ABSTRACTThirty years ago, the subfields of emotion and cognition operated relatively independently and the associated science reflected the tacit view that they were distinct constructs. Today, questions about the integration of cognition and emotion are among the most interesting questions in the field. I offer a personal view of the key changes that fuelled this shift over time and describe research from my group that unfolded in parallel and led to the identification of the positivity effect.

In everyday life, people frequently make decisions based on tacit or explicit forecasts about the emotional consequences associated with the possible choices. We investigated age differences in such forecasts and their accuracy by surveying voters about their expected and, subsequently, their actual emotional responses to the 2008 US presidential election. A sample of 762 Democratic and Republican voters aged 20 to 80 years participated in a web-based study; 346 could be re-contacted two days after the election. Older adults forecasted lower (...) increases in high-arousal emotions (e.g., excitement after winning; anger after losing) and larger increases in low-arousal emotions (e.g., sluggishness after losing) than younger adults. Age differences in actual responses to the election were consistent with forecasts, albeit less pervasive. Additionally, among supporters of the winning candidate, but not among supporters of the losing candidate, forecasting accuracy was enhanced with age, suggesting a positivity effect in affective forecasting. These results add to emerging findings about the role of valence and arousal in emotional ageing and demonstrate age differences in affective forecasting about a real-world event with an emotionally charged outcome. (shrink)

Several types of inferences are employed in the diagnosis and prognosis of patients with brain injuries and disorders of consciousness. These inferences introduce unavoidable uncertainty, and can be evaluated in light of inductive risk: the epistemic and nonepistemic risks of being wrong. This article considers several ethically significant inductive risks generated by and interacting with inferences about patients with disorders of consciousness, and argues for prescriptive measures to manage and mitigate inductive risk in the context of disorders of consciousness.

Substantial evidence has shown that involvement in peer-to-peer farming networks influences whether a farmer decides to try a new practice. Formally organized farmer networks are emerging as a unique entity that blend the benefits of decentralized exchange of farmer knowledge within the structure of an organization providing a variety of sources of information and forms of engagement. We define formal farmer networks as farmer networks with a distinct membership and organizational structure, leadership that includes farmers, and an emphasis on peer-to-peer (...) learning. This study complements existing ethnographic research on the benefits of organized farmer networking by examining farmers in one longstanding formal farmer network, Practical Farmers of Iowa. Using a nested, mixed-method research design, we analyzed survey and interview data to understand how participation and forms of engagement in the network are associated with the adoption of conservation practices. Responses from 677 farmers from a regular member survey disseminated by Practical Farmers of Iowa in 2013, 2017, and 2020 were pooled and analyzed. GLM binomial and ordered logistic regression results indicate that greater participation in the network, particularly through in-person formats, has a strong and significant association with greater adoption of conservation practices. Logistic regression results show that building relationships in the network is the most important variable for predicting whether a farmer reported adopting conservation practices as a result of participation in PFI. In-depth interviews with 26 surveyed member farmers revealed that PFI supports farmers to adopt by providing information, resources, encouragement, confidence building, and reinforcement. In-person learning formats were more important to farmers relative to independent formats because they were able to have side conversations with other farmers, ask questions, and observe results. We conclude that formal networks are a promising way to expand the use of conservation practices, particularly through targeted efforts to increase relationship building in the network through face-to-face learning opportunities. (shrink)

. This paper examines the association between long-term compensation and corporate social responsibility for 90 publicly traded Canadian firms. Social responsibility is considered to include concerns for social factors and the environment, 564-578; Kane, E. J., 341-359). Long-term compensation attempts to focus executives efforts on optimizing the longer term, which should direct their attention to factors traditionally associated with socially responsible executives. As hypothesized, we found a significant relationship between the long-term compensation and total CSR weakness as well as the (...) product/environmental weakness dimension of CSR. In addition, we found a marginally significant relationship between long-term compensation and total corporate responsibility. Our findings are that executives long-term compensation is associated with a firms environmental actions, and that firms that utilize long-term compensation are more likely to mitigate product/environment weaknesses than those that do not. Implications for practice and research are discussed. (shrink)

