Acknowledging separable factors underlying negative symptoms may lead to better understanding and treatment of negative symptoms in individuals with schizophrenia. The current study aimed to test whether the negative symptoms factor (NSF) of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) would be better represented by expressive and experiential deficit factors, rather than by a single factor model, using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Two hundred and twenty individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders completed the PANSS; subsamples additionally completed the Brief Negative Symptom (...) Scale (BNSS) and the Motivation and Pleasure Scale—Self-Report (MAP-SR). CFA results indicated that the two-factor model fit the data better than the one-factor model; however, latent variables were closely correlated. The two-factor model’s fit was significantly improved by accounting for correlated residuals between N2 (emotional withdrawal) and N6 (lack of spontaneity and flow of conversation), and between N4 (passive social withdrawal) and G16 (active social avoidance), possibly reflecting common method variance. The two NSF factors exhibited differential patterns of correlation with subdomains of the BNSS and MAP-SR. These results suggest that the PANSS NSF would be better represented by a two-factor model than by a single-factor one, and support the two-factor model’s adequate criterion-related validity. Common method variance among several items may be a potential source of measurement error under a two-factor model of the PANSS NSF. (shrink)

ObjectivesHostile attribution bias is reportedly common from non-clinical population to those with serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, and is known to be closely related to theory of mind. This study aimed to investigate whether ToM skills mediate the relationship among neurocognitive ability, personality traits, and attribution bias.MethodsA total of 198 non-clinical youths were recruited. To assess their neurocognitive ability and ToM skills, the participants were asked to complete Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices and the Korean version of the Reading the (...) Mind in Eyes Test. To determine their personality traits, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and interpersonal reactivity index were used. To evaluate hostile attribution bias, the Ambiguous Intentions Hostility Questionnaire was administered. Path analysis and bias-corrected percentile bootstrap methods were used to estimate model fit and the parameters of the mediating effects.ResultsBased on model comparison, the best model characterized two direct pathways from psychoticism and the K-RMET to hostility attribution bias and three indirect pathways, wherein SPM, perspective taking, and psychoticism influenced hostile attribution bias through K-RMET. The final model fit indices were good [x2/df = 1.126; comparative fit index = 0.996; root mean square error of approximation = 0.026; standard root mean square residual = 0.026 and Akaike information criterion = 28.251] and the K-RMET fully mediated the association between SPM, perspective taking, psychoticism, and hostile attribution bias.ConclusionThe main findings suggested that ToM skills, such as the RMET, play an important role in explaining the relationship among neurocognitive ability, personality traits, and hostile attribution bias. ToM skills and a remediation strategy may need to be developed to balance the enhanced hostility bias that underlies the paranoia. (shrink)

An episiotomy is ‘an intrapartum procedure that involves an incision to enlarge the vaginal orifice,’1 and is primarily justified as a way to prevent higher degrees of perineal trauma or to facilitate a faster birth in cases of suspected fetal distress. Yet the effectiveness of episiotomies is controversial, and many professional bodies recommend against the routine use of episiotomies. In any case, unconsented episiotomies are alarmingly common, and some care providers in obstetric settings often fail to see consent as necessary (...) in context. In their article, ‘The ethics of consent during labour and birth: episiotomies,’ van der Pijl et al reiterate that consent is necessary for episiotomies. They specify, further, that the antenatal period is crucial for exchanging information, establishing trust between the birthing subject and provider, and exploring the birthing subject’s—rather than the care provider’s—values and preferences regarding episiotomies. They recommend an individualised approach, which would enable birthing subjects to choose how and when they want to give consent. I applaud van der Pijl et al on their practicable recommendations regarding consent for episiotomies. This is certainly a step in the right direction where respect for birthing subjects’ bodily autonomy and integrity is concerned. Still, we must be reminded that consent alone is not coextensive with autonomy. The conditions for securing informed consent in healthcare does not guarantee that one’s decision is truly reflective of their values. After all, even valid consent does not rule out ‘normatively significant external influence’.2 Consent acquisition for obstetric procedures present no …. (shrink)

In this article, I critique the commonly accepted distinction between commercial and altruistic surrogacy arrangements. The moral legitimacy of surrogacy, I claim, does not hinge on whether it is paid (‘commercial’) or unpaid (‘altruistic’); rather, it is best determined by appraisal of virtue-abiding conditions constitutive of the surrogacy arrangement. I begin my article by problematising the prevailing commercial/altruistic distinction; next, I demonstrate that an assessment of the virtue-abiding or non-virtue-abiding features of a surrogacy is crucial to navigating questions about the (...) moral legitimacy of surrogacy; in the final part, I reject other moral heuristics that might be proposed as alternatives to the commercial/altruistic dichotomy, and reiterate that a virtue-ethical framework is the most suitable way forward. (shrink)

