positively predict civic involvement. Most importantly, authors expected that the type of pro-social value that would play a dominant motivational role would depend on moderating role of the level of self-expression and benevolence - cultural value dimension (...) developed by R. Inglehart. Based on discriminant function analyses performed on the data gathered in 17 European countries through the European Social Survey conducted in 2002, authors found that universalism predicts civic involvement only in self-expression countries, whereas the role of benevolence is rather neglectable and independent of the cultural context. The results are discussed with reference to cross-cultural differences in Europe. (shrink)

Climate change is difficult to connect with personally, because people only regard the phenomenon as important if it becomes a perceived threat to themselves. Arguments like statistics and policy debates are extrinsic motivators, which do not necessarily align people’s own intrinsic motives with those of climate action. Instead, narratives and visual communication can influence viewers implicitly by the way they show and reinforce actions and thoughts that align with climate action. In this design study, we used comics created for human-level (...) climate change influence to promote ideas like future-based thinking, sharing of responsibility, and caring for each other. We also created data visuals that illustrate future consequences of climate change for the purpose of averting negative alternative realities. To see whether our design can affect audience perception of climate change on the human level of goals and desires, we showed the comics to readers unfamiliar with the themes of the stories, presenting them as manga about characters and situations. The survey showed that data stories can affect the way naive readers interpret narratives to align with pro-climate attitudes such as sharing and future-vision, and that readers are focused on the human-level of the data and story as opposed to the physical resource level. Speculative fiction and data visuals provide a potentially effective way to influence individuals’ climate change attitudes by showing alternative realities and attributes of collective responsibility and planning-for-the-future as data stories. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Organizations constitute morally-complex environments, requiring organization members to possess levels of moral courage sufficient to promote their ethical action, while refraining from unethical actions when faced with temptations or pressures. Using a sample drawn from a military context, we explored the antecedents and consequences of moral courage. Results from this four-month field study demonstrated that authentic leadership was positively related to followers’ displays of moral courage. Further, followers’ moral courage fully mediated the effects of authentic leadership on followers’ ethical and (...) pro-social behaviors. Theoretical and practical implications for further integrating the work on moral courage, authentic leadership and ethics are discussed. (shrink)

Being imitated has a wide range of pro-social effects, but it is not clear how these effects are mediated. Naturalistic studies of the effects of being imitated have not established whether pro-social outcomes are due to the similarity and/or the contingency between the movements performed by the actor and those of the imitator. Similarity is often assumed to be the active ingredient, but we hypothesized that contingency might also be important, as it produces positive affect in infants and (...) can be detected by phylogenetically ancient mechanisms of associative learning. We manipulated similarity and contingency between performed and observed actions in a computerized task. Similarity had no positive effects; however, contingency resulted in greater enjoyment of the task, reported closeness to others, and helping behavior. These results suggest that the pro-social effects of being imitated may rely on associative mechanisms. (shrink)

Moral enhancement is a topic that has sparked much current interest in the world of bioethics. The possibility of making people ‘better,’ not just in the conventional enhancement sense of improving health and other desirable qualities and capacities, but by making them somehow more moral, more decent, altogether better people, has attracted attention from both advocates 1 2 and sceptics 3 alike. The concept of moral enhancement, however, is fraught with difficult questions, theoretical and practical. What does it actually mean (...) to be ‘more moral’? How would moral enhancement be defined and would it necessarily, as some have claimed, make the world a better or safer place? How would or could such enhancement be achieved safely and without undue constraint on personal liberty and autonomy? On this subject, a recent paper by Crockett et al 4 investigating the effects of the neurotransmitter serotonin on moral decision-making provides an intriguing scientific basis for examining what might or might not constitute moral enhancement. The study involved treatment with citalopram, a drug that increases the action of serotonin in the brain, and subsequent analysis of participants' decision-making behaviour in two different situations involving moral dilemmas: the well-known ‘Trolley Problem’ 5 and the ‘Ultimatum Game’. 6 The researchers found that citalopram promoted what they call ‘prosocial behaviour’, increasing the participants' aversion to causing direct harm to others: in the first scenario, they were less likely to select the option that required killing one in order to save five, and in the second, less likely to reject unfair offers at the expense of others. The Crockett study is fascinating both for its insight into human behaviour and because it appears to demonstrate that, at least on some accounts of moral behaviour, serotonin may in fact be a …. (shrink)

We are moving towards a future where Artificial Intelligence (AI) based agents make many decisions on behalf of humans. From healthcare decision-making to social media censoring, these agents face problems, and make decisions with ethical and societal implications. Ethical behaviour is a critical characteristic that we would like in a human-centric AI. A common observation in human-centric industries, like the service industry and healthcare, is that their professionals tend to break rules, if necessary, for pro-social reasons. This behaviour (...) among humans is defined as pro-social rule breaking. To make AI agents more human-centric, we argue that there is a need for a mechanism that helps AI agents identify when to break rules set by their designers. To understand when AI agents need to break rules, we examine the conditions under which humans break rules for pro-social reasons. In this paper, we present a study that introduces a ‘vaccination strategy dilemma’ to human participants and analyzes their response. In this dilemma, one needs to decide whether they would distribute COVID-19 vaccines only to members of a high-risk group (follow the enforced rule) or, in selected cases, administer the vaccine to a few social influencers (break the rule), which might yield an overall greater benefit to society. The results of the empirical study suggest a relationship between stakeholder utilities and pro-social rule breaking (PSRB), which neither deontological nor utilitarian ethics completely explain. Finally, the paper discusses the design characteristics of an ethical agent capable of PSRB and the future research directions on PSRB in the AI realm. We hope that this will inform the design of future AI agents, and their decision-making behaviour. (shrink)