Our paper contributes to the rapidly expanding body of experimental research on transformative decision making, and in the process, marks out a novel empirical interpretation for assessments of subjective value in transformative contexts. We start with a discussion of the role of subjective value in transformative decisions, and then critique extant experimental work that explores this role, with special attention to Reuter and Messerli (2018). We argue that current empirical treatments miss a crucial feature of practical deliberation manifesting across a (...) variety of everyday decisions: often, people attach more weight to decision criteria that they can know—a phenomenon known as the “evaluability bias.” In transformative contexts, if people cannot know the subjective value of an option, they are unlikely to attach it much weight. Despite this, people may care very much about such value. We then use this point to develop and present new empirical results that, in addition to supporting our concerns about evaluability bias, support the hypothesis that people care about subjective value. Our work enriches the current philosophical understanding of transformative decisions and helps to frame the emerging experimental paradigm for the empirical dimensions of the debate. (shrink)

Conceptions of autonomy in western philosophy and ethics have often centred on self-governance and self-determination. However, a growing bulk of literature also questions such conceptions, including the understanding of the autonomous self as a self-governing independent individual that chooses, acts, and lives in accordance with her or his own values, norms, or sense of self. This article contributes to the critical interrogation of selfhood, autonomy, and autonomous decision making by combining a feminist focus on relational dimensions of selfhood and autonomy (...) with phenomenological philosophy of the embodied self as being-in-the-world. It offers a philosophical investigation of different dimensions of bodily relational autonomy by turning to phenomenological accounts of the lived body as self-reflexive. When so doing, we hope to contribute to bridging the gap that sometimes exists between discussions of autonomy in analytic moral philosophy and of freedom and facticity in phenomenological philosophy. We see this gap as unfortunate, and hold that a nuanced understanding of autonomy and autonomous decision making can be reached if these strands of philosophy are brought into dialogue. (shrink)

This article identifies limitations in traditional approaches to engineering ethics pedagogy, reflected in an overreliance on disaster case studies. Researchers in the field have pointed out that these approaches tend to occlude ethically significant aspects of day-to-day engineering practice and thus reductively individualize and decontextualize ethical decision-making. Some have proposed, as a remedy for these defects, the use of research and theory from Science and Technology Studies to enrich our understanding of the ways in which technology and engineering practice are (...) intricated in social and institutional contexts. While endorsing this approach, this article also argues that STS scholarship may not sufficiently address the kinds of questions about normativity and agency that are essential to engineering ethics. It proposes making use of the growing body of research in a field called “postphenomenology,” an approach that combines STS research with the traditional phenomenological concern with the standpoint of lived-experience. Postphenomenology offers a method of inquiry that combines STS’s investigation into social and institutional dimensions of technology with phenomenological reflection on our lived experience of embodied engagement with technical objects and sociotechnical systems, particularly the ways in which these involvements affect our moral perception and agency. The aim in using this approach in engineering ethics is thus to illuminate moral dimensions of everyday professional life of which practitioners may not typically be aware. The article concludes with some concrete curricular interventions for engineering ethics classrooms. (shrink)

Ex-vivo tissue engineering is an emerging medical technology. Its aim is to regenerate tissues and organs and to restore them to full physiological activity. Some clinical trials with human tissue engineered products have been conducted and others will follow. These trials not only have to confirm the therapeutic value of the HTEP, they also have to provide insight in its regenerative activity, its safety and long-term effects. The development of these trials is aggravated by the complexity of the tissue engineering (...) process and product. This paper investigates how this complexity influences the ethical conduct of clinical trials with HTEPs. We focus on the value and validity of the trial, the risk-benefit ratio and the protection of the trial participant. We argue that trials with HTEPs need a robust methodology. The risk-benefit ratio of a new HTEP must be determined and compared with available efficacious therapies. This requires the identification and minimisation of risks associated with tissue engineering. Finally a process as complex as tissue engineering presents serious challenges for the informed consent process, and for the protection of the trial participant during and after the trial. (shrink)