Natalie Stoljar posits that those who have internalized oppressive norms lack normative competence, which requires true beliefs and critical reflection. A lack of normative competence makes agents nonautonomous, according to Stoljar. This framework is thereby meant to address what she calls the “feminist intuition”—the intuition that oppressive norms are incompatible with autonomy. On my view, however, Stoljar’s normative competence account of autonomy is subject to a worrying problem. Her account misattributes nonautonomy to those who perpetrate the oppression, making those who (...) are oppressed and those who oppress count as equally nonautonomous. I argue that this is implausible and demonstrate in this paper that we can establish an asymmetry of autonomy between those who oppress others and those who are made the target of oppression. (shrink)

Ascribing autonomous status to agents is a valuable practice. As such, we ought to care about how we engage in practices of autonomy ascription. However, disagreement between first-personal experiences of an agent's autonomy and third-personal determinations of their autonomy presents challenges of ethical and epistemic concern. My view is that insights from a dialogical rather than nondialogical account of autonomy give us the resources to combat the challenges associated with autonomy ascription. I draw on Andrea Westlund's account of dialogical autonomy—on (...) which autonomy requires a dialogical disposition to hold oneself answerable to external critical perspectives—to make my case. (shrink)

The growing demand for uterus transplantation (UTx) invites continued philosophical evaluation of the function of UTx (and what constitutes its ‘success’), as well as the recipient eligibility for UTx. Currently, UTx caters to partnered, cisgender women of childbearing age looking to get pregnant and give birth to a biogenetically related child. The medical justification for this—the treatment of uterine infertility—explains the primacy of this practice. However, this dominant conceptualization of UTx does not necessarily capture the diverse needs for which both (...) cis‐ and transgender women might take interest in UTx that are not strictly procreative, such as bodily integrity and gender identity reasons. In this paper, I argue that non‐procreative motivations for uterus acquisition ought to be taken seriously as a matter of non‐discrimination and consistency. (shrink)

Molodtsov introduced 1999 the concept of soft set as a new mathematical tool for dealing with uncertainties that is free from the difficulties that have troubled the usual theoretical approaches. In this paper we apply the notion of soft sets by Molodtsov to ordered semigroups. The notions of soft ordered semigroup, soft ordered subsemigroup, soft left ideal, and left idealistic soft ordered semigroup are introduced, and various related properties are investigated.

East Asian countries such as South Korea have recently made headlines for experimenting with different methods to incentivise people to have (more) children, in a bid to reverse declining birth rates. Many such incentives—child benefits, cash bonuses, dating events, and so on—appear morally innocuous at first glance. I will demonstrate in this analysis, however, that they amount to stopgap measures which reveal fundamental shortcomings with the way various nation states are approaching the so-called ‘problem’ of fertility decline.

Our discussion should open with a story in the “Weizi” 微子 chapter of the Analects. Confucius, while traveling on a long journey, sent his disciple Zi Lu 子路 to ask two hermits, Chang Zu 長沮 and Jie Ni 桀溺, where a ferry could be found. Sneering at Confucius for canvassing around the country, they retorted: “Turbulent waves are sweeping away everything under Heaven. With whom, then, are you to change the world?” Zi Lu reported their words back to Confucius, who (...) said, “Since I cannot live among the birds and animals, if I do not live among these men, with whom should I live? If there were a Way under Heaven, I would not need to strive to change the world.”1What world was it that Confucius dreamed of? What vision did.. (shrink)

Individualistic traditions of autonomy have long been critiqued by feminists for their atomistic and asocial presentation of human agents. Relational approaches to autonomy were developed as an alternative to these views. Relational accounts generally capture a more socially informed picture of human agents, and aim to differentiate between social phenomena that are conducive to our agency versus those that pose a hindrance to our agency. In this article, I explore the various relational conceptualizations of autonomy profferred to date. I critically (...) review some of the ongoing internal disputes within the relational autonomy literature, and conclude the article by taking stock of the value of relational autonomy despite these unresolved debates. (shrink)

Epistemic injustices are wrongs that agents can suffer in their capacity as knowers. In this article, I offer a conceptualisation of a phenomenon I call anticipatory epistemic injustice, which I claim is a distinct and particularly pernicious type of epistemic injustice worthy of independent analysis. I take anticipatory epistemic injustice to consist in the wrongs that agents can suffer as a result of anticipated challenges in their process of taking up testimony-sharing opportunities. I distinguish my account from paradigmatic cases of (...) epistemic injustice, such as Miranda Fricker’s concepts of testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice; additionally, I differentiate my view from Kristie Dotson’s account of testimonial smothering. I argue, ultimately, that anticipatory epistemic injustice is a useful addition to our current taxonomy of epistemic injustices, as it has promising explanatory potential for a range of non-standard cases of epistemic injustice. (shrink)

