Although research has examined factors influencing understanding of informed consent in biomedical and forensic research, less is known about participants' attention to details in consent documents in psychological survey research. The present study used a randomized experimental design and found the majority of participants were unable to recall information from the consent form in both in-person and online formats. Participants were also relatively poor at recognizing important aspects of the consent form including risks to participants and confidentiality procedures. Memory effects (...) and individual difference characteristics also appeared to influence recall and recognition of consent form information. (shrink)

The idea that our conscious decisions determine our actions has been challenged by a report suggesting that the brain starts to prepare for a movement before the person concerned has consciously decided to move . Libet et al. claimed that their results show that our actions are not consciously initiated. The current article describes two experiments in which we attempted to replicate Libet et al.'s comparison of participants' movement-related brain activity with the reported times of their decisions to move and (...) also the reported times of their decisions of which hand to move. We also looked at the distribution of participants' reports over time to evaluate an alternative explanation of Libet et al.'s results. Although the Readiness Potential was usually present before all of the decisions to move, consistent with the findings of Keller and Heckhausen and Libet et al. , we found that many reported decision times were before the onset of the Lateralized Readiness Potential, which measures hand-specific movement preparation. The latter finding is consistent with the conclusion that the LRP always started after the conscious decision to move. We conclude that even though activity related to movement anticipation may be present before a conscious decision to move, the cortical preparation necessary for the movement to happen immediately may not start until after the conscious decision to move. (shrink)

This study draws on Kohlberg''s Cognitive Moral Development Theory and Hofstede''s Culture Theory to examine whether cultural differences are associated with variations in ethical reasoning. Ethical reasoning levels for auditors from Australia and China are expected to be different since auditors from China and Australia are also different in terms of the cultural dimensions of long term orientation, power distance, uncertainty avoidance and individualism. The Defining Issues Tests measuring ethical reasoning P scores were distributed to auditors from Australia and China (...) including Hong Kong and The Chinese Mainland. Results show that auditors from Australia have higher ethical reasoning scores than those from China, consistent with Hofstede''s Culture Theory predictions. (shrink)

If we attend to things only in terms of their bearing on our own projects then our experience of them will be filtered through their compatibility or incompatibility with those aims. This essay is about the experience of rain in the northern latitudes and the work is built around a phenomenological description that relies on accounts of direct experience which are then considered through Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s conception of flesh. In thinking through the phenomenon in this way, the overlapping nature of (...) interior and exterior “reality” can be foregrounded and the notion of a dichotomy between these realms, undermined. (shrink)

