Emotional, social, and cognitive intelligence competencies have been recognized as the most critical capabilities for organizations to acquire at all levels. For this reason, a wide body of research since the 1980s has demonstrated their positive impact on individual performance, career success, and wellbeing across sectors and professional roles, and a large number of theoretical contributions on how these competencies can be effectively developed has emerged over time. We focus attention on the developmental and learning (...) processes of emotional, social, and cognitive intelligence competencies that occur after formal training or educational courses provided by universities or certified organizations and directed to students or practitioners. Specifically, we conduct an exploratory literature review on the existing academic studies in order to identify the scholars and the pieces of research contributing most to the debate under investigation. This article aims at analyzing this body of research through a systematic review of the literature in order to: i) provide a comprehensive critical analysis of the distinctive features of the theoretical and methodological frameworks adopted to develop these competencies; ii) review the contexts in which the training initiatives analyzed by the literature have been delivered and the categories of learner involved; iii) discuss the learning outcomes of these educational programs and how they have been assessed; iv) identify gaps and inconsistencies in the current state of the literature, suggesting promising paths for future research; and v) stimulate insights for educators, human resource managers, executives, and policymakers by organizing and critically analyzing the extant contributions on competency development. This review represents the first attempt to systematize the methodologies of the educational programs for competency development and to assess their effectiveness in order to assist educators and executives in their ongoing efforts to equip students and employees with the relevant skills needed to achieve superior performance in the workplace. At the institutional level, policymakers should promote a dedicated agenda with concrete actions to equip people with emotional and social intelligence competencies. (shrink)

The discussion around artificial empathy and its ethics is not a new one. This concept can be found in classic science fiction media such as Star Trek and Blade Runner and is also pondered on in more recent interactive media such as the video game Detroit: Become Human. In most depictions, emotions and empathy are presented as the key to being human. Misselhorn's new publication shows that these futuristic stories are becoming more and more relevant today. We must ask ourselves (...) whether we are socially responsible enough to deal with the consequences of artificial empathy/awareness. If we create artificial life, we should be prepared to treat them accordingly as living beings with respect and no longer categorize them as objects. The author does not rule out the idea that machines might one day become more human than humans themselves and that we humans might even lose our own specific cognitive, emotional and social abilities. (shrink)

Machiavellianism, emotional intelligence and social competence: Are Machiavellians interpersonally skilled? Machiavellians are usually associated with unusually high interpersonal skills which seem to be vital for effective manipulation of other people. However, the current research has not confirmed such an opinion. The aim of this study was to examine relations between Machiavellianism and self-report emotional intelligence, self-report social competences and recognizing emotions from facial expressions. Mach was negatively correlated with EI and SC overall result and with subscales (...) of social competences in intimate situations and in situations requiring social exposure. There was no correlation between Mach and recognizing emotions and between Mach and social competences in situations requiring assertiveness. Exploratory path analyses showed a direct negative association between Mach and EI, SC-I and SC-ES. Mach predicted indirectly SC-I, SC-ES and SC-A. (shrink)

Acute stress has been linked with prosocial behavior, yet it is entirely unexplored how different types of stressors may affect individuals’ willingness to help: This is particularly relevant while people is experiencing multiple sources of stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we explore whether different types of stress influence peoples’ giving behavior and the moderating role of emotional intelligence. Undergraduate students were exposed to experimentally induced social, cognitive, or emotional stress and were asked to self-report on (...) their willingness to help and donate to a charity raising funds for COVID-19 and flu patients. Results showed that when compared to a control condition, after being exposed to a social stress, participants were more willing to help a person in need. Our results also provide evidence that, after experiencing a social stress, participants with high trait EI were more willing to help, and, as a result, donated more. Findings indicate that moderate levels of distress are associated with increased donations. Interestingly, when stress is not too threatening, high EI can regulate it and promote prosocial behaviors. (shrink)

In today's post-pandemic reality, human capital plays one of the leading roles in ensuring economic growth. The intensification of innovative processes in the context of post-pandemic social constructivism, the widespread use of information technology, intellectualization of labor, etc. In the context of post-pandemic social constructivism, transformations of the content and structure of human capital take place, make adjustments to the process of its formation, accumulation, use and change the nature of the impact of human capital on economic development. (...) In today's post-pandemic reality, there are many problems both in the field of the formation of innovatively oriented human capital and in the sphere of its use, which necessitates the search for ways to effectively manage these processes in order to ensure the balanced development of production factors in the context of the formation of an innovative economy in the country. The article analyzes the main methods and aspects of cognitive psychology that can be useful in the development of human capital. In particular, special attention was paid to the development of emotional intelligence and emotional competence. The reason for choosing precisely such elements of cognitive psychology as the level of emotional intelligence and emotional competence is that they are a prerequisite for successful self-realization of a person and, as a result, an important prerequisite for successful management of human capital in the conditions of post-pandemic social constructivism. (shrink)

This target article considers the relation of fluid cognitive functioning to general intelligence. A neurobiological model differentiating working memory/executive function cognitive processes of the prefrontal cortex from aspects of psychometrically defined general intelligence is presented. Work examining the rise in mean intelligence-test performance between normative cohorts, the neuropsychology and neuroscience of cognitive function in typically and atypically developing human populations, and stress, brain development, and corticolimbic connectivity in human and nonhuman animal models is reviewed (...) and found to provide evidence of mechanisms through which early experience affects the development of an aspect of cognition closely related to, but distinct from, general intelligence. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of emotion in fluid cognition and on research indicating fluid cognitive deficits associated with early hippocampal pathology and with dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis stress-response system. Findings are seen to be consistent with the idea of an independent fluid cognitive construct and to assist with the interpretation of findings from the study of early compensatory education for children facing psychosocial adversity and from behavior genetic research on intelligence. It is concluded that ongoing development of neurobiologically grounded measures of fluid cognitive skills appropriate for young children will play a key role in understanding early mental development and the adaptive success to which it is related, particularly for young children facing social and economic disadvantage. Specifically, in the evaluation of the efficacy of compensatory education efforts such as Head Start and the readiness for school of children from diverse backgrounds, it is important to distinguish fluid cognition from psychometrically defined general intelligence. (Published Online April 5 2006) Key Words: cognition; cognition-emotion reciprocity; developmental disorders; emotion; fluid cognition; Flynn effect; general intelligence; limbic system; neuroscience; phenylketonuria; prefrontal cortex; psychometrics; schizophrenia. (shrink)