Aims and background: The present work assessed the impact of two decrees on ethics committees in Italy, aimed at bringing the national laws on the conduct of clinical trials into line with the rest of the EC, and regulating and facilitating not-for-profit research.Material and methods: Prospectively collected data from an Italian multicentre study were examined with respect to the ethics review process. Administrative and time elements of the review process were audited. Main outcome measures were time between the application submission (...) and the ethics committee definitive opinion, type and number of application submission forms, number of ethics committees that refused fee exemption, and time between the ethics committee approval and the administrative authorisation.Results: A total of 134 local research ethics committees were approached. Application submission procedures and application forms varied greatly; paper submission was mandatory. The median time from submission to approval was 72 days. Only two LRECs refused the fee exemption. The median time from LREC approval to administrative agreement was 50 days and only 9.6% of local authorities came to a verbal agreement with the sponsor.Conclusions: Italian LRECs are still not sufficiently efficient in complying with the Directive 2001/20/EC requirement . Better coordination of LRECs work is needed although the optimal level of coordination between them is still not known. In the meantime, national guidelines are needed concerning the application of Directive 2001/20/EC. The behaviour of Italian LRECs towards not-for-profit research was excellent although only the fee exemption was requested. (shrink)

(2013). Spinoza and the Cosmological Argument According to Letter 12. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 57-77. doi: 10.1080/09608788.2012.696052.

This collection of articles pays homage to the creativity and scientific rigor Jerome Singer has brought to the study of consciousness and play. It will interest personality, social, clinical and developmental psychologists alike.

ABSTRACTEmotional distractors can impair perception of subsequently presented targets, a phenomenon called emotion-induced blindness. Do emotional distractors lose their power to disrupt perception when appearing with increased frequency, perhaps due to desensitisation or enhanced recruitment of proactive control? Non-emotional tasks, such as the Stroop, have revealed that high frequency distractors or conflict lead to reduced interference, and distractor frequency appears to modulate attentional capture by emotional distractors in spatial attention tasks. But emotion-induced blindness is thought to reflect perceptual competition between (...) targets and emotional distractors, and it is unclear whether high frequency emotional stimuli cause less disruption at this relatively early stage of processing. In four experiments, participants searched streams of images for a rotated target image. A negative or neutral distractor appeared before the target, and their relative frequency was manipulated. Across all exper... (shrink)

This article focuses on the most recent debates in the vibrant and emerging subfield of philosophy of emotion research. Given the dominance of 'cognitivist' theories of emotion in the philosophy, neurobiology, and cognitive science of emotion, we have witnessed a move away from attempts to pit reason and emotion against each other. This move, however, has opened the door to a host of thorny challenges for how we think about our affective relationship with the world, with concepts, and with other (...) minds. (shrink)

Jean Philiponus s'est toujours opposé à la notion nestorienne des anges servant les hommes à la place de Dieu. Jean Philiponus s'inscrit dans le courant égyptien critique de la fin du VIe siècle de certains récits apocryphes des anges dans l'univers primitif. L'argumentation de Philoponus est anti-dyophysite. Il s'attache à démontrer que l'univers que nous percevons est peuplé d'entités non corporelles puissantes, au service de Dieu et dont le rôle est de faire passer des messages aux êtres humains. Ces entités (...) ont été créées par le Dieu trinitaire avant l'acte divin de création. (shrink)

Entry of new organizations, including multinational enterprises from emerging markets, raises the ethical question of will they benefit society. The concept of legitimacy answers this question because it is the overall assessment of the appropriateness of organizational ends and means. Moreover, gaining legitimacy enables EMNEs to succeed in new host countries. Past work examined collective level indicators of the legitimacy of MNEs, but recent research recognizes the importance of individuals’ perceptions as the micro-foundation of legitimacy. This study first uses new (...) pragmatism, deontology, and utilitarianism to demonstrate that legitimacy is fundamentally an ethical concept—a perspective that has been overlooked in management research. Second, this study uses a seven-step procedure to develop and validate a measure of individuals’ perceptions of the legitimacy of Chinese EMNEs operating in The Netherlands, a developed country. Six dimensions of legitimacy were identified. The study also finds support for this legitimacy judgment process linking the dimensions: validating knowledge → propriety judgments → generalized judgment. This work provides additional micro-foundations to research on legitimacy and contributes to the ongoing process of construct validation. Future research could use the validated measure in other settings and use specific ethical theories in depth to refine the concept of legitimacy. (shrink)