ObjectivePrevious research has shown that adolescents in single-mother households are at heightened risk for adjustment problems. However, limited studies have investigated the mechanisms leading to adolescent problem behaviors in single-mother households. To address this research gap, this study applied the Family Stress Model to examine how single mothers’ material hardship is linked to adolescent problem behaviors, focusing on the mediating roles of mothers’ depression and mother-adolescent closeness. The moderating role of adolescent school connectedness in the relationships between mother-adolescent closeness and (...) school connectedness and between mothers’ depression and school connectedness was also investigated.Materials and methodsThe study analyzed data from 1,384 adolescents and their single mothers who participated in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study at Wave 6. The associations between study variables were analyzed using structural equation modeling by decomposing the direct, indirect, and total effects of material hardship on adolescent problem behaviors. School connectedness’s interactions with mother-adolescent closeness and mothers’ depression were also examined.ResultsResults showed a significant indirect relationship between material hardship and adolescent problem behaviors through sequential mediation of mothers’ depression and mother-adolescent closeness. Mothers’ depression also significantly mediated the relationship between material hardship and problem behaviors. Lastly, school connectedness moderated the relationship between mother-adolescent closeness and adolescents’ internalizing behaviors. The association between mother-adolescent closeness and adolescents’ internalizing behavior was weaker for adolescents with higher levels of school connectedness.ConclusionThe results indicate the important indirect effect of economic strain on adolescents’ problems behaviors in single-mother households, which has been less emphasized compared to the effects in earlier childhood. High rates of material hardship and adolescent problem behaviors in single-mother families call for multifaceted interventions focusing on family processes and protective factors, including school environment. (shrink)

This research examines how one’s construal level of a crisis differs by crisis type, and how the interplay of crisis type and apology appeal type impacts the effectiveness of apology messages in a corporate crisis context. Findings indicate that one’s mental construal toward a crisis varies by crisis type, with a self-threatening crisis leading to a lower level of construal than a society-threatening one. Findings further suggest that in a society-threatening crisis condition, an informational apology was more effective than an (...) emotional one. However, in a self-threatening crisis condition, there was no significant difference between two different message types. These findings offer valuable guidelines for developing effective crisis response strategy. (shrink)

In this paper, I claim that live uterus donors ought to be considered for the possibility of compensation. I support my claim on the basis of comparable arguments which have already been applied to gamete donation, surrogacy, and other kinds of organ donation. However, I acknowledge that there are specificities associated with uterus donation, which make the issue of incentive and reward a harder ethical case relative to gamete donation, surrogacy, and other kinds of organ donation. Ultimately, I contend that (...) while reimbursement for the costs incurred by live uterus donors should be treated as a necessary ethical minimum, how much further we ought to remunerate uterus donations remains an open question. (shrink)

This paper examines the antecedents of organizational commitment for adopting corporate environmental responsibility and green practices in the case of the logistics industry in South Korea. Seven hundred and eighty employees and top management from logistics companies were sampled. The data were analyzed using factor analysis, structural equation modeling techniques, and one-way analysis of variance. The results showed that social expectations, organizational support, and stakeholder pressure were the important antecedents for the adoption of corporate environmental responsibility and green practices. In (...) the path analysis, social expectations had the greatest impact on both stakeholder pressure and green practice adoption. Moreover, we found that the higher the job titles were, the more willing they were to adopt green practices. This indicated that the current top management of Korean logistics companies is well aware of being mandated to make a commitment to corporate environmental responsibility and green practices. (shrink)

This study examines consumers’ uses of corporate social responsibility communication channels, the relationship of such uses to consumers’ CSR awareness, and the mechanisms through which consumers’ CSR awareness can lead to their intention to participate in CSR activities. Specifically, we explored the mediation effects of consumers’ CSR associations with a company, consumers’ assessment of the company’s CSR credibility, and consumers’ perceptions of their relationship with the company, applying the conceptual frameworks of the uses and gratification theory, source credibility theory, and (...) organization–public relationship scholarship. We conducted an online survey of a company’s customers, and the results showed that their level of awareness of the company’s CSR activities was positively related to the degree of use of all communication channels through which they received CSR messages, except CSR reports. The degree of the customers’ awareness of the company’s CSR programs, however, did not always correspond to the customers’ intention to participate in the programs: a crucial condition mediating between the customers’ knowledge of CSR programs and their intention to participate in the programs was their associating the company with CSR. The CSR associations influenced CSR credibility and perceived OPR quality, which, in turn, led to CSR participation intention. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. (shrink)

"An Interface book." Includes bibliographical references.

