The dominant position of e-commerce is especially being articulated in the retailing industry once again due to several constraints that the world faces in the COVID-19 pandemic era. In this regard, this study explores the significant role of trust transfer and the moderating effect of consumers’ neurotic traits in the framework of trust-satisfaction-repurchase intention in the e-commerce context based on a survey with 406 Korean e-commerce consumers. Moreover, a prediction-oriented segmentation technique combined with structural equation models was utilized to reveal (...) consumers’ probable hidden heterogeneous characteristics. The outcomes of the global model SEM analysis indicate that offline-online trust transference occurs in e-commerce, and the conveyed trust significantly influences satisfaction and consumers’ repeat purchase intention through satisfaction. Neuroticism also has significant positive effects on trust transfer in the global model. However, results in three subgroups generated by POS show heterogeneous characteristics that considerably differed from the global model test results. The implications from this study will be beneficial to field practitioners in the e-commerce industry in addressing the importance of trust transfer, negative neurotic traits as well as heterogeneous aspects of consumers. (shrink)

The slandering of a firm’s products by competing firms poses significant threats to the victim firm, with the resulting damage often being as harmful as that from product-harm crises. In contrast to a true product-harm crisis, however, this disparagement is based on a false claim or fake news; thus, we call it a pseudo-product-harm crisis. Using a pseudo-product-harm crisis event that involved two competing firms, this research examines how consumer sentiments about the two firms evolved in response to the crisis. (...) Our analyses show that while both firms suffered, the damage to the offending firm was more detrimental, in terms of advertising effectiveness and negative news publicity, than that to the victim firm. Our study indicates that, even apart from ethical concerns, the false claim about the victim firm was not an effective business strategy to increase the offending firm’s performance. (shrink)

This study explores the educational meaning of Songdok in traditional Korean education. Songdok refers to the act of memorizing text completely while reading it aloud; however, in traditional Korean education, it used to symbolize ‘learning’ itself. Historically, Songdok was regarded in extreme terms: being criticized as low-level memorization or encouraged as a religious ritual. In the Goryeo Dynasty, when civil service exams were introduced, Songdok was performed to memorize Confucian textbooks solely for passing the exam. However, its status changed in (...) the mid-1600s because of an educational reform movement by Neo-Confucian fundamentalists. Given the widespread perception in South Korea that ‘imitating a saint is a way of learning’, Songdok has been elevated as part of moral consciousness. Here, we discuss how Songdok takes on two opposing educational objectives: One is passing the exam, and the other is imitating a saint. An examination of Songdok provides insightful perspectives on Korean education, especially regarding sluggish moral education. (shrink)

This paper discusses the emergence of science education in the seventeenth century with the influences of Joseph Priestley on the Dissenting Academies. Primarily, this paper analyses Priestley’s ideas from some of his letters to scientists during his time and his ideas from his books Miscellaneous Observations Relating to Education and the Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life. As an expository essay, analysis shows that the inclusion of experimental science education dates back from the Dissenting (...) Academies when they explicitly aligned science education for practical life. With Priestley’s advocacy on experimental learning in science, his idea of hands-on science education encouraged other dissenters to seek and understand the changing natural world. His advocacy states that knowledge and understanding of the natural world builds the foundation for rationally evaluating the developments derived from permissible scientific theories. Not setting aside religious studies, Priestley promoted a radical education which ended the restrictions to the privileged and powerful few so that it opened up the access of learning for everyone whose capacity may range from scientific, religious, political, or educational propensities. (shrink)

1. Hyŏngmyŏng, ideollogi p'yŏn -- 2. Sigan, ŏnŏ p'yŏn.

Frontoparietal connectivity has been suggested to be important in conscious processing and its interruption is thought to be one mechanism of general anesthesia. Data in animals demonstrate that feedforward processing of information may persist during the anesthetized state, while feedback processing is inhibited. We investigated the directionality and functional organization of frontoparietal connectivity in 10 human subjects anesthetized with propofol on two separate occasions. Multichannel electroencephalography and a computational method of assessing directed functional connectivity were employed. We demonstrate that directed (...) feedback connectivity is diminished with loss of consciousness and returns with responsiveness to verbal command. We also applied the Dendrogram classification method to assess the global organization of directed functional connectivity during consciousness and anesthesia. We demonstrate a state-specific hierarchy and subject-specific subhierarchy in functional organization. These data support the hypothesis that specific states of human consciousness are defined by specific states of frontoparietal connectivity. (shrink)

While verbs and argument structure constructions are essential for deriving sentence meaning, their roles in sentence processing remains less known. To address this issue, the present study explored how a verb’s lexical properties and the strength of verb–construction associations influence second language (L2) sentence processing. In two self-paced reading experiments, Korean-speaking learners of English and native English speakers read English argument structure constructions containing verbs with varying lexical properties and association strength. In both Experiment 1 (involving the prepositional dative construction) (...) and Experiment 2 (involving the caused-motion construction), only the L2-English learners, and not the native speakers, spent more time integrating the target constructions with verbs of weaker associations than those with stronger associations. Furthermore, the learners exhibited greater difficulty with verb–construction integration when the verbs were less frequent and less concrete; L2 proficiency did not modulate these effects. Our findings support the constructionist approach, suggesting that both verbs and verb–construction associations play an instrumental role in sentence comprehension. (shrink)

