The current experiments examine mental health clinicians’ beliefs about biological, psychological, and environmental bases of the DSM‐IV‐TR mental disorders and the consequences of those causal beliefs for judging treatment effectiveness. Study 1 found a large negative correlation between clinicians’ beliefs about biological bases and environmental/psychological bases, suggesting that clinicians conceptualize mental disorders along a single continuum spanning from highly biological disorders (e.g., autistic disorder) to highly nonbiological disorders (e.g., adjustment disorders). Study 2 replicated this finding by having clinicians list what (...) they thought were the specific causes of nine familiar mental disorders and rate their bio–psycho–environmental bases. Study 3 further found that clinicians believe medication to be more effective for biologically based mental disorders and psychotherapy to be more effective for psychosocially based mental disorders. These results demonstrate that even expert mental health clinicians make strong distinctions between psychological and biological phenomena. (shrink)

Due to the nature of lending practices and support services offered to the poor in developing countries, portfolio risk is a growing concern for the microfinance industry. Though previous research highlights the importance of risk for microfinance organizations, not much is known about how microfinance organizations can mitigate risks incurred from providing loans to the poor in developing countries. Further, though many microfinance organizations practice corporate social responsibility to help create economic and social wealth in developing countries, the impact of (...) such CSR practices remains an underdeveloped area of inquiry. We use a normative ethics lens to develop an ethics-based CSR theory that differentiates between three forms of ethics-based CSR—virtue, consequentialist, and deontological. We argue that while all three forms can help mitigate risk, virtue ethics-based CSR is potentially the most useful form of CSR toward mitigating microfinance portfolio risk. We test our hypotheses using a sample of microfinance organizations from across the world. Our findings suggest that virtue ethics-based CSR is not just an important philosophical paradigm; it can actually help mitigate microfinance portfolio risk when implemented in practice. (shrink)

Peer reporting is a specific form of whistelblowing in which an individual discloses the wrongdoing of a peer. Previous studies have examined situational variables thought to influence a person's decision to report the wrongdoing of a peer. The present study looked at peer reporting from the individual level. Five hypotheses were developed concerning the relationships between (1) religiosity and ethical ideology, (2) ethical ideology and ethical judgments about peer reporting, and (3) ethical judgments and intentions to report peer wrongdoing.Subjects read (...) a vignette concerning academic cheating, and were asked to respond to a question-naire concerning the vignette. Data were analyzed using structural equation methodology. (shrink)

In August 2024, The U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejected Lykos Therapeutics, Inc.'s new drug application for midomafetamine with psychological intervention (MDMA-AT) to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Among the many issues raised during review was concern about a highly publicized case of alleged sexual misconduct by an unlicensed therapist during a Phase 2 study of MDMA and the potential risk of future abuse. This incident of misconduct, along with several other publicized cases of misconduct by guides, facilitators, and shaman (...) offering psychedelic retreats, has raised the question of whether physical contact is ever appropriate during psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT). Drawing on research about supportive touch in other clinical contexts and taking into consideration features of psychedelics that exacerbate the potential for harm associated with supportive touch, we advocate for a precautionary approach to harm-reduction while arguing that supportive touch ought not be thrown out whole-cloth. (shrink)

The present study extends the study of individuals' ethical ideology withinthe context of marketing ethics issues. A national sample of marketing professionals participated. Respondents' ethical ideologies were classified as absolutists, situationists, exceptionists, or subjectivists using the Ethical Position Questionnaire (Forsyth, 1980). Respondents then answered questions about three ethically ambiguous situations common to marketing and sales. The results indicated that marketers' ethical judgments about the situations differed based on their ethical ideology, with absolutists rating the actions as most unethical. The findings (...) are consistent with those of two earlier studies that utilized samples of business students (Barnett et al., 1994, 1995). The results suggest that personal moral philosophy is an important influence on ethical decision making that should be considered in empirical studies of business ethics. The results also support the utility of the Ethical Position Questionnaire (Forsyth, 1980) as a means for researchers and practitioners to assess individuals' ethical ideology. (shrink)

