Although structural priming has been considered to be an independent cognitive process, recent evidence suggests that structural priming is modulated by sociocognitive factors such as social perception; speakers are more likely to mimic the sentence structure of a socially desirable interlocutor than the structure of a less desirable interlocutor. This study aims to further address the role of sociocognitive factors in language use by investigating how individual differences in social perception and tendency to align with others modulate (...) same-verb structural priming. In particular, we investigate how likely students are to repeat a sentence structure of a teacher depending on their perception of the teacher and their social monitoring tendency. Our results demonstrate that students’ tendency to imitate a sentence structure of the teacher is positively influenced by their perception of the teacher but negatively by social monitoring. We suggest that the effects may be accounted for in terms of their influence on attention and memory encoding. (shrink)

There are individual and cultural differences in how memories of our emotions are cognitively represented. This article examines the cognitive representation of emotions in different cultures, as a result of emotional (in)consistency in different cultures. Using a continuous semantic priming task, we showed in two studies that individuals who were less emotionally consistent across relationships have stronger associations of their emotions within those relationships. Further, we found (in Study 2) that in a culture characterised by higher levels of emotional (...) inconsistency across relationships (Singapore), stronger associations between emotions within relationships were found than in a culture characterised by emotional consistency (USA). This cultural difference in cognitive representation was fully mediated by individual differences in cross-situational consistency levels. (shrink)

This paper examines the contextual constraints and requirements of discursive action in question-answer-sequences based discourse genres (interviews, Prime Minister’s Questions, People’s Prime Minister’s Questions) in mediated political discourse. It considers the multilayeredness of participation and pluralism of discursive action on the one hand, and the delimiting frame of the dialogic discourse genres on the other. It shows that both have a decisive impact on the participants’ meaning-making processes in context: the inherently unbounded participation framework contributes to pluralism of discursive (...) action, while genre- and media constraints narrow down the scope of production and interpretation. This does not only hold for the stage at which a discursive action occurs in the discourse, but also for its degree of explicitness with regard to presuppositions and felicity conditions. (shrink)

Because technologies are frequently used for sexual gratification it seems plausible that artificial communication partners, such as voice assistants, could be used to fulfill sexual needs. While the idea of sexualized interaction with voice assistants has been portrayed in movies, there is a lack of empirical research on the effect of the ontological class on the voice’s potential to evoke interest in a sexualized interaction and its perception in terms of sexual attractiveness. The Sexual Interaction Illusion Model, which emphasizes influences (...) on sensations evoked by artificial interaction partners, furthermore suggests that there may be contextual influences, especially sexual arousal, that may be crucial for the question of engaging in a sexualized interaction with an artificial entity. To empirically investigate whether the ontological class of the speaker and the level of sexual arousal affects the heterosexual males’ interest in hearing more flirtatious messages and the perception of the communication partner’s sexual attractiveness, an online experiment with between subject design was conducted. Two hundred and fifty seven respondents were confronted with at least four, and voluntarily six messages from either a computer-mediated human or a flirtatious voice assistant, in interaction with being previously primed sexually or neutrally. The results demonstrated that the effect of sexual arousal was not prevailing on the interest in further messages and the attractiveness perception of the interaction partners, while the ontological class did so. Here, the voice assistant evoked more interest in further messages and the technology itself, while the computer mediated human was perceived to be more sexually attractive and flirtatious, and evoked more social presence. The communication partners social presence was shown to be the predictor with most explanatory power for the interaction partners perceived sexual attractiveness, regardless of whether it was human or artificial. The results underline differences between artificial and human interaction partners, but also underline that especially social presence and the feeling that the user is addressed is crucial in digitalized intimacy regardless of the ontological class. (shrink)

This paper provides evidence for the following novel insights: (1) People’s economic decisions depend on their psychological motives, which are shaped predictably by the social context. (2) In particular, the social context influences people’s other-regarding preferences, their beliefs and their perceptions. (3) The influence of the social context on psychological motives can be measured experimentally by priming two antagonistic motives—care and anger—in one player towards another by means of an observance or a violation of a fairness norm. Using a (...) mediation approach, we find that the care motive leads to higher levels of cooperation which are driven by more optimistic beliefs, a different perception of the game as well as by a shift towards more pro-social preferences. (shrink)

Given the growing importance of issue competition and the growing use of social media during elections, this study seeks to create a better understanding of how issue dynamics relating to political parties play out on social media. It tests whether issue ownership theory can explain how parties and issues are being discussed on Twitter and to what extent a mediated form of issue ownership aligns with citizens’ perceptions of issue ownership. The results indicate that perceptions of issue ownership as (...) measured in representative surveys correlate with variations of what issues parties are linked with on Twitter. Some deviations also emerged, which possibly reflect short-term changes in parties’ issue competition. Understanding how issue ownership mediates through social media platforms is important in order to evaluate the role of social media in contemporary opinion forming processes and sheds light on the issue competition among political parties in online fora. (shrink)

