This article examines the role of social context in corporate social responsibility research. The authors direct attention to three major perspectives in organization studies—institutional, cultural, and cognitive—that bear on the social context and explore how these perspectives are used in CSR research. These perspectives are framed as representative of the levels at which CSR may be analyzed, and each perspective is associated with a certain level of social context: the institutional perspective relates to (...) the external social context, the cultural perspective relates to the organizational level, and the cognitive perspective relates to the individual level. The authors demonstrate how the CSR field can benefit by combining or integrating multiple perspectives that bear on the social context, and by engaging in more explicit multilevel analysis of the social context within which CSR practicesunfold. Three promising avenues for future CSR research are outlined: social ecology, cross-sector social partnerships, and strategy-as-practice. The authors argue that these avenues transcend levels and perspectives and offer the prospect of more context-sensitive CSR research. (shrink)

Computer and video games have become nearly ubiquitous among individuals in industrialized nations, and they have received increasing attention from researchers across many areas of scientific study. However, relatively little attention has been given to Massively-Multiplayer Online Games . The unique social context of MMOGs raises ethical questions about how communication occurs and how conflict is managed in the game world. In order to explore these questions, we compare the social context in Blizzard’s World of Warcraft (...) and Disney’s Toontown, focusing on griefing opportunities in each game. We consider ethical questions from the perspectives of players, game companies, and policymakers. (shrink)

This article considers current research in computer‐supported cooperative work (CSCW), computer‐mediated communication (CMC), and distributed artificial intelligence (DAl). These areas need an articulated model of social contexts to bridge the persisting gap between social and technological dimensions in computer system design and use.A conceptual model of context is presented to account for both cooperation‐conflict and communication‐negotiation processes. The model conceives of contexts as including not only physical objects and other people but also social norms which influence (...) both individuals and organizations. It assumes that computer system use occurs in social scenarios in which the features cannot be reduced to any type of input or data in the world that designers and users can process along with other information coming from the current task. The model is built on three levels: from social contexts as normative order (Level 1), to specific and intrinsically complex situations (Level 2), to person‐computer interactions for the performance of particular tasks (Level 3).The model has three main implications. First, Human‐Computer Interaction (HCl) studies—especially scenario‐based design—may profit from a fresh topdown approach to designers' and users' mental models taking into account normative social processes which have been neglected in previous research. Second, CSCW may realize how deeply discrepant perspectives affect multi‐agent environments and why in real working life negotiation is intertwined with cooperation. Designers may use this insight to design systems allowing more place for negotiation among actors. Third, we should dismiss the view that CMC lacks adequate social cues and fosters impulsive behavior. Cognitive processes such as categorization, stereotype construction, and social identification can make electronic environments even more strongly sensible to social norms than face‐to‐face communication. Context, according to our model, is not restricted to the physical copresence of other people but consists mainly of processes providing situations with socially recognizable meaning. (shrink)

This book reconceives virtue epistemology in light of the conviction that we are essentially social creatures. Virtue is normally thought of as something that allows individuals to accomplish things on their own. Although contemporary ethics is increasingly making room for an inherently social dimension in moral agency, intellectual virtues continue to be seen in terms of the computing potential of a brain taken by itself. Thinking in these terms, however, seriously misconstrues the way in which our individual flourishing (...) hinges on our collective flourishing. Green’s account of virtue epistemology is based on the extended credit view, which conceives of knowledge as an achievement and broadens that focus to include team achievements in addition to individual ones. He argues that this view does a better job than alternatives of answering the many conceptual and empirical challenges for virtue epistemology that have been based on cases of testimony. The view also allows for a nuanced interaction with situationist psychology, dual processing models in cognitive science, and the extended mind literature in philosophy of mind. This framework provides a useful conceptual bridge between individual and group epistemology, and it has novel applications to the epistemology of disagreement, prejudice, and authority. (shrink)

