Empathy is generally regarded as an emotional contagion between what one person feels and what another, the empathic person, comes to feel. This essay focuses on one aspect of the altruism/egoism debate involving empathy, that is, whether the empathy-induced motivation to help is egoistic, altruistic, or neither, and demonstrates that the philosophy of the Neo-Confucian Cheng Hao 程顥 can provide unique insights. By referring to Cheng's conceptions of empathy and oneness involved in his famous notions of benevolence and (...) "ten thousand things in one body", the present essay claims that the notions of egoism and altruism are inapplicable. It will introduce the notion of empathy in... (shrink)

In recent years, much has been learned about the strategic and organizational contexts of suicide attacks. However, motivations of the agents who commit them remain difficult to explain. In part this is because standard models of social learning as well as Durkheimian notions of sacrificial behavior are inadequate in the face of the actions of human bombers. In addition, the importance of organizational structures and practices in reinforcing commitment on the part of suicide recruits is an under-explored factor in many (...) analyses. This essay examines the potential applicability of evolutionary models of altruism to the understanding of commitment to suicide on the part of terrorist organizational recruits. Three evolutionary models of sacrificial behavior in nonhuman species and many categories of human behavior are explored cross-organizationally: reciprocity, inclusive fitness theory, and induced altruism. Reciprocal altruism is unlikely to be a major motivator in suicide attacks because the costs exhibited by attackers are too high to be adequately compensated. However, the role of evolved self-deception in perceptions of personal death, and thus of rewards in the afterlife, is potentially illuminating. Inclusive fitness theory can help explain the motivations of attackers because rewards to kin often are offered by organizations to suicide recruits. However, suicide bombers also often act out of revenge for the loss of or injury to relatives, and inclusive fitness theory generally, as well as more specific theoretical models of retaliatory aggression, may not adequately account for the bombers' actions. Predictions from induced altruism theory appear to be well supported because suicide terror organizations tend to be tightly structured around practices intended to maintain and reinforce commitment though the manipulation of kinship-recognition cues. (shrink)

Addresses a range of phenomena related to the general question of when people behave in an altruistic fashion. This book contains topics that include how empathy induced altruism can actually be a threat to the some larger collective good, and the role of egoism in the production and maintenance of social order.

Sober and Wilson's enthusiasm for a multi-level perspective in evolutionary biology leads to conceptualizations which appropriate all sources of bio-altruistic traits as products of ‘group’ selection. The key biological issue is whether genes enhancing one sub-population's viability in competition with others can thrive, despite inducing some members to lose fitness in intra-group terms. The case for such selection amongst primates remains unproven. Flexible social loyalties required prior evolution of subjective self-definition and self-identification with others. But normative readiness for truly group-serving (...) sacrifices of ego-interests presupposes entitative conceptions of in-groups as collective social units -- only made possible with the emergence of human symbolic language. (shrink)

This paper investigates the role of group identification in empathic emotion and its behavioral consequences. Our central idea is that group identification is the key to understanding the process in which empathic emotion causes helping behavior. Empathic emotion causes helping behavior because it involves group identification, which motivates helping behavior toward other members. This paper focuses on a hypothesis, which we call “self-other merging hypothesis (SMH),” according to which empathy-induced helping behavior is due to the “merging” between the helping (...) agent and the helped agent. We argue that SMH should be interpreted in terms of group identification. The group identification interpretation of SMH is both behaviorally adequate (i.e., successfully predicts and explains the helping behavior in the experimental settings) and psychologically plausible (i.e., does not posit psychologically unrealistic beliefs, desires, etc.). Empathy-induced helping behavior, according to the group identification interpretation of the SMH, does not fit comfortably into the traditional egoism/altruism dichotomy. We thus propose a new taxonomy according to which empathy-induced helping behavior is both altruistic at the individual level and egoistic at the group level. (shrink)

This book traces the scientific search for altruism through numerous studies and attempts to examine various motivational suspects, reaching the improbable conclusion that empathy-induced altruism is indeed part of our nature. The book then considers the implications of this conclusion both for our understanding of who we are as humans and for how we might create a more humane society.

