In the coming months and years, the left faces a historic juncture. On the one hand, racist violence is on the rise across the West, and the political class seems intent on mobilising both overt and subtle racism. On the other hand, strategies of anti-racist organising, which have developed on both sides of the Atlantic, have reached a theoretical impasse. I argue that now, more than ever, a serious project of historical and intellectual retrieval is necessary. This article interrogates the (...) theoretical limitations of ‘anti-blackness’ as an analysis of racialised oppression. Through the thought of Frantz Fanon and Steve Biko, among others, I argue that theories of ‘anti-blackness’, specifically those rooted in Afro-pessimism, are predicated on a theoretical shift away from relational social theory to identitarian essentialism which obscures, rather than illuminates, the processes of racialisation which undergird racial oppression. (shrink)

In theory, HREC members should use the ethical guidelines in the National Statement on the Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Humans as the basis for their decisions, and researchers should design their research in accordance with these guidelines However, very little is known about what researchers and HREC members actually do in practice. In this paper, we report some of the key findings of the study “Human Research Ethics in Practice”, a qualitative interview-based study of health researchers and HREC members (...) in Victoria. The findings shed light on how researchers and HREC members conceptualise ethics, how they use the National Statement, and what deliberative strategies they employ to assess the ethical appropriateness of research studies. The findings also reveal differences and similarities between health researchers’ and HREC members’ perceptions of the roles of HRECs, and point to some sources of misunderstanding and tension. We examine the implications of some of these findings for the ways in which HRECs carry out their task, and research institutions support and promote ethical conduct in research amongst their staff and students. The focus of this study is on health research, but we suggest that the findings are highly relevant to all other research areas where human participants are involved. (shrink)

Background: It is not known how neonatologists address the affective and cognitive loads on parents deciding whether to resuscitate infants born extremely preterm. This study explores expert neonatologists' views on these decision-making processes and their own roles in counseling parents. Methods: Semistructured interviews asked internationally recognized experts to share their perspectives on perinatal consultations. Their responses were subjected to thematic analysis. Results: Eighteen of 22 invited experts participated. Approximately equal numbers reported employing a physician-driven approach, a parent-driven approach, and a (...) combined approach during these consultations. Those who followed a physician-driven approach typically focused on conveying standard information about adverse outcomes. Those who followed a parent-driven approach typically focused on addressing parents' information requests, guiding their decision making, and providing affective support. Nearly all experts, in each group, endorsed addressing the child's quality of life, in terms of functionality, when discussing long-term outcomes. Although many believed that families adjusted to life with a disabled child, few discussed the topic during prenatal consultations. Most, in each group, reported trying to alleviate future “decisional regret” for parents whose premature infants subsequently became disabled. None spoke to parents about possible decisional regret after deciding to forgo resuscitation. Conclusions: Expert neonatologists are deeply concerned that parents understand the decision facing them. However, they differ on what information they offer and how they balance parents' need for cognitive and affective support. They expressed more concern about parents' decisional regret should their child survive resuscitation, but have severe disability, than about decisional regret after foregoing resuscitation. (shrink)

A model of judgment aggregation is presented in which judgments on propositions are not binary but come in degrees. The primitives are a set of propositions, an entailment relation, and a “triangular norm” which establishes a lower bound on the degree to which a proposition is true whenever it is entailed by a set of propositions. Under standard assumptions, we identify a necessary and sufficient condition for the collective judgments to be both deductively closed and free from veto power. This (...) condition says that the triangular norm used to establish the lower bound must contain a zero divisor. (shrink)

This article presents the results of research conducted with secondary school teachers in Quebec, specifically in the Mauricie region. The authors propose a reflection on the construction of professional identity in a context of institutional crisis. They argue that in this context, the teacher can not rely on stable and social frameworks to build up a strong professional identity and that work experience that becomes the primordial material from which that identity is developed. Therefore, the teacher has to build its (...) identity from a set of rational narrative experience of professional practice.contrastée des attentes et des représentations d'étudiants en formation initiale à l'enseignement secondaire en fonction de leur engagement ou non dans un établissement scolaire Cet article présente les résultats d’une recherche menée auprès d’enseignants du niveau secondaire au Québec, plus spécifiquement dans la région de la Mauricie. Les auteurs proposent une réflexion sur la construction de l’identité professionnelle dans un contexte de crise des institutions. Ils soutiennent que dans ce contexte l’enseignant ne peut compter sur des cadres sociaux stables et solides pour se constituer une identité professionnelle et que c’est l’expérience au travail qui devient le matériau primordial à partir duquel s’élabore cette identité. Par conséquent, l’enseignant a à construire son identité à partir d’une mise en récit rationnelle de son expérience de la pratique professionnelle. (shrink)