Social context shapes negotiators’ actions, including their willingness to act unethically. We use a simulated negotiation to test how three dimensions of social context—dyadic gender composition, negotiation strategy, and trust—interact to influence one micro-ethical decision, the use of deception. Deception in all-male dyads was relatively unaffected by trust or the other negotiator’s strategy. In mixed-sex dyads, negotiators consistently increased their use of deception when three forms of trust were low and opponents used an accommodating strategy. However, (...) in all-female dyads, negotiators appeared to use multiple and shifting reference points in deciding when to deceive the other party. In these dyads, the use of deception increased when a competitive strategy combined with low benevolence-based trust or an accommodating strategy combined with high identity-based trust. Deception in all-female dyads decreased when a competitive strategy was used in the context of low deterrence-based trust. (shrink)

Publication date: 22 December 2020 Source: International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences Vol. 89 Author: Temitope A. Ogunweide The study sought to assess the social context of solid waste disposal pattern of residents in Ibadan metropolis, in order to assess the Solid waste disposal patterns of people in Ibadan metropolis, Oyo State, Nigeria. Specifically, the study identified solid waste disposal habits of residents, frequency of clearing the dumpsters, accessibility of waste dumpsters to people determines the waste (...) disposal pattern of people; and analyze the willingness of people in Ibadan to pay for improved service. Solid waste management has been part of human activities right from time. Efforts by Oyo State Government is seen in the collection of dirt that have been placed on the medians. Waste generation is an unavoidable product of man activities, however, sustainable management of such waste is a challenge faced in many countries today. Nigeria, a developing country in Africa, has been in a quandary of how to efficiently manage the municipal solid waste its population generates. Many states in the country lack adequate plans and infrastructure required for efficient and sustainable management of municipal solid waste. For Ibadan, the largest city in Nigeria, the problem is further compounded by its rather large and still increasing population. In this research, Ibadan metropolis is taken as a case study; the rate of solid waste handling in households as regards solid waste management from household collection to final disposal are focused upon. The study found out that 45.6% drop their refuse in the dumpsters as 18.8% burns their refuse, 17.7% of the respondents drops their waste on the median, 12% in the drainage while 6% opts to drop their waste in the streams. On the effectiveness of the Private operators collecting waste from the respondents, the study found out that 7.6% effective, 37.5% of the respondents says the operators waste collection is poor, 7% says it is abysmal while 43.5% said it is not applicable to them because they do not have storage containers in their houses and as a result did not subscribe to their service. Many countries, particularly the developed ones, have employed options in the waste management hierarchy for sustainable management of their municipal solid waste and the blend of options employed is usually highly dependent on local factors. Following the waste management hierarchy, possible options for sustainable municipal solid waste management in Ibadan are discussed. It is concluded that waste reduction, reuse, and recycling are potential management options for the state. Landfilling will remain an important option for final disposal but reliance on this method could be significantly reduced if management options are exploited to the maximum in a sustainable solid waste management structure in Ibadan metropolis. Key Words: Waste handling, Ibadan Metropolis, Landfill, Municipal Solid Waste Word Count: 435. (shrink)

This article argues that we could improve the design of research protocols by developing an awareness of and a responsiveness to the social contexts of all the actors in the research enterprise, including subjects, investigators, sponsors, and members of the community in which the research will be conducted. ?Social context? refers to the settings in which the actors are situated, including, but not limited to, their social, economic, political, cultural, and technological features. The utility of thinking (...) about social contexts is introduced and exemplified by the presentation of a hypothetical case in which one central issue is limitation of the probability of injury to subjects by selection of individuals who are not expected to live long enough for the known risks of the study to become manifest as harms. Benefits of such considerations may include enhanced subject satisfaction and cooperation, community acceptance, and improved data quality, among other desirable consequences. (shrink)

Investigating social context effects and emotional modulation of attention in a laboratory setting is challenging. Electroencephalography (EEG) requires a controlled setting to avoid confounds, which goes against the nature of social interaction and emotional processing in real life. To bridge this gap, we developed a new paradigm to investigate the effects of social context and emotional expressions on attention in a laboratory setting. We co-registered eye-tracking and EEG to assess gaze behavior and brain activity while (...) participants performed a discrimination task followed by feedback. Video clips of one second in which a confederate displayed either positive, neutral or negative expressions were presented as feedback to the discrimination task. Participants’ belief was manipulated by telling them that the videos were selected either by the computer (non-social condition) or by the experimenter in the adjacent room that observed them via videochat (social condition). We found that emotional expressions modulated late attention processing in the brain (EPN and LPC), but neither early processing (P1) nor saccade latency. Social context did not influence any of the variables studied. We conclude this new paradigm serves as a stepping stone to the development of new paradigms to study social interaction within EEG experiments. (shrink)

Biblical theology ought to find relevant to its task the whole story, if it can be learned, of the formation and reformation of the people for whom and by whom the biblical writings were made.