The outbreak of COVID-19 is a public health crisis that has had a profound impact on society. Stigma is a common phenomenon in the prevalence and spread of infectious diseases. In the crisis caused by the pandemic, widespread public stigma has influenced social groups. This study explores the negative emotions arousal effect from online public stigmatization during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact on social cooperation. We constructed a model based on the literature and tested it on a sample of (...) 313 participants from the group being stigmatized. The results demonstrate: (1) relevance and stigma perception promote negative emotions, including anxiety, anger, and grief; (2) the arousal of anger and grief leads to a rise in the altruistic tendency within the stigmatized group; and (3) stigmatization-induced negative emotions have a complete mediating effect between perceived relevance and altruistic tendency, as well as perceived stigma and altruistic tendency. For a country and nation, external stigma will promote the group becoming more united and mutual help. One wish to pass the buck but end up helping others unintentionally. We should not simply blame others, including countries, regions, and groups under the outbreak of COVID-19, and everyone should be cautious with the words and actions in the Internet public sphere. (shrink)

According to kin selection theory, indirect reproductive advantages may induce individuals to care for others with whom they share genes by common descent, and the amount of care, including self-sacrifice, will increase with the proportion of genes shared. Twins represent a natural situation in which this hypothesis can be tested. Twin pairs experience the same early environment because they were born and raised at the same time and in the same family but their genetic relatedness differs depending on zygosity. We (...) compared the degree of willingness to fight and sacrifice for the co-twin among monozygotic and dizygotic pairs in a sample of 1443 same-sex and opposite-sex twins. We also analyzed the effect of the subject’s gender and that of the co-twin on those altruistic behaviors. Results partly supported the postulated explanation. MZ twins were significantly more likely than DZ twins to self-sacrifice for their co-twins, but zygosity did not affect willingness to fight for him/her. The genders of the subject and of the co-twin, not genetic relatedness, were the best predictors of aggressive altruistic intentions. (shrink)

Drawing on an idea proposed by Darwin, it has recently been hypothesised that violent intergroup conflict might have played a substantial role in the evolution of human cooperativeness and altruism. The central notion of this argument, dubbed ‘parochial altruism’, is that the two genetic or cultural traits, aggressiveness against out-groups and cooperativeness towards the in-group, including self-sacrificial altruistic behaviour, might have coevolved in humans. This review assesses the explanatory power of current theories of ‘parochial altruism’. After a (...) brief synopsis of the existing literature, two pitfalls in the interpretation of the most widely used models are discussed: potential direct benefits and high relatedness between group members implicitly induced by assumptions about conflict structure and frequency. Then, a number of simplifying assumptions made in the construction of these models are pointed out which currently limit their explanatory power. Next, relevant empirical evidence from several disciplines which could guide future theoretical extensions is reviewed. Finally, selected alternative accounts of evolutionary links between intergroup conflict and intragroup cooperation are briefly discussed which could be integrated with parochial altruism in the future. (shrink)

The primrose path and prisoner's dilemma paradigms may require cognitive (executive) control: The active maintenance of context representations in lateral prefrontal cortex to provide top-down support for specific behaviors in the face of short delays or stronger response tendencies. This perspective suggests further tests of whether altruism is a type of self-control, including brain imaging, induced affect, and dual-task studies.