This essay describes trends in the organization of work that have laid the groundwork for the adoption of interactive AI-driven instruction tools, and the technological innovations that will make intelligent tutoring systems truly competitive with human teachers. Since the origin of occupational specialization, the collection and transmission of knowledge have been tied to individual careers and job roles, specifically doctors, teachers, clergy, and lawyers, the paradigmatic knowledge professionals. But these roles have also been tied to texts and organizations that can (...) disseminate knowledge independently from professionals. Professionals and organizations turn knowledge into texts and tools that enable lay people to access knowledge without the intermediation of professionals or organizations. In the 21st century, one emerging tool for transmitting knowledge is the intelligent tutoring system. This paper examines how technological, epistemic, and economic trends in education are supporting the routinization, proletarianization, and automation of the occupation of teaching, leading to the increasing substitution of intelligent tutoring systems for human instruction. Some trends, such as standardized curricula and testing, both restrict teachers’ professional autonomy and facilitate the creation of pedagogical tools. Other trends reduce teachers’ ability to resist automation. The growth of adjunct teaching and paraprofessional roles in higher education allows organizations to take over and rationalize parts of the traditional teacher role. Faculty evaluations and learning outcomes assessment weaken professional claims to be the sole arbiters of instructional quality and student learning. The widespread use of intelligent tutoring systems also depends on the sophistication of software capable of performing the social-emotional and cognitive roles that educators perform. Eventually, pedagogical software will be able to interactively individualize curricula to the needs and interests of every learner, more cheaply, quickly, and accurately than any human teacher. Assessment of learning will be continuous, and certification of learning will be for specific skills instead of broad area competencies. Intelligent tutoring systems will help transition education from its medieval and industrial-era model to more accessible and flexible continuing education for employment and life enrichment. (shrink)

Teachers’ social-emotional competence is considered important to master the social and emotional challenges inherent in their profession and to build positive teacher-student relationships. In turn, this is key to both teachers’ occupational well-being and positive student development. Nonetheless, an instrument assessing the profession-specific knowledge and skills that teachers need to master the social and emotional demands in the classroom is still lacking. Therefore, we developed the Test of Regulation in and Understanding of Social Situations in Teaching (...) (TRUST), which is a theory-based situational judgment test measuring teachers’ knowledge about strategies for emotion regulation and relationship management in emotionally and socially challenging situations with students. Results from three studies (N = 166 in-service teachers, N = 73 in-service teachers, N = 107 pre-service teachers) showed satisfactory internal consistency for both the emotion regulation and relationship management subtests. Furthermore, confirmatory factor analyses supported the differentiation between the two facets of social-emotional competence. Regarding convergent validity, results from Study 3 revealed a positive association between the profession-specific TRUST and pre-service teachers’ general emotional intelligence. Furthermore, small to moderate correlations with the Big Five personality traits provided evidence for the discriminant validity of TRUST. In Studies 1 and 2, we found evidence for a correlation with external criteria, that is, teachers with higher test scores reported providing more emotional support for students and having better teacher-student relationships. For teachers’ occupational well-being, we found a link with symptoms of depersonalization and job satisfaction, but none for emotional exhaustion. We will discuss the use of TRUST in research, for the evaluation of interventions, in teacher education, and professional development and will illustrate ideas for enhancing the tool. (shrink)

School gardens are part of many schools. Especially in primary schools, but also in secondary schools, they are used as a learning space and experience space for the pupils. Their importance for the development of cognitive and emotional-affective abilities of pupils is empirically well proven. It is also empirically well proven that exposure to nature has an influence on the prosocial behavior of children and adults. However, there is a lack of studies investigating the effect of the stay in (...) the school garden on the social behavior of pupils in secondary class. To investigate whether a school garden is a good environment for social learning, a self-report study and standardized observations with sixth-grade pupils were carried out. Thus, the socially competent behavior of the pupils (communication and cooperation) and their emotions could be analyzed. In order to provide emotional access to the scientific content of biology lessons and to strengthen social learning, each pupil was responsible for their own plant and the group bed over a period of 10 weeks. The design of the lessons followed the principles of basic needs—competence, autonomy, and relatedness—of the Self Determination Theory. The observations were made during a 90-min class, in the school garden as well in the classroom. The 31 girls and 22 boys, aged 11–12 years, changed weekly between the garden and the classroom. Over 150 observations were made in the school garden (82) and in the classroom (68). In summary, pupils showed more socially competent behavior in school garden lessons than in classroom lessons. The school garden lessons, designed according to the basic needs, seem to create favorable incentives for social learning. Due to frequent social interactions, it can be assumed that learning activities in school gardens can promote emotional and social competence. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship education has a lot of research on influencing factors of entrepreneurial intention but rarely studies the influence mechanism of emotional competences on entrepreneurial intention from the perspective of social entrepreneurship. This article takes college students’ social entrepreneurs as research objects, drawing on Krueger’s model, theory of planned behavior, social cognitive theory, and triadic reciprocal determinism theory. This paper constructs a conceptual model with emotional ability, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial intention, to further study their relationship. The (...) 312 students from China College Students’ Social Entrepreneurship Project engaged in early entrepreneurship practice, conducted a questionnaire survey and used the empirical test of the structural equation model to analyze the relationship between college students’ emotional competences, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial intention. The result show: First, social–emotional competence had a positive effect on entrepreneurial intention, and the positive effect of personal affective competence on entrepreneurial intention was not supported or only partially supported. Second, all the dimensions of entrepreneurial self-efficacy were significantly and positively correlated with entrepreneurial intention. Third, emotional competence has a significant positive impact on entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Fourth, entrepreneurial self-efficacy mediated the relationship between emotional competence and entrepreneurial intention. (shrink)