Cet article propose une réflexion sur les activités de recherche à partir de laboratoires industriels et académiques et d’organisations « intermédiaires » (laboratoires communs ; spin offs etc.). Les observations faites ponctuellement depuis une vingtaine d’années dans des laboratoires de chimie et de biologie montrent qu’elles sont l’objet d’une compétition accrue au niveau mondial entre différentes institutions et entre individus. La première hypothèse de l’article est que cette concurrence exacerbée entre entreprises, entre laboratoires académiques, entre scientifiques conduit à des stratégies (...) ayant pour objectifs une diminution des temps réservés par les prescripteurs (« les temps officiels ») pour chaque acte de recherche et à une rationalisation du travail scientifique dans le but d’accélérer la mise sur les marchés de produits, qu’ils soient académiques ou industriels, et ainsi d’en diminuer les coûts. Pour rendre compte de cette évolution, l’organisation des temps de travail en « opérations de recherche » est comparée à celle qui semble devenir prédominante aujourd’hui, la « logique-projet ». La seconde hypothèse est que ces nouvelles normes contraignantes influencent « la disponibilité temporelle » des travailleurs de la recherche et obligent de ce fait à s’interroger sur la place des chercheurs dans le salariat. (shrink)

IntroductionConcussion is a growing public health concern. No uniformly established therapy exists; neurofeedback studies report treatment value. We use infralow frequency neuromodulation to remediate disabling neurological symptoms caused by traumatic brain injury and noted improved outcomes with a novel concussion protocol. Postconcussion symptoms and persistent postconcussion symptoms are designated timelines for protracted neurological complaints following TBI. We performed a retrospective study to explore effectiveness of ILF in PCS/PPCS and investigated the value of using this concussion protocol.MethodPatients with PCS/PPCS seen for (...) their first neurology office visit or received their first neurofeedback session between 1 August 2018 and 31 January 2021 were entered. Outcomes were compared following treatment as usual vs. TAU with ILF neurotherapy. The study cohort was limited to PPCS patients; the TAU+ILF group was restricted further to PPCS patients receiving at least 10 neurotherapy sessions. Within the TAU+ILF group, comparisons were made between those who trained at least 10 sessions using concussion protocol and those who trained for at least 10 sessions of ILF regardless of protocol.ResultsAmong our resultant PPCS cohort leading persistent neurological complaints were headache, memory impairment, and brain fog. PPCS patients in TAU+ILF+CP demonstrated greater net and percent improvement of symptoms compared to PPCS subjects in TAU. PPCS patients in TAU+ILF-CP trended toward significant symptom improvements compared to TAU, and TAU+ILF+CP trended toward greater efficacy than TAU+ILF-CP.ConclusionPPCS patients who received TAU+ILF+CP demonstrated significantly greater improvement as a group when compared to TAU. When used as an integrative modality to treatment as usual in managing patients with PPCS, ILF neuromodulation with use of concussion protocol provided significant symptom improvements. (shrink)

