The emotional connotation of words is known to affect word and sentence processing. However, the when and how of the interaction between emotion and grammar are still up for debate. In this behavioural experiment, 35 female university students read noun phrases (NPs) composed by a determiner and a noun in their L1 (Spanish), and were asked to indicate if the NPs were grammatically correct (elmasc camareromasc) or not (*lafem tornillomasc; i.e. a gender agreement task). The type of gender (arbitrary/natural), the (...) emotionality (unpleasant/neutral), and the gender class (feminine/masculine) of the nouns were manipulated. We found an overall grammaticality effect, responses being faster in grammatically correct trials than in incorrect ones. However, the effects of emotionality and gender class varied depending on gender type. For arbitrary gender, the grammaticality effect was greater in feminine nouns than in masculine nouns and independent of emotionality. For natural gender, the grammaticality effect interacted with gender class and emotionality, this effect only emerging in unpleasant stimuli for feminine nouns. Our results reveal that it is possible to find emotional effects at the behavioural level in an intrinsically grammatical task. Yet, these effects depend on gender properties like the type of gender and the gender class. (shrink)

An increasing number of studies have addressed the psychological impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the general population. Nevertheless, far less is known about the impact on specific populations such as university students, whose psychological vulnerability has been shown in previous research. This study sought to examine different indicators of mental health in university students during the Spanish lockdown; we also analyzed the main sources of stress perceived by students in relation to the COVID-19 crisis, and the coping strategies adopted (...) when faced with the situation. Data was collected from 932 students through a web-based platform. Measures of anxiety, depression, irritability, and self-perceived change in mental health were administered, as well as ad hoc measures of stressors and coping strategies. Results indicated that students experienced considerable psychological problems during the confinement, with higher rates of emotional difficulties in women and undergraduate students than in men and postgraduates, respectively. Psychological distress was mainly related to several specific domains of stressors, as perceived by the participants: academic future, task overload, worsening of interpersonal conflicts, and restrictions in pleasant social contact; and far less related to the spread of the disease and its consequences for physical health. As regards coping strategies, both reframing skills and daily routines were shown to be the most effective. A path-analysis model integrating stressors, coping, and mental health revealed that coping strategies partially mediated the effect of stressors on psychological health. In general, results suggest that students’ psychological health was substantially affected by the COVID-19 situation and that the academic and relational changes were the most notable sources of stress. This study reinforces the need to monitor and promote mental health in university students to boost resilience in times of crisis. Our results on effective coping strategies may inform preventive programs aimed at helping students to deal with challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

Ética y bioética en el mundo científico: una revisión integradora de la literaturaEthics and Bioethics in the Scientific World: An Integrative ReviewThis paper studies the reality of ethical and bioethical issues in the scientific world through an integrative literature review of articles included in three databases. Seven terms from the thesaurus Health Sciences Descriptors were used, from which three combinations were elaborated and used in the three databases. After applying inclusion requirements, a total of 18 articles were selected. Certain misconducts, (...) particularly plagiarism, falsification and data fabrication, have been showing an increasing behavior, which requires more stringent measures in order to control such phenomenon and maintain scientific credibility before society and authorities.Para citar este artículo / To reference this article / Para citar este artigoSouza-Júnior EV, Rosa RS, Guedes TP, Silva CS, Ribeiro DB, Balbinote FS, Souza DF, Teixeira RB, Silva-Filho BF, Sawanda NO. Ética e bioética no mundo científico: uma revisão integrativa. Pers bioet. 2020;24:151-165. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5294/pebi.2020.24.2.3Recibido: 30/06/2020Aceptado: 28/07/2020Publicado: 27/11/2020. (shrink)

