COVID-19 confronted many people with an abrupt shift from their usual working environment to telework. This study explores which job characteristics are perceived as most crucial in this exceptional situation and how they differ from people’s previous working conditions. Additionally, we focus on job crafting as a response to this situation and how it is related to employees’ well-being. We conducted an online survey with N = 599 participants, of which 321 reported that they were telework newcomers. First, we asked (...) participants to indicate the three most important advantages and disadvantages they see in telework. The subsequent questionnaire contained a comprehensive measure of working conditions before and during the pandemic, job crafting behaviors, and indicators of well-being. Based on the qualitative answers, we identified three major advantages and disadvantages. Quantitative results indicate perceived changes in all job characteristics for telework newcomers. Concerning working conditions and well-being, job crafting activities that aim to increase structural and social resources are important mediators. The findings underline the need to design appropriate telework conditions and encourage job crafting activities to foster occupational well-being. (shrink)

In the context of climate change and its accompanying impact on stress and mental health, we argue that positive psychology (PP) may benefit from an integration of spirituality to better support people’s wellbeing. Starting with an overview of climate change’s impact on wellbeing and health, we explore the paradoxical and complex relationship between humans and nature. Following which, we will briefly define spirituality and present an evocative metaphor of the wave to portray the evolution of the field of PP. In (...) our conclusive remarks, we argue that the field of PP has gradually become more open to integrate spirituality (since the first wave), as it evolves towards greater complexity (in its third wave). In addition to meaning, some spiritual perspectives potentially relevant to positive psychology facilitate an ecocentric view (i.e., eco-spiritualities) which allow for a better understanding of the paradoxical human-nature relationship, as we struggle to deal with the complex issues related to climate change. (shrink)

Animals and plants are metaorganisms and associate with microbes that affect their physiology, stress tolerance, and fitness. Here the hypothesis that alteration of the microbiome may constitute a fast‐response mechanism to environmental change is examined. This is supported by recent reciprocal transplant experiments with reef corals, which have shown that their microbiome adapts to thermally variable habitats and changes over time when transplanted into different environments. Further, inoculation of corals with beneficial bacteria increases their stress tolerance. But corals differ in (...) their ability to flexibly associate with different bacteria. How scales of microbiome flexibility may reflect different metaorganism adaptation mechanisms is discussed and future directions for research are pinpointed. It is posited that microbiome flexibility is a broad phenomenon that contributes to the ability of organisms to respond to environmental change. Importantly, adapting with microbial help may provide an alternate route to organismal adaptation that facilitates rapid responses. (shrink)

Graphical AbstractIn article number 2000004 by Christian R. Voolstra and Maren Ziegler, microbiome flexibility, i.e., the potential for dynamic restructuring of the host microbiome, as a fast-response mechanism to environmental change is examined. How scales of microbiome flexibility may reflect different metaorganism adaptation mechanisms and future research directions are discussed. Adapting with microbial help may provide an alternate route to organismal adaptation that facilitates rapid responses. Art designer: Ivan Gromicho, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

Band 9 der Schriftenreihe Beitrage zur Angewandten Ethik versammelt Arbeiten zu aktuellen Problemen sowie zu Grundlagenfragen der Medizinischen Ethik. Es handelt sich dabei zum Teil um Beitrage zu wissenschaftlichen Symposien, die das Interuniversitare Institut fur Angewandte Ethik in den Jahren 2008-2011 veranstaltet hat, und zum anderen Teil um Forschungsarbeiten, die im Rahmen von Projekten dieses Instituts entstanden sind. Zu den aktuellen Problemen der Medizinischen Ethik, die in den einzelnen Beitragen angeschnitten werden, gehoren Fragen der Stammzellenforschung und der Praimplantationsdiagnostik ebenso wie (...) Fragen, die sich im Zusammenhang mit den bei der In-Vitro-Fertilisation entstehenden 'uberzahligen' Embryonen ergeben, sowie Fragen bezuglich der neuen Patientenverfugungen - also durchwegs Fragen von hochster Aktualitat und Brisanz. (shrink)

