Music performance anxiety is a commonly present topic among musicians. Most studies on MPA investigated effects of a more general occurrence of MPA on performances. Less is known about individual variations of MPA within a performance, more specifically at the times before, during, and after the performance. This study used a questionnaire to investigate these performance times in order to find out if there occur different types in the variation of the perceived MPA across the performance. The study was performed (...) with 532 musicians; 27% of them being professional orchestra musicians, 45% non-professional orchestra musicians, and 28% non-professional choir singers. The musicians were asked to fill in the Performance-specific Questionnaire for Musicians immediately after a performance. The questionnaire contains three scales regarding symptoms of MPA, functional coping with MPA and performance-related self-efficacy. A cluster analysis was performed on the PQM scales to identify systematic variations. Findings indicate that there are three different types of MPA in the sample studied. Type 1 describes musicians who have few symptoms of MPA throughout the performance, show functional coping with MPA, and have a stable and well-developed self-efficacy. Type 2 describes musicians who begin their performance with rather high symptoms of MPA but can positively reduce these by the end of the performance and show high values in self-efficacy and in functional coping. Type 3 contains musicians who begin their performance with some symptoms of MPA, which increase to the end of the performance. The values of self-efficacy and functional coping in this type are rather low. Of the total sample, half of the musicians were assigned to Type 1 and approximately a quarter each to Type 2 and Type 3. In accordance with the literature, the results confirm the importance of self-efficacy and functional coping for a positive performance experience. (shrink)

In this paper we examine the concept of waiting from a phenomenological point of view. In order to do so, we start with a definition from Andreas Göttlich and contextualize it within the theoretical framework provided by Alfred Schutz, Thomas Luckmann and Peter L. Berger. Additionally, we discuss waiting on the basis of our previous research, specifically within the context of a field extract from an earlier life-world analytical ethnography on the parents of pre-adolescent, non-professional soccer players. The field vignette (...) depicts a mother who has problematic possibilities of conflicting preferences due to the apperception of her soccer playing child, who was injured during the match. This negotiation within projects of action will be outlined as a specific facet of waiting. (shrink)

This book introduces Robert Corrington’s “ecstatic naturalism,” a new perspective in understanding “sacred” nature and naturalism, and explores what can be done with this philosophical thought. This is an excellent resource for scholars of Continental philosophy, philosophy of religion, and American pragmatism.

With the rise and public accessibility of AI-enabled decision-support systems, individuals outsource increasingly more of their decisions, even those that carry ethical dimensions. Considering this trend, scholars have highlighted that uncritical deference to these systems would be problematic and consequently called for investigations of the impact of pertinent technology on humans’ ethical decision-making. To this end, this article conducts a systematic review of existing scholarship and derives an integrated framework that demonstrates how intelligent decision-support systems (IDSSs) shape humans’ ethical decision-making. (...) In particular, we identify resulting consequences on an individual level (i.e., deliberation enhancement, motivation enhancement, autonomy enhancement and action enhancement) and on a societal level (i.e., moral deskilling, restricted moral progress and moral responsibility gaps). We carve out two distinct methods/operation types (i.e., processoriented and outcome-oriented navigation) that decision-support systems can deploy and postulate that these determine to what extent the previously stated consequences materialize. Overall, this study holds important theoretical and practical implications by establishing clarity in the conceptions, underlying mechanisms and (directions of) influences that can be expected when using particular IDSSs for ethical decisions. (shrink)

Paulin J. Hountondji is one of the most important and controversial figures in contemporary African philosophy. His critique of ethnophilosophy as a colonial, exoticising and racialized undertaking provoked contentious debates among African intellectuals on the proper methods and scope of philosophy and science in an African and global context since the 1970s. His radical pledge for scientific autonomy from the global system of knowledge production made him turn to endogenous forms of practising science in academia. The horizon of his philosophy (...) is the quest for critical universality from a historical, and situated perspective. Finally, his call for a notion of culture that is antithetical to political movements focused on a single identitarian doctrine or exclusionary norms shows how timely his political thought remains to this day. This book gives a comprehensive overview of Hountondji’s philosophical arguments and provides detailed information on the historical and political background of his intellectual oeuvre. It situates Hountondji in the dialogue with his African colleagues and explores links to current debates in philosophy, cultural studies, postcolonialism and the social sciences. (shrink)

The spread of unethical behavior in organizations has mainly been studied in terms of processes occurring in a general social context, rather than in terms of actors’ reactions in the context of their specific social relationships. This paper introduces a dynamic social network analysis framework in which this spread is conceptualized as the result of the reactions of perpetrators, victims, and observers to an initial act of unethical behavior. This theoretical framework shows that the social relationships of the actors involved (...) in an initial act impact in multiple ways the likelihood that unethical behavior spreads. It reveals furthermore that social relationships may change in the wake of unethical behavior, such that indirect negative consequences can arise for organizations. The proposed framework provides a basis for the development of a formal stochastic actor-oriented model of network dynamics which would enable simulations of the spread of unethical behavior. (shrink)