Arthur Anderson & Co. has made a significant contribution to assist and encourage the teaching of business ethics. They provided assistance initially through workshops and curriculum materials; currently they are using campus coordinators to disseminate information and materials. The curriculum materials can be used by the instructor to assist students in practicing their moral reasoning skills and cover four academic areas: Accounting, Finance, Marketing, and Management. These materials include business ethics video vignettes, suggestions on presentation methods, guidelines for implementing a (...) stakeholders' analysis approach to ethical reasoning, and possible discussion questions. The vignettes present ethical dilemmas that persons may encounter in entry level positions. We have used the vignettes, the accompanying discussion questions, and the suggested stakeholder analysis in class presentations. This paper presents a discussion of the basic concepts associated with cooperative learning, an example of the implementation of cooperative learning techniques using the Arthur Andersen Accounting Ethics Vignettes, and empirical results of the influence of these particular group discussions on the students' ethical responses. We did not attempt to measure whether the individuals' moral levels changed, but whether the group discussions stimulated any changes in the students attitudes toward the particular ethical dilemma they viewed. (shrink)

The purpose of the article was to determine the relationship between the organizational culture and the institutional management of the "Enrique López Albújar" Educational Institution, Piura. Work is worked under a quantitative approach, descriptive and correlational scope, 40 teachers participated as a sample. Among the results, it was found that there is no significant relationship between organizational culture and institutional management, which did not allow validating the research hypothesis; However, a significant relationship between norms and customs with institutional management was (...) found; which concludes in compliance with the norms and good customs based on values. (shrink)

This study examined linguistic patterns in mothers’ reports about their toddlers’ involvement in everyday household work, as a way to understand the parental ethnotheories that may guide children’s prosocial helping and development. Mothers from two cultural groups – US Mexican-heritage families with backgrounds in indigenous American communities and middle-class European American families – were interviewed regarding how their 2- to 3-year-old toddler gets involved in help with everyday household work. The study’s analytic focus was mothers’ responses to interview questions asking (...) about the child’s efforts to help with a variety of everyday household work tasks. Results showed that mothers responded with linguistic patterns that were indicative of ethnotheoretical assumptions regarding children’s agency and children’s prosocial intentions, with notable contrasts between the two cultural groups. Nearly all US Mexican-heritage mothers reported children’s contributions and participation using linguistic forms that centered children’s agency and prosocial initiative, which corresponds with extensive evidence suggesting the centrality of both children’s autonomy and supportive prosocial expectations in how children’s helpfulness is supported in this and similar cultural communities. By contrast, middle-class European American mothers frequently responded to questions about their child’s efforts to help with linguistic forms that “pivoted” to either the mother as the focal agent in the child’s prosocial engagement or to reframing the child’s involvement to emphasize non-help activities. Correspondence between cultural differences in the linguistic findings and existing literature on socialization of children’s prosocial helping is discussed. Also discussed is the analytic approach of the study, uncommon in developmental psychology research, and the significance of the linguistic findings for understanding parental ethnotheories in each community. (shrink)

The detrimental effect of human behavior on the environment is undeniable. Attitudes are recognized as a predictor of the pro-environmental behavior; therefore, having good quality tools in Colombia to measure them is strategic to assess interventions. This study aims to establish psychometric indicators for the pro-environmental attitudes questionnaire Colombian version to a sample of 415 volunteers aged 18–70 years. We used the 28-item PEAQ already linguistically adapted for Colombia. We applied the following questionnaires: Environmental awareness, environmental values, and the pro-environmental (...) at work questionnaire. We used a one-parameter Rasch model and Winsteps program to assess the PEAQ's one-dimensionality and item statistics by gender, and estimated Spearman's rho coefficient between the PEAQ scores and the scales for concurrent validity. The PEAQ in this study has 24 items because 4 items did not fit into the Rasch model criteria. Its one-dimensionality was supported by an explained variance and the first residual variance. The coefficients, α = 0.95 and Ω = 0.95; Rasch for persons = 0.90; and Rasch for items = 0.95. The correlation between the PEAQ and the EC, EV, and PEWQ scales were Spearman's rho coefficient = 0.859, 0.795, and 0.885, respectively. Thus, the PEAQ Colombian version's psychometric indicators support it as a valid and reliable instrument to measure pro-environmental attitudes in this country. (shrink)