Public health nurses (PHN) have had a long history of working with new mothers in the community. Their practice includes collaboration, building therapeutic relationships, mutual goal setting, establishing trust, supporting clients’ strengths, empowerment and social justice. The wealth of information that new mothers receive both solicited and unsolicited may come from many different sources such as medicine, midwifery and those created personally by families. Although much of the information on mothering is presented with the intent of helping, it can also (...) be hegemonic and oppressive depending on different discourses, stereotypes and myths of mothering and therefore may cause confusion, guilt and uncertainty. Public health nurses often address conflicting social, cultural and personal discourses about mothering practices in order to support an empowering mothering experience. The term ‘social mediator’ was purposefully created in an attempt to describe the unique work of PHNs that this author has witnessed through her own research and practice as a PHN. This paper will present a discussion of the author's own work and research findings that will suggest how feminist poststructuralist theory may be used to guide and understand information exchange between PHNs and mothers as they mediate different social, cultural and personal discourses on mothering. (shrink)

Space provides the major context for environmental interactions, both social or physical. In Africa the use of space is mediated by sociocultural values, beliefs, and norms. Segments of space from the room to the village square and surrounding natural environment have domains of cultural rules, symbols, and meanings assigned to them with import for environmental behavior and action among elders, children, and women. They illuminate aspects of the social enforcement of three forms of environment-related rules: “prescriptive,” mediating, and community-assigned (...) environmental codes/taboos, some of which may require purification rites for violations. Several transgenerational eco-thoughts and eco-fantasies embedded in social practices have significant bearing on sustainable environmental conservation. Five major contexts are in deep interplay between community environmental ethics and environmental action: the adoption and evocation of spiritualized rules in regulating the use of space; the declaration of sacred grounds and territories to bound people; the evolution of time-and place-related rules; the use of physical designs to secure behavioral expectations; and the role of “regulatory social institutions” in the enforcement of environmental codes. They point to the fact that cultural and social meanings assigned to the ordinary physical environment are important in deconstructing peoples’ use of space. While traditional communal environmental norms can be given preeminence, their correlates in cosmopolitan societies are exemplified in the complex formal rules sometimes employed in regulating the use of space, creating a juridical order in the drive for efficiency and profit in capitalistic societies. (shrink)

How are Christians to understand God’s grace for individuals in the midst of severe trauma, particularly in light of a global epidemic of sexual violence against so many women and children? How does the call to witness to the good news of Christ’s love translate into specific obligations that respond to the needs of sexual abuse survivors? The purpose of this article is to explore these questions in the context of Karl Rahner’s theology of grace. When seeking to understand God’s (...) gracious presence in the midst of sexual violation, it is particularly helpful to explore Rahner’s insight that God’s grace is mediated through acts of neighbour-love both within and beyond Christian communities. Such insight into the social mediation of grace has exciting potential to transform perceptions of what is at stake in loving our neighbour and the forms that neighbour-love can take, mobilising Christians for greater social justice in the service of God. (shrink)

In a recent, currently unpublished, research project that sought to examine the meaning and enactment of ethical nursing practice across a variety of clinical settings, the significance of moral identity was highlighted. This article describes the findings and illuminates how the moral identities of the nurse participants arose and evolved as they navigated their way through the contextual and systemic forces that shaped the moral situations of their practice. The study revealed the socially-mediated process of identity development and (...) the narrative, dialogical, relational and contextual nature of nurses’ moral identities. (shrink)

Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow users to create an online identity with preferences, photos including ‘selfies’ and links to other users. These platforms allow users to present and edit their identities or profiles in accordance with their subjective desires and aspirations as well as in response to feedback from others. Defining individual identity online presents new challenges for many individuals. This article explores those challenges and engages the culture and the practices of online identity formation critically. Identity (...) formation online raises profound theological questions, which are explored in relation to Christian theology and its understanding of personhood as defined in relationship. This view originates in the earliest Christian theology as an attempt to understand the Christian God as three identities that are mutually defined by their relationship to each other. The article asks how the experience of identity formation online in social media can challenge and inform a Christian view of the human relationship with the divine. (shrink)

Priming of lineage‐specific genes in pluripotent embryonic stem cells facilitates rapid and coordinated activation of transcriptional programmes during differentiation. There is growing evidence that pluripotency factors play key roles in priming tissue‐specific genes and in the earliest stages of lineage commitment. As differentiation progresses, pluripotency factors are replaced at some primed genes by related lineage‐specific factors that bind to the same sequences and maintain epigenetic priming until the gene is activated. Polycomb and trithorax group proteins bind many (...) genes in pluripotent cells generating bivalent domains that contain both active and repressive histone modifications. The properties of polycomb proteins suggest that they act as gatekeepers, helping to maintain silencing in pluripotent stem cells while establishing a chromatin environment that is permissive for priming by sequence‐specific factors. The overall effect of factor‐mediated priming is to initiate the input of information required for cell differentiation before the first lineage choices have been made. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 6, June 2019, Page 76-78.