Peut-on entrevoir des liens fructueux entre la psychologie positive et la spiritualité en contexte psychothérapeutique? La thématique de cet ouvrage intéressera des chercheuses et des chercheurs, des cliniciens et des cliniciennes, des étudiantes et des étudiants des domaines de la psychothérapie et de la relation d’aide, ainsi que toute personne soucieuse de mieux comprendre la complexité de l’être humain. Tout au long de ce collectif, la lectrice ou le lecteur trouvera une pensée tissée serrée, sous forme parfois d’essais théoriques, de (...) réflexions issues d’observations cliniques, de recherches empiriques (réalisées ou en cours), de réflexions basées sur l’expérience professionnelle ou de recension critique de la documentation scientifique. Dix auteurs et auteures oeuvrant en tant que psychologues cliniciens ou cliniciennes, psychothérapeutes, intervenants ou intervenantes dans le domaine de la relation d’aide, et dont plusieurs sont également professeurs et chercheurs, ou professeures et chercheuses dans des universités ontariennes ou québécoises, présentent leurs réflexions originales, en solo ou en collaboration. Ce sont Christian R. Bellehumeur, André Belzile, Cynthia Bilodeau, Alexandre Brien, Laure-Marie Carignan, Stéphanie Larrue, Buuma M. Maisha, Judith Malette, Lucie Mandeville et Lise Séguin. (shrink)

Purpose: We investigated the role of gender in abusive leadership practices, along with the effects of abusive leadership on employee health. We tested two hypotheses regarding the relationship between abusive leadership practices and subordinates’ health outcomes. Design: At two points of measurement, 663 participants in Germany rated their 158 direct team leaders on abusive supervision and stated their own levels of emotional exhaustion and somatic stress. To test our hypotheses, we used a mixed model approach. Findings: The results show no (...) gender differences between the ratings for female and male leaders regarding abusive supervision, but do confirm that the leaders’ gender did play a role in employees’ perceptions of abuse; perceived abusive supervision is more strongly related to increased emotional exhaustion and somatic stress when the leader is male. Limitations: The generalizability of the study is limited due to a majority of females in the sample. Practical implications: Organisations should review their policies and procedures to first identify abusive supervision, then to offer adequate support programs for both leaders and subordinates. Originality/value: The study integrates gender into research on leadership and health, shifting the focus from previous studies that investigated constructive to destructive leadership. A further strength of the study is the application of a multilevel design and two separate points of measurement. (shrink)

Third-party certification, the most common organic certification system, has faced growing criticism in recent years. This has led to the development of alternative certification systems, most of which can be classed as Participatory Guarantee Systems. PGS have been promoted as a more suitable, cheaper and less bureaucratic alternative to TPC for local markets and are associated with additional benefits such as empowering smallholder farmers, facilitating farmer-to-farmer learning and enhancing food security and sovereignty. PGS have spread rapidly in the past few (...) years, but studies suggest that they are facing numerous challenges that, if not addressed, may jeopardise these benefits. Using the example of three Mexican PGS initiatives, this paper explores the main challenges faced by PGS, specifically those predominantly found in producer-run PGS initiatives. Based on producer and consumer surveys, semi-structured and informal interviews, and participant and non-participant observation, the key challenges that emerged were continuous implementation of the certification process, time constraints, personal conflicts and conflict avoidance. The paper further argues that the requirements for PGS recognition under the Mexican Law for Organic Products may also threaten the continued existence of PGS and suggests that mechanisms for managing conflicts, incentivising PGS participation and mitigating opportunity costs are key if PGS are to continue to develop. (shrink)

Pulvermüller's work in extending Hebb's theory into the realm of language is exciting. However, we feel that what he characterizes as a single cell assembly is actually a set of cooperating cell assemblies that form parts of larger cognitive structures. These larger structures account more easily for a variety of phenomena, including the psycholinguistic.

Featuring original interviews with three of the most important theorists of the 21st century, this volume clarifies the relationship between contemporary French philosophy and poetry. The interviews demonstrate how Rancière, Milner, and Badiou are all in conversation with one another on various points.