The negative zombie argument concludes that physicalism is false from the premises that p ∧¬q is ideally negatively conceivable and that what is ideally negatively conceivable is possible, where p is the conjunction of the fundamental physical truths and laws and q is a phenomenal truth (Chalmers 2002; 2010). A sentence φ is ideally negatively conceivable iff φ is not ruled out a priori on ideal rational reflection. In this paper, I argue that the negative zombie argument is neither a (...) priori nor conclusive. First, I argue that the premises of the argument are true only if there exists an adequate finite ideal reasoner R that believes ◊(p ∧ ¬q) on the basis of not believing p→q on a priori basis. Roughly, a finite reasoner is a reasoner with cognitive limitations (e.g. finite memory). I argue that R is finite only if R reasons nonmonotonically and only approach ideal reflection at the limit of a reasoning sequence. This would render the argument nonconclusive. Finally, I argue that, for some q, R does not believe ◊(p ∧ ¬q) on the basis of not believing p→q on a priori basis (e.g. for q =‘something is conscious’). This would render the choice of an adequate q dependent on empirical information (and the argument a posteriori). I conclude that the negative zombie argument (and, maybe, all zombie arguments) is neither a priori nor conclusive. (shrink)

In late February and early March 2020, Italy became the European epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite increasingly stringent containment measures enforced by the government, the health system faced an enormous pressure, and extraordinary efforts were made in order to increase overall hospital beds’ availability and especially ICU capacity. Nevertheless, the hardest-hit hospitals in Northern Italy experienced a shortage of ICU beds and resources that led to hard allocating choices. At the beginning of March 2020, the Italian Society of Anesthesia, (...) Analgesia, Resuscitation, and Intensive Care issued recommendations aimed at supporting physicians in prioritizing patients when the number of critically ill patients overwhelm the capacity of ICUs. One motivating concern for the SIAARTI guidance was that, if no balanced and consistent allocation procedures were applied to prioritize patients, there would be a concrete risk for unfair choices, and that the prevalent “first come, first served” principle would lead to many avoidable deaths. Among the drivers of decision for admission to ICUs, age, comorbidities, and preexisting functional status were included. The recommendations were criticized as ageist and potentially discriminatory against elderly patients. Looking forward to the next steps, the Italian experience can be relevant to other parts of the world that are yet to see a significant surge of COVID-19: the need for transparent triage criteria and commonly shared values give the Italian recommendations even greater legitimacy. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo se analizan los conceptos hegelianos de sociedad civil y Estado, ámbitos donde el hombre —burgués y ciudadano— desarrolla los diversos aspectos de su singularidad y su vocación por lo universal. Se tratará de ahondar en la vertiente ética que abarca la vida del hombre como individuo y como ciudadano, y que, dadas las condiciones del mundo moderno, participa de la vida típica de un sujeto que goza de su libertad esencial y originaria en dos esferas complementarias, (...) a la vez que necesarias, para poder desenvolver su libertad en plenitud: las actividades que como particular lleva a cabo en la “sociedad civil” y las que también ejerce como un sujeto comunitario, dotado de capacidades éticas, con participación en la vida política de su Estado. (shrink)

The essay intends to highlight as the walls constitute the elements of that “imaginary geography”, according to a definition of Edward Said, that realizing an attempt of defence of the State sovereignty, admits at same times its fragility. Symbolically representing a function and an effectiveness that in reality they do not exercise, such walls appear as “theatrical and spectacularised performance of the power”, disappointing responses in the face of the challenges and of today's questions. Analysing the convergence of the Mediterranean (...) area to the global tendency to the building of barriers and to the deep fragmentation of the lands, ploughed by rigid and hostile boundaries, the analysis focused how the elevation of real walls is linked to the creation of an imaginary barrier, the “Mediterranean wall”, an intangible, immaterial, but impassable limit, a barrier against which an incalculable number of migrants have lost and continue to lose their lives. (shrink)