The article investigates the mechanisms shaping a new quality of social development in contemporary Russia amidst growing societal challenges. Four key mechanisms are explored: mediation, social dialogue, polysubjectivity, and convergence. These are analyzed for their role in fostering novel forms of social integration and development. The mechanisms serve as tools for studying and shaping the current interplay between tradition and innovation, cultural stasis and social dynamics across various sociocultural contexts and transitional processes. The paper draws upon works presented at the (...) All-Russian Scientific Conference “Individualization and Collectivism in Contemporary Russian Society,” offering an original interpretation that synthesizes and structures these studies. Notable contributions include V.A. Lektorsky’s concept of “the supra-individual as social universality,” which advances our understanding of socio-individual meaning formation and transcends the individual-society dichotomy. A.A. Auzan’s analysis of the dual-core structure of Russian culture aptly captures the unique challenges of social development in Russia. O.V. Aksenova’s examination of the contradictory nature of social action subjects in an increasingly technologized society illuminates the complexities of balancing freedom with necessity, and uniformity with diversity in social action. V.M. Rozin’s approach is considered for its potential to facilitate mediational social dialogue in Russian society. The author argues that neither the individualistic nor the collectivist cores of Russian culture can independently drive effective modernization. Instead, the concept of convergence is proposed as a means to transcend the extremes of ego-individualism and totalitarian collectivism. Three primary directions for implementing convergent strategies are identified: synthesizing individual and social aspects in social action and dialogue, optimizing center-periphery interactions in governance, and developing public-private partnership models as a form of economic convergence. The study emphasizes the need for new forms of social integration and concludes that Russia’s sustainable social development requires an integrative socio-individual model, combining elements of individual freedom and collective solidarity. (shrink)

The paper analyses restructuring processes occuring with the introduction of information technologies into firms in Austria and assesses how far the evidence lends support to the thesis of a fundamental change in rationalization patterns as postulated by continental industrial sociologists claiming the emergence of a novel type of ‘systemic rationalization’. Based on a research perspective putting emphasis on several levels of social mediation of technological change the broad conclusion is the following: there are clear indications of a novel ‘systemic’ approach (...) to rationalization but the associated forms of work organization show substantial variation. The analysis of the influence of national-level institutions, industry- and firm-specific conditions, and their role in micro-political processes of system and work design, points towards an underutilization of work humanization potentials and suggests an increase in skill supply as one of the possible intervention strategies. (shrink)

This book examines the social epistemological issues relating to technology for the sake of providing insights toward public self-awareness and informing matters of education, policy, and public deliberation.

Perceived social support is positively related to life satisfaction in infertile women. Whereas, the underlying mechanism of this relationship is unclear. The present study aimed to investigate whether self-compassion mediated the relationship of perceived social support with life satisfaction and whether infertility self-efficacy moderated the relationship between perceived social support and self-compassion in infertile women. A total of 290 infertile women in mainland China undergoing treatment completed an online survey assessing perceived social support, life satisfaction, self-compassion, and infertility self-efficacy. (...) The results supported the mediation model that perceived social support was associated with life satisfaction via self-compassion. Besides, infertility self-efficacy moderated the relationship between perceived social support and self-compassion. Specifically, perceived social support displayed a stronger predictive effect on self-compassion when infertile women had higher level of infertility self-efficacy. (shrink)

Our society is heavily mediated by information technologies, so the simplest interactions become traceable, which collaborates to a deluge of data. They represent an abundant source for social analysis and an unparalleled opportunity for citizens to access, produce and disseminate information. Nevertheless, all this affluence of data, for presenting itself in a scattered way, also poses significant difficulties for achieving an integrated view of social reality and its interactions, and is organized in many competing interfaces and information architectures, that (...) may produce, reinforce and disseminate ideologies, hegemonic discourse and platform biases. We identify an emerging field of dispute of the place of mediation of the many flows of information, and efforts for repurposing and restructuring these flows over the seamless structuring of different competing architectures. In order to describe some of these efforts, we draw examples from the field of controversy mapping, and propose the concept of reverse mediation. (shrink)