Les rencontres avec les travaux d'Anne-Françoise Schmid que présente cet ouvrage, mettent la philosophie générique au coeur des pratiques contemporaines des sciences, ouvrant ainsi une nouvelle voie pour la création épistémologique. Comment produire une description non disciplinaire des sciences? Qu'est-ce qui permet aux sciences d'être conceptives? - De quoi a-t-on besoin pour une science sans exclusions? Quels sont les nouveaux opérateurs de rigueur des sciences contemporaines? Les travaux d'Anne-Françoise Schmid montrent que les objets contemporains des sciences ne se prêtent pas (...) à des définitions standard, et que les convergences de perspectives disciplinaires ne permettent pas non plus d'assurer un point de vue théorique unifié, mais seulement des trajectoires particulières et multiples. Il n'y a pas d'objet sans rapport à l'objet. Ce rapport n'est pas simplement une mise en contexte, elle met en jeu l'intime et l'intention des chercheurs. Les disciplines cachent cet aspect. Sa philosophie travaille à la mise en lumière des opérations qui permettent l'ouverture d'un espace générique : c'est-à-dire un espace qui ne dépend pas d'une seule discipline et qui est condition d'une nouvelle mise en relation des concepts d'humain et de sciences. Les contributions de cet ouvrage mettent en évidence des nouvelles logiques de découpage, de réarticulation et d'invention de concepts dans une grande diversité de champs disciplinaires. Ce livre offre une entrée dans un espace générique. Le générique permet de voir ainsi ce que l'on ne voit pas avec l'épistémologie classique."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Managing the violent behaviour of mentally disordered offenders is challenging in all jurisdictions. We describe the ethical framework and practical management of MDOs in England and Wales in the context of the move to equivalence of healthcare between hospital and prison. We consider the similarities and differences between prison and hospital management of the violent and challenging behaviours of MDOs. We argue that both types of institution can learn from each other and that equivalence of care should extend to equivalence (...) of criminal proceedings in court and prisons for MDOs. We argue that any adjudication process in prison for MDOs is enhanced by the relevant involvement of mental health professionals and the articulation of the ethical principles underpinning health and criminal justice practices. (shrink)

We compared study characteristics of randomized controlled trials funded by industry (N=697) to those not funded by industry (N=835). RCTs published in high-impact journals are more likely to be blinded, more likely to include a placebo, and more likely to post trial results on ClinicalTrials.gov. Our findings emphasize the importance of evaluating the quality of an RCT based on its methodological rigor, not its funder type.

In this package, Gerald and Marianne Corey present a workshop on Ethics and the helping profession, and feature 12 compelling vignettes that demonstrate ethical situations & responses, along with commentary from the Coreys and filmed group interaction and discussion that bring ethical issues to life. The student workbook provides exercses and guidelines for resolving ethical dilemmas.

The interface between mental health services and the criminal justice system presents challenges both for professionals and patients. Both systems are stressed and inherently complex. Section 136 of the Mental Health Act is unusual being both an aspect of the Mental Health Act and a power of arrest. It has a long and controversial history related to concerns about who has been detained and how the section was applied. More recently, Section 136 has had a public profile stemming from the (...) use of police cells as places of safety for young, mentally disturbed individuals. This paper explores the current state of health of this piece of legislation. Specifically, we consider whether alternative approaches are more suitable for those individuals in crisis and/or distress who come into contact with the police. This requires careful thought as to the proper role of both health and criminal justice professionals who are daily grappling with an ethically contentious domain of multiagency work. (shrink)

This article introduces a non-Anglophone concept of gong qi as a metaphor for ‘corporation’. It contributes an endogenous perspective from a Sino-Japanese organizational context that enriches mainstream business ethics literature, otherwise heavily reliant on Western traditions. We translate the multi-layered meanings of gong qi based on analysis of its ideograms, its references into classical philosophies, and contemporary application in this Japanese multinational corporation in China. Gong qi contributes a perspective that sees a corporation as an inclusive and virtuous social entity, (...) and also addresses the elusive, implicit, and forever evolving nature of organizational life that is rarely noticed. We propose gong qi can be applied in other organizations and wider cultural contexts to show a new way of seeing and understanding business ethics and organization. Rather than considering virtue as a list of definable individual qualities, we suggest that the metaphor of gong qi reveals how virtue can be experienced as indeterminate, yet immanently present, like the substance of emptiness. This, then allows us to see the virtue of immanence, the beauty of implicitness, and hence, the efficacy of gong qi. (shrink)