The right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), which are involved in social cognition, have been proposed to play key roles in guiding human altruistic behavior. However, no study has provided empirical evidence that the rTPJ and dmPFC play distinct roles in altruism under situations of inequality. A total of 107 healthy young adults were randomly assigned to receive anodal or sham transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to either the dmPFC or rTPJ, and they participated in a (...) modified dictator game. The stimulation of the dmPFC increased the level of altruistic behavior, while the stimulation of the rTPJ did not. Furthermore, we determined that the increase in altruism induced by tDCS of the dmPFC could be modulated by perspective taking. These results demonstrate that the dmPFC and rTPJ play distinct roles in the enhancement of altruism in situations of inequality; this finding is consistent with theories proposing that the dmPFC has evolved mechanisms dedicated to perspective taking. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) concerns the realm of business behavior in which the firm tries to effectively manage its business and non-market environment interface. Coerced CSR refers to taking socially responsible action in response to or in anticipation of retaliation in some form (boycott, adverse publicity, introduction of regulatory laws, etc.) from interest groups who are not directly part of the market to which the firm caters. In contrast, strategic CSR or altruistic CSR refers to socially responsible activities undertaken out (...) of enlightened self-interest. The focus of this paper is to understand whether the impact of coercion is different for government-owned organizations and privately owned firms in developing countries. Activities that are in response to or in anticipationof threats by interest groups are identified and compared across publicly and privately owned firms, against the backdrop of weak enforcement of fairly stringent environmental regulation. We then generalize our observations and attempt to distinguish the intensity of pressures felt by public and privately owned firms and their speed of response. As a result of this understanding, we attempt to suggest specific policy mixes for various types of industry, depending on whether they are dominated by the public sector or private sector. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) concerns the realm of business behavior in which the firm tries to effectively manage its business and non-market environment interface. Coerced CSR refers to taking socially responsible action in response to or in anticipation of retaliation in some form (boycott, adverse publicity, introduction of regulatory laws, etc.) from interest groups who are not directly part of the market to which the firm caters. In contrast, strategic CSR or altruistic CSR refers to socially responsible activities undertaken out (...) of enlightened self-interest. The focus of this paper is to understand whether the impact of coercion is different for government-owned organizations and privately owned firms in developing countries. Activities that are in response to or in anticipationof threats by interest groups are identified and compared across publicly and privately owned firms, against the backdrop of weak enforcement of fairly stringent environmental regulation. We then generalize our observations and attempt to distinguish the intensity of pressures felt by public and privately owned firms and their speed of response. As a result of this understanding, we attempt to suggest specific policy mixes for various types of industry, depending on whether they are dominated by the public sector or private sector. (shrink)

Unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) is unethical behavior driven by an intention to assist an organization. This study is one of the first attempts to examine the consequences of UPB. We argue that such types of behaviors can induce failure in self-regulation and thereby give rise to counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Based on self-regulation theory, we theorize that the breakdown in three fundamental mechanisms (i.e., moral standards, monitoring, and discipline) explains the link between UPB and CWB. Moreover, moral identity internalization can (...) temper these breakdown processes such that employees with higher levels of moral identity internalization are less likely to experience moral disengagement, workplace entitlement, or self-control depleting after enacting UPB, and therefore, will engage in less CWB. We conducted a 7-day experience sampling study of 95 financial service employees in a Chinese bank to test our theoretical model. The results indicated that transgressions committed with the intention of helping the organization would ultimately harm the organization, especially for those with lower moral identity internalization. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

The purpose of the study was twofold: Experiment 1 tested the possibility that the mere recollection of food aroused a state of hunger and that different types of food influenced the state of hunger differently; Experiment 2 tested the possibility that food cues affected altruistic behavior. In Experiment 1, 28 participants reported how hungry they felt before and after their recollection of certain foods. Results suggest that recollection of food increased hunger and that the type of food influenced the degree (...) of hunger = 31.88, p <.001, η2 =.54). In Experiment 2, 63 participants were randomly assigned to one of three recollection conditions: noodles, pudding, and control. Participants in the two conditions described each food in detail; control group participants did not. Participants were then asked how much they would be willing to participate in an ostensible experiment. Results indicate that recollection-induced hunger reduced altruistic behavior = 4.11, p =.021, η2 =.12). Cue reactivity theory and the hierarchy of needs could explain these results. (shrink)