Kindergarten teachers’ professional commitment affects their emotional input and turnover intention, and it is affected by the spiritual and material factors of teachers’ families, kindergartens, and society. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the mediating effect of the dimensions of subjective well-being in the relationship between social support and professional commitment. The study is grounded in human ecology theory and social exchange theory. We surveyed 778 kindergarten teachers from different educational systems in Guangdong Province in China. We used the “Appreciative (...) Social Support” and “Subjective Well-being” Scales and the “Professional Commitment Questionnaire.” The results showed that the four variables of social support, positive affect, life satisfaction, and professional commitment of kindergarten teachers were significantly and positively correlated with each other: social support positively predicted positive affect and life satisfaction, positive affect and life satisfaction positively predicted professional commitment, and social support indirectly influenced professional commitment through the parallel and chain path of positive affect and life satisfaction. This represents a compound multiple mediating effects on professional commitment. (shrink)

Adolescent drug abuse is a social issue of global concern, causing a serious burden of diseases for individuals, families and society. To design effective prevention and intervention strategies for adolescent drug abusers, the predictive factors associated with drug abuse must be quantified and assessed. This study explores the similarities and differences between the parenting styles of adolescent drug abusers and non-drug abusers and applies a structural equation model to analyze the mechanisms involved between parenting styles, social support and adolescent drug (...) abuse identification. Data were derived from adolescent drug abusers and non-drug abusers between the ages of 18 and 35 in China, and the data were collected and analyzed by SPSS 26 and AMOS 24. The results show that parenting styles significantly predict adolescent drug abuse identification, and different parenting styles have different influencing mechanisms, which further indicates that poor parenting styles are a risk factor for adolescent drug abuse. Additionally, social support plays a mediating role between parenting styles and drug abuse identification. The specific pathways involved are as follows: Paternal parenting style → Social support → Drug abuse identification and Maternal parenting style → Social support → Drug abuse identification. However, beyond this, the mediation model of social support shows good adaptability and stability between adolescent drug abusers and non-drug abusers. Since parenting styles and social support are important predictors of adolescent drug abuse, the importance of integrating family-social support antidrug programs into adolescent prevention and intervention strategies should be considered. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Escalation to Academic Extremes?Revisiting Academic Rivalry in the Möhler/Baur DebateGrant Kaplan (bio)INTRODUCTION: THEOLOGY AS THE SITE OF CONFLICTOne way to understand the history of Christian theology is as a history of rivalries. In the Letter to the Galatians, Paul and Peter seem like rivals when Paul recounts "opposing Peter to his face" (Gal. 2:11). The key theological discoveries in the fourth and fifth century are mostly borne of rivalry: (...) Eunomius versus the Cappadocians, and Pelagius versus Augustine. The Middle Ages contain the Eucharistic controversies between Pascasius and Ratramnus, and later controversies about the nature of authority in the theology between Abelard and Lombard. By the sixteenth century, not only the history of theology but the history of the Western churches seems to be intertwined with rivalry, with the Protestant Reformation being the most obvious example. One could also tell the history of religious orders as a history of rivalries between, among others, Franciscans and Dominicans, and later Jesuits. The teachings on justification arose from rivalries, and most of modern Catholic ecclesiology arose from Bellarmine's disputatious interactions with leading Lutherans like Flacius [End Page 163] and Chemnitz. In the past century, much of the theological terrain seems to be shaped by disputes between figures who had once been aligned: Barth and Brunner, Balthasar and Rahner, Cone and Jones.In retrospect, the nineteenth century seemed primed for theological rivalry. Due to social, political, and institutional factors, the nineteenth century was profoundly destabilizing for theology, particularly in Germany, where political realignment threatened to unsettle whatever truce had emerged after the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War in 1648. A number of factors contributed to this climate; perhaps foremost among them was the rapid expansion of academic journals. Without being in the same room, scholars could argue and respond to one another in what must have felt like "real time." Journals, to put it crudely, were the online comment section of their day, and they provided a new medium for theological dispute. Although public debate still figured prominently in the sixteenth century, even as the printing press was making it less central to theological argument, in the nineteenth century, one could escalate debate through asynchronous modes of communication.Both political destabilization and technological innovation made possible a range of intraconfessional disputes: among both Protestants—between mediating and confessing, Kantian and Hegelian, authoritarian, and scientific theologies—and Catholics—between scholastic and modern, German and Roman, Gallican and ultramontanist theologies. These circumstances also occasioned a redoubling of confessional identity. Olaf Blaschke has described the nineteenth century as a "second confessional age."1 By this he means that the nineteenth century, on the scale of confessional identity, looked more like the sixteenth century than the eighteenth did; instead of manifesting an increase in secularizing and nationalizing forces that downplayed religious identities, the nineteenth, according to a variety of measures, witnessed an upsurge in confessional identity.2 This upsurge affected Württemberg, the primarily Protestant territory in the southwestern part of Germany, where Tübingen was located. The newly constituted Württemberg combined a number of tiny, mono-confessional states into a larger, multi-confessional state as part of the reconfigurations brought about by Napoleon. Practically, this meant a loss in political autonomy for Catholic areas within Württemberg.According to one account, the confessional conflicts that memorably marked the 1870s (the Kulturkampf) and also the 1830s and 1840s (the Cologne Troubles and the Kniebeugungsstreiten) were already on the increase in the 1810s in Württemberg, in part due to the massive anniversary celebrations (Wartburgfeier) of the Reformation in 1817.3 This was the same year that the government relocated the newly established Catholic theological faculty from Ellwangen [End Page 164] to Tübingen, a long-time Protestant stronghold with a reputable theological faculty.The Catholic theologians in Tübingen were eager to engage critically with the leading theological issues of the day, resisting the urge to hide behind confessional barriers or pious pretenses. This decision led to a variety of conflicts that could be called rivalrous, and that fall into three categories: The first was within the Catholic faculty itself, as exemplified in the debate over celibacy. Their journal... (shrink)

