Buddhist temples are emblematic of many Asian countries in their tourism promotions, but little is known about how monks, laypeople, guides, and local or foreign tourists experience these religious heritage sites. In late developed and developing Asian countries these Buddhist sites fulfil complex social and symbolic roles involving differing functions and expectations. But how these temples can fulfil these complex demands and avoid becoming similar to a museum or a theme park is unclear. Using qualitative analysis this research examined temple (...) users experiences of the architecture, artefacts, gardens, rituals, and users at the Bulguk Temple precinct in Korea and identified several dimensions of the sense of place that temple users experience. A resulting sense of place matrix includes believer, novice, leisure, and heritage experiences that users access depending on their grasp of the core knowledge and the symbolic materialities in the temple precinct. This provides a starting point for the skilful management of Buddhist sites facing mounting pressures from increasing visitor numbers particularly from heritage and leisure tourists. An indigenous approach to the diversity of Buddhist veneration settings and their users is recommended. Practical implications and further research are suggested. (shrink)

This study develops a Science–Technology–Society (STS)-based science ethics education program for high school students majoring in or planning to major in science and engineering. Our education program includes the fields of philosophy, history, sociology and ethics of science and technology, and other STS-related theories. We expected our STS-based science ethics education program to promote students’ epistemological beliefs and moral judgment development. These psychological constructs are needed to properly solve complicated moral and social dilemmas in the fields of science and engineering. (...) We applied this program to a group of Korean high school science students gifted in science and engineering. To measure the effects of this program, we used an essay-based qualitative measurement. The results indicate that there was significant development in both epistemological beliefs and moral judgment. In closing, we briefly discuss the need to develop epistemological beliefs and moral judgment using an STS-based science ethics education program. (shrink)

The present study aimed to develop effective moral educational interventions based on social psychology by using stories of moral exemplars. We tested whether motivation to engage in voluntary service as a form of moral behavior was better promoted by attainable and relevant exemplars or by unattainable and irrelevant exemplars. First, experiment 1, conducted in a lab, showed that stories of attainable exemplars more effectively promoted voluntary service activity engagement among undergraduate students compared with stories of unattainable exemplars and non-moral stories. (...) Second, experiment 2, a middle school classroom-level experiment with a quasi-experimental design, demonstrated that peer exemplars, who are perceived to be attainable and relevant to students, better promoted service engagement compared with historic figures in moral education classes. (shrink)

The present study aims to examine the relationship between the cortical midline structures (CMS), which have been regarded to be associated with selfhood, and moral decision making processes at the neural level. Traditional moral psychological studies have suggested the role of moral self as the moderator of moral cognition, so activity of moral self would present at the neural level. The present study examined the interaction between the CMS and other moral-related regions by conducting psycho-physiological interaction analysis of functional images (...) acquired while 16 subjects were solving moral dilemmas. Furthermore, we performed Granger causality analysis to demonstrate the direction of influences between activities in the regions in moral decision-making. We first demonstrate there are significant positive interactions between two central CMS seed regions—i.e., the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)—and brain regions associated with moral functioning including the cerebellum, brainstem, midbrain, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex and anterior insula (AI); on the other hand, the posterior insula (PI) showed significant negative interaction with the seed regions. Second, several significant Granger causality was found from CMS to insula regions particularly under the moral-personal condition. Furthermore, significant dominant influence from the AI to PI was reported. Moral psychological implications of these findings are discussed. The present study demonstrated the significant interaction and influence between the CMS and morality-related regions while subject were solving moral dilemmas. Given that, activity in the CMS is significantly involved in human moral functioning. (shrink)

This study compares the neural substrate of moral decision making processes between Korean and American participants. By comparison with Americans, Korean participants showed increased activity in the right putamen associated with socio-intuitive processes and right superior frontal gyrus associated with cognitive control processes under a moral-personal condition, and in the right postcentral sulcus associated with mental calculation in familiar contexts under a moral-impersonal condition. On the other hand, American participants showed a significantly higher degree of activity in the bilateral anterior (...) cingulate cortex (ACC) associated with conflict resolution under the moral-personal condition, and in the right medial frontal gyrus (MFG) associated with simple cognitive branching in non-familiar contexts under the moral-impersonal condition when a more lenient threshold was applied, than Korean participants. These findings support the ideas of the interactions between the cultural background, education, and brain development, proposed in the field of cultural psychology and educational psychology. The study introduces educational implications relevant to moral psychologists and educators. (shrink)

The concept of moral identity based on virtue ethics has become an issue of considerable import in explaining moral behavior. This attempt to offer adequate explanations of the full range of morally relevant human behavior inevitably provokes boundary issues between ethics and moral psychology. In terms of the relationship between the two disciplines, some argue for ?naturalized (or psychologized) morality,? whereas, on the other hand, others insist on ?moralized psychology.? This article investigates the relationship between virtue ethics and moral identity (...) based on previous research on the relationship between ethics and moral psychology. This article especially attempts to show that meaningful links between the two concepts possible by using theoretical frameworks constructed by the most influential philosophers of science such as Kuhn and Lakatos. (shrink)

