Although the authors' ingenuity in identifying criteria for innovation for field studies is appealing, most field studies will lack adequate data. Additionally, their definition does not clearly distinguish innovation from individual learning and is vague about cognitive mechanisms involved. We suggest that developmental data are essential to identifying the causes and consequences of learning new behaviors.

Background: The current study was designed to examine whether ethnic-racial identity moderated the relationship between disordered eating and primary ethnic identification.Methods: Three hundred and ninety-eight undergraduate women were recruited from a large university in Hawai‘i. Participants completed the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire, the ERI measure, and reported their primary ethnicity as an index of ethnicity.Results: There was a significant correlation between eating concerns and centrality, r = 0.127, p < 0.05. Moderation analyses indicated that only ERI centrality moderated the predictive (...) effect of ethnicity on the importance of eating concerns, b = 0.05, t = 2.37, p = 0.018.Conclusions: The results suggest that the relationship between self-reported primary ethnicity and EDEQ scores is greater when ethnicity is more central to the individual's identity or when the in-group affect is important to an individual. Findings underscore the need for further research on the underlying mechanisms that account for the differing ways that ERI may affect eating concerns. (shrink)

Executives, professionals, educators and labour leaders are requesting an update on corporate ethical trends. This article presents an examination of why the interest in corporate ethics is growing both in society and in corporations. An analysis follows of how corporations are responding to this interest, and of how that response might be enhanced through improved second-generation codes of ethical performance.

Against the backdrop of a global pandemic, this study investigates how U.S. higher education leaders have centered their crisis management on values and guiding ethical principles. We conducted 55 in-depth interviews with leaders from 30 U.S. higher education institutions, with most leaders participating in two interviews. We found that crisis plans created prior to the COVID-19 pandemic were inadequate due to the long duration and highly uncertain nature of the crisis. Instead, higher education leaders applied guiding principles on the fly (...) to support their decision-making. If colleges and universities infuse shared values into their future crisis plans, they will not have to develop a moral compass on the fly for the next pandemic. This paper suggests the following somewhat universal shared values: engage in accuracy, transparency, and accountability; foster deliberative dialog; prioritize safety; support justice, fairness, and equity; and engage in an ethic of care. To navigate ethics tensions, leaders need to possess crisis-relevant expertise or ensure that such expertise is present among crisis management team members. Standing up formal ethics committees composed of diverse stakeholders also is instrumental in navigating tensions inherent in crises. The next pandemic is already on the horizon according to experts. Through infusing values into future crisis plans, higher education leaders can be confident that their responses will be grounded in their communities’ shared values. (shrink)

I argue that environmental ignorance is a group-based form of substantive ignorance that is analogous to race-based ignorance, showing that they are structurally and functionally similar and sometimes overlap. While race theorists offer promising solutions toward eliminating race-based ignorance, I argue that something far more is needed in the environmental case. I turn to panpsychism as a possible solution. Though I conclude that it is too radical for most Americans to willingly embrace, I incorporate a notion of “encounter” to argue (...) that an expanded conception of home helps with the conceptual overhaul needed to overcome environmental ignorance. (shrink)

Abstract:In this paper, I argue that our lives are situated in territories of natural and built environments that should be included in our conceptions of home. I maintain that this expanded conception is indispensable for an environmental ethic that is both well- grounded and practically efficacious. Thus, I take a serious look at the things, places, and others that ought to be included in our concept of home.In the first section I discuss persistent problems for dominant theories of environmental ethics, (...) namely that they fail to connect or give equal weight to value in nature and valuing nature. In the second section, I rely on the work of Hans Jonas to show that ethical responsibility is central to any robust theory of ethics. Ethical theory requires both a source of value and a feeling of responsibility toward that value to be appropriately grounded. Sections three and four contain my arguments for a conception of home in an expanded sense. There I also argue that homes act as primal sites of responsibility, ones that establish both value in nature and a feeling that grounds an environmental ethic. The final section builds on this ground by providing a set of values or ideals to which individuals can commit in order to make their homes good ones in an ethically- charged sense. (shrink)