Drawing on many areas of expertise, from paleontology to psychology, Tomasello offers a plausible, evolutionary story abouthow our ancestors are likely to have developed cooperative behaviors and collaborative lifeways in order to survive and thrive.He also claims that this narrative explains why they would have begun to think in characteristically cooperative and moral ways,developing a “we is greater than me” [we>me] psychological orientation. Do the arguments offered support this extra claim? Thisarticle suggests that they do not. It seeks to alleviate (...) this shortcoming by drawing upon some conceptual resources offered bySartre’s Theory of Practical Ensembles. The centerpiece of the article consists of a detailed analysis of Sartre’s account of the genesisof the “group-in-fusion,” seeking to show that the genesis of a we-way of thinking in a group made up of many requires themediation of what Sartre calls a “third party” (le tiers). After closely examining Sartre’s treatment of the “third party” in theapocalyptic genesis of the “group-in-fusion,” I evaluate the success of this notion in resolving those questions that Tomasello’saccount raises while, at the same time, addressing the ontological question concerning the nature of the individual-grouprelation, in a way that suggests new and significant alternatives to standard dilemmas in contemporary social philosophy. (shrink)

La concepción legalista de la justicia es una doctrina originada en la filosofía política de Hobbes. Para el filósofo inglés, son justos los actos que se conforman a la ley, e injustos lo contrario; lo único que se tiene en cuenta es el hecho del cumplimiento, y no la naturaleza y el fin del deber. Además, en la noción hobbesiana de equidad hay un aspecto fuertemente convencional, ya que el deber del soberano de obrar equitativamente se constituye en un motivo (...) fundamental del pacto acordado. (shrink)

This paper describes a practice innovation: the addition of formal weekly discussions of patients with prolonged PICU stay to reduce healthcare providers’ moral distress and decrease length of stay for patients with life-threatening illnesses. We evaluated the innovation using a pre/post intervention design measuring provider moral distress and comparing patient outcomes using retrospective historical controls. Physicians and nurses on staff in our pediatric intensive care unit in a quaternary care children's hospital participated in the evaluation. There were 60 patients in (...) the interventional group and 66 patients in the historical control group. We evaluated the impact of weekly meetings to establish goals of care for patients with longer than 10 days length of stay in the ICU for a year. Moral distress was measured intermittently and reported moral distress thermometer scores fluctuated. "Clinical situations" represented the most frequent contributing factor to moral distress. Post intervention, overall moral distress scores, measured on the moral distress scale revised, were lower for respondents in all categories, and on three specific items. Patient outcomes before and after PEACE intervention showed a statistically significant decrease in PRISM indexed LOS, a statistically significant increase in both code status changes DNR, and in-hospital death, with no change in patient 30 or 365 day mortality. The addition of a clinical ethicist and senior intensivist to weekly inter-professional team meetings facilitated difficult conversations regarding realistic goals of care. The study demonstrated that the PEACE intervention had a positive impact on some factors that contribute to moral distress and can shorten PICU length of stay for some patients. (shrink)

There is certainly no shortage of studies describing the unwanted effects of infidelity in the relevant literature. By contrast, this paper examines the previously unexplored face of infidelity – namely, the subjectively perceived positive effects. One hundred and four participants from Slovakia in emerging and/or young adulthood shared their relationship history through semi-structured interviews (transcribed verbatim). Sixty-nine of these were self-moderated in written form. The same topics were covered in the two types of interview. Using a categorical-content analysis method, four (...) categories were created. These described the constructive functions of infidelity, including enhancing relationship quality; aiding a desired breakup; satisfying unmet needs; and facilitating the decision-making process during the transition period before settling into a long-term relationship. For future research we recommend differentiating between beneficial episodes of infidelity, focusing on personal characteristics and subjective experiences of infidelity, and including non-heterosexual participants. (shrink)