University of Pennsylvania, USA, el322{at}nyu.edu ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> One of the most consistent findings in experimental studies of social dilemmas is the positive influence of face-to-face communication on cooperation. The face-to-face `communication effect' has been recently explained in terms of a `focus theory of norms': successful communication focuses agents on pro-social norms, and induces preferences and expectations conducive to cooperation. 1 Many of the studies that point to a communication effect, however, do not (...) further explore whether and to what extent the communication medium affects cooperative behavior. In this article, we ask if pro-social behavior can emerge and survive in computer-mediated environments. We show that, like face-to-face communication, computer-mediated communication also positively affects cooperation in social dilemmas, but cooperation is more difficult to establish and maintain. We argue that the discrepancy between the computer-mediated and the face-to-face communication effects is a consequence of the distinct capabilities of different media to focus agents on pro-social norms and to allow them to develop mutual expectations about future behavior. Key Words: social dilemmas • laboratory experiments • communication • social norms • cooperation • computer-mediated communication. (shrink)

With the increasing use of mobile devices and new technologies, electronic payments, such as near field communication mobile payments, are gaining traction and gradually replacing the currency-based cash payment methods. Despite multiple initiatives by various parties to encourage mobile payments, adoption rates in developing countries have remained low. The purpose of this research is to explore the prime determinants of NFC mobile-payment adoption intention and to develop a model of mobile payment adoption that includes perceived risk as one of the (...) major elements by extending the UTAUT2 theory components. An online survey was used to acquire data from 370 NFC mobile payments users for the current study. To validate the components and their correlations, structural equation modelling was implemented. According to the findings, performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, social influence, and facilitating conditions have substantial impacts on the consumers’ intentions to adopt NFC mobile payments. Effort expectancy and PR were reported to have no considerable effects on the adoption intention. In addition, INFC is revealed to be a major mediator between the associations of the actual adoption of NFC mobile payment with PE, HM, and SI. The findings of the study would assist providers and marketers in better understanding of the consumers’ behavior, designing effective marketing strategies to enhance the consumers’ positive intentions, and achieving the mass adoption of NFC mobile payments in different environmental contexts. (shrink)

Teachers have an important social role, and their mental health literacy is very important to their own abilities as educators and to the growth and development of those they educate. This study explored the mechanism underlying the influence of social support on teachers’ mental health literacy by conducting a questionnaire survey of 573 teachers. The results showed that social support can influence teachers’ mental health literacy not only through the separate effects of life satisfaction and coping tendency but also through (...) the chain mediation effect of life satisfaction and coping tendency; however, the direct effect of social support on the teachers’ mental health literacy is not significant. This study is conducive to understanding the internal mechanism underlying the relationship between social support and mental health literacy. It reminded us that when formulating mental health literacy promotion programs for teachers, we should not only provide adequate social support to improve but also should pay attention to improvements in their coping tendencies and life satisfaction. (shrink)