The rural-migrant protagonist in Knut Hamsun’s Hunger fails to adapt to the urban environment because the moral algorithm that informs his collaborative choices is unfit for the city. He often responds poorly when overwhelmed by pride, shame, or other sensations that he struggles to make sense of. Such emotions are hypothesized to be neuro­computational adaptations crafted by natural selection to help us get ahead as collabora­tors. But with societal transformation, these feelings can become a poor match for a new reality. (...) Reprogramming oneself can be challenging; Hunger’s protagonist must suffer months of emotional and physical pain before he adapts. His journey, and Hamsun’s mod­ernist project, can be illuminated by recent research on status management and morality as cooperation. As literature, Hunger could fulfill several adaptive functions by mapping mor­als for urban pro-sociality at a time of great disruption. Similar moral adaptation could become necessary in our present era, too. (shrink)

A review of research addressing correlates of attitudes toward social responsibility of business leads to the conclusion that little can currently be confidently stated concerning such correlates and that progress toward the understanding of relevant linkages is largely dependent on the development of psychometrically adequate indices of social attitudes. Using a sample of high level executives from a large number of industries, this paper examines various psychometric properties of an index of social attitudes, the (...) Social Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ) (Aldag and Jackson, 1977) and considers relationships of SAQ subscale scores to multiple measures of firm size and economic performance and to managerial demographic and social psychological characteristics. Results of this study reflect favorably on psychometric integrity of the SAQ and reveal a complex set of correlates of its subscales. (shrink)

First published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Enthymemes are traditionally defined as arguments in which some elements are left unstated. It is an empirical fact that enthymemes are both enormously frequent and appropriately understood in everyday argumentation. Why is it so? We outline an answer that dispenses with the so called "principle of charity", which is the standard notion underlying most works on enthymemes. In contrast, we suggest that a different force drives enthymematic argumentation—namely, parsimony, i.e. the tendency to optimize resource consumption, in light of the agent's (...) goals. On this view, the frequent use of enthymemes does not indicate sub-optimal performance of arguers, requiring appeals to charity for their redemption. On the contrary, it is seen as a highly adaptive argumentation strategy, given the need of everyday reasoners to optimize their cognitive resources. Considerations of parsimony also affect enthymeme reconstruction, i.e. the process by which the interpreter makes sense of the speaker's enthymemes. Far from being driven by any pro-social cooperative instinct, interpretative efforts are aimed at extracting valuable information at reasonable costs from available sources. Thus, there is a tension between parsimony and charity, insofar as the former is a non-social constraint for self-regulation of one's behaviour, whereas the latter implies a pro-social attitude. We will argue that some versions of charity are untenable for enthymeme interpretation, while others are compatible with the view defended here, but still require parsimony to expose the ultimate reasons upon which a presumption of fair treatment in enthymeme reconstruction is founded. (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)

Workers with involuntary clients influence the behaviour of their clients. One of the methods by which workers influence their clients relates to the way they model, encourage or reinforce their comments and behaviours. Practitioners may be aware or unaware of this process and of the extent to which it can impact on clients. This paper describes the process of modelling and reinforcement and discusses some of the ethical issues it raises. It suggests some guidelines by which the process may be (...) undertaken in an ethical manner and recommends the use of the ethics of care and concept of human dignity as additional theoretical resources to assist in working with this client group. (shrink)

The detrimental effect of human behavior on the environment is undeniable. Attitudes are recognized as a predictor of the pro-environmental behavior; therefore, having good quality tools in Colombia to measure them is strategic to assess interventions. This study aims to establish psychometric indicators for the pro-environmental attitudes questionnaire Colombian version to a sample of 415 volunteers aged 18–70 years. We used the 28-item PEAQ already linguistically adapted for Colombia. We applied the following questionnaires: Environmental awareness, environmental values, and (...) the pro-environmental at work questionnaire. We used a one-parameter Rasch model and Winsteps program to assess the PEAQ's one-dimensionality and item statistics by gender, and estimated Spearman's rho coefficient between the PEAQ scores and the scales for concurrent validity. The PEAQ in this study has 24 items because 4 items did not fit into the Rasch model criteria. Its one-dimensionality was supported by an explained variance and the first residual variance. The coefficients, α = 0.95 and Ω = 0.95; Rasch for persons = 0.90; and Rasch for items = 0.95. The correlation between the PEAQ and the EC, EV, and PEWQ scales were Spearman's rho coefficient = 0.859, 0.795, and 0.885, respectively. Thus, the PEAQ Colombian version's psychometric indicators support it as a valid and reliable instrument to measure pro-environmental attitudes in this country. (shrink)

In recent years, philosophers and psychologists have resurrected a debate at the intersection of metaphysics and moral psychology. The central question is whether we can conceive of moral agents as deterministic systems unfolding predictably and inevitably under constant laws without psychologically damaging the pro-social attitudes and moral emotions that grease the wheels of social life. These concerns are sparked by recent experiments documenting a decline in the ethical behavior of participants primed with deterministic metaphysics. But this literature (...) has done little to sway most contemporary philosophers who have instead emphasized determinism's positive social impact in motivating more compassionate responses to social deviance. This article presents the case for a middle position. It argues that the ?deterministic conception of human action? (the DCA) is likely to have a dual impact on human moral psychology. On one hand, the DCA is likely to mollify one of our species? least admirable tendencies involving retributive moral anger, while concomitantly exacerbating one of our worst, namely our tendency toward moral apathy. This article begins with an overview of this emerging interdisciplinary debate, offers the evidence for a middle position, and concludes with suggestions for mitigating the negative social impact of deterministic metaphysics. (shrink)