Mere inability, which refers to what persons are naturally unable to do, is traditionally thought to be distinct from unfreedom, which is a social type of constraint. The advent of biomedical enhancement, however, challenges the idea that there is a clear division between mere inability and unfreedom. This is because bioenhancement makes it possible for some people’s mere inabilities to become matters of unfreedom. In this paper, I discuss several ways that this might occur: first, bioenhancement can exacerbate social pressures (...) to enhance one’s abilities; second, people may face discrimination for not enhancing; third, the new abilities made possible due to bioenhancement may be accompanied by new inabilities for the enhanced and unenhanced; and finally, shifting values around abilities and inabilities due to bioenhancement may reinforce a pre-existing ableism about human abilities. As such, we must give careful consideration to these potential unfreedom-generating outcomes when it comes to our moral evaluations of bioenhancement. (shrink)

A global trend of institutionalised pronatalism situates low fertility as a site of demographic disaster – positioning primarily women’s bodies as both its cause and solution. In light of such demographic dread, assisted reproductive technologies (ART) may be utilized by pronatalist states as a strategy for fertility recovery, rather than as a benefit for individual aspiring parents. In other words, ARTs are at risk of being co-opted by nation-states for problematic demographic designs which do not advance emancipatory goals. The underlying (...) issue of pronatalism, however, is not always explicitly acknowledged in feminist bioethics as a barrier to ethical ART usage. In my paper, I argue that it would be a mistake to assume ART can be used for emancipatory ends if we do not, at the same time, critically investigate its connections to institutionalised pronatalism. (shrink)

Ugar and Malele write that generic machine learning (ML) technologies for mental health diagnosis would be challenging to implement in sub-Saharan Africa due to cultural specificities in how those conditions are diagnosed. For example, they say that in South Africa, the appearance of ‘schizophrenia’ might be understood as a type of spiritual possession, rather than a mental disorder caused by a brain dysfunction. Hence, a generic ML system is likely to ‘misdiagnose’ persons whose symptomatology matches that of schizophrenia in the (...) South African context. The authors thus claim that ‘a generic or universal design cannot be effective given the heterogeneity of value judgements in defining what mental health disorders are in different contexts’.1 Should we take this to mean that ML systems ‘should not be designed with a generalised perception of mental disorders,’1 as the authors suggest? On the contrary, my view is that generic ML can be useful, with the caveat that issues of cultural sensitivity may engender translational challenges in various national and cultural contexts. Yet, if it can be demonstrated that a generic ML system can reliably and accurately pick up on shared symptomatologies across cultures despite what any individual or community might believe about their actual causes, this aspect is surely the function and value of diagnostic ML which we should take to matter. Cultural gaps in aetiological understandings of mental health conditions make it all the more important to advance generic ML as a calibrating diagnostic tool. In this commentary, therefore, I will endeavour to make a case for generic ML in mental healthcare. ### Aetiological (mis)understanding across cultures The fundamental complexity to which Ugar and Malele direct our attention is the fact that mental health conditions are attributed to variable causal explanations, rather than a …. (shrink)

Previous studies have used various external variables and parameters as well as moderator variables such as emotional intelligence have been to understand emotional labor and its related problems. However, a comprehensive model to study such variables’ correlations with each other and their overall effect on emotional labor has not yet been established. This study used a structural equation model to understand the relationship between employees’ expression of emotional labor and perception of customer feedbacks. The study also looked at how the (...) perception of customer feedback affects emotional exhaustion in order to understand how emotional exhaustion affects job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Further, in order to fully understand the effects of emotion on emotional labor at the service contact points, this study developed and tested a model of emotional labor with 4 factors of emotional intelligence as moderating factors. 579 emotional labor workers in service industries in the U.S. were collected and 577 valid survey results have been analyzed. The result shows that there exists moderating effects of emotional intelligence on how employees’ Deep Acting and Surface Acting recognize customers’ reactions, both positive and negative, that would affect employees’ Emotional Exhaustion and Job Satisfaction, and hence, Turnover Intention. The result suggests that employees with better understanding of their own emotions, although they are more likely to recover from emotional exhaustion, experience a greater negative effect when there is a discrepancy between what they feel and how they should act. (shrink)