In recent years, a significant revolution has begun in social entrepreneurship, with public funding organizations and private investors beginning to pursue social purpose. At the heart of the revolution is the ambition of these entities to use innovation and entrepreneurship to sustain and scale impacts in support of social and environmental objectives. This article provides a framework that conceptualizes social innovation and finance as a multi-level and evolving complex system. Two trajectories of transformation, niche-regime and within-regime, are used to frame (...) a broad range of examples of impact entrepreneurship and social financing. Social finance is viewed as the key to release the ‘lock-in’ of social innovation, as it is able to gather and coordinate capital, resources, knowledge and ability. Using meta-analysis, the article explores the characteristics, dynamics and ecosystem of social innovation, impact entrepreneurship in China. The study maps the landscape of social finance in China and estimates there are untapped social finance opportunities worth from US$93 to US$208 billion. (shrink)

Population mobility has been one of the most basic social characteristics of China’s reform and opening up for more than 40 years. As the main labor force in Chinese cities, young migrants have made major contributions toward China’s economic miracle as the country has experienced rapid industrialization and urbanization. However, frequent mobility has caused an imbalanced social mentality in young migrants and often leads to issues with social integration, which has made this group more vulnerable with respect to their health. (...) This study used the 2013 and 2015 Chinese General Social Survey data of 1,007 young migrants to investigate social mentality mediating the linkage between social integration and health among young migrants. Additionally, to probe the moderating role of gender, multi-group structural equation modeling was applied to test if the pathways in the mediation model differed between young male and female migrants in a significant way. The results suggested that after controlling for the influence of age, marital status, education, and personal annual income, social integration positively impacted the health of young migrants in a significant way; social mentality mediated the action of social integration on this group’s health; and with respect to gender difference, on the three paths of social integration affecting health, social integration affecting social mentality, and social mentality affecting health, young male migrants were more affected than young female migrants. The findings of this study could help improve gender-specific policies on the health of the floating population and offer important theoretical reference and practical suggestions for future research. (shrink)

La direction générale des finances publiques a mis en place un dispositif interne de médiation pour aider les équipes de travail à résoudre des situations de conflits relationnels. Conçu comme un outil managérial, dans le respect de la déontologie de la médiation, il permet d'apaiser les tensions par une action plurielle et collective au sein de l'institution.

The article examines the efficacy of social dialogue as a mechanism for addressing societal issues. While social dialogue was once viewed with great optimism, its effectiveness has waned in recent years, despite participants employing various persuasive strategies. The study distinguishes between two forms of dialogue: formal and substantive (productive), emphasizing that only the latter genuinely catalyzes shifts in participants’ perspectives. By analyzing historical examples and contemporary cases, the study identifies key factors that influence the success of social communication. Employing J.L. (...) Austin’s speech act theory, the article frames dialogue not merely as an exchange of information but as a form of social action, where the utterances of participants are performative, possessing the power to directly transform social reality. A historical case study is presented, examining the dialogue between Western-oriented Russian liberals who viewed their nation as socially and economically backward, and thinkers who challenged this assessment, perceiving Russia’s unique spiritual potential to address pan-European challenges. The statements of P.Ya. Chaadaev and F.M. Dostoevsky are analyzed as performative acts that shaped a new vision of Russia’s role in world history. Additionally, the author explores the role of identity in social dialogue, showing through examples from the lives of A.S. Pushkin and M.I. Tsvetaeva how identity structures can influence one’s openness or resistance to personal transformation in the face of internal conflict. The study hypothesizes that dialogue effectiveness correlates with participants’ ability to integrate new values into their identity without compromising its core. Furthermore, the author argues that rhetorical commitment to mediation alone is insufficient for bridging deep social divides and examines the historical social conditions required for effective mediation, such as a shared cultural foundations, formal dialogue platforms, robust legal frameworks, and flexible power structures. In conclusion, the author considers the question of whether it is inherently possible to create effective mechanisms for social dialogue under the current conditions of globalization and information society. (shrink)

Escalation of commitment causes people to continue a failing course of action. We study the role of construal level in such escalation of commitment. Consistent with the widely held view of construal level as a primed effect, we employed a commonly used prime for manipulating this construct in a laboratory experiment. Our findings revealed that the prime failed to produce statistically significant differences in construal level, which was measured using the Behavior Identification Form. Furthermore, there was no effect of the (...) prime on escalation of commitment, or on constructs that have previously been linked to construal level such as the perceived importance of feasibility considerations relative to desirability considerations, and the number of pros and cons that subjects can think of.Interestingly, however, subjects’ actual construal level scores on the BIF were found to significantly affect escalation. Specifically, our findings show that people with a low construal level are less willing to continue a failing project. This relation is mediated by the perceived importance of the feasibility of the project relative to its desirability. For people with a low construal level, the perceived importance of feasibility relative to desirability is higher, which in turn makes escalation of commitment less likely.Our findings are consistent with prior research suggesting that priming construal level may not always be effective. Thus, while construal level has typically been regarded as a state-like variable that can be primed, in this study, we show that construal level may also be considered as a trait. (shrink)

