Background and ObjectiveThe outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 has raised increased challenges for older adults’ personal growth in diverse cultural settings. The aim of this study was to analyze negative emotions and their role on older adults’ self-growth in Mexico, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, a cross-national qualitative research was carried out.MethodsData were collected from 338 community-dwelling participants aged 65 years and older, using a semi-structured interview protocol. Older adults were asked about negative emotions (...) that significantly contribute to their self-growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Content analysis was used to identify key themes.ResultsSeven main negative emotions significantly contributed to seven themes of self-growth, across the samples: sharing difficult experiences with others, supportive partner, spiritual practices, engagement with life, generativity, volunteering activities, and intimacy and sexual satisfaction. Sharing difficult experiences with others was most pertinent to Mexican and to Italian participants, and a supportive partner to Portuguese, and to Spanish participants.ConclusionThe findings of this study indicate that negative emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to their older adults’ self-growth. This study highlighted the cultural diversity of experiences during the pandemics and underlined the upside of negative emotions and its relation to older adults’ self-growth during this period. (shrink)

La composición polifónica musical nos permite hablar de la emergencia, en el sur y desde el sur que somos, de Voces de la Tierra, que han susurrado, cantado, llorado o gritado el dolor producido por las maneras de habitar humanas construidas en la modernidad cosificadora de la tierra y del mundo de la vida, modernidad mercantil, industrial y global cuya ética se ha reducido a valores absolutamente euro-antropo-racional-centristas, permeados por el valor supremo del capital. En este artículo, emergente de pensadores (...) ambientales latinoamericanos y pensadores-otros que han sospechado radicalmente del edificio de la ética ambiental emergente de la conferencia del Club de Roma o del Informe Burndtland, intentamos desplegar lo ético, como ethos con e larga, que en griego significa casa, y desde este lugar de enunciación, intentamos salirnos del sujeto y del objeto en la variación ética ambiental eurocentrista, y proponer con las voces de la tierra sur, abya yala, diseños del ethos, ligado óntica-relacionalmente con el cuerpo-tierra. Diseñamos, inspirados en Husserl, Heidegger, Deleuze, Guattari, Ángel-Maya, Enrique Leff, Noguera, Echeverri, pensadores-otros y voces de montañas, animales, ríos, y plantas, la vida, territorios de libertad entendida ésta como expansión de los cuerpos en la naturaleza y de paz integral y completa, entendiendo que no puede haber paz, si no amamos ni respetamos la tierra que somos. Esto exige el giro óntico-etico- estético-político de la ética en clave de un Pensamiento Ambiental Sur. (shrink)

Este artículo busca avizorar, desde el terreno de las pretensiones del humanismo, la posibilidad de una ética desprovista de «centro» que se asiente en la «compasión». Se buscará comprender la necesidad de abandonar los intentos de retornar al proyecto «humanístico» y se señalará su mayor riesgo: el «cínico ilustrado». Adicionalmente, se considerará «el humanismo» como el solemne destello de una «estrella que murió hace mucho» pero que da señales para la construcción de una ética excéntrica fundada en la compasión y (...) el dolor. Para tales efectos, se presentarán tres secciones: a) el humanista un cínico ilustrado b) mecanismos de evasión. La miseria y el modo de vida burgués y c) la ausencia de centro y la posibilidad de una ética excéntrica. (shrink)

The field of neuroaesthetics attempts to identify the brain processes underlying aesthetic experience, including but not limited to beauty. Previous neuroaesthetic studies have focussed largely on paintings and music, while performing arts such as dance have been less studied. Nevertheless, increasing knowledge of the neural mechanisms that represent the bodies and actions of others, and which contribute to empathy, make a neuroaesthetics of dance timely. Here, we present the first neuroscientific study of aesthetic perception in the context of the performing (...) arts. We investigated brain areas whose activity during passive viewing of dance stimuli was related to later, independent aesthetic evaluation of the same stimuli. Brain activity of six naïve male subjects was measured using fMRI, while they watched 24 dance movements, and performed an irrelevant task. In a later session, participants rated each movement along a set of established aesthetic dimensions. The ratings were used to identify brain regions that were more active when viewing moves that received high average ratings than moves that received low average ratings. This contrast revealed bilateral activity in the occipital cortices and in right premotor cortex. Our results suggest a possible role of visual and sensorimotor brain areas in an automatic aesthetic response to dance. This sensorimotor response may explain why dance is widely appreciated in so many human cultures. (shrink)

Introduction -- What is the current state of media ethics? -- Should telling the truth take precedence over other ethical concerns? -- Should journalists avoid actions that compromise objectivity? -- How have new technologies affected media ethics?