Critical aspects in the field of education are currently related to low levels of socioemotional competences and high rates of school dropouts. However, there are no standard practices or guidelines for helping countries to assess and train social and emotional competences. To overcome this limitation, the project Learning to be (L2B) aims to propose a comprehensive model of the assessment and development of social and emotional competences that bring together policymakers, researchers, teachers, school authorities and learners from different (...) participating countries: Finland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain. The project attempts to create an international framework for regulating activities and supporting teachers working on the social and emotional competences of the students and to provide tools which can be used across countries. The aim of the paper is to describe how L2B has been developed in Spain by analyzing the contributions of the international framework and extracting the specific needs in the Spanish context. Specifically, we describe two products of the project: a) the process for creating a toolkit, a tool focused on creating activities and materials for helping teachers develop social and emotional competences of students and b) the results of an exploratory study in Spain in which social and emotional competences are assessed and compared to the international framework. First, we explain the definition of social and emotional competences used for creating the toolkit. Second, we analyze responses of Spanish students to questionnaires administered before applying the toolkit in the schools. The paper describes social and emotional competences in Spain and evaluates the overlap between relevant variables in Spain and those used for developing the toolkit, the international tool. Specific needs in Spain are discussed, as well as the contribution of the project for promoting the improved development of students’ social and emotional competences, improving learning outcomes and stronger social cohesion in schools and local communities, as well as the utility of the results for creating new educational policies. (shrink)

This article suggests a way to circumvent some of the problems that follow from the lack of consensus on a definition of emotion (Izard, 2010; Kleinginna & Kleinginna, 1981) and emotion regulation (Cole, Martin, & Dennis, 2004) by adopting a conceptual framework based on discrete emotions theory and focusing on specific emotions. Discrete emotions theories assume that neural, affective, and cognitive processes differ across specific emotions and that each emotion has particular motivational and regulatory functions. Thus, efforts at regulation (...) should target the specific dysregulated emotions. The positive effects of emotion regulation are more likely to be optimized when they result from or lead to emotion utilization—the constructive use of the energy of emotion arousal. Effective processes for regulation differ for basic emotions and emotion schemas. This article identifies neural systems that facilitate emotion experiences and emotion regulation processes. It considers the implications of the developmental change from basic emotions to emotion schemas, and also briefly discusses the effects of interventions on changes in emotion knowledge, emotion regulation, and social and emotional competence. (shrink)

This article synthesizes the current theoretical attempts to understand human-machine interactions and introduces seven premises to understand our emerging dynamics with increasingly competent, pervasive, and instantly accessible algorithms. The hope that these seven premises can build toward a social theory of human-AI cocreation. The focus on human-AI cocreation is intended to emphasize two factors. First, is the fact that our machine learning systems are socialized. Second, is the coevolving nature of human mind and AI systems as smart devices form (...) an indispensable part of our cognitive scaffolds, thus, shaping how we perceive the world and ourselves. The seven premises include: primacy of social structures; human’s desire for freedom and autonomy; AI systems will form inseparable parts of our cognitive/affective scaffolds and can change our self-understanding; philosophy and humanistic foundations on human flourishing as a guide to human-AI interaction; mindsponge information-filtering process; acculturative process of how values change and emerge from human-AI interaction; overlapping Venn diagram of the human-human, human-nature, and human-machine interactions. This article concludes with a discussion on human agency in our entanglements with socialized machines and the illusoriness of the Cartesian agent view of the mind. (shrink)

IntroductionThe relations of motor skills to different developmental domains, i.e., cognitive, emotional, and social domain, are well-documented in research on children with poor motor competence and children with disabilities. Less conclusive evidence on interaction of motor and social or emotional development can be seen in research on typically developing children. The purpose of this study was to determine a correlation between motor skills and social-emotional functioning in typically developing preschool children and to identify differences in (...) class='Hi'>social-emotional functioning in children with different levels of motor competence.MethodsA total of 125 preschool children participated in this study. To assess children’s motor skills, we used the Test of Gross Motor Development–Second Edition that measures locomotor and object-control skills. To screen child’s social and emotional functioning, we used the Ages and Stages Questionnaire–Social Emotional: Second Edition. Spearman’s correlation analysis was used to determine association between motor skills and social-emotional functioning. Difference in social-emotional functioning between groups of preschool children with High and Low motor competences was calculated using Mann-Whitney U-test.ResultsThe main result of this study is weak correlation of child’s motor skills to social-emotional functioning. Furthermore, preschool children with High and Low motor competences do not differ in risk for social and emotional difficulties.ConclusionFurther research on typically developing children is needed to have more conclusive evidence on interaction of motor and social or emotional development. (shrink)

Moving from a behavioral definition of intelligence, which describes it as the ability to adapt to the surrounding environment and deal effectively with new situations (Anastasi, 1986), this paper explains to what extent the performance obtained by ChatGPT in the linguistic domain can be considered as intelligent behavior and to what extent they cannot. It also explains in what sense the hypothesis of decoupling between cognitive and problem-solving abilities, proposed by Floridi (2017) and Floridi and Chiriatti (2020) should (...) be interpreted. The problem of symbolic grounding (Harnad, 1990) is then addressed to show the problematic relationship between ChatGPT and the natural environment, and thus the impossibility for it to understand the symbols it manipulates. To explain the reasons why ChatGPT does not succeed in this task, an investigation is carried out and a possible solution to the problem in the artificial domain is proposed by making a comparison with the natural ability of living beings to ground their own meanings from some basic cognitive-sensory aspects, which, it is explained, are directly related to the emergence of self-awareness in humans. Thus, the question is raised whether a possible and concrete solution to the Symbol Grounding Problem would involve in the artificial domain the development of cognitive abilities fully comparable to those of humans. Finally, I explain the difficulties that would have to be overcome before such a level could be reached, since human cognitive capacities are intimately linked to intersubjectivity and intercorporeality. (shrink)

Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences has been further developed to focus on the research of human cognitive activities. Thus, the concept of emotional intelligence, which is the topic of the current paper, was introduced by John D. Mayer, Peter Salovey and ‎Daniel Goleman. General intelligence can be defined as the capacity to carry out abstract reasoning to understand meanings, to recognize the similarities and differences between two concepts and to make generalizations. Emotional intelligence is not a (...) part of general intelligence. Emotional intelligence can be defined as an ability of a human to perceive oneself and interact with others with the help of obtained and processed emotional information. Language acquisition is mediated by the necessity to communicate with others. Consequently, the ability to manage the process of communication is of utmost importance in learning a language. Virtual learning environment reduces dramatically the immediate interaction of the participants of the process of education. It undoubtedly affects the process of acquisition and demands to reconsider the distribution of different learning activities. (shrink)

This book offers a widely interdisciplinary approach to investigating important questions surrounding the cognitive foundations of group attitudes and social interaction. The volume tackles issues such as the relationship between individual and group attitudes, the cognitive bases of group identity and group identification and the link between emotions and individual attitudes. This volume delves into the links between individual attitudes and how they are reflected in shared attitudes where common belief, collective acceptance, joint intentions, and group preferences (...) come into play. It pursues answers to the connections between trust and beliefs, goals and intentions and attempts to investigate questions such as: does trust have an affective component and how it may relate to hope and fear? The volume also scrutinizes game theory and questions whether it can satisfactorily explain and model social interaction and if there may be any concepts which are not addressed by the current theory. Contributors are derived from disciplines including philosophy, economics, psychology, logic and computer science. Interdisciplinary in scope and comprehensive detail, this volume integrates a variety of approaches – philosophical, psychological and artificial intelligence – to strategic, normative and emotional aspects of social interaction. (shrink)

Carpendale & Lewis's (C&L's) interesting and insightful article did not integrate several potentially useful notions from emotion theory and research into their explanatory framework. I propose that emotions are indigenous elements of mind and that children's understanding of them is fundamental to their understanding of the mental life of self and others, understandings critical to the development of social and emotional competence.

Most discussions of the epistemology of testimony include personalist requirements. These include either requirements that stipulate certain features that individual testifiers must have in order to count as transmitters of knowledge, or that stipulate certain features that individual recipients of testimony must have in order to count as acquiring knowledge on the basis of that testimony. For example, in the former case, many views require that testifiers be competent and honest, whereas, in the latter case, many views require that recipients (...) of testimony employ faculties for reliably assessing the competence and honesty of testifiers. After presenting and discussing problems for both of these personalist requirements, in this chapter we consider a social epistemology of testimony based on socially distributed cognitive systems, an epistemology of testimony that eschews both forms of personalist requirement. (shrink)

Understanding social cognition referring to narratives without relying on mindreading skills has been the main aim of the Narrative Practice Hypothesis proposed by Daniel Hutto and Shaun Gallagher. In this paper, I offer a semiotic reformulation of the NPH, expanding the notion of narrative beyond its conventional common-sense understanding and claiming that the kind of social cognition that operates in implicit false belief task competency is developed out of the narrative logic of interaction. I will try to show (...) how experience is shaped through meaning by the structure of narrativity and the way this can account for how narrative competencies do not just depend on language acquisition, but permeate the interactive competencies of pre-linguistic children and some social non-human animals. Developing during primary and secondary intersubjectivity and rooted in the semiotic ability to deceive and manipulate others, semiotic narrativity is the key bridge that leads us to mind and beliefs starting from basic perceptions, emotions and embodied enactive interactions. I will test my Narrative Practice Semiotic Hypothesis on Autism spectrum disorders, where social cognition skills don’t work properly, connecting NPSH to the Social Motivation Theory of Autism. I will finally answer some criticisms towards the original NPH, connecting its semiotic reformulation to early mindreading in infants and to some very recent experiments by Krupeneye et al. and Buttelmann et al. about false beliefs understanding in primates. (shrink)

Previous studies using the dot-perspective task postulated that people automatically take into account others' perspective even when it prevents them from achieving their own goals. This human ability may be of key importance for the ascription of mental states and social interactions. The cognitive and emotional determinants of automatic perspective taking is still matter of debate. To address this issue, we examined the performance in the Samson et al. APT task in 91 healthy adults who underwent a detailed (...) neuropsychological testing including assessment of their general intelligence, attention and impulsivity, alexithymia, and measures of affective empathy and explicit theory of mind. Univariate and multiple linear regression models were used to explore the association between mean reaction times in the APT task, and the CPT-II parameters, WAIS global score, TAS, and GeSoCS and mini-SEA scores. Only the CPT-II parameters were significantly associated with the mean reaction times. Increased omissions, commissions, and detectability as well as hit reaction time standard error in CPT-II were all related to worse performances both in Self and Other conditions. The mean number of errors was negatively associated with the GeSoCS score. Among the variables studied, only CPT-II parameters had a significant impact on egocentric and altercentric interference. Neither global intelligence nor alexithymia have an effect on dot-perspective task performance. The present findings suggest that people with lower attentional resources and increased impulsivity display worse performances in the APT task and are less responsive to both egocentric and altercentric interference. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Human Adaptations to the Water: An Exercise in Imagination Life in the ocean: the importance of other people Dolphin Intelligence in the Wild Dolphin Communication Social Intelligence and Group Cohesion Dolphins and Sex The Cognitive and Affective Skills Involved in Group Living Conclusion: Dolphin Intelligence.