If you think you’re funny, buy this book! Whether you dream of becoming a star... A better public speaker... A more effective communicator... A funnier, happier human being... You can learn to leave ‘em laughing! David Letterman learned to do it. Jay Leno learned to do it. Roseanne Barr learned to do it. So can you! Now successful stand-up comic Judy Carter—who went from teaching high school to performing in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Lake Tahoe, and on over 45 (...) major TV shows—gives you the same hands-on, step-by-step instruction she’s taught to students in her comedy workshops. She shows you how to do it: create an act, perform it, make money with it, or apply it to everyday life. Discover: • The formulas for creating comedy material • How to find your own style • The three steps to putting your act together • Rehearsal do’s and don’ts • What to do if you bomb • Ways to punch up your everyday life with humor. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Florence Kelley: Pragmatist, Feminist, SocialistJudy D. Whippssupreme court justice felix frankfurter said in 1953 that Florence Kelley “had probably the largest single share in shaping the social history of the United States during the first 30 years of the 20th Century” (Frankfurter x). Kelley is an unusual figure to discuss in a philosophical journal, perhaps because she has generally been classified only as a social scientist. Yet, as I (...) discovered, she is a wonderful thinking partner, sometimes raising more philosophical questions than she resolves. Her commitments, struggles, failures, and accomplishments problematize and reveal new insights into pragmatist pluralism, feminist political choices, and the role of socialism in early pragmatism. Bringing her into the feminist pragmatist discussion gives us more examples of how to approach problem-solving from feminist and pragmatist perspectives.1Florence Kelley and Jane Addams first met when Kelley knocked on Hull House’s door early one snowy December morning in 1891. She was fleeing with her three small children from her physically abusive husband in New York, needing an occupation and a home in Chicago. She became the only early resident who was a single mother. Kelley spent most of the next decade at Hull House. Kelley and Addams had similar family backgrounds and became close friends, although they had dramatically different personalities. One thing they shared in common was that both were very close to their politician fathers.Kelley’s father was a longtime progressive congressman from Pennsylvania. He helped to develop her social consciousness by taking her along on his investigations of industrial conditions when, as a child herself, she often saw the horrifying conditions of children’s work environments. At two in the morning, she witnessed the “terrifying sight” of boys younger than herself working near the steel mills’ red-hot furnaces and molten metal. With her [End Page 10] father, she also witnessed young boys called “dogs” working in glass factories. Each glass blower was assisted by one of these boys who knelt with his head near the oven as the glass came out from the furnaces to prepare the hot mold for the blower’s next project. These events left her with the “astonished impression of the utter unimportance of children compared with products” (Kelley, “My Philadelphia” 56–57).She entered Cornell University at age 16 and was drawn to the study of social science and economics. Like many college-bound young women in the late nineteenth century, she quickly became committed to social reform, focusing on women and children’s social and economic conditions. As Kelley said in 1882, in her first published article after college, “In the field of sociology, there is brainwork waiting for women which men cannot do” (“Need Our Working Women” 521). In their lives and studies, young college women like Kelley experienced the inequalities and suffering around them and were looking for a solution. Kelley developed an approach that focused on both the causes as well as the effects of the social problems she worked to eradicate. She believed that college-educated women and working-class women could work together to produce knowledge and change.Kelley was exposed briefly to Marxism and socialism in her college years when a family friend convalesced in their home. This man’s father had known Karl Marx, and he shared some Marxist pamphlets with Kelley (Autobiography 72). After college, when she continued her studies in Zurich, she became immersed in Marxism. She returned to the United States three years later, with her Russian Marxist husband and their three children. She expected to continue her Marxist work with the New York Socialist Labor Party, but the party expelled her and her husband. She then turned her attention to researching working women’s financial and social struggles.In Chicago, Kelley’s early research into local living and working conditions was published in the ground-breaking Hull House Maps and Papers, written by Hull House residents (Addams et al.), considered a pioneering work in sociology and an early example of what became cultural geography. Her investigations into child labor, sweatshops, and industrial conditions led to her position as Illinois’s first chief factory inspector. Armed with data and the support of... (shrink)

Benjamin Libet has argued that electrophysiological signs of cortical movement preparation are present before people report having made a conscious decision to move, and that these signs constitute evidence that voluntary movements are initiated unconsciously. This controversial conclusion depends critically on the assumption that the electrophysiological signs recorded by Libet, Gleason, Wright, and Pearl are associated only with preparation for movement. We tested that assumption by comparing the electrophysiological signs before a decision to move with signs present before a decision (...) not to move. There was no evidence of stronger electrophysiological signs before a decision to move than before a decision not to move, so these signs clearly are not specific to movement preparation. We conclude that Libet’s results do not provide evidence that voluntary movements are initiated unconsciously. (shrink)

Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, and second-generation Hull House activist Grace Abbott were at the forefront of a reconstruction of early twentieth-century American democracy. They worked to reframe U.S. political democracy, expanding its focus beyond individual rights to caring for the social community. The movement away from laissez-faire government toward state and federal legislation protecting children, women, and workers was often halting, sometimes stymied by public opposition, and other times blocked by Supreme Court decisions. Grace Abbott’s social and political philosophy demonstrated (...) her training in law and political science and was influenced by her direct engagement with her Hull House neighbors. Abbott was a skilled social science researcher who saw public research as a way of crossing and blurring epistemological class boundaries, creating pathways for the general population to understand the burdens others faced. Through her leadership of the Immigrants’ Protective League and the Children’s Bureau, Abbott argued that the democratic state should be responsible for extending legislative protections into the social and industrial realms to protect vulnerable and dependent populations. Her work was essential to the continuing evolving supportive structures of governmental programs and social safety nets that are taken for granted by many Americans today. (shrink)

Courtin, Judy As a young girl in the 1960s, I attended a Catholic boarding school. The nuns could be scary. When they walked the wintry and un-illuminated corridors of the convent, their knee-length rosary beads jangled against their ankle-length black habits.