Recent accounts support the existence of two distinct feelings of guilt: altruistic guilt (AG), arising from the appraisal of not having been altruistic toward a victim and deontological guilt (DG), emerging from the appraisal of having violated an intuitive moral rule. Neuroimaging data has shown that the two guilt feelings trigger different neural networks, with DG selectively activating the insula, a brain area involved in the processing of disgust and self-reproach. Thus, insula activation could reflect the major involvement of self-reproach (...) in DG rather than in AG. However, only a few studies have empirically tested whether and how DG and AG differently affect decision making and none have compared enhanced self-worth. Here we asked three groups of participants, respectively, induced with either pride, DG or AG, to participate in a third-party version of the ultimatum game in which they were asked to decide on behalf of others to accept or reject economic offers with several degrees of fairness. Results revealed that only deontological participants had higher median acceptances of Moderately Unfair offers as compared to proud participants. However fairness judgments were not different between groups, suggesting that deontological participants’ moral standards had not decreased. Crucially, a higher increase in DG was associated with an increase in the odds of accepting 30:70 offers. The opposite effects that DG and pride exert on self-worth can account for these results. Specifically, proud participants felt entitled enough to take action in order to restore equity, while deontological participants followed the “Do not play God” principle, which limited their decisional autonomy, not allowing them to decide on behalf of others. (shrink)

The origins and consequences of warfare or largescale intergroup violence have been subject of long debate. Based on exhaustive surveys of skeletal remains for prehistoric hunter-gatherers and agriculturists in Japan, the present study examines levels of inferred violence and their implications for two different evolutionary models, i.e., parochial altruism model and subsistence model. The former assumes that frequent warfare played an important role in the evolution of altruism and the latter sees warfare as promoted by social changes (...) class='Hi'>induced by agriculture. Our results are inconsistent with the parochial altruism model but consistent with the subsistence model, although the mortality values attributable to violence between hunter-gatherers and agriculturists were comparable. (shrink)

I argue that altruistic behavior and its variation across cultures may be caused by mental cognitive mechanisms that induce cooperative behavior in contract-like situations and adapt that behavior to the kinds of contracts that exist in one's socio-cultural environment. I thus present a cognitive alternative to Henrich et al.'s motivation-based account. Rather than behaving in ways that reveal preferences, subjects interpret the experiment in ways that cue their social heuristics. In order to distinguish the respective roles of preferences and cognitive (...) processes that determine economic behavior, we need more ethnography of strategies “in the wild.”. (shrink)

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan has been a mere victim of climate change in recent years. The country needs emergency measures at every level to mitigate environmental dilapidation. The role of enterprises in the country’s environmental efforts is critical. In this regard, the hotel sector is known for its outsized carbon footprint. Knowing this, the current study aims to improve a hotel enterprise’s environmental performance as an outcome of corporate social responsibility. The study also considers the mediating role of pro-environmental (...) behavior of employees and the moderating role of altruistic values. A hypothesized model was developed, which was validated by employing the structural equation modeling technique. The empirical results confirmed that CSR, directly and indirectly, positively induces the ENP of a hotel enterprise. Whereas the conditional indirect role of ALT was also found significant. The study offers different implications for theory and practice, among which one important takeaway for the hotel sector is to realize the importance of employees to spur ENP of a hotel enterprise through their eco-friendly behavior. At the same time, the current work also advances the theory by highlighting the moderating role of ALT between the indirect relationship of CSR and ENP. (shrink)

Introduction Scholars have debated how to define coercion and undue influence, but how institutional review boards (IRBs) view and make decisions about these issues in actual cases has not been explored. Methods I contacted the leadership of 60 US IRBs (every fourth one in the list of the top 240 institutions by National Institutes of Health funding), and interviewed 39 IRB leaders or administrators from 34 of these institutions (response rate=55%), and 7 members. Results IRBs wrestled with defining of ‘coercion’ (...) and ‘undue inducement’, most notably in deciding about participant compensation. IRBs often use these terms synonymously and define undue inducement in varying ways, often wrestling with these issues, relying on ‘gut feelings’, and seeking compromises. Ambiguities arose, partly reflecting underlying tensions: whether subjects should ‘get paid’ versus ‘volunteer’ (ie, whether subjects should be motivated by compensation vs altruism), and whether subjects should be paid differently based on income, given possible resultant selection bias. Lack of consistent standards emerged between and even on single IRBs. Questions arose concerning certain aspects and types of studies; for example, how to view and weigh providing free care in research, whether and how recruitment flyers should mention compensation, and how to avoid coercion in paediatric, developing world, or students research. Conclusions These data, the first to probe qualitatively how IRBs view and approach questions about coercion, undue influence and participant compensation, and to examine how IRBs have reviewed actual cases, reveal several critical ambiguities and dilemmas, and have vital implications for future practice, education, policy and research. (shrink)