Many argue that higher-cognitive emotions such as pride arose de novo in humans, and thus fall outside of the scope of the kinds of evolutionary explanations offered for ?basic emotions,? like fear. This approach fractures the general category of ?emotion? into two deeply distinct kinds of emotion. However, an increasing number of emotion researchers are converging on the conclusion that higher-cognitive emotions are evolutionarily rooted in simpler emotional responses found in primates. I argue that pride fits this pattern, (...) and then consider some of the possible mechanisms by which the basic forms of these emotions have been transformed, arguing that we can see this transformation in part as the progressive internalization of originally externalized processes associated with norms, selfhood, and social structure. This connects the emotion literature with the literatures on the Social/Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis and situated cognition, offering the possibility of a more unified theory of human emotions. (shrink)

How educators and students process and respond to emotions can either enhance or impede the development of the whole child. Social and emotional learning refers to the processes of developing social and emotional competencies, which depend on individuals’ capacity to recognize, understand, and manage emotions. Consensus across disciplines about the importance of EI highlights the need to advance the science of how to teach SEL. RULER, an evidence-based approach to teaching EI, provides an educational framework that encompasses (...) a set of practices for comprehensive SEL integration across a school or district. In this article, we describe RULER, explain how it teaches EI, and summarize evidence of its effectiveness. (shrink)

Research suggests that attitudes guide individuals’ thinking and actions. In this study, we explore the monetary intelligence construct and investigate the relationships between a formative model of money attitudes involving affective, behavioral, and cognitive components and several sets of outcome variables—unethical intentions, intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction, and coping strategies. Based on 515 managers in the Republic of Macedonia, we test our model for the whole sample and also cross sector and gender. Managers’ negative stewardship behavior and positive (...) cognitive meaning of money define MI which, in turn, is related to unethical intentions. Positive cognition in the public sector and poor stewardship behavior in the private sector contribute to unethical intentions, respectively. Good stewards have higher intrinsic and lower extrinsic job satisfaction, those in the private sector, in particular. Affective motive and stewardship behavior are related to their stronger “approach” coping strategies and weaker “avoidance” coping strategies. Affective motive and stewardship behavior contribute to coping responses for managers in the public and private sectors, respectively. Further, the relationship between stewardship behavior and coping mechanisms exists for females, but not for males. We demonstrate that MI, a type of social intelligence, allows individuals to monitor their own emotions, behaviors, and cognitions and guides their thinking and actions. (shrink)

The Internet provides access to a global space of information assets and computational services. It also, however, serves as a platform for social interaction (e.g., Facebook) and participatory involvement in all manner of online tasks and activities (e.g., Wikipedia). There is a sense, therefore, that the Internet yields an unprecedented form of access to the human social environment: it provides insight into the dynamics of human behavior (both individual and collective), and it additionally provides access to the digital (...) products of human cognitive labor (again, both individual and collective). Such access is interesting from the standpoint of research into machine intelligence, for the human social environment looks to be of crucial importance when it comes to the evolutionary and developmental origins of the human mind. In the present paper, we develop a theoretical account that sees the Internet as providing opportunities for online systems to function as socially-situated agents. The result is a vision of machine intelligence in which advanced forms of cognitive competence are seen to arise from the creation of a new kind of digital socio-ecological niche. The present paper attempts to detail this vision with respect to the notion of socially-scaffolded cognition. It also describes some of the forms of machine learning that may be required to enable online systems to press maximal cognitive benefit from their new-found informational contact with the human social world. (shrink)

Social-emotional competences are critical for positive development and significantly predict educational and occupational attainment, health, and well-being. There is however a lack of consensus about the number of core competences, and how these are defined and operationalized. This divergence in approach challenges future research as well as the scientific usefulness of the construct. In an effort to create an integrative framework, this focused review evaluates different approaches of conceptualizing and assessing social-emotional competences. Building on shared conceptions, an integrative (...) taxonomy “DOMASEC” is introduced, specifying core domains and manifestations of social-emotional competences that bridge across frameworks focusing on social and emotional learning, personality traits and self-determination theory. Core domains include intrapersonal, interpersonal and task-oriented competencies, differentiating between affective, cognitive, and behavioral manifestations of competences across these domains. It is argued that the integrative taxonomy facilitates the conceptual specification of key constructs, that it helps to better organize the multitude of terms and definitions used, and to guide the conceptualization and operationalization of social-emotional competences and their various facets. (shrink)

I develop a multilevel, holistic view of persons, emphasizing embodiment, emotions, consciousness, and the social self. In successive sections I draw from six sources: 1. Theology. The biblical understanding of the unitary, embodied, social self gave way in classical Christianity to a body‐soul dualism, but it has been recovered by many recent theologians. 2. Neuroscience. Research has shown the localization of mental functions in regions of the brain, the interaction of cognition and emotion, and the importance of (...) class='Hi'>social interaction in evolutionary history and child development. 3. Artificial intelligence. Some forms of robotics use embodied systems that learn by interacting with their environment, but the possibilities for emotion, socialization, and consciousness in robots remain problematic. 4. Relations between levels. Concepts that can help us relate studies of neurons and persons include the hierarchy of levels, the communication of information, thebehavior of dynamic systems, and epistemological and ontological emergence. 5. Philosophy of mind. Two‐aspect theories of the mind‐brain relation offer an alternative between the extremes of eliminative materialism and the thesis that consciousness is irreducible. 6. Process philosophy. I suggest that process thought provides a coherent philosophical framework in which these themes can be brought together. It combines dipolar monism with organizational pluralism, and it emphasizes embodiment, emotions, a hierarchy oflevels, and the social character of selfhood. (shrink)