This paper reports the results of a survey completed by 565 human resource professionals in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The major result suggests that individuals who are more dependent on their employing organizations are more likely to comply with organizational pressures to behave unethically. Factor analysis of our dependent measure of ethical organizational behavior suggested that two distinct constructs were being tapped; furthermore, different variables were found to predict each. The potential for conceptualizing unethical organizational behavior as (...) multidimensional is discussed. (shrink)

Changes in attitude toward intellectual property are covered here.

This sparkling collection of essays both defines and reassesses the concept of Utility. Using it as a touchstone for the consideration of the place of ethics in the recent history of design, the collection offers a way into the issues which concern design decision-makers today. It offers previously unpublished research into diverse topics such as the investigation into the hitherto undiscovered designs for a utility vehicle, and it reveals a fresh perspective on the philosophy behind the concept of Utility as (...) a design theory. (shrink)

(1999). The lessons and messages of the holocaust as conveyed through Yom Hashoah (holocaust day) commemorations in selected Australian Jewish communities, 1945–1996. The European Legacy: Vol. 4, Postmodern Fascism, pp. 54-71.

Introduction -- The significance of story -- Morphogenic fields -- The universe story and Christian story -- Morphic resonance : two stories converge -- The "kingdom of God" -- Emerging capacities -- Meditation -- The power of intention -- The fields converge -- A field of compassion -- Manifesting a field of compassion -- Engaging the grace we imagine.

Business and society researchers, as well as practitioners, have been critiqued for ignoring those with less voice and power often referred to as “fringe stakeholders.” Existing methods used in B&S research often fail to address issues of meaningful participation, voice and power, especially in developing countries. In this article, we stress the utility of visual participatory research methods in B&S research to fill this gap. Through a case study on engaging Ghanaian cocoa farmers on gender inequality issues, we explore how (...) VPR methods may be used by researchers to achieve more inclusive, and thus more credible, stakeholder research that can improve decision making within businesses. Furthermore, we argue that ingrained social and environmental problems tackled by B&S research and the unique context in which they occur may open up new opportunities to develop participatory visual methods for social change. (shrink)

There is little doubt that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is now a global concept and a prominent feature of international business, with its practice localised and differing across countries. Despite the growing body of research focussing on CSR in developing countries, there is dearth research on CSR institutionalisation in African countries. Drawing on institutional theory (IT), this article examines the focus and form of CSR practice of companies in Kenya. It is evident from our findings that the nature and orientation (...) of CSR differ across companies with operations only in Kenya and those headquartered abroad or with international operations. Significantly, firm-related drivers such as public relations and performance, as well as global institutional pressures explain the focus and form of CSR in Kenya. This article concludes that for the institutionalisation of CSR in Kenya, attention must be paid to conditions that stifle CSR uptake such as lack of government regulations, and the government's capacity and commitment to enforce regulation. The establishment of functional CSR institutions and a vibrant civil society that advance civil regulation ought to be encouraged. (shrink)

This article explores how the shift from print to electronic calendars materializes and exacerbates a distinctively quantitative, “spreadsheet” orientation to time. Drawing on interviews with engineers, I argue that calendaring systems are emblematic of a larger design rationale in Silicon Valley to mechanize human thought and action in order to make them more efficient and reliable. The belief that technology can be profitably employed to control and manage time has a long history and continues to animate contemporary sociotechnical imaginaries of (...) what automation will deliver. In the current moment we live in the age of the algorithm and machine learning, so it is no wonder, then, that the contemporary design of digital calendars is driven by a vision of intelligent time management. As I go on to show in the second part of the article, this vision is increasingly realized in the form of intelligent digital assistants whose tracking capacities and behavioral algorithms aim to solve life’s existential problem—how best to organize the time of our lives. This article contributes to STS scholarship on the role of technological artifacts in generating new temporalities that shape people’s perception of time, how they act in the world, and how they understand themselves. (shrink)