Frustration is often seen as negative, but as to whether it may have a positive impact on the individual is still undecided. This research was conducted to explore the influence of frustration on altruistic tendency and altruistic level in college students. By presenting a highly difficult task combined with negative feedback, we effectively induced frustration in Experiment 1. By assessing the donation behavior of participants in a real-life scenario following the experimental manipulation of frustration, we examined the relationship between (...) frustration and altruism in Experiment 2. Results showed that frustrating situations could, on some level, improve altruistic behavior [t = 3.013, p = 0.015]. More specifically, among participants who donated, the amount donated was higher in the frustration group compared to the control group; the proportion of people who donated did not differ by group. (shrink)

[Emerging Scholar Prize Essay for Spindel Supplement] Some philosophers and psychologists have evaluated psychological egoism against recent experimental work in social psychology. Dan Batson (1991; forthcoming), in particular, argues that empathy tends to induce genuinely altruistic motives in humans. However, some argue that there are egoistic explanations of the data that remain unscathed. I focus here on some recent criticisms based on the idea of self-other merging or "oneness," primarily leveled by Robert Cialdini and his collaborators (1997). These authors argue (...) that the putatively altruistic subjects are acting on ultimately egoistic motives because empathic feelings for someone in distress tend to cause them to blur the distinction between themselves and the other. Employing a conceptual framework for the debate, I argue that the self-other merging explanation fails to explain the empathy-helping relationship on primarily non-empirical grounds, regardless of the empirical results Cialdini and colleagues report. (shrink)

Controversy over providing financial incentives to research participants has a long history and remains an issue of contention in both current discussions about research ethics and for institutional review bodies/human research ethics committees which are charged with the responsibility of deciding whether such incentives fall within ethical guidelines. The arguments both for and against financial incentives have been well aired in the literature. A point of agreement for many is that inducement in the form of financial incentive is permissible when (...) the risk of harm to the individual is negligible in terms of degree and probability of occurrence. In the absence of harm to the individual, encouraging more people to participate in research would appear to be a good thing in so far as it will lead to statistically more robust research outcomes, which can then be translated into better healthcare and other practice. Whilst, on the face of it, this position seems highly defensible, I will explore the possibility that it is counterproductive – that is, providing individuals with financial incentives to become research participants may have the unintended outcome of reducing participation rates in some areas of research. In exploring this idea I will draw on empirical findings from the literature on crowding-out – the hypothesis that providing monetary incentives to people can backfire by overall reducing intrinsic motivation, in this instance intrinsic motivation to behave altruistically or undertake civic duties. (shrink)

Paying research participants in developing countries like Uganda raises ethical concerns over potential for undue inducement. This article, based on an exploratory study, reviewed 49 research protocols from a national HIV/AIDS research ethics committee database. Payments mainly adhered to the reimbursement and compensation payment models. Offers made were diverse but basic in order to limit undue inducement. Implications in terms of undue inducement and possible impact on participants and research are discussed. We end by recommending standardization across comparable studies in (...) the interests of promoting high-quality research, altruism, voluntariness, and restraining unfair reimbursement practices in research. (shrink)

Inclusive fitness theory provides conditions for the evolutionary success of a gene. These conditions ensure that the gene is selfish in the sense of Dawkins (The selfish gene, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1976): genes do not and cannot sacrifice their own fitness on behalf of the reproductive population. Therefore, while natural selection explains the appearance of design in the living world (Dawkins in The blind watchmaker: why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design, W. W. Norton, New York, (...) 1996), inclusive fitness theory does not explain how. Indeed, Hamilton’s rule is equally compatible with the evolutionary success of prosocial altruistic genes and antisocial predatory genes, whereas only the former, which account for the appearance of design, predominate in successful organisms. Inclusive fitness theory, however, permits a formulation of the central problem of sociobiology in a particularly poignant form: how do interactions among loci induce utterly selfish genes to collaborate, or to predispose their carriers to collaborate, in promoting the fitness of their carriers? Inclusive fitness theory, because it abstracts from synergistic interactions among loci, does not answer this question. Fitness-enhancing collaboration among loci in the genome of a reproductive population requires suppressing alleles that decrease, and promoting alleles that increase the fitness of its carriers. Suppression and promotion are effected by regulatory networks of genes, each of which is itself utterly selfish. This implies that genes, and a fortiori individuals in a social species, do not maximize inclusive fitness but rather interact strategically in complex ways. It is the task of sociobiology to model these complex interactions. (shrink)

