In this paper, we provide a new framework for understanding infant-feeding-related maternal guilt and shame, placing these in the context of feminist theoretical and psychological accounts of the emotions of self-assessment. Whereas breastfeeding advocacy has been critiqued for its perceived role in inducing maternal guilt, we argue that the emotion women often feel surrounding infant feeding may be better conceptualized as shame in its tendency to involve a negative self-assessment—a failure to achieve an idealized notion of good motherhood. Further, we (...) suggest, both formula-feeding and breastfeeding mothers experience shame: the former report feeling that they fail to live up to ideals of womanhood and motherhood, and the latter transgress cultural expectations regarding feminine modesty. The problem, then, is the degree to which mothers are vulnerable to shame generally, regardless of infant feeding practices. As an emotion that is less adaptive and potentially more damaging than guilt, shame ought to be the focus of resistance for both feminists and breastfeeding advocates, who need to work in conjunction with women to oppose this shame by assisting them in constructing their own ideals of good motherhood that incorporate a sense of self-concern. (shrink)

It is well-documented that mathematics achievement is an important predictor of many positive life outcomes like college graduation, career opportunities, salary, and even citizenship. As such, it is important for researchers and educators to help students succeed in mathematics. Although there are undoubtedly many factors that contribute to students' success in mathematics, much of the research and intervention development has focused on variations in instructional techniques. Indeed, even a cursory glance at many educational journals and granting agencies reveals that there (...) is a large amount of time, energy, and resources being spent on determining the best way to convey information through direct, declarative instruction. The proposed project is motivated by recent calls to expand the focus of research in mathematics education beyond direct, declarative instruction. The overarching goal of the presented experiment is to evaluate the efficacy of a novel mathematics intervention designed using principles taken from the literature on non-declarative learning. The intervention combines errorless learning and structured cue fading to help second grade students improve their understanding of symbolic magnitude. Results indicate that students who learned about symbolic magnitude using the novel intervention did better than students who were provided with extensive declarative support. These findings offer preliminary evidence in favor of using learning combination of errorless learning and cue fading techniques in the mathematics classroom. (shrink)

BackgroundMinorities are an underrepresented population in clinical trials. A potential explanation for this underrepresentation could be lack of willingness to participate. The aim of our study was to evaluate willingness to participate in different hypothetical clinical research scenarios and to evaluate the role that predictors could have on the willingness of minorities to participate in clinical research studies.MethodsWe conducted a mixed-methods study at the Miami VA Healthcare system and included primary care patients with hypertension. We measured willingness to participate as (...) a survey of four clinical research scenarios that evaluated common study designs encountered in clinical research and that differed in degree of complexity. Our qualitative portion included comments about the scenarios.ResultsWe included 123 patients with hypertension in our study. Of the entire sample, ninety-three patients were minorities. Seventy per cent of the minorities were willing to participate, compared to 60 per cent of the non-minorities. The odds ratio of willingness to participate in simple studies was 0.58; 95 per cent CI 0.18–1.88 p=0.37 and the OR of willingness to participate in complex studies was 5.8; 95 per cent CI 1.10–1.31 p=0.03. In complex studies, minorities with low health literacy cited obtaining benefits as the most common reason to be willing to participate. Minorities who were not willing to participate, cited fear of unintended outcomes as the main reason.ConclusionsMinorities were more likely to be willing to participate in complex studies compared to non-minorities. Low health literacy and therapeutic misconception are important mediators when considering willingness to participate in clinical research. (shrink)

All organizations have ethics programs which consist of both explicit and implicit parts. This paper defines corporate ethics programs and identifies a number of their components. Corporate ethics programs'' structural and behavioral dimensions are proposed which may allow further examination of such program components and their impacts. Finally, fifteen propositions are suggested which describe the influence of founder values, competitive pressures, leadership, and organizational problems on corporate ethics programs and the manageability of such programs.