The growing global prominence of Chinese state-owned enterprises brings new dimensions to our understanding of multi-national corporations and human rights issues. This article constructs a three-level framework that enables the mapping of transnational, national, and intra-organizational human rights pressures, and uses this framework to identify and analyze the human rights that Chinese SOEs report concern with. The analysis provided suggests that while China’s most global SOEs are subject to transnational pressures to respect all human rights, such pressures appear outweighed by (...) those encouraging them to concentrate on only some human rights within their national and intra-organizational environment. The article concludes by identifying a number of ways in which our conceptual framework and empirical findings can inform future research. (shrink)

Callaway calls the process of re-appraisal of women's characteristics, social roles and culture, independent of male value systems...'re-vision', and identifies three ways it can describe women's current activities: 'Revision' in the standard sense of correcting or completing the record; then 're-vision' as looking again, a deliberate act to see through the stereotypes of our society as these are taken for granted in daily life and deeply embedded in academic tradition; and finally, 're-vision' in its extended sense as the imaginative power (...) of sighting possibilities and thus helping to bring about what is not visible, a new ordering of human relationships. (shrink)

As performativity within the academy continues to escalate, this paper considers the place for building research capacities through a scholarship in teaching and learning initiative at an Australian university. While the tensions that exist between discipline research and scholarship in teaching and learning remain, evaluation data for a central higher education research group suggests that an alternative research pathway is possible through collegial structures. The drive towards performativity is not unique to Australia and the evidence presented provides insights that may (...) be useful for a broader audience that may be considering research capacity building. (shrink)

Africa's renewable energy resource base is large. Traditional patterns of energy use have resulted in widespread environmental degradation. Renewable energy technologies are capable of harnessing this energy on a sustainable basis. However, despite some notable successes, efforts to disseminate these tech nologies have resulted in numerous failures. The failure of such efforts has been attributed to a variety of problems which have yet to be evaluated in a comprehensive and policy-relevant form. Such analysis is prerequisite to enabling policy-makers to act (...) effectively. (shrink)

Corporate community involvement is often regarded as means of development in developing countries. However, CCI is often criticised for patronage and insensitivity both to context and local priorities. A key concern is the extent of 'community participation' in corporate social decision-making. Community participation in CCI offers an opportunity for these criticisms to be addressed. This paper presents findings of research examining community participation in CCI governance undertaken by Magadi Soda Company in Kenya. We draw on socio-political governance and interaction theories (...) to examine the institutionalisation of participatory decision-making and its impact on changing governing roles and social action in CCI over time. (shrink)

In this article we explore the role of data custodians in establishing and maintaining social licence for the use of personal information in health research. Personal information from population‐level data collections can be used to make significant contributions to health and medical research, but this use is dependent on community acceptance or a social licence. We conducted semi‐structured interviews with data custodians across Australia to better understand data custodians’ views on their roles and responsibilities. This inductive, thematic analysis of the (...) interview data focuses on three factors that contribute to social licence – reciprocity, non‐exploitation and the public good. While the data custodians interviewed did not explicitly frame their role in the context of social licence, their descriptions of their roles and responsibilities clearly indicated that they did have some role to play in building and maintaining social licence. (shrink)

Biobanks for long-term research pose challenges to the legal and ethical validity of consent to participate. Different models of consent have been proposed to answer some of these challenges. This paper contributes to this discussion by considering the meaning and value of consent to participants in biobanks. Empirical data from a qualitative study is used to provide a participant view of the consent process and to demonstrate that, despite limited understanding of the research, consent provides the research participants with some (...) level of control and a form of self determination that they value. Participation is framed as a moral act of a responsible citizen providing reinforcement of self identity. Consent symbolizes the trust invested in researchers and research institutions to use the biobank for the public good. The paper argues that consent continues to play an important role in biobank participation and that a participant view should inform proposals to modify consent processes. (shrink)