The general question to be considered in this paper points to the nature of the world described by chemistry: what is macro-chemical ontology like? In particular, we want to identify the ontological categories that underlie chemical discourse and chemical practice. This is not an easy task, because modern Western metaphysics was strongly modeled by theoretical physics. For this reason, we attempt to answer our question by contrasting macro-chemical ontology with the mainstream ontology of physics and of traditional metaphysics. In particular, (...) we introduce the distinction between stuff-ontology, proper of chemistry, and individual-ontology, proper of physics. These two ontologies differ from each other in the basic categories of their own structures. On this basis, we characterize individual-ontology in such a way that the features of stuff-ontology will arise by contrast with it. (shrink)

Westworld tells the story of a technologically advanced theme park populated by robots referred to as hosts, who follow a script and rules that the park's operators set up for them. Alan Turing argued that machines think not because they have special powers or because they are like us. Turing's perspective is illustrated perfectly in the show's focus on the hosts. Objecting to Turing's theory, John Searle proposes a situation called the “Chinese room argument”, concluding that the man in the (...) room does not understand Chinese even though he can correctly manipulate the symbols and give output that might lead an observer to believe that the man does understand Chinese. The Maze represents consciousness, a privileged knowledge of our own thoughts, it also represents the inward journey for the hosts to reach consciousness. Once hosts are able to solve the Maze, they become truly conscious and develop their own voice. (shrink)

Moral distress is a well-documented phenomenon for health care providers (HCPs). Exploring HCPs’ perceptions of participation in moral distress interventions using qualitative and quantitative methods enhances understanding of intervention effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to measure and describe the impact of a two-phased intervention on participants’ moral distress. Using a cross-over design, the project aimed to determine if the intervention would decrease moral distress, enhance moral agency, and improve perceptions about the work environment. We used quantitative instruments and (...) explored participants’ perceptions of the intervention using semi-structured interviews. Participants were from inpatient settings, within three major hospitals of a large, urban healthcare system in the Midwest, United States. Participants included nurses (80.6%) and other clinical care providers. Using generalized linear mixed modeling we assessed the change in each of the outcome variables over time controlling for groups. Interviews were audiotaped and professionally transcribed. The written narratives were coded into themes. The change in scores on study instruments trended in the desired direction however did not meet statistical significance. Qualitative interviews revealed that intervention effectiveness was derived from a combination of learning benefits, psychological benefits, and building community that promoted moral agency. Findings demonstrate a clear link between moral distress and moral agency and suggest that Facilitated Ethics Conversations can enhance the work environment. Findings provide insight for developing evidenced-based approaches to address moral distress of hospital nurses. (shrink)

Reseña de Abbattista, M. Lucía. (2019). Justicialismo y cultura en la Guerra Fría. El retorno de Oscar Ivanissevich al Ministerio de Cultura y Educación (Argentina 1974-1975).

Ethics consultation is a service provided to patients, families, and clinicians to support decisions during ethical dilemmas. This study is a secondary qualitative analysis of 48 interviews from clinicians involved in an ethics consultation at a large academic health center. An inductive secondary analysis of this data set led to the emergence of one key theme, the apparent perspective the clinicians adopted as they recalled a specific ethics case. This article presents a qualitative analysis of the propensity of clinicians involved (...) in an ethics consultation to adopt the subjective viewpoints of their team, their patient, or both simultaneously. Clinicians demonstrated an ability to take the patient perspective (42%), the clinician perspective (31%), or the clinician-patient perspective (25%). Our analysis suggests the potential for narrative medicine to build the empathy and moral imagination necessary to bridge the gap in perspectives between key stakeholders. (shrink)