Various authors advocate consideration of stakeholder value concerns in organizational decision making. Brenner and Cochran (1990, 1991) propose a stakeholder theory of the firm which contains several propositions and a stakeholder value matrix. In order to begin any stakeholder rnodel validation, an approach is needed to measure stakeholder value and influence weights. We propose a multicriteria decision modeling approach, utilizing the analytic hierarchy process, to estimate stakeholder value matrix weights. This approach is illustrated using a simplified example and suggestions are (...) made regarding the process needed to begin to validate the stakeholder theory of the firm. (shrink)

The process by which auditors consider fraud risk in assessing management’s motivation and character remains under-addressed. This is problematic given the rising tide of narcissism, as well as recent research documenting that both self- and other-perceptions of narcissism influence an array of judgments. While a skeptical attitude is fundamental to the auditor’s gatekeeper role, it remains unclear how auditors form and act on perceptions of client narcissism. With a large sample of experienced accountants as participants, we leverage insights from current (...) narcissism and perceiver effects research to predict (and find) that auditor skepticism responds in a divergent manner to both the auditor’s (1) own antagonistic versus agentic narcissism and (2) perceptions of the client’s antagonistic and agentic narcissism. We discuss the observed opposing behavioral externalities related to these distinct forms of grandiose narcissism, particularly in dynamic interactions between clients and auditors. (shrink)

Both target papers cite evidence from infancy and early childhood to support the notion of human musicality as a somewhat static suite of capacities; however, in our view they do not adequately acknowledge the critical role of developmental timing, the acquisition process, or the dynamics of social learning, especially during later periods of development such as middle childhood.

Patient consent has been formulated in terms of radical individualism rather than shared benefits. Medical education relies on the provision of patient consent to provide medical students with the training and experience to become competent doctors. Pelvic examination represents an extreme case in which patients may legitimately seek to avoid contact with inexperienced medical students particularly where these are male. However, using this extreme case, this paper will examine practices of framing and obtaining consent as perceived by medical students. This (...) paper reports findings of an exploratory qualitative study of medical students and junior doctors. Participants described a number of barriers to obtaining informed consent. These related to misunderstandings concerning student roles and experiences and insufficient information on the nature of the examination. Participants reported perceptions of the negative framing of decisions on consent by nursing staff where the student was male. Potentially coercive practices of framing of the decision by senior doctors were also reported. Participants outlined strategies they adopted to circumvent patients’ reasons for refusal. Practices of framing the information used by students, nurses and senior doctors to enable patients to decide about consent are discussed in the context of good ethical practice. In the absence of a clear ethical model, coercion appears likely. We argue for an expanded model of autonomy in which the potential tension between respecting patients’ autonomy and ensuring the societal benefit of well-trained doctors is recognised. Practical recommendations are made concerning information provision and clear delineations of student and patient roles and expectations. (shrink)

This panel considered the uses of and prospects for the stakeholder theory/approach. After 20 years of popularity, the stakeholder concept has still notemerged as a true theory. However, it offers some unique perspectives on business organizations and there is plenty of room to develop stakeholder theory and research. These session notes are offered to further the scholarly discussion.

This “paper” recalls the events that shaped the first international conference of the International Association for Business and Society. A number of surprises andfortunate circumstances determined the actual nature of our 1992 meeting in Leuven, Belgium. This description provides a brief overview of that conference’s planning and execution.

This article provides a framework for comparing meritocratic and affirmative action admissions policies. The context of the analysis is admissions to public universities; admission rules are evaluated as part of the public investment problem faced by a state government. Meritocratic and affirmative admissions policies are compared in terms of their effects on the level and distribution of human capital. I argue that (a) meritocratic admissions are not necessarily efficient and (b) affirmative action policies may be efficiency enhancing relative to meritocratic (...) ones. Both these claims, as well as their negations, depend on features of individual behavior for which there is little empirical evidence. The implications of this absence of evidence are then explored, with a focus on policy evaluation when equality and efficiency are both desiderata. I argue that standard statistical decision theoretic approaches do not apply to the affirmative action case, even if equality and efficiency are rendered commensurable based on a scalar payoff function. In this context, I suggest that a presumption for equality-enhancing policies leads to support for affirmative action, but I emphasize the contingent nature of this conclusion. Key Words: affirmative action • meritocracy • college admissions • efficiency. (shrink)

This article considers the implications of complex systems models for the study of economics and the evaluation of public policies. I argue that complexity can enhance current approaches to formal economic analysis, but does so in ways that complement current approaches. I further argue that while complexity can influence how public policy analysis is conducted, it does not delimit the use of consequentialist approaches to policy comparison to the degree initially suggested by Hayek and most recently defended by Gaus.