Americans have recently had thrust into their faces multiple media borne medical and social ethics dilemmas ranging from Dr. Kevorkian's euthanizing a patient on national television to payments by managed care providers for experimental medical treatments,to the nationally telecast situation which this paper will attempt to address. The case at hand concerns a minor in need of a repeat(third) kidney transplant who has been offered a kidney by her father. He also provided a kidney for her second kidney transplant some (...) years ago. The teenage girl went into her current kidney failure/organ rejection state because, feeling well, she stopped taking her antirejection medications. Her father appears to understand the consequences of this offer and is willing nonetheless to donate his remaining kidney to his daughter. His ex-wife and daughter want the kidney and will take it knowing what it will do to him. Of additional interest is that he is incarcerated as a prisoner for a crime for which he will be eligible for parole in the not distant future. This means that although altruistically self-induced, the State will become financially responsible for his medical care and dialysis treatments. This paper will attempt to analyze the competing issues presented by this dilemma and address the underlying conflict between the parameters patient autonomy, parental beneficence and the deontologically based responsibilities of the state and of the health care team. (shrink)

Prior work shows that capital market participants including investors, analysts, and managers are all impacted by the prevailing level of investor sentiment. We extend this line of work by investigating whether the effects of sentiment spill over into the nonprofit sector by affecting donors’ spending to support moral causes. While donors are driven by ethical, altruistic, and other utility-maximizing motives, it is unclear whether behavioral biases stemming from sentiment would influence donors’ decisions to give. We shed light on this issue (...) using a large industry-diverse panel of over 115 thousand organization-years from 2008 to 2016. Results indicate that nonprofit organizations receive less in stock-based donations and more in cash-based donations during periods of high investor sentiment. Our inquiry separately considers cash and stock-based donations because we expect, and find, that market-related sentiment impacts these types of contributions differently. Moreover, we find that these effects are stronger for organizations with large donors, who are more closely tied to the capital markets, and therefore more susceptible to investor sentiment, as well as charitable organizations, consistent with “tug-at-the-heartstrings” type appeals inducing more emotional donation response. Taken together, the results suggest that market-wide investor sentiment impacts nonprofit organizations and the effects vary in the cross-section. (shrink)

Darwin's inner voice -- Living the virtuous life -- Of altruism and free riders -- Knowing our immediate predecessors -- Resurrecting some venerable ancestors -- A natural Garden of Eden -- The positive side of social selection -- Learning morals across the generations -- Work of the moral majority -- Pleistocene ups, downs, and crashes -- Testing the selection-by-reputation hypothesis -- The evolution of morals -- Epilogue: humanity's moral future.

From the ethicist the_ New Yorker_ calls “the most influential living philosopher,” a new way of thinking about living ethically.

The cofounder of the Effective Altruism movement presents a counterintuitive approach anyone can use to make a difference in the world. While studying philosophy at Oxford University and trying to work out how he could have the greatest impact, William MacAskill discovered that most of the time and money aimed at making the world a better place achieves little. Why? Because individuals rarely have enough information to make the best choices. Confronting this problem head-on, MacAskill developed the concept of (...) effective altruism, a scientific, data-driven approach to making a difference that operates by asking these five questions: How much will this action improve others' lives? Is this the most effective action I can take? How useful is my contribution, given what others are already doing? What will happen if I don't do it? What are the chances of success, and how good would success be? Applying these principles, he demonstrates that many of our assumptions about doing good are misguided: he argues that one can potentially save more lives by working on Wall Street than as a heart surgeon, that cancer charities are not the best use of money, and that buying sweatshop-produced goods is a form of ethical consumption. MacAskill challenges us to think differently but argues that if we set aside our biases and rely on evidence and careful reasoning, each of us can make a tremendous difference. (shrink)