Some have claimed that since machines lack emotional “qualia”, or conscious experiences of emotion, machine intelligence will fall short of human intelligence. I examine this objection, ultimately finding it unpersuasive. I first discuss recent work on emotion that suggests that emotion plays various roles in cognition. I then raise the following question: are phenomenal experiences of emotion an essential or necessary component of the performance of these cognitive abilities? I then sharpen the question by distinguishing between four (...) possible positions one might take. I reject one of these four positions largely on empirical grounds. But the remaining three positions all suggest that even if emotional qualia play an important role in human cognition, emotional qualia are not essential to the performance of these cognitive abilities in principle, so, e.g., a machine that lacks emotional qualia might still be able to perform them. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Touching TestAI and the Future of Human IntimacyMartha J. Reineke (bio)Each Friday, the New York Times publishes Love Letters, a compendium of articles on courtship. A recent story featured Melinda, a real estate agent, and Calvin, a human resources director.1 They had met at a market deli counter. On their first date, a lasagna dinner at Melinda's home, Calvin posed the question, "What are you looking for in (...) a man?" To his surprise, Melinda reached into her pocket and pulled out a two-page list, "Melinda's Husband Traits." Her 46-item list begins with "Christian, honor God, put Him first" and includes as entry number 37, "He likes to be touched and likes to touch me." Notwithstanding laudable features of Melinda's inventory, if David Levy, President of the International Computer Games Association and an expert on artificial intelligence (AI), is correct in his predictions, in the years ahead, women like Melinda who know exactly what they are looking for in a husband will desire something radically new: a robot. After all, artificial agents will soon possess or improve on every quality the romantically inclined previously have sought in a human partner. [End Page 123]Levi predicts robots will be preferred romantic partners by the middle of this century.2 Capable of providing erotic satisfaction and creating deep emotional bonds with human partners, these robots will be an achievable outcome of AI engineering that already has brought to market industrial and service robots, virtual pets, and caregiver robots for the elderly. Levi offers a research-based inventory of traits a robot will offer its human partner: kindness and understanding, a sense of humor, expressiveness, intelligence, and sociability.3 He pinpoints additional features that will facilitate romance: The ideal robot partner will elicit erotic attraction, give evidence of readiness for a serious relationship with its verbal assertions, and possess a capacity for mutual intimacy.4 Levi's argument is intentionally provocative, for he emphasizes the centrality of sex to future robot/human pairings, waxing rhapsodic about the performative superiority of robots to humans in the sexual act.5Elaborating on potential human love relationships with robots, Levi asserts that a robot will need to master imitation if a human is to want it as a romantic partner. Not only is imitation a central aspect of every human-to-human relationship, but also imitation has been identified by researchers as a crucial element in romantic desire.6 Levi states that human-to-human attraction is founded on similarities between prospective partners in appearance, personality, and social context. It is sustained only through what Levi calls "reciprocal liking."7 For romantic relationships between humans and robots to flourish, they too must engage in acts of reciprocal imitation.In highlighting the necessity of imitation in effective robot and human interactions, Levi draws close to René Girard's theory of "mimetic desire." According to Girard, imitation structures all "wanting,"8 delineating what we aspire to look like or hope to possess and determining what we value, take comfort in, or experience as a threat. Indeed, the individual is never the origin point of its desires. Each of us always desires mimetically—according to the desire of the other.9 As Scott Garrels confirms in Mimesis and Science, researchers studying imitation in developmental, comparative, and social psychology, as well as in neurophysiology and cognitive neuroscience, support Girard's claims: Imitation is fundamental in human life.10 Likewise, Girard concurs with Levi that romantic relationships are primary examples of imitative desire. As described by Girard in Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, imitative behaviors form the romantic triangles that feature prominently in fiction: for example, Odette and the many men enchanted by her in Proust's In Search of Lost Time; Anselmo, Lotario, and Camilla in Don Quixote; and Velchaninov and Troussotzki, along with Troussotzki's deceased wife and prospective fiancée, in Dostoyevsky's The Eternal Husband.11 [End Page 124]Notwithstanding similarities in Levi and Girard's views of imitation, they differ in a crucial respect. Only Girard acknowledges just how extraordinarily fraught mimesis can become. When imitators compete (e.g., for things, status, and experiences), they will contest... (shrink)

What are the motivational bases that help explain the various normative judgements that social agents make, and the normative reasoning they employ? Answering this question leads us to consider the relationships between thoughts and emotions. Emotions will be described as thought-dependent and thought-directing, and as being intimately related to normativity. They are conceived as the grounds that motivate social agents to articulate their reasoning with respect to the values and norms they face and/or share in their social (...) collective. It is argued that because they are modes of thinking, emotions generate cognitive activities that relate to the making of evaluative and deontic judgements, the utterance of speech acts, the mastering of normative concepts and the building of arguments. Furthermore, each type of emotion generates its own constitutive judgements and structures normative thinking according to its own logic. The main thesis is that emotions provide sociological explanations for social agents’ thinking and speech, for emotions are precisely what motivate and, especially, structure normative reasoning and language. Being observable in language, emotions allow us to explain a) how social subjects reason and argue through norms and values, and b) how social subjects through their speech acts can contribute to the (un-)making of the social world. (shrink)

To become more broadly applicable, positions on AI ethics require perspectives from non-Western regions and cultures such as China and Japan. In this paper, we propose that the addition of the concept of harmony to the discussion on ethical AI would be highly beneficial due to its centrality in East Asian cultures and its applicability to the challenge of designing AI for social good. We first present a synopsis of different definitions of harmony in multiple contexts, such as music (...) and society, which reveals that the concept is, at its core, about well-balanced relationships and appropriate actions which give rise to order, balance, and aesthetically pleasing phenomena. The mediator for these well-balanced relationships isTaktwhich is an ability to act thoughtfully and sensibly according to the specific situation and to put things into proportion and order. We propose that the central challenge of building harmonizing AI is to make intelligent systems tactful and also to design and use them tactfully. For an AI system to become tactful, it needs to be able to have an advanced sensitivity to the specific contexts which it is in and their social and ethical implications and have the capability of approximately inferring the emotional and cognitive states of people with whom it is interacting. (shrink)