ate program and identified the ethical commitments and threats living kidney donors perceive throughout the donation process. Method: This quality improvement project reflects a mixed-methods methodology. Qualitative as well as quantitative data were generated through the donor-advocate consultation sessions and the written Living Donor Satisfaction Survey. Thirteen living donors participated. Results: No threats to donor rights were identified by either the donor or the advocate. Nonrelated donors were motivated by altruism, whereas related donors were motivated by a sense of family. (...) A majority of donors reported being changed emotionally and spiritually by the act of serving as a living donor. The living kidney donors were overwhelmingly extremely satisfied with their decision to donate and perceived the living donor advocacy program as being very good. Discussion: Questions have been raised about what role the donor’s spouse should have during the informed consent process. Further research is needed to better understand the role and power of an advocate when threats to the donor’s rights are noted.... (shrink)

Background Investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) is a technique that involves uploading genotypes developed from perpetrator DNA left at a crime scene, or DNA from unidentified remains, to public genetic genealogy databases to identify genetic relatives and, through the creation of a family tree, the individual who was the source of the DNA. As policymakers demonstrate interest in regulating IGG, it is important to understand public perspectives on IGG to determine whether proposed policies are aligned with public attitudes.Methods We conducted eight (...) focus groups with members of the public (N = 72), sampled from four geographically diverse US regions, to explore general attitudes and perspectives regarding aspects of IGG practices, applications, and policies. Five major topics were explored in each focus group: when IGG should be used; who should perform IGG; how to approach consent for genetic database users; what systems of oversight should govern IGG practitioners; and whether to notify database users if their data are involved in law enforcement (LE) matching.Results Participants were supportive of IGG in most scenarios, especially for cold and violent cases. The favorable attitudes toward IGG were, however, tempered by distrust of law enforcement among some participants. All participants agreed that databases must inform users if IGG is allowed, but they did not agree on how individual database users should be allowed to opt out or whether to notify them if their data are involved in specific investigations. All participants agreed that IGG should be subject to some prescriptive guidelines, regulations, or accountability mechanisms.Conclusions These findings suggest broad public support for IGG, and interest in developing systems of accountability for its practice. Our study provides useful insight for policy makers, genomic database stewards, law enforcement, and other stakeholders in IGG’s practice, and suggests multiple directions for future research. (shrink)

Von Hippel & Trivers suggest that people enhance their own self-views as a means of persuading others to adopt similarly inflated perceptions of them. We question the existence of a pervasive desire for self-enhancement, noting that the evidence the authors cite could reflect self-verification strivings or no motive whatsoever. An identity negotiation framework provides a more tenable approach to social interaction.

Background While it is generally acknowledged that self-prescribing among physicians poses some risk, research finds such behaviour to be common and in certain cases accepted by the medical community. Largely absent from the literature is knowledge about other activities doctors perform for their own medical care or for the informal treatment of family and friends. This study examined the variety, frequency and association of behaviours doctors report providing informally. Informal care included prescriptions, as well as any other type of personal (...) medical treatment (eg, monitoring chronic or serious conditions). Method A survey was sent to 2500 randomly-selected physicians in Colorado, 600 individuals returned questionnaires with usable data. The authors hypothesised: (1) physicians would prescribe the same types of treatment at home as they prescribed professionally; and (2) physicians who informally prescribed addictive medications would be more likely to engage in other types of informal medical care. Results Physicians who wrote prescriptions for antibiotics, psychotropics and opioids at work were more likely to prescribe these medications at home. Those prescribing addictive drugs outside of the office treated more serious illnesses in emergency situations, more chronic conditions and more major medical/surgical conditions informally than did those not routinely prescribing addictive medications. Physicians reported a variety of informal care behaviour and high frequency of informal care to family and friends. Discussion The frequency and variety of informal care reported in this study strongly argues for profession-wide discussion about ethical and guideline considerations for such behaviour. These areas are discussed in the paper. (shrink)

Why has thinking about politics over the centuries been quite so intertwined with thinking about educational theory and practice? This book draws together a fascinating mix of educational pioneers and thinkers to answer this question and more.