There has been much progress in the scientific study of wisdom on both conceptual and empirical fronts in the past few decades. Despite all the progress being made, there are still gaps that can be filled to provide even more explanatory power and coherence. Although academic discourse on wisdom has included the ability to integrate issues in a complex manner, there is still room for improved theorizing on wisdom’s integrative complexity. Since integrative complexity has both conscious and unconscious dimensions, including (...) the latter in discussions on wisdom will add a valuable aspect to its conceptualization. This article will argue how unconscious integrative complexity is the variable in wisdom’s conceptual equation that involves paradox, which is a well-known sign of wisdom. Explanations contrasting conscious integrative complexity and unconscious integrative complexity in reference to wisdom will be discussed. Then, the Archetypal Test of the Nine Elements will be proposed as a testing instrument to operationalize unconscious integrative complexity. After the conceptualization and operationalization are worked through, we will conclude with a couple examples to illustrate our reflections. (shrink)

Urban agriculture in Cuba has played an important role for citizens’ food supply since the collapse of the Eastern Block. Through the land reform of 2008 and the Lineamientos of 2011, the Cuban government has aimed to support agriculture in order to increase national food production and reduce imports. However, the implementation of the designed measures faced obstacles. Therefore, the research objective was to display how the government’s measures aiming to support domestic food production influenced urban agriculture. The qualitative research (...) comprised semi-structured interviews with 15 urban farmers in Havana and revealed the respondents’ experiences with the land reform and the Lineamientos and the potential of the reforms to implement food sovereignty. Findings show that the land reform has facilitated access to land for newcomer and existing farmers. However, availability of agricultural inputs has been limited and they were often expensive. Thus, urban farmers frequently produced farm inputs at their plots and applied sustainable farming practices to minimize their dependence on external inputs. The reforms have generated private marketing opportunities and have stimulated urban farmers to increase production. At the same time, subsidies have been reduced and consumers have faced increasing food prices. In conclusion, the land reform and the Lineamientos have created framework conditions for food sovereignty. However, the challenge is to increase the coherence of the theoretic aim and the practical implementation of the reforms. (shrink)

Alternative food networks (AFN) are argued to provide platforms to re-socialize and re-spacealize food, establish and contribute to democratic participation in local food chains, and foster producer–consumer relations and trust. As one of the most recent examples of AFN, Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) have gained notable traction in attempting to redefine consumer-producer relations in the organic value chain. The participation of stakeholders, such as consumers, has been a key element theoretically differentiating PGS from other organic verification systems. While research on (...) farmer participation in PGS is attracting interest, consumer participation is still widely overlooked. Using a mixed methods approach, this paper describes five PGS markets in Mexico, Chile and Bolivia. A survey was conducted with consumers in the PGS markets to explore their awareness of the PGS, how consumers participate in the PGS, and their level of trust in the respective PGS and its certified products. Results showed a low level of awareness of PGS among market consumers, few participation possibilities, and minimal consumer participation overall. Nevertheless, trust in organic quality was generally high. Consumers primarily relied on the direct relationship with producers and the PGS market itself as sources of trust. These results provide novel insight into PGS consumer-market interactions, and contribute to discussions concerning social embeddedness, awareness and participation within AFN. (shrink)

I. Die Doppelfunktion des Kategorischen Imperativs Der Kategorische Imperativ hat in Kants Ethik eine Doppelfunktion: Er ist einerseits das oberste Prinzip der Vernunftmoral und zugleich ein Test bzw. eine „Probe“ für Maximen des Handelns . Bestehen Maximen den Test, dann ist es zulässig oder sogar geboten, nach ihnen zu handeln; bestehen sie den Test nicht, so sind ihnen entsprechende Handlungen unmoralisch und verboten.

Resumen: El presente estudio tiene como finalidad el análisis e interpretación del componente erótico en la novela Daimón. Bajo este presupuesto teórico, se promueve un enfoque contradiscursivo en el que América es transfigurada en espacio erótico, donde el tiempo pagano se superpone a la temporalidad oficial, desatando una crítica continua que desafía lo que se considera como la verdad oficial de los hechos.: The article is an analysis and interpretation of the erotic element in the novel Daimón. Based on this (...) theoretical premise, it proposes a counter-discursive approach in which America is transfigured in an erotic space in which pagan time overlaps accepted temporality, unleashing a continuous critique that challenges the official truth of historical events. (shrink)

Previous research on scientific reasoning has shown that it involves a diverse set of skills. Yet, little is known about generality or domain specificity of those skills, an important issue in theories of expertise and in attempts to automate scientific reasoning skills. We present a study designed to test what kinds of skills psychologists actually use in designing and interpreting experiments and contrast expertise within a particular research area with general expertise at designing and interpreting experiments. The results suggest that (...) psychologists use many domain‐general skills in their experimentation and that bright and motivated Carnegie Mellon undergraduates are missing many of these skills. We believe that these results have important implications for psychological and artificial intelligence models of expertise, as well as educational implications in the domain of science instruction. (shrink)

We present an account of processing capacity in the ACT-R theory. At the symbolic level, the number of chunks in the current goal provides a measure of relational complexity. At the subsymbolic level, limits on spreading activation, measured by the attentional parameter W, provide a theory of processing capacity, which has been applied to performance, learning, and individual differences data.