It has been asserted that the socio-emotional challenges associated with autism spectrum disorder may be explained, in part, by the higher rates of alexithymia in individuals with autism. Alexithymia refers to difficulties in identifying one’s own emotional states and describing those states to others. Thus, one goal of the present study was to examine levels of alexithymia in relation to ASD symptomatology and trait emotion intelligence. Trait EI is a multifaceted concept that captures emotional competencies and behavioral dispositions (...) A second goal was to assess whether alexithymia, ASD symptomatology and trait EI served as significant predictors of adjustment to college, including academic, social, and personal-emotional adjustment. In addition to keeping with the spectrum nature of autism, our research strategy allowed us to capture those students who may not have received a formal diagnosis of ASD but report symptoms that can be indicative of ASD. This includes women, who are less likely to receive a diagnosis of ASD even when ASD symptomatology is present. The results of the study showed that students reporting higher levels of ASD symptomatology also reported significantly higher levels of alexithymia and lower trait emotional intelligence than those with less or no symptomatology. Alexithymia was also negatively related to trait EI, and both alexithymia and ASD symptomatology were found to be significant predictors of trait EI. However, only trait EI was a significant predictor of adjustment to college and only for social adjustment. These findings suggest that support programs that develop trait EI skills may improve the college experience for students with ASD, regardless of alexithymia or ASD symptomatology. (shrink)

This study tested a structural model of cognitive-emotional explanatory variables to explain performance in mathematics. The predictor variables assessed were related to students’ level of development of early mathematical competencies (EMCs), specifically, relational and numerical competencies, predisposition toward mathematics, and the level of logical intelligence in a population of primary school Chilean students (n = 634). This longitudinal study also included the academic performance of the students during a period of four years as a variable. The (...) sampled students were initially assessed by means of an Early Numeracy Test (ENT), and, subsequently, they were administered a Likert-type scale to measure their predisposition toward mathematics (EPMAT) and a basic test of logical intelligence (TILE). The results of these tests were used to analyse the interaction of all the aforementioned variables by means of a structural equations model. This combined interaction model was able to predict 64.3% of the variability of observed performance. Preschool students' performance in EMCs was a strong predictor for achievement in mathematics for students between 8 to 11 years of age. Therefore, this paper highlights the importance of EMCs and the modulating role of predisposition toward mathematics. Also, this paper discusses the educational role of these findings, as well as possible ways to improve negative predispositions toward mathematical tasks in the school domain. (shrink)

Our fascination with artificial intelligence (AI), robots and sentient machines has a long history, and references to such humanoids are present even in ancient myths and folklore. The advancements in digital and computational technology have turned this fascination into apprehension, with the machines often being depicted as a binary to the human. However, the recent domains of academic enquiry such as transhumanism and posthumanism have produced many a literature in the genre of science fiction (SF) that endeavours to alter (...) this antagonistic notion of AI. In his novel Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro explores this notion of AI as a caring machine capable of nursing an ailing young girl back to health. Through this portrayal of AI as a sentient being capable of empathy and cognition, Ishiguro is attempting to usher in a new perception of AI: a posthuman perception that challenges the conventional notions of AI as a machine devoid of emotions. The novel further expands on the idea of self, soul and human consciousness and ponders on the question, what makes humans human, and if it is possible to imbibe these qualities onto an AI. Owing to the novelty of this notion, an unexplored avenue that deserves further exploration, this paper examines the plausibility of this new notion of AI through a careful exegesis of the novel. The paper also attempts to chart the impact of SF in society and culture. The study reveals a positive shift in perception towards AI, and there seems to be much scope for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. (shrink)

Non-suicidal self-injury is a complex behaviour, routinely engaged for emotion regulatory purposes. As such, a number of theoretical accounts regarding the aetiology and maintenance of NSSI are grounded in models of emotion regulation; the role that cognition plays in the behaviour is less well known. In this paper, we summarise four models of emotion regulation that have repeatedly been related to NSSI and identify the core components across them. We then draw on social cognitive theory to unite models (...) of cognition and models of emotion in developing a new cognitive-emotional model of NSSI. Our model articulates how emotion regulation and cognition can work in concert to govern NSSI, and offers several new research questions that can be addressed within this framework. (shrink)

In a society where mobility, globalization and contact with people from other cultures have become its basic descriptors, the enhancement of plurilingualism and intercultural understanding seem to be of the utmost concern. From a Positive Psychology Perspective, agency is the human capacity to affect other people positively or negatively through their actions. This agentic vision can be related to mediation, a concept rooted in the socio-cultural learning theory where social interaction is considered a fundamental cornerstone in the development of (...) cognition. Social interactions in the language learning setting may be facilitated through musical activities due to its social bonding effect. This paper tries to offer insights on how a musical-mediated experience in language learning may develop students’ interpersonal and collaborative competences to become active members of a more inclusive society. Mediation, considered as a paradigm shift in the foreign language classroom and the different out-of-class language learning possibilities, could also provide an environment where learners maximize their emotional intelligence. Our paper focuses on this paradigm shift spearheaded by the CEFR Companion Volume and the considerable repercussions it is bound to have for foreign language didactics, as cooperative tasks become central to foreign language learning. We hypothesize that mediated language learning experiences imply a socioemotional change in learners, focusing on the others, on their needs and interests, by trying to help them understand texts, concepts or facilitating communication with their peers. An intervention with a musical-mediated language learning experience was designed and implemented in the classroom. A self assessment scale with mediation descriptors and the socioemotional expertise scale (SEE) were administered. Results show that students become more mindful of their strengths, of their capacity for collaborating and team working. This leads to more awareness of their mediation skills. Students’ mediation skills correlate significantly with their socio-emotional skills, more concretely with their expressivity. The implementation of a musical-mediated experience also promoted tolerance and enhanced learners’ intrinsic motivation for language learning at the same time as they acknowledged their diversity. (shrink)

The construction of embodied conversational agents - robots as well as avatars - seem to be a new challenge in the field of both cognitive AI and human-computer-interface development. On the one hand, one aims at gaining new insights in the development of cognition and communication by constructing intelligent, physical instantiated artefacts. On the other hand people are driven by the idea, that humanlike mechanical dialog-partners will have a positive effect on human-machine-communication. In this contribution I put for discussion (...) whether the visions of scientist in this field are plausible and which problems might arise by the realization of such projects. (shrink)