Wijdicks and colleagues1 recently presented the Full Outline of UnResponsiveness (FOUR) scale as an alternative to the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS)2 in the evaluation of consciousness in severely brain-damaged patients. They studied 120 patients in an intensive care setting (mainly neuro-intensive care) and claimed that “the FOUR score detects a locked-in syndrome, as well as the presence of a vegetative state.”1 We fully agree that the FOUR is advantageous in identifying locked-in patients given that it specifically tests for eye movements (...) or blinking on command. This is welcomed given that misdiagnosis of the locked-in syndrome has been shown to occur in more than half of the cases (see Laureys and colleagues3 for review). As for the diagnosis of the vegetative state, the scale explicitly tests for visual pursuit, and hence can disentangle the vegetative state from the minimally conscious state (MCS). The diagnostic criteria for MCS have been proposed4 only recently, but Wijdicks and colleagues1 do not mention the existence of this clinical entity in their article. As for the vegetative state, MCS can be encountered in the acute or subacute setting as a transitional state on the way to further recovery, or it can be a more chronic or even permanent condition. The MCS refers to patients showing inconsistent, albeit clearly discernible, minimal behavioral evidence of consciousness (eg, localization of noxious stimuli, eye fixation or tracking, reproducible movement to command, or nonfunctional verbalization).4 The FOUR scale does not test for all of the behavioral criteria required to diagnose MCS.4 It is known from the literature (see Majerus and colleagues5 for review) that about a third of patients diagnosed with vegetative state are actually in MCS, and this misdiagnosis can lead to major clinical, therapeutic, and ethical consequences. We tested the ability of the newly proposed FOUR scale to correctly diagnose the vegetative state in an acute (intensive care and neurology ward) and chronic (neurorehabilitation) setting.. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explain why, while Charles Darwin was well recognized as a scientific leader of his time, Claude Bernard never really regarded Darwinism as a scientific theory. The lukewarm reception of Darwin at the Académie des Sciences of Paris and his nomination to a chair only after 8 years contrasts with his prominence, and Bernard’s attitude towards Darwin’s theory of species evolution belongs to this French context. Yet we argue that Bernard rejects the scientific value (...) of Darwinian principles mainly for epistemological reasons. Like Darwin, Bernard was interested in hereditary processes, and planned to conduct experiments on these processes that could lead to species transformation. But the potential creation of new forms of life would not vindicate Darwinism since biologists can only explain the origin of morphotypes and morphological laws by the means of untestable analogies. Because it can be the object neither of experiments nor of any empirical observation, phylogeny remains out of science’s scope. Around 1878 Bernard foresaw a new general physiology based on the study of protoplasm, which he saw as the agent of all basic living phenomena. We will analyze why Bernard regarded Darwinism as part of metaphysics, yet still referred to Darwinians in his latter works in 1878. Basically, the absence of a scientific reception of Darwinism in Bernard's work should not obscure its philosophical reception, which highlights the main principles of Bernard’s epistemology. (shrink)

Can we build endogenous expectations about the locus of occurrence of a target without being able to describe them? Participants performed cue–target detection tasks with different proportions of valid and invalid trials, without being informed of these proportions, and demonstrated typical endogenous effects. About half were subsequently able to correctly describe the cue–target relationships . However, even non-verbalizer participants showed endogenous orienting with peripheral cues , not depending solely on practice . Explicit instructions did not bring about dramatic advantages in (...) performance .With central symbolic cues, only verbalizers showed reliable endogenous effects . We concluded that endogenous orienting with peripheral cues can occur independently of participants developing explicit hypotheses about the cue–target relationships. (shrink)

The nature of architecture Building Architecture and Religion The sense of the past Following the example of antiquity.

ABSTRACT Since the seventeenth century, scholars have been accusing each other of ‘dogmatism’. But what exactly did this mean? In exploring this question, this article focuses on philosophy and Biblical scholarship in nineteenth-century Germany. Scholars in both of these fields habitually contrasted Dogmatismus with Kritik, to the point of emplotting the history of their field as a gradual triumph of critical thinking over dogmatic belief. The article shows that charges of dogmatism derived much of their rhetorical force from such progressive (...) narratives. Especially neo-Kantian philosophers and Biblical scholars of liberal Protestant persuasion liked to depict their opponents as clinging to long-superseded modes of thought, thereby implying that these colleagues harked back to a past from which modern Wissenschaft had emancipated itself. This ‘denial of coevalness’, as Johannes Fabian calls it, demonstrates to what extent the vice of dogmatism was imbued with normative visions of how the field or, more broadly, German intellectual life should develop. (shrink)