Apparently, the social situation in which Luke's community lived was that of an urban setting in the Eastern Mediterranean. This situation was shaped by the honor and patronage culture of the Hellenistic city. At the heart of the Lukan community's ethos lay its common meals. The purpose of these meals was dual: On the one hand, they forged a common identity for a socially and ethnically diverse group of Christians; on the other hand, they functioned as a criticism of (...) urban culture. (shrink)

Previous research indicates that ethical ideologies, issue-contingencies, and social context can impact ethical reasoning in different business situations. However, the manner in which these constructs work together to shape different steps of the ethical decision-making process is not always clear. The purpose of this study was to address these issues by exploring the influence of idealism and relativism, perceived moral intensity in a decision-making situation, and social context on the recognition of an ethical issue and ethical (...) intention. Utilizing a sales-based scenario and multiple ethics measures included on a self-report questionnaire, data were collected from a regional sample of business students, most of whom had modest work experience. The results indicated that perceived moral intensity was associated with increased ethical issue recognition and ethical intention. Idealism was also associated with increased ethical issue recognition, and relativism was associated with decreased ethical intention. Social consensus was positively related to ethical issue recognition and intention, while competitive context was inversely related to ethical intention. Finally, ethical issue recognition was associated with increased ethical intention. Idealism, moral intensity, social consensus, and work experience worked together as predictors of ethical issue recognition, whereas recognition of an ethical issue, relativism, moral intensity, social consensus, and competitive context worked together to predict ethical intention. (shrink)

This paper describes ongoing work towards a rich analysis of the social contexts of neologism use in historical corpora, in particular the Corpora of Early English Correspondence, with research questions concerning the innovators, meanings and diffusion of neologisms. To enable this kind of study, we are developing new processes, tools and ways of combining data from different sources, including the Oxford English Dictionary, the Historical Thesaurus, and contemporary published texts. Comparing neologism candidates across these sources is complicated by the (...) large amount of spelling variation. To make the issues tractable, we start from case studies of individual suffixes and people. By developing tools aiding these studies, we build toward more general analyses. Our aim is to develop an open-source environment where information on neologism candidates is gathered from a variety of algorithms and sources, pooled, and presented to a human evaluator for verification and exploration. (shrink)

Algorithmic decision-making systems have the potential to amplify existing discriminatory patterns and negatively affect perceptions of justice in society. There is a need for a revision of mechanisms to address discrimination in light of the unique challenges presented by these systems, which are not easily auditable or explainable. Research efforts to bring fairness to ADM solutions should be viewed as a matter of justice and trust among actors should be ensured through technology design. Ideas that move us to explore the (...) notions of justice within the field of political thinking, aiming to identify the elements that frame the social context of the discriminatory decisions produced by algorithmic decision-making solutions. Our explorations suggest that the efforts to bring fairness to ADMs should be seen as a matter of justice and that trust in these systems can be ensured through careful technology design. (shrink)

The concept of medical futility has come to be seen in some quarters as a value-neutral trump card when dealing with issues of power and conflicting values in medicine. I argue that this concept is potentially useful, but only in a social context that provides a normative framework for its use. This social context needs to include a broad consensus about the purpose of medicine and the nature of the physician-patient relationship.