This book contains new work on character from the perspectives of philosophy, theology, and psychology. From a virtual reality simulation of the Milgram shock experiments, to understanding the virtue of modesty in Muslim societies, to defending soldiers’ moral responsibility for committing war crimes, these chapters break new ground and significantly advance our understanding of character. The main topics covered fall under the heading of our beliefs about character, the existence and nature of character traits, character and ethical theory, virtue epistemology, (...) the nature of particular virtues, character development, and challenges to character and virtue from neuroscience and situationism. The book significantly shapes discussions of character in scholarship. (shrink)

American society has a history of turning to physicians during times of extreme need, from plagues in the past to recent outbreaks of communicable diseases. This public instinct comes from a deep seated trust in physician duty that has been earned over the centuries through dedicated and selfless care, often in the face of personal risks. As dangers facing our communities include terroristic events physicians must be adequately prepared to respond, both medically and ethically. While the ethical principles that govern (...) physician behavior—beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and social justice—are unchanging, fundamental doctrines must change with the new risks inherent to terroristic events. Responding to mass casualty disasters caused by terrorists, natural calamities, and combat continue to be challenging frontiers in medicine. Preparing physicians to deal with the consequences of a terroristic disease must include understanding the ethical challenges that can occur. (shrink)

The perception of meaningful patterns in random arrangements and unrelated events takes place in our everyday lives, coined apophenia, synchronicity, or the experience of meaningful coincidences. However, we do not know yet what predicts this phenomenon. To investigate this, we re-analyzed a combined data set of two daily diary studies with a total of N = 169 participants (mean age 29.95 years; 54 men). We investigated if positive or negative affect (PA, NA) predicts the number of meaningful coincidences on the (...) following day (or vice versa). By means of a cross-lagged multilevel modelling approach (Bayesian estimation) we evaluated with which of two theoretical assumptions the data are more in line. First, if meaningful coincidences are facilitated by a broader and more flexible thinking style, PA should positively predict meaningful coincidences at the following day. However, if the experience of meaningful coincidences signifies a strategy to cope with negative feeling states, NA should predict the experience of meaningful coincidences during the following day. In favour of a more flexible thinking style, we found that PA predicted the number of perceived coincidences the following day. We did not find any effect for NA, and therefore, no evidence arguing for the coping mechanism hypothesis of meaningful coincidences. (shrink)

This audio recording contains a lecture led by Dr. William Christian, Dr. Shirley C. Guthrie, and Dr. Stanley R. Hopper on November 20, 1965 as a part of the America and the Future of Theology Lecture Series. Dr. William Christian discusses the possibility of interaction between metaphysics and theology, the concept of God in Alfred North Whitehead’s metaphysics, the relation of Whitehead’s metaphysics to Platonism, and the relation of Whitehead’s metaphysics to Christian theology. Dr. Guthrie responds to (...) Dr. Christian by accepting the interaction of metaphysics and theology as a possible subject and how metaphysics is necessary to theology, but only as an instrument not a dictator. Dr. Stanley responds to Dr. Christian by posing two questions: Can the relationship between theology and philosophy or theology and metaphysics be adequately represented when the concept of God has a strong family resemblance according to Whitehead, and What is the relationship between metaphysics and theology? Lastly, Dr. Christian responds to both Dr. Guthrie and Dr. Stanley. (shrink)