Eye gaze is a ubiquitous cue in child–caregiver interactions, and infants are highly attentive to eye gaze from very early on. However, the question of why infants show gaze-sensitive behavior, and what role this sensitivity to gaze plays in their language development, is not yet well-understood. To gain a better understanding of the role of eye gaze in infants' language learning, we conducted a broad systematic review of the developmental literature for all studies that investigate the role of eye gaze (...) in infants' language development. Across 77 peer-reviewed articles containing data from typically developing human infants in the domain of language development, we identified two broad themes. The first tracked the effect of eye gaze on four developmental domains: vocabulary development, word–object mapping, object processing, and speech processing. Overall, there is considerable evidence that infants learn more about objects and are more likely to form word–object mappings in the presence of eye gaze cues, both of which are necessary for learning words. In addition, there is good evidence for longitudinal relationships between infants' gaze following abilities and later receptive and expressive vocabulary. However, many domains are understudied; further work is needed to decide whether gaze effects are specific to tasks, such as word–object mapping or whether they reflect a general learning enhancement mechanism. The second theme explored the reasons why eye gaze might be facilitative for learning, addressing the question of whether eye gaze is treated by infants as a specialized socio-cognitive cue. We concluded that the balance of evidence supports the idea that eye gaze facilitates infants' learning by enhancing their arousal, memory, and attentional capacities to a greater extent than other low-level attentional cues. However, as yet, there are too few studies that directly compare the effect of eye gaze cues and non-social, attentional cues for strong conclusions to be drawn. We also suggest that there might be a developmental effect, with eye gaze, over the course of the first 2 years of life, developing into a truly ostensive cue that enhances language learning across the board. (shrink)

This chapter reviews evidence that both memory disturbances and emotional disturbances characterize schizophrenia and examines how memory and emotion interact in schizophrenics, whether these patients exhibit a particular difficulty in remembering emotional events, and whether they still show the Pollyanna tendency. Because conscious awareness may represent the fundamenal impairment in schizophrenia, this chapter emphasizes not only objective accuracy of memory but also states of awareness associated with emotional memories. It argues that memory for emotional material operates “normally” in schizophrenic states (...) when emotional aspects of experience are genuinely noted. Of course, often these experiences are not interpreted by a person with schizophrenia in a fashion that accurately reflects the event's emotionality, with a corresponding memory impairment. But in many cases the emotional characteristics of an event require little controlled attention, and, under these conditions, we should expect to see intact emotional memory, even in this population which is disrupted in so many other ways. The chapter concludes by suggesting that intact emotional processing potentially plays a role in perpetualing delusional cognitions, through constructive memory processes. (shrink)

This volume brings together emerging and established religious ethicists to investigate how those in the field carry forward the practice and tradition of social criticism and, at the same time, how social criticism informs the scholarly values of their field. Contributors reflect on the nature of the moral subject and the ethical weight of human dignity and consider the limits and possibilities of religious humanism in orienting the work of social criticism. They compare religious sources and forms of research in (...) religious ethics to secular sources and the tradition of liberal social criticism. And they offer proposals for how religious ethics can help humanists navigate our complex and multicultural moral landscape and what this field reveals about the ultimate ends of humanistic scholarship. (shrink)

Résumé Le principe de précaution engage les rapports entre la connaissance, les risques et l’action ; appréhendé d’un point de vue simultanément éthique et politique, il pose également un défi aux institutions et au public pour ce qui est de sa mobilisation dans le débat et de sa mise en œuvre dans l’action, en tant que principe possédant une portée générale. L’article propose une description des problèmes spécifiques que comporte, à cet égard, le choix des interprétations. Cette description conduit à (...) une appréciation positive du nouveau rôle dévolu aux démarches participatives dans la discussion des enjeux éthiques et des risques acceptables. (shrink)