The objective of this research is to identify relationships between social context dimensions and hardiness in elite weightlifting athletes. Methods: The design: non-experimental, cross-sectional and correlational, the participants were 20 athletes who belong to the elite as the national team of Mexico, they are between 19 and 28 years of age, M = 22.05 SD = 2.91, 8 men (40%) and 12 women (60%). 2 instruments were used, the first is the Perception of Factors Related to Excellence in (...) Sport (PFED), (Simón, 2009) consisting of 54 items 6 variables, coach, environment and resources, athlete, family, nature of training and characteristics of the training and the second the questionnaire of hardiness in Central American and Caribbean Athletes (PRDCC) (Ponce, 2017; Ponce-Carbajal et al. 2015) of 18 items and three variables, commitment control and challenge. In the procedure, a file was created in google forms and coaches who are in charge of athletes from the Mexican national weightlifting team were contacted. The statistical analyzes used were frequencies, descriptive, reliability, and Spearman's bivariate correlations. Results: Adequate internal consistency in almost all the variables, between.40 and.92 in the 2 questionnaires. In the correlations between variables of the social context and those of the hardiness, relationships were evidenced between the total resistant personality and the nature of the training with an r =.767** and the challenge variable correlated with two, the first is the nature of the training r =.834** and with the characteristics of training r =.671**. Conclusion, the relationships between the variables of the social context and the resistant personality are confirmed. (shrink)

I argue that work in medical ethics which attempts to humanize medicine without examining hidden assumptions (about medicine's ontology, explanations, goals, relationships) has the dehumanizing effect of legitimating practices which treat persons as abstractions. After illustrating the need to reexamine the field of medical ethics and the doctor-patient relationship in particular, I use Foucault's work to provide a social, historical framework for discussion. This background begins to demonstrate that doctor-patient relationships cannot be made satisfactory by new hospital policies or (...) interpersonal skills, but have deep-rooted problems due to medicine's place in social history. Real progress requires social or structural change. (shrink)

This article argues that two significant implications of Wittgenstein’s writings for social thought are (1) that people are constitutively social beings and (2) that the social context of an individual life is nexuses of practice. Part one concretizes these ideas by examining the constitution of action within practices. It begins by criticizing three arguments of Winch’s that suggest that action is inherently social. It then spells out two arguments for the practice constitution of action that (...) are extractable from Wittgenstein’s remarks. Part two contrasts the conception of the social context of individual life as practices with three historically significant conceptions of such a context: totality; sui generis reality; and abstract structure. It also circumscribes that contemporary movement - practice theory - that develops the Wittgensteinian position and represents, perhaps, his most significant legacy for social thought. (shrink)

The evolving landscape of workforce learning underscores the increasing importance of self-directed learning (SDL) within business organizations. SDL shifts the learning responsibility to learners themselves, requiring self-control, self-management, and autonomous motivation. Despite its numerous benefits for both business organizations and workers, it is challenged by the varying degrees of workers’ individual self-direction. This literature review aims to articulate the significance of social context – the support from leaders and peers – in facilitating workers’ SDL. It highlights leader autonomy (...) support as the key factor of fostering workers’ autonomous motivation in SDL. Moreover, it examines the role of learner-peer interactions, including help, feedback, and information seeking, as specific aspects of peer support. These interactions further facilitate positive attitudes towards SDL and advance problem-solving, potentially leading to collaborative learning. The literature review is concluded by outlining possible future research directions. (shrink)

Aesopic fables constitute an important case in folk and popular literature. This genre went through various stages of development; its plasticity, pedagogical dimension, and mainly its ability to convey messages through an indirect and pleasant way prompted many to take interest in it, reading, adapting, or even creating new fables. As a result, fables became a favorite topic in literature and, especially, children's literature through many and various adaptations, translations, and metanarratives. In this paper, considering fables as an early form (...) of utopic/dystopic discourse, we aim to demonstrate some cases of such references through examples taken from the corpus of Aesopic fables. (shrink)