New brain-computer interface and neuroimaging techniques are making differentiation less ambiguous and more accurate between unresponsive wakefulness syndrome patients and patients with higher cognitive function and awareness. As research into these areas continues to progress, new ethical issues will face physicians of patients suffering from total locked-in syndrome, characterized by complete loss of voluntary muscle control, with retention of cognitive function and awareness detectable only with neuroimaging and brain-computer interfaces. Physicians, researchers, ethicists and hospital ethics committees should be aware of (...) and prepared to handle ethical issues unique to these totally locked-in patients. Several thought experiments are discussed, to highlight potential ethical dilemmas surrounding surrogate decision-making, autonomy, end-of-life care, and pediatric care, which will be unique to total LIS patients. These, along with other ethical problems especially relevant to total LIS patients, merit further discussion among physicians, researchers, ethicists and hospital ethics committees, to facilitate consensus regarding these issues, and improve patient care. (shrink)

Caring for a child in a pediatric intensive care unit is emotionally and physically challenging and often leads to conflict. Skilled mediators may not always be available to aid in conflict resolution. Careproviders at all levels of training are responsible for managing difficult conversations with families and can often prevent escalation of conflict. Bioethics mediators have acknowledged the important contribution of mediation training in improving clinicians’ skills in conflict management. Familiarizing careproviders with basic mediation techniques is an important step towards (...) preventing escalation of conflict. While training in effective communication is crucial, a sense of fairness and justice that may only come with the introduction of a skilled, neutral third party is equally important. For intense conflict, we advocate for early recognition, comfort, and preparedness through training of clinicians in de-escalation and optimal communication, along with the use of more formally trained third-party mediators, as required. (shrink)

Any empirical claim about the role of genes in socioeconomic outcomes involves successfully addressing the identification problem. This commentary argues that socioeconomic outcomes such as education are sufficiently complex, involving so many mechanisms, that understanding the role genes requires the use of formal theoretical structures.

A critical analysis of contemporary strategic management theory and practice suggests that modernist, linear thinking has facilitated the development of an abstracted reality which is misleading to managers and fundamentally flawed. It is argued that formulaic strategic tools such as those propounded by Porter fail to capture the reality of the complex environments that confront firms and falsely suggest that an answer can be derived from a predetermined toolbox. As an alternative to this dominant paradigm, the complexity of markets is (...) presented not as something to be feared and ignored, but rather as a truth to be embraced. As a basis of taking this step, current knowledge on how complex environments work, perspectives on how they can be better understood and how people and organizations can engage within them, is presented. Ultimately it is recognised that both theoretical and practical foundations need significant, further development. (shrink)

This article considers the implications of complex systems models for the study of economics and the evaluation of public policies. I argue that complexity can enhance current approaches to formal economic analysis, but does so in ways that complement current approaches. I further argue that while complexity can influence how public policy analysis is conducted, it does not delimit the use of consequentialist approaches to policy comparison to the degree initially suggested by Hayek and most recently defended by Gaus.

Most physicians confront the moral and technical challenges of treating persons who are coming to the natural end of their lives. At the level of the health system, this issue becomes a more pressing area for reform as premature death decreases and more people live a full life span. Well-developed countries and international organizations such as the World Health Organization and the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development have made recommendations for improving healthcare problems in aging societies. Turkey belongs to (...) the WHO and the OECD. This article describes end-of-life healthcare in Turkey, the design of the healthcare system to meet this need, challenges that should be addressed, and solutions that would be appropriate to Turkish culture and resources. (shrink)