Grapheme-colour synaesthesia is a perceptual experience where graphemes, letters or words evoke a specific colour, which are experienced either as spatially coincident with the grapheme inducer (projector sub-type) or elsewhere, perhaps without a definite spatial location (associator sub-type). Here, we address the question of whether synaesthesia can be rapidly produced using a hypnotic colour suggestion to examine the possibility of ‘hypnotic synaesthesia’, i.e. subjectively experienced colour hallucinations similar to those experienced by projector synaesthetes. We assess the efficacy of this intervention (...) using an “embedded figures” test, in which participants are required to detect a shape (e.g., a square) composed of local graphemic elements. For grapheme-colour synaesthetes, better performance on the task has been linked to a higher proportion of graphemes perceived as coloured. We found no performance benefits on this test when using a hypnotic suggestion, as compared to a no-suggestion control condition. The same result was found when participants were separated according to the degree to which they were susceptible to the suggestion (number of coloured trials perceived). However, we found a relationship between accuracy and subjective reports of colour in those participants who reported a large proportion of coloured trials: trials in which the embedded figure was accurately recognised (relative to trials in which it was not) were associated with reports of more intense colours occupying a greater spatial extent. Collectively, this implies that hypnotic colour was only perceived after shape detection rather than aiding in shape detection via colour-based perceptual grouping. The results suggest that hypnotically induced colours are not directly comparable to synaesthetic ones. (shrink)

Scientists appeal to models when explaining phenomena. Such explanations are often dubbed model explanations or model-based explanations. But what are the precise conditions for ME? Are ME special explanations? In our paper, we first rebut two definitions of ME and specify a more promising one. Based on this analysis, we single out a related conception that is concerned with explanations that are induced from working with a model. We call them ‘model-induced explanations’. Second, we study three paradigmatic cases (...) of alleged ME. We argue that all of them are MIE, upon closer examination. Third, we argue that this undermines the building consensus that model explanations are special explanations that, e.g., challenge the factivity of explanation. Instead, it suggests that what is special about models in science is the epistemology behind how models induce explanations. (shrink)

In photoreceptors of a dark adapted eye, the inward flux of sodium and calcium ions in the outer segment is balanced by the outward flux of potassium ions. But in the presence of light the creation of cyclic guanosine monophosphate in the outer segment decreases. Due to low concentration of cG the channels in the outer segment open relatively less and thus the influx of calcium ion decreases, leading finally to hyperpolarization of the photoreceptors. We have analyzed theoretically the effect (...) of oxidizing iron ions on the photoreceptors. In order to explain the effects of iron-induced oxidative stress, the different molecules and ions involved in phototransduction are quantified leading to a differential equation for calculating the electroretinogram a-wave voltage. The theoretical results are compared with published experimental data. In the presence of light, the iron ions could push outward the similarly charged calcium ions resulting in a small increase in the amount of inward calcium flux. Again, the presence of iron ions generates Reactive Oxygen Species, and ROS could attract the calcium ions which also increases the calcium flux. This will result in a reduction in the amplitude and slope of the a-wave voltage in the electroretinogram. These results are parametrized in terms of calcium ion concentrations. As the amplitude of the a-wave shows how much electrical signal is produced, its reduction indicates reduction in the visual signal. Thus, the increase in iron ions could explain the reduction in the electrical signal due to iron-induced oxidative stress. (shrink)

Most opposition to induced abortion turns on the belief that human fetuses are persons from conception. On this view, the moral status of the fetus alone requires those in a position to provide aid—gestational mothers—to make tremendous sacrifices to benefit the fetus. Recently, critics have argued that this pro-life position requires more than opposition to induced abortion. Pro-life theorists are relatively silent on the issues of spontaneous abortion, surplus in vitro fertilisation human embryos, and the suffering and death (...) of born persons due to lack of access to food, shelter and medical care. Colgrove et al call such arguments inconsistency arguments, arguing they ‘do not matter’ and mischaracterise them as ad hominem attacks. Here, I argue these are better understood as moral dilemmas. While some critics argue pro-life inaction is evidence that they do not really believe human fetuses are persons, I contend this inaction is likely the result of resolvable confusion rather than moral negligence. (shrink)