Musical life became disrupted in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many musicians and venues turned to online alternatives, such as livestreaming. In this study, three livestreamed concerts were organized to examine separate, yet interconnected concepts—agency, presence, and social context—to ascertain which components of livestreamed concerts facilitate social connectedness. Hierarchical Bayesian modeling was conducted on 83 complete responses to examine the effects of the manipulations on feelings of social connectedness with the artist and the audience. Results (...) showed that in concert 1, where half of the participants were allowed to vote for the final song to be played, this option did not result in the experience of more agency. Instead, if their preferred song was played (regardless of voting ability) participants experienced greater connectedness to the artist. In concert 2, participants who attended the concert with virtual reality headsets experienced greater feelings of physical presence, as well as greater feelings of connectedness with the artist, than those that viewed a normal YouTube livestream. In concert 3, attendance through Zoom led to greater experience of social presence, but predicted less connectedness with the artist, compared to a normal YouTube livestream. Crucially, a greater negative impact of COVID-19 (e.g., loneliness) predicted feelings of connectedness with the artist, possibly because participants fulfilled their social needs with this parasocial interaction. Examining data from all concerts suggested that physical presence was a predictor of connectedness with both the artist and the audience, while social presence only predicted connectedness with the audience. Correlational analyses revealed that reductions in loneliness and isolation were associated with feelings of shared agency, physical and social presence, and connectedness to the audience. Overall, the findings suggest that in order to reduce feelings of loneliness and increase connectedness, concert organizers and musicians could tune elements of their livestreams to facilitate feelings of physical and social presence. (shrink)

Increasing rates of obesity have fueled interest in the factors underlying food choice. While epidemiological studies report that disadvantaged social groups exhibit a higher incidence of obesity, causal evidence for an effect of social contexts on food choice remains scarce. To further our knowledge, we experimentally investigated the effect of disadvantageous social context on food choice in healthy, non-dieting participants. We used three established experimental methods to generate social contexts of different valence in controlled laboratory (...) settings: (i) receiving varying amounts of money in a Dictator Game (DG; n = 40), (ii) being included or excluded in a Cyberball Game (CBG; n = 35), and (iii) performing well, average, or poorly in a response time ranking task (RTR; n = 81). Following exposure to a particular social context, participants made pairwise choices between food items that involved a conflict between perceived taste and health attributes. In line with previous research, stronger dispositional self-control, greater cognitive control of eating behavior, and lower external eating (all assessed via questionnaires) were associated with healthier food choices. As expected, being treated unfairly in the DG, being excluded in the CBG, and performing poorly in the RTR led to negative emotions. However, we did not find an effect of the induced social context on food choice in any of the experiments, even when taking into account individual differences in participants' responses to the social context. Our results suggest that-at least in controlled laboratory environments-the influence of disadvantageous social contexts on food choice is limited. (shrink)

This study investigates the trajectories of intended critical thinking in a social context present in the K-5 social studies content standards of six states. It considers how the nature of context-based critical thinking present in the standards’ benchmarks is represented. The findings reveal a complex dynamic in K-5 social studies content standards, which fundamentally expect young learners to advance their critical thinking in social context. But the content standards promote inconsistent critical thinking in (...) a social context across grade levels. The sophistication of context-based critical thinking decreases within the standards as students advance through the grades. As such, implications for elementary social studies education in terms of how standards reflect official stances from the state on the nature of social studies in elementary education are discussed. (shrink)

The essays in this book not only examine the variety of atheist expression and experience in the Western context, they also explore how local, national and international settings may contribute to the shaping of atheist identities. By addressing identity at these different levels, the book explores how individuals construct their own atheist-or non-religious-identity, how they construct community and how identity factors into atheist interaction at the social or institutional levels. The book offers an interdisciplinary comparative approach to the (...) analysis of issues relating to atheism, such as demography, community engagement, gender politics, stigmatism and legal action. It covers such themes as: secularization; the social context of atheism in various Western countries; the shifting of atheist identities based on different cultural and national contexts; the role of atheism in multicultural settings; how the framework of "reasonable accommodation" applies to atheism; interactions and relationships between atheism and religion; and how atheism is represented for political and legal purposes. Featuring contributions by international scholars at the cutting edge of atheism studies, this volume offers unique insights into the relationship between atheism and identity. It will serve as a useful resource for academics, journalists, policy makers and readers interested in secular and religious studies, identity construction and identity politics as well as atheism in general. (shrink)

In this issue, McCarthy, Homan and Rozier make the case for re-stablishing the relationship between theological and secular bioethics. I find MHR to be quite...

Vigil's socio-relational framework of sex differences in emotional expressiveness emphasizes general sex differences in emotional responding, but largely ignores the social context in which emotions are expressed. There is much empirical evidence showing that sex differences in emotion displays are flexible and a function of specific social roles and demands, rather than a reflection of evolutionary-based social adjustments.