The current global wave of nationalism threatens the process of shared critical reflection, driving many of us back to reading Hannah Arendt. These “dark times” are especially challenging from a Deweyan pragmatist perspective because critical and cooperative inquiry requires a free community of thinkers. Having lived in a near-fascist religious group for fifteen years, this essay brings personal experiences to the questions of how we think as well as create spaces for diverse yet shared realities to think and act in (...) freedom. Drawing on Arendt as well as Dewey, Addams, and Minnich, this essay explores three necessities for integrity in dark times: Radical honesty and reflection which requires facing up to reality and being mindful about events in our world; Building communities: creating shared reality and public spaces to appear, Developing the skills of engaged thinking and the capacity for deep reflection as a foundation for action together. (shrink)

From a twenty-first century partnership between bioethics and neuroscience, the modern field of neuroethics is emerging, and technologies enabling functional neuroimaging with unprecedented sensitivity have brought new ethical, social and legal issues to the forefront. Some issues, akin to those surrounding modern genetics, raise critical questions regarding prediction of disease, privacy and identity. However, with new and still-evolving insights into our neurobiology and previously unquantifiable features of profoundly personal behaviors such as social attitude, value and moral agency, the difficulty of (...) carefully and properly interpreting the relationship between brain findings and our own self-concept is unprecedented. Therefore, while the ethics of genetics provides a legitimate starting point - even a backbone - for tackling ethical issues in neuroimaging, they do not suffice. Drawing on recent neuroimaging findings and their plausible real-world applications, we argue that interpretation of neuroimaging data is a key epistemological and ethical challenge. This challenge is two-fold. First, at the scientific level, the sheer complexity of neuroscience research poses challenges for integration of knowledge and meaningful interpretation of data. Second, at the social and cultural level, we find that interpretations of imaging studies are bound by cultural and anthropological frameworks. In particular, the introduction of concepts of self and personhood in neuroimaging illustrates the interaction of interpretation levels and is a major reason why ethical reflection on genetics will only partially help settle neuroethical issues. Indeed, ethical interpretation of such findings will necessitate not only traditional bioethical input but also a wider perspective on the construction of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Aim: Explore nurses’ values and perceptions regarding the practice of medical aid in dying. Background: Medical aid in dying is becoming increasing legal in the United States. The laws and American Nurses Association documents limit nursing involvement in this practice. Nurses’ values regarding this controversial topic are poorly understood. Methodology: Cross-sectional electronic survey design sent to nurse members of the American Nurses Association. Inductive thematic content analysis was applied to open-ended comments. Ethical Considerations: Approved by the institutional review board (#191046). (...) Participants: 1213 nurses provided 3639 open-ended comments. More than 80% of participants self-identified as white 58% held a graduate degree; and half were of Christian faith. Results: Values ranged on a continuum expressed through four themes: “Honoring Patient Autonomy without Judgment,” “Honoring with Limitations,” “Not until...,” and “Adamantly against.” Some felt it was a duty to honor the patients’ wishes, set aside own beliefs, and respect patients’ choices often with a spiritual connotation. Nurses held concerns about the process, policy, potential psychological harm, legal risk, and the need to learn more about MAID. Nurse who were adamantly against MAID associated the practice with murder/suicide and against religious beliefs. Disparate values were expressed about changing the MAID legislation to allow patient support with taking MAID medications and allowing MAID via advance directive. Conclusions: Nurses desire more education on MAID. There is not one universally held position on the nurse’s role during MAID. Healthcare policy/standards need to accommodate the wide variation in nurses’ values. Implications: Nurses desire education regarding their role in MAID. Nurses are encouraged to participate in policy discussions as the practice becomes increasingly legal. Managers need to expect that nurses, patients, and families will need psychological support to participate in MAID. Careful construction of policy/standards is needed to minimize conflict, moral distress, and psychological harm amongst nurses. Further research is needed. (shrink)

The transformative effects of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) practices and processes in Australia are wide spread and far reaching. The move away from adjudication affects legal institutions, legal practitioners and the judiciary. As lawyers play a key role in the administration of justice, the transition to ADR transforms many areas of legal practice. This article considers the rise of ADR in Australia in the non-criminal law context, the manner in which ADR changes the way in which law is practised, and (...) the associated ethical challenges confronting the legal profession. (shrink)