Lorsque la philosophie a voulu penser la propriété et son origine, elle a fait de la nature le cadre approprié pour l’appréhender, y compris à des époques où la propriété, aussi bien privée que commune, était déjà régulée par un système de juridictions préexistant. La propriété et la question de sa légitimité ont alors été interrogées aux confins de l’articulation entre l’ordre du fait (s’incarnant notamment dans l’appropriation) et celui du droit. Néanmoins la mise au premier plan d’une nécessité naturelle (...) ainsi que l’inscription de l’appropriation dans un registre naturaliste ont pour vocation de soustraire la propriété à la problématique de la justice distributive. L’approche naturaliste de l’appropriation privative implique en outre un usage pragmatique de la norme juridique, renversant par là la « loi de Hume », alors même que cette norme pourrait être tout aussi légitimement mobilisée pour instaurer un devoir-être plutôt que pour instituer juridiquement un état de fait. Classification JEL : B12, P14. (shrink)

Bien que les approches basées sur les déficits soient encore prédominantes en formation à l’enseignement, on reconnaît de plus en plus l’apport potentiel des approches basées sur les forces, afin de développer une identité professionnelle positive. Conséquemment, nous avons expérimenté une activité innovante d’écriture réflexive, basée sur la psychologie positive, auprès de 50 stagiaires en enseignement préscolaire/primaire au Québec. L’analyse de ces empreintes offre de dégager divers aspects constitutifs de l’identité professionnelle des stagiaires, de décrire l’évolution du processus de construction (...) identitaire, ce qui permet d’apprécier la contribution de ce type d’activité pour rendre ce processus plus explicite. (shrink)

The thesis attempts to provide a real definition of religion and argues that this is less problematic than is often assumed. It begins with a brief introduction which outlines why it is attractive to subject the attempt to define religion to a philosophical investigation. It is argued that defining religion is interesting because it is something which appears difficult to do, which scholars of religion often oppose, and which has practical implications. In addition, defining religion provides an opportunity to address (...) fundamental philosophical issues (such as defining, social kinds, and theories of concepts) and theoretical questions concerning the study of religion. The introduction also mentions the difficulties these kinds of interdisciplinary enterprises are bound to meet because of differences in terminology and academic traditions. Part I is concerned with the philosophical, historical, and methodological issues in discussions necessary to pave the way for the attempt to provide a definition of religion. The first chapter addresses some fundamental philosophical issues concerning defining as a philosophical activity. It is argued that the traditional focus on natural kind concepts in discussions about defining needs to be supplemented with considerations about domain specificity and differences between social kinds. It is also argued that empirical findings from cognitive psychology are relevant to conceptual analysis and that two-dimensional semantics provides a productive approach to an analysis of the concept of religion. The chapter concludes with describing an approach to defining religion. The second chapter is also concerned with methodological questions and considers the potential contributions empirical studies of the concept of religion could make to the study. Some outlines of potentially useful studies are suggested, and pros and cons for including them in the present study are weighed up. The chapter concludes with drawing a distinction between essential and non-essential elements and assessing their relative importance in a definition. The third chapter offers, first, an overview of historical issues: the history of the term ‘religion’, the problem of determining the content of historical philosophical concepts of religion, and the history of the discussion about defining religion within the study of religion. The major conclusions of these sections are that the term ‘religion’ is likely to be a homonym and that several theoretical discussions have been intertwined in the historical debates about definitions of religion. The second part of the chapter discusses traditional fundamental issues in the study of religion in order to disentangle the discussion about definition from related discussions (about e.g. methods and religious (anti-)realism). It is concluded that an essentialist view on defining religion is not necessarily a return to apologetic approaches to religion. The fourth chapter offers an overview of positions for and against realism concerning religion and the possibility of providing a definition of religion. Important distinctions are drawn between two kinds of conceptual essentialism (related to definition) and two kinds of ontological essentialism (related to theories). A discussion of the various forms of essentialism concludes that a ‘soft essentialist’ approach to defining religion is preferable. It is also concluded that constructivist and other anti-realist objections to providing a real definition of religion are less obvious than is often assumed because they fail to offer a detailed account of the supposed ‘construction’ that is free of realist assumptions. They also appear to rely on controversial philosophical assumptions. The second part of the thesis is concerned with providing a definition of religion. It begins in chapter five with an overview of some multifactorial, or ‘soft essentialist’, approaches to defining religion. The purpose of this is to prepare the ground for the conceptual analysis, which opens with a discussion of various aspects of religion. Ten possible candidates for necessary and/or sufficient conditions for religion are discussed in order to determine their importance in a definition of religion. It is concluded that although many aspects are typical and/or relevant, only certain cognitive, normative, and practical aspects are necessary conditions for religion. It is also concluded that the necessary conditions for a religious cognitive aspect is supernatural and normative content of a certain scope combined with a certain attitudinal character. The chapter ends with a model of the working definition based on these intermediate conclusions. Chapter six contains the second step in the conceptual analysis. It confronts the working definition with various cases of more or less contested examples of religion or other systems of beliefs and practices in order to assess whether the definition needs revisions. The following discussions of special cases of beginning and ceasing of religious traditions, persons, and objects serve the same purpose. It is concluded that a revision of the working definition is unnecessary. Chapter seven concludes part II by tying up a few loose ends concerning the definition, some methodological aspects, and theories of concepts. The third and last part of the thesis contains, first, a brief discussion of practical implications of definitions of religion. Chapter eight illustrates the practical importance of a definition of religion by addressing the issue of the so-called ‘politics of defining religion’. It argues that scholars of religion as such are not unjustified in entering the debate about definitions, and it recommends efforts are made to separate discussions about defining religion from discussions about using definitions of religion as political tools. The final chapter of the thesis sums up important findings and insights of the study and points to some natural limitations. I warn that this study is only a rough outline of how a definition can be provided and which theoretical discussions lie behind such an attempt. Yet I also conclude that defining religion is a rewarding case study because it offers an opportunity to discuss fundamental questions in both philosophy and the study of religion while at the same addressing an interesting issue with immediate practical implications. (shrink)