Emotional stimuli (e.g. words, images) are often remembered better than neutral stimuli. However, little is known about how memory is affected by an environmentally induced emotional state (without any overtly emotional occurrences) – the focus of this study. Participants were randomly assigned to discovery (n = 305) and replication (n = 306) subsamples and viewed a desktop virtual environment before rating their emotions and completing objective (i.e. item, temporal-order, duration) and subjective (e.g. vividness, sensory detail, coherence) memory measures. In both (...) samples, a Partial Least Squares Correlation analysis showed that an emotional state characterised by high negative emotion (i.e. threat, fear, anxiety) and arousal was reliably associated with better memory in both objective (i.e. item) and subjective (i.e. vividness and sensory detail) domains. No reliable associations were observed for any temporal memory measures (objective or subjective). Thus, an environmentally induced state of negative emotion corresponds with enhanced memory for indices of episodic memory pertaining to “what” happened, but not necessarily “when” it happened. (shrink)

Preemption is a powerful strategy used by special interest groups to undermine strong, local public health standards. Currently, 20 states in the U.S. have preemption ordinances in place related to clean indoor air initiatives. These preemption laws are the direct result of an ongoing and aggressive campaign of tobacco companies to thwart clean indoor air initiatives, which ultimately, according to tobacco industry internal documents, cause significant reductions in their annual revenues. Clean indoor air policies have arisen from a greater understanding (...) of the documented health risks associated with exposure to secondhand smoke and action by local government to protect the public from these hazards. The efforts of the tobacco industry undermine local authority and seek to shift policy action to the state and federal levels, where the industry has greater political influence. (shrink)

Preemption is a powerful strategy used by special interest groups to undermine strong, local public health standards. Currently, 20 states in the U.S. have preemption ordinances in place related to clean indoor air initiatives. These preemption laws are the direct result of an ongoing and aggressive campaign of tobacco companies to thwart clean indoor air initiatives, which ultimately, according to tobacco industry internal documents, cause significant reductions in their annual revenues. Clean indoor air policies have arisen from a greater understanding (...) of the documented health risks associated with exposure to secondhand smoke and action by local government to protect the public from these hazards. The efforts of the tobacco industry undermine local authority and seek to shift policy action to the state and federal levels, where the industry has greater political influence. (shrink)

Peace is a hallmark of human societies. However, certain ant species engage in long-term intergroup resource sharing, which is remarkably similar to peace among human groups. We discuss how individual and group payoff distributions are affected by kinship, dispersal, and age structure; the challenges of diagnosing peace; and the benefits of comparing convergent complex behaviours in disparate taxa.

Los cuidados paliativos son una forma de atención integral del paciente, considerando su carácter antropológico y ontológico, como un ser biopsicosocioespiritual, en donde la muerte y el sufrimiento son características que lo definen y lo separan de otra especie. Los principios bioéticos nos dan una aproximación para entender el porqué es importante atender al paciente desde todos los ámbitos, más allá de la intención curativa. Nos permite visualizar la verdadera meta de los cuidados paliativos.

El artículo aborda el desafío de una conceptualización de la realidad socio-histórica que rompa con la separación entre lo real como externalidad y el sujeto. Lo anterior pasa por redefinir la idea de objetividad. Se requiere encontrar un concepto de subjetividad constituyente que no sea operativo por reducciones al plano de las variables psicológicas, pero que tampoco se resuelva como simple expresión de procesos macrohistóricos. Desde un punto de vista metodológico, realza el contrapunto entre contenidos teóricos permanentes y la transitoriedad (...) de los sujetos. Se afirma que para poder armonizar desarrollo humano y desarrollo social, se requieren relaciones sociales que no impliquen dominación económica ni política. Llegado a esto, se pregunta: ¿Es que el capitalismo se esconde detrás de la democracia, por lo que ésta, en su propio nombre, se niega así misma? (shrink)

Desde su configuración como elemento estructurante del relato político moderno, la «sociedad civil» ha mantenido su vigor como institución conceptual, como muestra la continua ampliación de su significado. Sin embargo, precisamente por ello, el concepto revela una gran contaminación semántica, con usos poco homogéneos del mismo. Con vistas a clarificar todo esto, parece oportuno tratar de contextualizar esta noción así como valorar hasta qué punto sigue siendo pertinente como categoría analítica. Para ello, se ha optado por desgranar el ámbito material (...) de la(s) sociedad(es) civil(es) desde las formas de agregación social más elementales hasta las más globales, las cuales reflejan la presencia de stakeholders privados con capacidad de orientar las políticas públicas que reclaman protagonismo desde (y más allá de) la sociedad civil, pero también actores alternativos que reclaman una interpretación distinta de la «sociedad civil global». (shrink)

1. Cine y vanguardias : el cine como promesa estético-política desde Dziga Vertov y Jean Epstein -- 2. Deleuze y las potencias del cine : el acontecimiento de lo inorgánico -- 3. De la vida inorgánica a la vida histórica : recuperación del carácter narrativo del cine a partir de Jacques Ranciere.