On page 1 of his classic text, Millsap states, “Measurement invariance is built on the notion that a measuring device should function the same way across varied conditions, so long as those varied conditions are irrelevant [emphasis added] to the attribute being measured.” By construction, measurement invariance techniques require not only detecting varied conditions but also ruling out that these conditions inform our understanding of measured domains. In fact, measurement invariance techniques possess great utility when theory and research inform their (...) application to specific, varied conditions that, if not detected, introduce measurement biases, and, thus, depress measurement validity. Yet, we see emerging bodies of work where scholars have “put the cart before the horse” when it comes to measurement invariance, and they apply these techniques to varied conditions that, in fact, may reflect domain-relevant information. These bodies of work highlight a larger problem in measurement that likely cuts across many areas of scholarship. In one such area, youth mental health, researchers commonly encounter a set of conditions that nullify the use of measurement invariance, namely discrepancies between survey reports completed by multiple informants, such as parents, teachers, and youth themselves. In this paper, we provide an overview of conceptual, methodological, and measurement factors that should prevent researchers from applying measurement invariance techniques to detect informant discrepancies. Along the way, we cite evidence from the last 15 years indicating that informant discrepancies reflect domain-relevant information. We also apply this evidence to recent uses of measurement invariance techniques in youth mental health. Based on prior evidence, we highlight the implications of applying these techniques to multi-informant data, when the informant discrepancies observed within these data might reflect domain-relevant information. We close by calling for a moratorium on applying measurement invariance techniques to detect informant discrepancies in youth mental health assessments. In doing so, we describe how the state of the science would need to fundamentally “flip” to justify applying these techniques to detect informant discrepancies in this area of work. (shrink)

Recent work with infants suggests that plant foraging throughout evolutionary history has shaped the design of the human mind. Infants in Germany and the US avoid touching plants and engage in more social looking toward adults before touching them. This combination of behavioral avoidance and social looking strategies enables safe and rapid social learning about plant properties within the first two years of life. Here, we explore how growing up in a context that requires frequent interaction with plants shapes children’s (...) responses with the participation of communities in rural Fiji. We conducted two interviews with adults and a behavioral study with children. The adult interviews map the plant learning landscape in these communities and provide context for the child study. The child study used a time-to-touch paradigm to examine whether 6- to 48-month-olds in participating communities exhibit avoidance behaviors and social looking patterns that are similar to, or different from, those of German and American infants. Our adult interview results confirmed that knowledge about daily and medicinal uses of plants is widely known throughout the communities, and children are given many opportunities to informally learn about plants. The results of the child behavioral study suggest that young Fijian children, like German and American infants, are reluctant to reach for novel artificial plants and are fastest to interact with familiar household items and shells. In contrast to German and American infants, Fijian children also quickly reached for familiar real plants and did not engage in differential social looking before touching them. These results suggest that cultural contexts flexibly shape the development of plant-relevant cognitive design. (shrink)

Mastery imagery (i.e., images of being in control and coping in difficult situations) is used to regulate anxiety. The ability to image this content is associated with trait confidence and anxiety, but research examining mastery imagery ability's association with confidence and anxiety in response to a stressful event is scant. The present study examined whether trait mastery imagery ability mediated the relationship between confidence and anxiety, and the subsequent associations on performance in response to an acute psychological stress. Participants (N= (...) 130; 55% male;Mage= 19.94 years;SD= 1.07 years) completed assessments of mastery imagery ability and engaged in a standardized acute psychological stress task. Immediately prior to the task, confidence, cognitive and somatic anxiety intensity, and interpretation of anxiety symptoms regarding the task were assessed. Path analyses supported a model whereby mastery imagery ability mediated the relationship between confidence and cognitive and somatic anxiety interpretation. Greater mastery imagery ability and confidence were both directly associated with better performance on the stress task. Mastery imagery ability may help individuals experience more facilitative anxiety and perform better during stressful tasks. Improving mastery imagery ability by enhancing self-confidence may help individuals successfully cope with anxiety elicited during stressful situations. (shrink)