Two decades ago, the introduction of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) sparked enthusiastic reactions. With implicit measures like the IAT, researchers hoped to finally be able to bridge the gap between self-reported attitudes on one hand and behavior on the other. Twenty years of research and several meta-analyses later, however, we have to conclude that neither the IAT nor its derivatives have fulfilled these expectations. Their predictive value for behavioral criteria is weak and their incremental validity over and above self-report (...) measures is negligible. In our review, we present an overview of explanations for these unsatisfactory findings and delineate promising ways forward. Over the years, several reasons for the IAT’s weak predictive validity have been proposed. They point to four potentially problematic features: First, the IAT is by no means a pure measure of individual differences in associations but suffers from extraneous influences like recoding. Hence, the predictive validity of IAT-scores should not be confused with the predictive validity of associations. Second, with the IAT, we usually aim to measure evaluation (“liking”) instead of motivation (“wanting”). Yet, behavior might be determined much more often by the latter than the former. Third, the IAT focuses on measuring associations instead of propositional beliefs and thus taps into a construct that might be too unspecific to account for behavior. Finally, studies on predictive validity are often characterized by a mismatch between predictor and criterion (e.g., while behavior is highly context-specific, the IAT usually takes into account neither situation nor domain). Recent research, however, also revealed advances addressing each of these problems, namely (1) procedural and analytical advances to control for recoding in the IAT, (2) measurement procedures to assess implicit wanting, (3) measurement procedures to assess implicit beliefs, and (4) approaches to increase the fit between implicit measures and behavioral criteria (e.g., by incorporating contextual information). Implicit measures like the IAT hold an enormous potential. In order to allow them to fulfill this potential, however, we have to refine our understanding of these measures, and we should incorporate recent conceptual and methodological advancements. This review provides specific recommendations on how to do so. (shrink)

Self-driving vehicles (SDVs) will need to make decisions that carry ethical dimensions and are of normative significance. For example, by choosing a specific trajectory, they determine how risks are distributed among traffic participants. Accordingly, policymakers, standardization organizations and scholars have conceptualized what (shall) constitute(s) ethical decision-making for SDVs. Eventually, these conceptualizations must be converted into specific system requirements to ensure proper technical implementation. Therefore, this article aims to translate critical requirements recently formulated in scholarly work, existing standards, regulatory drafts and (...) guidelines into an explicit five-step ethical decision model for SDVs during hazardous situations. This model states a precise sequence of steps, indicates the guiding ethical principles that inform each step and points out a list of terms that demand further investigation and technical specification. By integrating ethical, legal and engineering considerations, we aim to contribute to the scholarly debate on computational ethics (particularly in autonomous driving) while offering practitioners in the automotive sector a decision-making process for SDVs that is technically viable, legally permissible, ethically grounded and adaptable to societal values. In the future, assessing the actual impact, effectiveness and admissibility of implementing the here sketched theories, terms and the overall decision process requires an empirical evaluation and testing of the overall decision-making model. (shrink)

Solidarity is one of the central concepts in social theory and has gained much attention due to the multiple challenges that the EU has been facing the last decade and due to the most recent COVID-19 pandemic. Although the debate on the nature and conditions of solidarity has been revitalized, there remains a large variety in how to conceptualize solidarity. In contrast to other approaches, we do not conceive solidarity as normative concept, but as descriptive–analytical one. Therefore, we provide a (...) theory-based definition that is prone to capture the empirical dimensions of solidarity. Accounting for the dynamic and interactive character of solidarity as subject to permanent societal and political renegotiation, we conceptualize solidarity from a discourse perspective and follow a multilevel design breaking down the understandings of solidarity on different levels. This approach contributes to the research of solidarity that is interested to capturing the ‘real world’ dimensions of solidarity. (shrink)

Research by academics, professional organizations, and businesses on ethics in the workplace often relies on surveys that ask employees to report how frequently they have observed others engaging in unethical behavior. But what do these frequencies in observer-reports say about the frequencies of committed unethical behavior? This paper is the first to address this question by empirically exploring the relationship between observer- and self-reports. Our survey research among the Swiss working population shows that for all 37 different forms of unethical (...) behavior investigated, observer-reports show higher frequencies than self-reports. Ratios of observer- to self-reports vary substantially among these forms, ranging from 1.46 for improperly gathering competitor’s confidential information to 6.4 for engaging in (sexual) harassment or creating a hostile work environment. The results indicate that researchers should not assume that the frequency in self-reports can generally be approximated by the frequency in observer-reports. Four possible explanations are presented for the differences in ratios, with recommendations for future research. (shrink)