Mentalization is a useful ability for social functioning and a crucial aspect of mentalizing is emotion regulation. Literature suggests programmes for children and adults to increase mentalizing abilities useful both for emotional and social competences. For this reason, the issue of how to prompt children’s mentalization has started to attract researchers’ attention, supporting the importance of the interpersonal dimension for the individual differences in the developmental of mentalization. The TiM (Thoughts in Mind) Project, a training programme based on (...) the explanation of mentalization mechanisms and designed for adults, deals with emotion regulation. Starting from the TiM Project, this study tests the effects of the TiM Child (TiM-C) training programme, over a control training programme, a conversational training designed for the school context, in children attending Year 2 of primary school. We designed a training based on narratives, followed by multiple-choice questions and conversations about mental states. Our results revealed significant improvements over the training period only in the TiM-C Project group for Metacognition, Emotion Regulation Strategies and a Theory of Mind task. As far as the educational implications, our findings suggest that it is possible to enhance mentalization through activities at school by promoting not only the understanding of the relations between mind and emotion, but also metacognitive skills. (shrink)

This book consists of an edited collection of original essays of the highest academic quality by seasoned experts in their fields of cognitive science. The essays are interdisciplinary, drawing from many of the fields known collectively as “the cognitive sciences.” Topics discussed represent a significant cross-section of the most current and interesting issues in cognitive science. Specific topics include matters regarding machine learning and cognitive architecture, the nature of cognitive content, the relationship of information to (...) cognition, the role of language and communication in cognition, the nature of embodied cognition, selective topics in visual cognition, brain connectivity, computation and simulation, social and technological issues within the cognitive sciences, and significant issues in the history of neuroscience. This book will be of interest to both professional researchers and newer students and graduate students in the fields of cognitive science—including computer science, linguistics, philosophy, psychology and neuroscience. The essays are in English and are designed to be as free as possible of technical jargon and therefore accessible to young scholars and to scholars who are new to the cognitive neurosciences. In addition to several entries by single authors, the book contains several interesting roundtables where researchers contribute answers to a central question presented to those in the focus group on one of the core areas listed above. This exciting approach provides a variety of perspectives from across disciplines on topics of current concern in the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that there is an essential difference between social intelligence and creative intelligence, and that they have their foundation in human sexuality. For sex differences, we refer to the vast psychological, neurological, and cognitive science research where problem-solving, verbal skills, logical reasoning, and other topics are dealt with. Intelligence tests suggest that, on average, neither sex has more general intelligence than the other. Though people are equals in general intelligence, (...) they are different in special forms of intelligence such as social intelligence and creative intelligence, the former dominant in women, the latter dominant in men. The dominance of creative intelligence in men needs to be explained. The focus of our research is on the strictly anthropological aspects, and consequently our explanation for this fact is based on the male-female polarity in the mating systems. Sexual dimorphism does not only regard bodily differences but implies different forms of sex life. Sex researchers distinguish between two levels of sexual intercourse: procreative sex and recreational sex, and to these we would add “creative sex.” On all three levels, there is a behavioral difference between men and women, including the subjective experience. These differences are as well attributed to culture as genetically founded in nature. Sexual reproduction is only possible if females cooperate. Their biological inheritance makes females play a decisive role in mate choice. Recreational sex for the purpose of pleasure rather than reproduction results from female extended sexual activity. Creative sex, on the contrary, is a specifically male performance of sexuality. We identify creative sex with eroticism. Eroticism evolved through the transformation of the sexual drive into a mental state of expectation and fantasizing. Hence, sex differences (that nowadays are covered up by cultural egalitarianism) continue to be the evolutionary origin of the difference between social and creative intelligence. (shrink)

Objectives: To explore the effect of social support and ability perception on stress coping strategies for competitive stress, and to reveal the mediating effects of primary and secondary evaluation, so as to further improve the theoretical model of stress coping in soccer players.Methods: A total of 331 male athletes from 22 teams in the Chengdu Middle School Campus Football League were taken as survey samples, and surveys were conducted on their stress experience, social support, ability perception, cognitive (...) assessment, and coping strategies for competition stress. SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 21.0 statistical analysis software were used. Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis were used to process the obtained data.Results: Positive primary assessment acted as a full mediator in the relationship between social support and secondary assessments, and negative primary assessment acted as a partial mediator in the relationship between competence perception and secondary assessments; Secondary assessment played a partial mediating role between positive primary assessment and positive coping strategies, and a full mediating role between negative primary assessment and positive coping strategies; Secondary assessments played the mediator neither between social support and a coping strategy for stress nor competence perception and a coping strategy for stress; Positive primary assessment, positive negative assessment, and secondary assessment all had significant positive benefits for positive coping. Still, the impact of positive primary assessment on positive coping was significantly better than negative primary assessment and secondary assessment.Conclusion: The coping strategy for the competitive stress model proposed by this study has a very good fit for the causal model. It can be used to explain the observed data from soccer players in middle schools. The primary and secondary assessments play different roles in the model. The combination of problem focuses and emotional focus on the positive stress coping strategy is suitable in the field of competitive sports. Still, the relevant research results need to be further explored and verified in the future. (shrink)

I have been arguing, for almost thirty years now, that emotions have been unduly neglected in philosophy. Back in the seventies, it was an argument that attracted little sympathy. I have also been arguing that emotions are a ripe for philosophical analysis, a view that, as evidenced by the Manchester 2001 conference and a large number of excellent publications, has now become mainstream. My own analysis of emotion, first published in 1973, challenged the sharp divide between emotions and rationality, insisted (...) that we reject the established notion that the emotions are involuntary, and argued, in a brief slogan, that ‘ emotions are judgments.’ Since then, although the specific term ‘judgment’ has come under considerable fire and my voluntarist thesis continues to attract incredulousness the general approach I took to emotions has been widely accepted in both philosophy and the social sciences. When Paul Griffiths took on what he misleadingly characterized as ‘propositional attitude’ theories of emotion as the enemy of all that was true and scientifically worthy, I knew that we had made it. Such ferocious abuse is surely a sign that we had shifted, in Kuhnian terms, from being revolutionary to becoming the ‘normal’ paradigm. The current counter-revolution of affect programmes and neuro-reductionism says a lot about who we are and how far we have come. (shrink)