European and international regulation of human health research is typified by a morass of interconnecting laws, diverse and divergent ethical frameworks, and national and transnational standards. There is also a tendency for legislators to regulate in silos—that is, in discrete fields of scientific activity without due regard to the need to make new knowledge as generalisable as possible. There are myriad challenges for the stakeholders—researchers and regulators alike—who attempt to navigate these landscapes. This Delphi study was undertaken in order to (...) provide the first interdisciplinary and crosscutting analysis of health research regulation, as it is experienced by such stakeholders in the UK context. As well as reinforcing existing understandings of the regulatory environment, Delphi participants called for greater collaboration, and even co-production, of processes involved in health research regulation. On the basis of this research, we offer insights about how health research regulation can become a matter with which a wider range of stakeholders—including researchers, regulators, publics and research sponsors—can engage. The evidence supports the normative claim that health research regulation should continue to move away from strict, prescriptive rules-based approaches, and towards flexible principle-based regimes that allow researchers, regulators and publics to co-produce regulatory systems serving core principles. By unpacking thorny concepts and practices at the heart of health research regulation—including the public interest and public engagement—our results have the potential to situate and breathe life into them. The results also demonstrate that while proportionality is well-recognised as a crucial element of flexible regulatory systems, more must be done to operationalise this as an ethical assessment of the values and risks at stake at multiple junctures in the research trajectory. This is required if we are to move beyond proportionality as a mere risk-management tool. Compliance culture no longer accurately reflects the needs and expectations of researchers or regulators, nor does it necessarily produce the best research. Embracing uncertainty—both as a human practice and a regulatory objective—may represent the brighter future for health research. (shrink)

These essays apply influential, pathbreaking psychological studies about women's lives to literature. In their analyses of fictional portraits, contributors both challenge and confirm psychological theories about female identity, about 'connection/separation' as developmental catalysts, and about the impact of gender on 'voice,' moral decision-making, and epistemology in relation to classical and contemporary literary texts, written by both women and men.

Using a longitudinal case study design, we have tracked the recovery of motor function following severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) through a multimodal neuroimaging approach. In 2006, Canadian Soldier Captain (retired) Trevor Greene (TG) was attacked with an axe to the head while on tour in Afghanistan. TG continues intensive daily rehabilitation, which recently included the integration of physical therapy (PT) with neuromodulation using translingual neurostimulation (TLNS) to facilitate neuroplasticity. Recent findings with PT+TLNS demonstrated that recovery of motor function occurred (...) beyond conventional time limits, currently extending past 14-years post-injury. To investigate whether PT+TLNS similarly resulted in associated cognitive function improvements, we examined event-related potentials (ERPs) with the brain vital signs framework. In parallel with motor function improvements, brain vital signs detected significant increases in basic attention (as measured by P300 response amplitude) and cognitive processing (as measured by contextual N400 response amplitude). These objective cognitive improvements corresponded with TG’s self-reported improvements, including a noteworthy and consistent reduction in ongoing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The findings provide valuable insight into the potential importance of non-invasive neuromodulation in cognitive rehabilitation, in addition to initial indications for physical rehabilitation. (shrink)

There are wide individual differences in the ability to detect a stimulus contingency embedded in a complex paradigm. The present study used a cognitive masking paradigm to better understand individual differences related to contingency learning. Participants were assessed on measures of electrodermal arousal and on working memory capacity before engaging in the contingency learning task. Contingency awareness was assessed both by trial-by-trial verbal reports obtained during the task and by a short post-task recognition questionnaire. Participants who became aware had fewer (...) non-specific skin conductance responses and tended to score higher on a digit span assessment. Skin conductance level was not significantly lower in the aware group than in the unaware group. These findings are consistent with studies showing that lower arousal and greater cognitive processing capacity facilitate conscious perception of a greater breadth of information within a scene or a task. (shrink)

The theoretical and empirical link between leadership and workplace bullying needs further elaboration. The aim of the study is to examine the relationship between quality of leadership and the occurrence of workplace bullying 2 years later. Furthermore, we aim to examine a possible mechanism from leadership to bullying using social community at work as mediator. Using survey data that were collected at two different points in time among 1664 workers from 60 Danish workplaces, we examined the total, direct and indirect (...) effects between quality of leadership and workplace bullying. Our results indicate that quality of leadership plays a role in establishing working conditions that lead to workplace bullying. Furthermore, social community at work fully mediates the effect of poor quality of leadership on workplace bullying. This longitudinal study adds to previous cross-sectional studies on the substantial role played by leaders in the bullying process. Within the leadership–bullying relationship, social community at work acts as a full mediator, adding a significant contribution to the discussion of mechanisms involved in the bullying process. Plausible explanations of this mechanism and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)