Leadership takes a central role in the public affairs agenda. This article is a review of published works on leadership focusing on the concept of grace. It discusses the role of compassion and kindness in current leadership theory and practice and whether these attributes have value in sustainable models. Findings indicate that there is conceptual confusion regarding the definition of compassion and its application in leadership practices. Kindness is not discussed within the concept of compassion and kindness itself may be (...) viewed as a weakness in contemporary self-selected leadership characteristics. The conclusions suggest there is disconnect between contemporary models of leadership and calls for sustainable ethical leadership in the spheres of public and business environments. Compassion and kindness remain in the side-lines yet the implications for future trust and commitment are neglected in times where discretionary effort of workers and volunteers is crucial to goal achievement. (shrink)

Mitochondrial donation poses the latest regulatory challenge for policy-makers in the context of assisted conception. Since 2010 the Human Genetics Commission, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics have all considered the policy implications of permitting use of these techniques in treatment. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics reported its recommendations in June 2012 following a consultation on the ethical issues raised by these techniques; and a separate consultation by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in (...) conjunction with Sciencewise-ERC followed in September 2012. Matters for consideration included the potential relationships created by the use of three parties’ genetic material and the associated ramifications, eg whether or not there is a need to establish records of such donations and, if so, to whom should information later be provided? Thus, mitochondrial donation poses both novel and familiar questions about the ‘genetic family’, ‘parentage’ and ‘identity’. This article explores some of the ways in which mitochondrial DNA is constructed as relatively significant in recent Parliamentary debates, policy and consultation documents. It reflects on the ways in which the role of some genetic connections, or lack thereof, are mediated in law and policy. (shrink)