Power differentials are a ubiquitous feature of social interactions and power has been conceptualised as an interpersonal construct. Here we show that priming power changes the sense of agency, indexed by intentional binding. Specifically, participants wrote about episodes in which they had power over others, or in which others had power over them. After priming, participants completed an interval estimation task in which they judged the interval between a voluntary action and a visual effect. After low-power priming, participants judged intervals (...) to be significantly longer than judgments after high-power or no priming. Thus, intentional binding was significantly changed by low-power, suggesting that power reduces the sense of agency for action outcomes. Our results demonstrate a clear intrapersonal effect of power. We suggest that intentional binding could be employed to assess agency in individuals suffering from anxiety and depression, both of which are characterised by reduced feelings of personal control. (shrink)

Conscientious objection to participating in induced abortion is not present in the Finnish health care system or legislation unlike in many other European countries.

We consider Borel equivalence relations E induced by actions of the infinite symmetric group, or equivalently the isomorphism relation on classes of countable models of bounded Scott rank. We relate the descriptive complexity of the equivalence relation to the nature of its complete invariants. A typical theorem is that E is potentially Π03 iff the invariants are countable sets of reals, it is potentially Π04 iff the invariants are countable sets of countable sets of reals, and so on. The (...) proofs use various techniques, including Vaught transforms, changing topologies, and the Scott analysis of countable models. (shrink)

Effective altruism is a growing philosophical and social movement, whose members design their lives in ways aligned with doing the most good that they can do. The main focus of this paper is to explore what effective altruism has to say about the moral obligations people have to do good with their organs, in the face of an organ-shortage problem. It is argued that an effective altruism framework offers a number of valuable theoretical and practical insights relevant (...) to ongoing debate about how to resolve the organ-shortage problem. Its recommendations constitute a plausible and promising strategy for increasing the supply of, and decreasing the demand for, human organs, in a way that protects the global poor. And, many of its recommendations can be implemented into policy without requiring that citizens actually become effective altruists themselves. (shrink)

Downsizing due to COVID-19 and its consequences on laid-off employees has attracted the attention of many researchers, around the globe. However, the underlying mechanisms that explain the effects of COVID-19 downsizing on the employees who have survived cutoffs remain underexplored. Grounded in the conservation of resources theory, this manuscript aims to study the causal path through which COV-DS reduces the survivors’ affective commitment. The current study proposes the mediation of survivors’ job uncertainty, stress, and organizational identification between COV-DS and survivors’ (...) affective commitment. This study also posits the moderating role of transformational leadership between COV-DS and both the mediators. The extant study has employed WARPED partial least square WARP PLS 7 and Hayes Process Macro to test the hypothesized relationships. Using the sample of 274 employees from the private sector of Pakistan, it was found that job uncertainty’s stress strongly mediates the relationship between COV-DS and survivors’ affective commitment. While mediation of survivors’ organizational identification was not proven to be significant. However, with the moderation of transformational leadership, both the mediators were proven to be significant. (shrink)

Our understanding of human visual perception generally rests on the assumption that conscious visual states represent the interaction of spatial structures in the environment and our nervous system. This assumption is questioned by circumstances where conscious visual states can be triggered by external stimulation which is not primarily spatially defined. Here, subjective colors and forms are evoked by flickering light while the precise nature of those experiences varies over flicker frequency and phase. What’s more, the occurrence of one subjective experience (...) appears to be associated with the occurrence of others. While these data indicate that conscious visual experience may be evoked directly by particular variations in the flow of spatially unstructured light over time, it must be assumed that the systems responsible are essentially temporal in character and capable of representing a variety of visual forms and colors, coded in different frequencies or at different phases of the same processing rhythm. (shrink)