En la literatura sobre las emociones una de las teorías con mayor fuerza es la llamada “teoría James-Lange”. En esta obra se intenta hacer una crítica a dicha teoría a partir de algunas observaciones de Wittgenstein sobre el uso de conceptos psicológicos, sacando a la luz dos confusiones gramaticales que surgen en ella. Para ello, se construye primero la categoría de “programa de naturalización de las emociones” que recoge las teorías del Descartes, James y Prinz, siguiendo la metodología de Lakatos. (...) Luego, se identifica como problema central el de la naturalización de la intencionalidad. Para luego exponer algunas herramientas de Wittgenstein para estudiar la gramática de la pregunta por el objeto y la intencionalidad las emociones, mostrando que las respuestas del programa de naturalización no son satisfactorias y no respetan las reglas de ciertos usos del lenguaje. (shrink)

The presence and relevance of St. Cyprian and his writings in Thomas More's works has only been partially discussed in the available literature. In the present paper I intend to contextualize More's interest for St. Cyprian within the general appreciation that other humanists showed for the Fathers of the Church, and this African Bishop in particular. Thus a close review of More's references to St. Cyprian in his writings is here presented, organized in three blocks: the so-called “humanist letters,” his (...) controversial works—with the exception of The Confutation of Tyndale's Answer —and the Tower works. In the conclusion I will provide a tentative categorization of the uses More made of this Father of the Church. (shrink)

Electrical brain activity modulation in terms of changes in its intensity and spatial distribution is a function of age and task demand. However, the dynamics of brain modulation is unknown when it depends on external factors such as training. The aim of this research is to verify the effect of deductive reasoning training on the modulation in the brain activity of healthy younger and older adults ( (mean age of 21 ± 3.39) and (mean age of 68.92 ± 5.72)). The (...) analysis reveals the benefits of training, showing that it lowers cerebral activation while increasing the number of correct responses in the trained reasoning task (). The brain source generators were identified by time-averaging low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) current density images. In both groups, a bilateral overactivation associated with the task and not with age was identified. However, while the profile of bilateral activation in younger adults was symmetrical in anterior areas, in the older ones, the profile was located asymmetrically in anterior and posterior areas. Consequently, bilaterality may be a marker of how the brain adapts to maintain cognitive function in demanding tasks in both age groups. However, the differential bilateral locations across age groups indicate that the tendency to brain modulation is determined by age. (shrink)

En el pensamiento de H. Arendt, las lecturas sobre el totalitarismo de The Origins of Totalitarianism, pueden ser leídas en paralelo a sus lecturas sobre la sociedad de masas, de la labor y el consumo en The Human Condition. Nos interesa mostrar en este artículo que se trata de lecturas convergentes, que se encuentran ligadas en la evolución del pensamiento de la autora y conservan algunas notas temáticas comunes como la preocupación por: el aislamiento, la soledad, el desarraigo y el (...) proyecto de convertir a los seres humanos en seres superfluos. (shrink)

This article discusses the Australian government’s immigration policies in the context of the global refugee crisis in the years 2015–2016, as reflected and dramatised through the polemical novel b...

Luego de señalar algunos momentos específicos en la obra de Arendt, en los que la cuestión de la sentimentalidad aparece, sobre todo de manera crítica, nos centraremos en un aspecto específico de esta, de especial interés para nosotros: el lugar de la indignación a la hora de narrar, contar, construir la historia de una comunidad y a la hora de abrir e instaurar el espacio público, caracterizado por Arendt como el espacio de aparición más elemental, donde los otros aparecen ante (...) mí y yo aparezco ante los otros , haciendo surgir lo político. Esta perspectiva nos permitirá reconstruir la posible relación entre indignación y política, en el pensamiento de la autora alemana. Starting from highlighting some specific moments in Arendt’s works critically dealing with sentimentality matters, we will focus on a specific aspect: the place of indignation when narrating, telling, and constructing the history of a community and, at the same time, opening a public space. This is characterized by Arendt as an elementary space, where others appear to me and I appear before them. , originating the political aspect. This view allows us to rebuild the possible relationship between indignation and politics in this German author’s views. (shrink)

A key issue in the business ethics field is the design of effective measures for assessing the ethical culture of organizations. The Corporate Ethical Virtues Model (CEV), developed by Kaptein in 2008, is an instrument for measuring ethical culture, and has been applied, adapted and validated in different contexts. In 2013, DeBode, Armenakis, Field and Walker developed the CEV–S, a shortened version of the original scale. Both the CEV and CEV–S assess eight dimensions based on corporate ethical virtues: clarity, congruency (...) of supervisors, congruency of senior management, feasibility, supportability, transparency, discussability and sanctionability. The objective of this study is to present a Spanish version of the CEV–S and its validation process. The scale was applied to two samples of 114 and 193 Colombian employees from two companies operating in the services sector. The confirmatory factor analyses revealed a good fit for the eight-factor structure of the Spanish CEV–S and the statistical tests applied showed good levels of reliability and validity for this scale. The adequate psychometric properties shown by the Spanish CEV–S may support its use in future research to measure organizational ethical culture in Spanish-speaking settings. (shrink)