Les principes de l’éthique médicale sont, pour l’essentiel, clairement définis. Néanmoins on ignore, pour une large part, dans quelle mesure ils sont l’objet d’une réappropriation normative par les acteurs et comment ils structurent les pratiques. Nous avons interrogé ces processus dans le champ de la psychiatrie, en nous fondant sur un recueil de données qualitatives. Celui-ci nous a permis de saisir les interprétations de l’éthique médicale émergeant des discours des soignants en psychiatrie et d’identifier sa nature. Nous en exposerons les (...) facettes en tentant d’abord de comprendre le sens conféré à l’exclusion de l’éthique du champ de leur pratique par certains médecins. Puis nous saisirons les contours se dessinant empiriquement de l’éthique en psychiatrie pour autant qu’elle repose sur une réinterprétation de principes canoniques de l’éthique médicale. Nous montrerons enfin que cette éthique de l’action se conçoit comme une éthique que la philosophie morale décrirait comme particulariste. (shrink)

ArgumentIn his Philosophia practica universalis, Christian Wolff proposes a “mathematical” theory of moral action that includes his statements on the Aesopian fable. As a sort of moral example, Wolff claims, the fable is an appropriate means to influence human conduct because it conveys general truths to intuition. This didactic concept is modeled on the geometrical figure: Just as students intuit mathematical demonstrations by looking at figures on a blackboard, one can learn how to execute complex actions by listening to a (...) fable. Wolff's “scientific” fable theory met with an ambivalent reception. Lessing, who in his fable treatises re-translates Wolff's suggestions into the conceptual framework of poetics, interprets the geometric model as a stylistic ideal. The famous passage on Homer's successive descriptions in Lessing's Laokoon can be seen as another attempt to apply the representational model of geometry to literature. Herder, reading Wolff in a way that might be called deconstructive, replaces Wolff's geometric theory of poetry by a poetic anthropology of geometry. (shrink)

In this paper anorexia nervosa is examined through three lenses to determine its possible causes. This paper contains a clinical analysis of the anorexic personality, a psychoanalytic/religious interpretation of the demands of society, and· a feminist reinterpretationof the effects of those demands on the female body. The societal demands to renounce instincts, when examined through a feminist lens, reveals that these demands, in concert with the detrimental effects of feminine socialization and characteristics of the anorexic personality, may lead some women (...) to view their needs as not important, and cause a detachment from and turning against the body in the form of anorexia nervosa. It is concluded that anorexia is not just women taking a diet “too far.” There are other psychological, philosophical, and social factors leading to a prevalence of anorexia nervosa in Western culture. (shrink)

Humans can follow different social learning strategies, sometimes oriented toward the models’ characteristics. The goal of the present study was to explore which who-strategy is preferentially followed in the technological context based on the models’ psychological characteristics. We identified three potential who-strategies: Copy the pedagogue, copy the engineer, and copy the friend. We developed a closed-group micro-society paradigm in which participants had to build the highest possible towers. Participants began with an individual building phase. Then, they were gathered to discuss (...) the best solutions to increase tower height. After this discussion phase, they had to make a new building attempt, followed by another discussion phase, and so forth for a total of six building phases and five discussion rounds. This methodology allowed us to create an attraction score for each participant. We also assessed participants’ theory-of-mind skills, technical-reasoning skills, and prosocialness to predict participants’ attraction scores based on these measures. Results show that we learn from engineers because they are the most successful. Their attraction power is not immediate, but after they have been identified as attractors, their technique is copied irrespective of their pedagogy or friendliness. These findings open avenues for the study of the cognitive bases of human technological culture. (shrink)

This commentary is a call to action for researchers to create and use genome-wide association studies (GWASs) with previously missed age groups (e.g., infancy, elderly), which will improve our ability to ask important developmental questions using genetic data to trace pathways across the lifespan.