Insulin resistance is thought to be the primary defect in the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes. Thus, understanding the cellular mechanisms of insulin action may contribute significantly to developing new treatments for this disease. Although the effects of insulin on glucose and lipid metabolism are well documented, gaps remain in our understanding of the precise molecular mechanisms of signal transduction for the hormone. One potential clue to understanding the unique cellular effects of insulin may lie in the compartmentalization of signaling (...) molecules and metabolic enzymes. We review this evidence, and speculate on how PI-3 kinase-independent and -dependent signaling pathways both diverge from the insulin receptor and converge at discrete targets to insure the specificity of insulin action. BioEssays 23:215–222, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Many of the problems studied in cognitive science are inductive problems, requiring people to evaluate hypotheses in the light of data. The key to solving these problems successfully is having the right inductive biases—assumptions about the world that make it possible to choose between hypotheses that are equally consistent with the observed data. This article explores a novel experimental method for identifying the biases that guide human inductive inferences. The idea behind this method is simple: This article uses the responses (...) produced by a participant on one trial to generate the stimuli that either they or another participant will see on the next. A formal analysis of this “iterated learning” procedure, based on the assumption that the learners are Bayesian agents, predicts that it should reveal the inductive biases of these learners, as expressed in a prior probability distribution over hypotheses. This article presents a series of experiments using stimuli based on a well-studied set of category structures, demonstrating that iterated learning can be used to reveal the inductive biases of human learners. (shrink)

The New Caledonian crow may be the only non-primate species exhibiting cumulative technological culture. Its foraging tools show clear signs of diversification and progressive refinement, and it seems likely that at least some tool-related information is passed across generations via social learning. Here, we explain how these remarkable birds can help us uncover the basic biological processes driving technological progress.

This volume examines whether the “public sphere” remains a central explanatory model in the social sciences, political theory, and the humanities.

El presente estudio tiene como finalidad el análisis e interpretación del componente erótico en la novela Daimón. Bajo este presupuesto teórico, se promueve un enfoque contradiscursivo en el que América es transfigurada en espacio erótico, donde el tiempo pagano se superpone a la temporalidad oficial, desatando una crítica continua que desafía lo que se considera como la verdad oficial de los hechos.

Psychometrically sound instruments that assess temporal dynamics of creative abilities are limited. The Ambulatory Battery of Creativity is designed to assess creative ideation performance multiple times in everyday life and was proven to capture the intra-individual dynamic of creative abilities reliably and validly. The present ambulatory study aimed to replicate and extend the psychometric evidence of the novel ABC. Sixty-nine participants worked on the ABC during a 5-day ambulatory assessment protocol. Each day, participants completed six randomly presented items of the (...) verbal and the figural ABC. Matching previous psychometric analyses, the results indicated good between-person and good within-person reliability. Furthermore, evidence for between-person and within-person validity of the ABC was obtained. Performance in the verbal and the figural ABC were interrelated and correlated with an independent measure of creative potential. The verbal ABC was further associated with openness, self-reported creative behavior, creative activities, and creative achievements, thus providing additional evidence of construct validity, especially for the verbal ABC. Finally, the verbal and the figural ABC yielded convincing within-person validity: Longer response times and higher subjective originality ratings were associated with more original ideas. This replication and extension of the ABC’s psychometric properties indicates that it enables a reliable and valid assessment of moment-to-moment fluctuations of creative ideation abilities in everyday life, which may facilitate the investigation of exciting new research questions related to dynamic aspects of creative ability. (shrink)

Newell proposed that cognitive theories be developed in an effort to satisfy multiple criteria and to avoid theoretical myopia. He provided two overlapping lists of 13 criteria that the human cognitive architecture would have to satisfy in order to be functional. We have distilled these into 12 criteria: flexible behavior, real-time performance, adaptive behavior, vast knowledge base, dynamic behavior, knowledge integration, natural language, learning, development, evolution, and brain realization. There would be greater theoretical progress if we evaluated theories by a (...) broad set of criteria such as these and attended to the weaknesses such evaluations revealed. To illustrate how theories can be evaluated we apply these criteria to both classical connectionism and the ACT-R theory. The strengths of classical connectionism on this test derive from its intense effort in addressing empirical phenomena in such domains as language and cognitive development. Its weaknesses derive from its failure to acknowledge a symbolic level to thought. In contrast, ACT-R includes both symbolic and subsymbolic components. The strengths of the ACT-R theory derive from its tight integration of the symbolic component with the subsymbolic component. Its weaknesses largely derive from its failure, as yet, to adequately engage in intensive analyses of issues related to certain criteria on Newell's list. Key Words: cognitive architecture; connectionism; hybrid systems; language; learning; symbolic systems. (shrink)