AimOur study aimed to investigate the effect of social responsibility on the subjective well-being of volunteers for COVID-19 and to examine the mediating role of job involvement in this relationship.BackgroundNowadays, more and more people join volunteer service activities. As we all know, volunteer work contributes to society without any return. Volunteers often have a strong sense of social responsibility and reap subjective well-being in their dedication. Although research shows that social responsibility will drive them to participate in volunteer work actively, (...) it is less clear whether job involvement will impact their subjective well-being.MethodsThe data were collected in the precaution zone in Shanghai, China, from April to May 2022. A sample of 302 volunteers for COVID-19 completed the social responsibility scale, subjective well-being scale and job involvement scale in the form of an electronic questionnaire on their mobile phones. A structural equation model was adopted to verify the research hypotheses.ResultsSocial responsibility was significantly and positively related to volunteers’ subjective well-being and job involvement. Job involvement fully mediates the relationship between volunteers’ social responsibility and subjective well-being.ConclusionSocial responsibility is critical to predicting volunteers’ subjective well-being. Job involvement plays an intervening mechanism in explaining how social responsibility promotes volunteers’ subjective well-being. (shrink)

ObjectivesSelf-neglect in older adults has become an important public health issue and is associated with negative health outcomes and increased morbidity and mortality. Social support has been recognized as a prominent predictor of self-neglect, but the underlying mechanism is unclear. This study aims to investigate and illustrate the associations among social support, psychological capital, and self-neglect.MethodsThis study used a cross-sectional convenience sampling design. A total of 511 older adults were recruited in Chinese communities. Spearman’s correlation coefficient and hierarchical multiple regression (...) analysis were performed to assess the influencing factors of self-neglect. A structural equation model was applied to test the hypothesized mediation model.ResultsSocial support and psychological capital were found to be negatively related to self-neglect. Social support and psychological capital explained 5.1 and 11.9% of the incremental variances of older adults’ self-neglect, respectively. Psychological capital acts as a mediator between social support and self-neglect.ConclusionSelf-neglect among older adults is a rising problem in China. Social support and higher psychological capital could decrease the risk of self-neglect in older adults. It is crucial to improve social networks and facilitate psychological interventions to reduce such self-neglect. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSellars’s relationship with Hegel is complex and itself ‘dialectical‘ in interesting ways. Sellars follows Hegel in recognizing that the normativity essential to intentionality and conceptu...

Extensive social media usage causes psychological dependence and impacts people’s self-evaluations. It is vital to seek possible buffers to social media addiction’s detrimental effect on self-esteem and body image. Poland has one of the highest scores on problematic social media usage. Past studies pointed to narcissism and self-compassion as possible mediators of such effects. The present study aimed to explore Polish individuals’ (N=527) social media usage habits. We hypothesised gender differences and social media addiction predictive effect on self-evaluations (self- esteem, (...) body image), with narcissism and self-compassion as mediators of such relationships. The results revealed that only visual media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok) had a negative effect on self-evaluations and that women reported more social media addiction and decreased self-esteem, self-compassion and body image. Social media addiction was negatively predicting body image for both genders and self-esteem for women but not for men, with self-compassion and narcissism mediating such relationships. (shrink)

This paper addresses social and ethical issues in computer‐mediated education, with a focus on higher education. It will be argued if computer‐mediated education is to be implemented in a socially and ethically sound way, four major social and ethical issues much be confronted. These are: the issue of value transfer in higher education: can social, cultural and academic values be successfully transmitted in computer‐mediated education? the issue of academic freedom: are computer‐mediated educational settings conducive for (...) academic freedom or do they threaten to undermine it? the issue of equality and diversity: does a reliance on computer networks in higher education foster equality and equity for students and does it promote diversity, or does it disadvantage certain social classes and force conformity? the issue of ethical student and staff behaviour: What kinds of unethical behaviour by students and staff are made possible in computer‐mediated education, and what can be done against it? Existing studies relating to these four issues are examined and some tentative policy conclusions are drawn. (shrink)

This study treats firm productivity as an accumulation of productive intangibles and posits that stakeholder engagement associated with better corporate social performance helps develop such intangibles. We hypothesize that because shareholders factor improved productive efficiency into stock price, productivity mediates the relationship between corporate social and financial performance. Furthermore, we argue that key stakeholders’ social considerations are more valuable for firms with higher levels of discretionary cash and income stream uncertainty. Therefore, we hypothesize that those two contingencies moderate the (...) class='Hi'>mediated process of corporate social performance with financial performance. Our analysis, based on a comprehensive longitudinal dataset of the U.S. manufacturing firms from 1992 to 2009, lends strong support for these hypotheses. In short, this paper uncovers a productivity-based, context-dependent mechanism underlying the relationship between corporate social performance and financial performance. (shrink)