This study investigates the choice of genitive forms (the woman’s book vs. the book of the woman) in the English of Japanese-English bilingual returnees (i.e. children who returned from a second language dominant environment to their first language environment). The specific aim was to examine whether change in language dominance/exposure influences choice of genitive form in the bilingual children; the more general question was the extent to which observed behaviour can be explained by cross linguistic influence (CLI). First, we compared (...) the choice of genitive form between monolingual Japanese speakers and bilinguals who had recently returned to Japan from an English monolingual environment. Second, we tracked changes in genitive preference within bilingual children, comparing their performances upon return to Japan to those of one year later. Results show that CLI alone is insufficient to explain the difference in genitive evaluation between bilinguals and monolinguals, as well as the intra-group bilingual variation over time. We suggest that both CLI and general processing considerations couple together to influence the changes in genitive preference. (shrink)

Mozi (墨子, c. 470 BCE – c. 391 BCE) is a prominent figure in Chinese civilization and an influential ancient thinker of his time. Universal love (兼愛, jian'ai) is an integral part of his thought, with the belief that all actions should be rooted in the idea of care without distinction. It serves as a cornerstone for his ethical and political principles, emphasizing a focus on the betterment of society as a whole. Mozi's views on the structural problem in human (...) predispositions towards partiality inclinations are also discussed. This paper also presents the role of analogy in the development of philosophy in China and how Mohism played a key role in establishing rigorous standards of evidence, logical reasoning, and argumentation that had a lasting impact on Chinese thought. (shrink)

Some patients awaken from their coma but only show reflex motor activity. This condition of wakeful (eyes open) unawareness is called the vegetative state. In 2002, a new clinical entity coined ‘‘minimally conscious state’’ defined patients who show more than reflex responsiveness but remain unable to communicate their thoughts and feelings. Emergence from the minimally conscious state is defined by functional recovery of verbal or nonverbal communication.1 Our empirical medical definitions aim to propose clearcut borders separating disorders of consciousness such (...) as coma, vegetative state and minimally conscious state but clinical reality shows that these boundaries can often be fuzzy (fig 1). Recent clinical, electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies are shedding light on these challenging limits of consciousness encountered following severe acute brain damage. At the patient’s bedside, it is very challenging to differentiate reflex or automatic motor behaviour from movements indicating signs of consciousness, and hence some minimally conscious patients might be misdiagnosed as being vegetative. For some motor responses (eg, blinking to visual threat, brief fixation, normal flexion response to pain, etc) it remains unclear whether they truly are voluntary or willed because we lack convincing scientific evidence. We also lack consensus on how to practically assess some of these behavioural responses. For example, there is no agreement on what stimulus to employ in the assessment of visual pursuit movements— often one of the first clinical signs heralding the transition from the vegetative to the minimally conscious state. Vanhaudenhuyse and colleagues2 recently studied visual pursuit in 51 post-comatose patients comparing eye tracking of a moving object, person or mirror. It was shown that more.. (shrink)

BackgroundAs the range of therapeutic options in the field of oncology increases, so too does the strain on health care budgets. The imbalance between what is medically possible and financially feasible is frequently rendered as an issue of tragic choices, giving rise to public controversies around health care rationing.Main bodyWe analyse the Norwegian media discourse on expensive cancer drugs and identify four underlying premises: (1) Cancer drugs are de facto expensive, and one does not and should not question why. (2) (...) Cancer drugs have an indubitable efficacy. (3) Any lifetime gained for a cancer patient is an absolute good, and (4) cancer patients and doctors own the truth about cancer. Applying a principle-based approach, we argue that these premises should be challenged on moral grounds. Within the Norwegian public discourse, however, the premises largely remain unchallenged due to what we find to be unjustified claims of moral superiority. We therefore explore alternative framings of the issue of expensive cancer drugs and discuss their potential to escape the predicament of tragic choices.ConclusionsIn a media discourse that has seemingly stagnated, awareness of the framings within it is necessary in order to challenge the current tragic choices predicament the discourse finds itself in. In order to allow for a discourse not solely concerned with the issue of tragic choices, the premises that underlie it must be subjected to critical examination. As the field of oncology advances rapidly, we depend on a discussion of its opportunities and challenges that is meaningful, and that soberly addresses the future of cancer care—both its potential and its limits. (shrink)