Uses modernist and postmodernist theoretical perspectives to examine the formation and reformation of states throughout history and around the globe.

Jeffrey Friedman presents positive libertarianism as consisting of an objective morality, autonomy, and moral totalism. He then defines postlibertarianism as a consequentialist positive libertarianism. However, Friedman's claim that the choice of moral axioms is unjustifiable, and an equivocation in his use of the term “moral,” makes his presentation of positive libertarianism incoherent. Nor is Friedman successful in grafting consequentialism onto positive libertarianism. The autonomy of positive libertarianism renders consequentialism superfluous, and the ends of the two systems conflict, for positive libertarianism (...) judges people, while the consequentialism of postlibertarianism judges actions. (shrink)

The question of what explains individual differences in expertise within complex domains such as music, games, sports, science, and medicine is currently a major topic of interest in a diverse range of fields, including psychology, education, and sports science, to name just a few. Ericsson and colleagues’ deliberate practice view is highly influential perspective in the literature on expertise and expert performance—but is it viable as a testable scientific theory? Here, reviewing more than 25 years of Ericsson and colleagues’ writings, (...) we document critical inconsistencies in the definition of deliberate practice, along with apparent shifts in the standard for evidence concerning deliberate practice. We also consider the impact of these issues on progress in the field of expertise, focusing on the empirical testability and falsifiability of the deliberate practice view. We then discuss a multifactorial perspective on expertise, and how open science practices can accelerate progress in research guided by this perspective. (shrink)

Calpain (Cp) is a calcium (Ca2+)‐dependent cysteine protease. Activation of the major isoforms of Cp, CpI and CpII, are required for a number of important cellular processes including adherence, shape change and migration. The current concept that cytoplasmic Cp locates and associates with its regulatory subunit (Rs) and substrates as well as translocates throughout the cell via random diffusion is not compatible with the spatial and temporal constraints of cellular metabolism. The novel finding that Cp and Rs function relies upon (...) tenacious hydrophobic interactions with organelle membranes offers a unifying explanation for the paradoxical and puzzling features of Cp activation and regulation such as how nM concentrations of intracellular Ca2+ can activate Cp molecules requiring μM to mM concentrations of Ca2+ for in vitro activation, and how this protease can spatially and temporally locate specific substrates and translocate throughout the cell. We hypothesize that Cp and its regulatory moieties associate with organelles to facilitate the activation of this protease resulting in the cleavage of substrates and aid in its translocation throughout the cell. BioEssays 28: 850–859, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Mood affects social cognition and “theory of mind”, such that people in a persistent negative mood (i.e., dysphoria) have enhanced abilities at making subtle judgements about others’ mental states. Theorists have argued that this hypersensitivity to subtle social cues may have adaptive significance in terms of solving interpersonal problems and/or minimising social risk. We tested whether increasing the social salience of a theory of mind task would preferentially increase dyspshoric individuals’ performance on the task. Forty-four dysphoric and 51 non-dysphoric undergraduate (...) women participated in a theory of mind decoding task following one of three motivational manipulations: (i) social motivation (ii) monetary motivation, or (iii) no motivation. Social motivation was associated with the greatest accuracy of mental state decoding for the dysphoric group, whereas the non-dysphoric group showed the highest accuracy in the monetary motivation condition. These results suggest that dysphoric individuals may be especially, and preferentially, motivated to understand the mental states of others. (shrink)

This book brings together scholars from a variety of epistemological perspectives to explore the multiple ways in which sexuality does indeed matter in the arena of public education.