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of perceived HR practices on affective commitment and turnover intention. This study explored which HR practices were relatively more important in predicting affective commitment and turnover intention. A total of 302 employees from the United States and 317 from South Korea completed the same questionnaires for assessing the aforementioned relationships. The results illustrated that among perceived HR practices, internal mobility had the most significant association with turnover intention in both (...) the US and South Korea. While internal mobility was a stronger predictor of affective commitment for the US sample, training was the most important variable for predicting affective commitment in South Korea. The second purpose of the study was to examine whether individuals’ positive affect influences the relationship between perceived HR practices and affective commitment and turnover intention. In the US, positive affect moderated the relationship between perceived HR practices and affective commitment and turnover intention such that the relationships were stronger for individuals reporting high positive affect relative to those reporting low positive affect. However, these relationships were not significant in South Korea. We discuss the implications of these results, study limitations, and practical suggestions for future research. (shrink)

Background Conventional consent practices face ethical challenges in continuously evolving digital health environments due to their static, one-time nature. Dynamic consent offers a promising solution, providing adaptability and flexibility to address these ethical concerns. However, due to the immaturity of the concept and accompanying technology, dynamic consent has not yet been widely used in practice. This study aims to identify the facilitators of and barriers to adopting dynamic consent in real-world scenarios. Methods This scoping review, conducted in December 2022, adhered (...) to the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines, focusing on dynamic consent within the health domain. A comprehensive search across Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus yielded 22 selected articles based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results The facilitators for the adoption of dynamic consent in digital health ecosystems were the provision of multiple consent modalities, personalized alternatives, continuous communication, and the dissemination of up-to-date information. Nevertheless, several barriers, such as consent fatigue, the digital divide, complexities in system implementation, and privacy and security concerns, needed to be addressed. This study also investigated current technological advancements and suggested considerations for further research aimed at resolving the remaining challenges surrounding dynamic consent. Conclusions Dynamic consent emerges as an ethically advantageous method for digital health ecosystems, driven by its adaptability and support for continuous, two-way communication between data subjects and consumers. Ethical implementation in real-world settings requires the development of a robust technical framework capable of accommodating the diverse needs of stakeholders, thereby ensuring ethical integrity and data privacy in the evolving digital health landscape. (shrink)

In the age of artificial intelligence, writing machines or robot authors have already begun to produce narrative texts in a variety of genres, including short stories and poetry, as well as journalistic articles. This article is based on the prospect that the narrative ecosystem is in a transitional period of decisive disconnection as it enters the era of artificial intelligence. The primary force driving this transition is the formidable execution of artificial intelligence algorithms, which fully automate narrative communication and narrative (...) works. This article attempts to lay the groundwork for building a new paradigm of post-narrativity through a critical examination of several detailed themes in narrative semiotics and non-anthropocentric narratology. The process of narrative creation based on artificial intelligence algorithms is a key condition that constitutes post-narrativity. This presupposes a non-anthropocentric view. In the landscape of post-narrativity, human writers, paper books, computer screens, and invisible narrative algorithms are all agents with equal influence. Automated narrative production by algorithms accelerates the repositioning of other existing media and actors, and changes the narrative ecosystem by incorporating new elements into activities such as production, distribution, and reception of narratives. (shrink)

Some have claimed that moral bioenhancement undermines freedom and authenticity – thereby making moral bioenhancement problematic or undesirable – whereas others have said that moral bioenhancement does not undermine freedom and authenticity – thereby salvaging its ethical permissibility. These debates are characterized by a couple of features. First, a positive relationship is assumed to hold between these agency-related concepts and the ethical permissibility of moral bioenhancement. Second, these debates are centered around individualistic conceptions of agency, like free choice and authenticity, (...) which hail from an atomistic tradition of autonomy. My view is that emphasizing individualistic conceptions of autonomy do not provide particularly strong foundations on which to argue about the issue of the permissibility of moral bioenhancement. This is because individualistic autonomy is not the kind of agency-related consideration we ought to value. Instead, I propose that we investigate the relationship between moral bioenhancement and a more relational kind of autonomy. Focusing on this latter relationship, on my view, clarifies the potential for moral bioenhancement to support or enhance people’s autonomy. (shrink)

In moral and political philosophy, topics like the distributive inequities conferred via special partial relationships – family relationships, for example – have been frequently debated. However, the epistemic dimensions of such partiality are seldom discussed in the ethical context, and the topic of partial relationships rarely feature in the realm of social epistemology. My view is that the role of partial relationships is worth exploring to enrich our understanding of epistemic injustice and its transmission. I claim that epistemic features typical (...) of partial relationships make phenomena like epistemic injustice easier to mask, more difficult to identify, and harder to correct. (shrink)