Happiness is the eternal pursuit of mankind and is also the ultimate goal of social governance and national development. Based on data from the Chinese General Social Survey, this study used a structural equation model to analyze the influence of social class identity and public service satisfaction on the happiness of residents. The effect of public service satisfaction and social trust between social class identity and residents’ happiness was tested using the Monte Carlo method. The empirical results show that social (...) class identity, social trust, and public service satisfaction all had a significant positive impact on residents’ happiness. The influence coefficients of social class identity on the happiness of residents and on the satisfaction degree of public service for those born in the1970s group were greater than the 1980s and 1990s groups. The influence coefficients of social class identity on the happiness and public service satisfaction of non-agricultural household residents were greater than those of agricultural household residents. Therefore, to improve the happiness of residents, we should make new breakthroughs in the equality of quality and the quality of public services, promote the integration of urban and rural areas, highlight key areas of rural development, and increase the construction of basic public services for agricultural household residents. (shrink)

Adolescence involves a profound number of changes in all domains of development. Among others, adolescence yields an enhanced awareness and responsibility toward the community, representing a critical age to develop prosocial behaviors. In this study, the mediation role of Trait Emotional Intelligence was detected for the relationship between the dark triad and prosocial behavior based on altruism and equity. A total of 129 healthy late adolescents filled in the Dark Triad Dirty Dozen, measuring Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism; the Altruistic Action (...) Scale, evaluating behaviors directed at helping others; the Equity Scale, assessing behaviors directed at equity in different forms; and the TEI Questionnaire-Short Form. Results showed that TEI mediated the negative effects of the three dark triad traits on both altruism and equity. This finding suggests that TEI, which relies on a set of dispositions, might reduce the malevolent effects of the dark triad on altruism and equitable behavior in late adolescence. This led to assume that intervention programs focused on improving emotional skills, also in late adolescence, can promote prosociality. (shrink)

Empathy is an integral aspect of human existence. Without at least a basic ability to access others’ affective life, social interactions would be well-nigh impossible. Yet, recent studies seem to show that the means we have acquired to access others’ emotional life no longer function well in what has become our everyday business – technologically mediated interactions in digital spaces. If this is correct, there are two important questions: (1) What makes empathy for frequent internet users so difficult? and (...) (2) What can we do to alleviate the negative consequences? Correspondingly, the aim of this paper is twofold. First, we identify structural differences between offline and technologically mediated interactions that can explain why digital empathy is harder to achieve. Second, drawing on the literature on ‘situated affectivity,’ we consider the idea of modifying digital spaces in ways specifically designed to ‘scaffold’ empathy where our evolved mechanisms fail. Section 2 argues that empathy is requires _interpreting_ the behavior of _embodied subjects_. Section 3 identifies three factors that are crucial for this interpretative endeavor: the empathizer’s _affective repertoire_, their _perceptual input_, and their _background knowledge_. Section 4 argues that technologically mediated interactions differ from face-to-face interactions with regard to these factors in ways which render our evolved empathy mechanisms less effective in the digital world. Section 5 introduces the idea that situational factors can serve as ‘empathic scaffolds,’ i.e., as ‘tools’ that can ‘shape’ people’s empathic reactions. Section 6 wraps up the main line of reasoning, responds to objections and invites further scholarship. (shrink)

Semantic priming has been a focus of research in the cognitive sciences for more than 30 years and is commonly used as a tool for investigating other aspects of perception and cognition, such as word recognition, language comprehension, and knowledge representations. Semantic Priming: Perspectives from Memory and Word Recognition examines empirical and theoretical advancements in the understanding of semantic priming, providing a succinct, in-depth review of this important phenomenon, framed in terms of models of memory and models (...) of word recognition. The first section examines models of semantic priming, including spreading activation models, the verification model, compound-cue models, distributed network models, and multistage activation models (e.g. interactive-activation model). The second section examines issues and findings that have played an especially important role in testing models of priming and includes chapters on the following topics: methodological issues (e.g. counterbalancing of materials, choice of priming baselines); automatic vs. strategic priming; associative vs. "pure" semantic priming; mediated priming; long-term semantic priming; backward priming; unconscious priming; the prime-task effect; list context effects; effects of word frequency, stimulus quality, and stimulus repetition; and the cognitive neuroscience of semantic priming. The book closes with a summary and a discussion of promising new research directions. The volume will be of interest to a wide range of researchers and students in the cognitive sciences and neurosciences. (shrink)