Drawing upon the theory of virtue ethics, this study builds a decision tree predictive model to explore the anticipated impact of good traits on socially responsible consumption. Using R statistical software, we generate a classification tree and cross-validate the model on two independent datasets. The results indicate that the virtuous traits of self-efficacy, courage, and self-control, as well as the personality traits of openness and conscientiousness, predict socially responsible purchase and disposal behavior. Remarkably, the largest segment of socially responsible consumers (...) in the study scored high in self-efficacy and openness. This result suggests that marketers should focus on these good traits when creating advertisements to encourage sustainable consumption. Our study contributes to enhancing knowledge about the social and psychological aspects of the sustainability movement and provides a new analytical approach to predicting socially responsible consumption. (shrink)

Pathological gaming among adolescents has been reported to hamper the achievement of a balanced life and to threaten the development of social competencies. Despite the increasing social concerns on the adolescent users, however, the mechanism of gaming behavior of adolescents has not been sufficiently examined. This study explored the mechanism of pathological gaming among adolescents from 3-year longitudinal data of 778 Korean adolescent gamers, by analyzing the effects of negative affects on the degree of pathological gaming through the mediation variables (...) based on the stimulus-organism-response framework. Latent class analysis was used to uncover potential risk groups, and through partial least squares-structural equation modeling analysis, the mediation pathways to pathological gaming were compared between the risk group and the non-risk group. The results highlighted the key role of academic stress on the degree of pathological gaming. In the entire group, academic stress primarily increased pathological gaming through self-control. The mediation path of self-control was the most influential result in the risk group. Aggression was the key mediator between loneliness and pathological gaming in the non-risk group. The theoretical and practical implications of the results were discussed. (shrink)

All of the world's religions refer to death in some way. Everyone is somewhat familiar with stories about where we go or what happens to us after death. From an early age, we have all heard stories of heaven or hell or some other version of paradise. Many of us believed such stories, and a great number of us still do. When considering that such stories manage to persist in modern times, an age of science and logic, we can be (...) sure that death is an issue to which humans attach great importance. In a sense, the idea of an afterlife can be a great source of comfort to those whose death is imminent, as well as to their loved ones. Those who have led especially difficult lives can look forward to a more pleasant world, while those who have enjoyed happiness and abundance have the chance to experience more good fortune. To those left behind, the idea of an afterlife presents the chance to meet a loved one again. We may not be conscious of it, but such hopes and expectations stay with us throughout our lives. If such an afterlife does exist, then there is no reason to avoid or fear death. Moreover, if we believe that another life awaits us, then we would believe that we are only separated from our loved ones temporarily before being reunited with them later on. (shrink)

The cognitive unbinding paradigm suggests that the synthesis of neural information is attenuated by general anesthesia. Here, we analyzed the functional organization of brain activities in the conscious and anesthetized states, based on functional segregation and integration. Electroencephalography recordings were obtained from 14 subjects undergoing induction of general anesthesia with propofol. We quantified changes in mean information integration capacity in each band of the EEG. After induction with propofol, mean information integration capacity was reduced most prominently in the γ band (...) of the EEG . Furthermore, we demonstrate that loss of consciousness is reflected by the breakdown of the spatiotemporal organization of γ waves. We conclude that induction of general anesthesia with propofol reduces the capacity for information integration in the brain. These data directly support the information integration theory of consciousness and the cognitive unbinding paradigm of general anesthesia. (shrink)

Given the instructional challenges posed by the influx of minority-language children in North America, this article attempts to examine early childhood bi- or multilingualism in one of the fastest growing ethnic minority groups in Canada, Korean-Canadians. By drawing on a Vygotskian perspective, the article focuses on the affective and social aspects of learning for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) children and their families. With an emphasis on the integration of language and thought, this article first identifies the instructional applications of (...) Vygotskian perspectives and then describes iterative phases of design-based research aimed at developing technology-mediated collaborative learning environments for trilingual Korean-Canadian children. The technology-mediated collaborative learning environment supported young CLD children's affective, social and cognitive needs and created meaning-centered collaborative learning environments. The paper concludes with a consideration of implications of this technology-mediated collaborative learning environment so as to assist teachers who might be confronted with the educational needs of the growing population of CLD children. (shrink)

A persistent belief in American culture is that males both outperform and have a higher inherent aptitude for mathematics than females. Using data from two school districts in two different states in the United States, this study used longitudinal multilevel modeling to examine whether overall performance on standardized as well as classroom tests reveals a gender difference in mathematics performance. The results suggest that both male and female students demonstrated the same growth trend in mathematics performance (as measured by standardized (...) test scores) over time, but females' mathematics grade-point average is significantly higher than males. These results are discussed in the context of present day standardized assessment in the United States that may motivate teachers to focus on higher expectations for mathematics performance regardless of gender, thus challenging cultural beliefs that stigmatize mathematics as masculine in the United States. (shrink)