Children ranging from 3 to 5 years were introduced to two anthropomorphic robots that provided them with information about unfamiliar animals. Children treated the robots as interlocutors. They supplied information to the robots and retained what the robots told them. Children also treated the robots as informants from whom they could seek information. Consistent with studies of children's early sensitivity to an interlocutor's non-verbal signals, children were especially attentive and receptive to whichever robot displayed the greater non-verbal contingency. Such selective (...) information seeking is consistent with recent findings showing that although young children learn from others, they are selective with respect to the informants that they question or endorse. (shrink)

Incremental implicit theories are associated with a belief regarding it is possible to improve one’s intelligence or ability through efforts. Previous studies have demonstrated that incremental implicit theories contributed to better academic achievement and positive youth development. Our study aimed to examine whether incremental implicit theories of morality significantly influenced change in students’ engagement in voluntary service activities. In our study, 54 Korean college students for Study 1 and 180 Korean 8th graders for Study 2 were recruited to conduct two (...) two-wave studies. We surveyed participants’ implicit theories of morality and participation in voluntary service activities. The effect of implicit theories of morality on change in service engagement was analyzed through regression analysis. In Study 1, the moral growth mindset significantly moderated longitudinal change in service engagement. In Study 2, the moral growth mindset significantly influenced engagement in art-related activities, while it significantly moderated change in engagement in youth-related activities. (shrink)

This paper investigates whether the pattern of firms’ corporate social responsibility activities affects firm value. If firms do permanently CSR activities for strategic purposes, firms’ value is more likely to increase. Using firms known to do CSR in Korea, we examine the valuation effect by adopting an earnings response coefficient model and document firms with permanent CSR activities, which show higher ERCs than other firms regardless of the level of CSR activities. This result partly explains the inconsistency among the results (...) of previous studies by showing the differential implication for firm value depending on the CSR activity pattern. Also, the results of our paper imply that investors need to consider the pattern of firms’ CSR activities in their economic decision making. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to explore the motivational structures of external whistleblowers involved in the decision to blow the whistle by applying MEC theory and the laddering technique. Using both soft and hard laddering methods, data were collected from 37 Korean external whistleblowers. Results revealed that the means-end chain of external whistleblowers was the hierarchical linkage among two concrete attributes, two functional consequences, and one terminal value. The extant whistleblowing literature has either made assumptions about whistleblowers’ motivations when (...) developing models or has drawn indirect inferences from measures of other variables. Our study is the first with an explicit and empirical focus on whistleblowers’ motivations. The findings provide evidence of the motivational structures of external whistleblowers that consist of a set of complex paths linked by multi-layered motivators. This research will be helpful in designing and reviewing whistleblowing programs for organizations, regulatory agencies, and journalists. (shrink)

This descriptive study was undertaken to identify the degree of ethical sensitivity of staff nurses and to analyze the differences in ethical sensitivity in terms of both general and ethics-related characteristics. Participants were 236 staff nurses working in general hospitals in Korea. Ethical sensitivity was measured by means of an instrument developed by the researchers. The results showed that the mean score for the degree of ethical sensitivity was 0.71 out of a possible maximum score of 1 (range 0.30 to (...) 0.97). For general characteristics, there was a significant difference in ethical sensitivity according to age (F (df 2233)-3.99, P-0.02). For characteristics related to ethics, there was a significant difference in ethical sensitivity according to attitude towards the nursing profession (F (df 4231)-2.94, P-0.03). It is therefore recommended that a training program reflecting these variables be developed to enhance staff nurses’ ethical sensitivity. (shrink)

The current age is characterised by many as secular, and a source of such a characterisation can be found in the Nietzschean claim that thoughts about there being some ultimate reality have to be jettisoned, and human existence and the world need to be embraced as they are. That claim is renewed by some secular thinkers who insist that education has to be reconceived in ways congenial to the new age. It is argued that central to their logic is the (...) dichotomy between the religious and the secular or the otherworldly and the earthly, and that this dichotomy is simplistic as well as problematic. As an alternative to the ‘two worlds’ view, the ‘two aspects’ view is suggested, with an interpretation of reality that the noumenon––the non-human––has to be taken in the negative sense. Against secularising the domain of education, it is indicated that there still remains a place for education to occupy between the two poles of religiousness and secularity. (shrink)

This study examines the effects of individual ethical values and organizational factors on the professional ethics of PR practitioners in Korea by considering a person–situation interactionist model. Individual ethical values are used as individual factors, and organizational factors consist of an organization’s reward and punishment for ethical/unethical behavior, the behavior of peers, and the ethical integrity of the chief ethics officer. The professional ethics of PR practitioners (the dependent variable) are classified into the following three dimensions: professional ethics for the (...) public, the client, and the PR industry. The results indicate that agency practitioners were more likely to be committed to their profession than to their organization, whereas in-house practitioners were more likely to be committed to their organization than to their profession. That is, in-house practitioners showed weak professional commitment, indicating that they perceived themselves as employees, not as PR professionals. Organizational factors such as reward, punishment, and peers’ ethical behavior had considerable influence on the professional ethics of in-house practitioners, whereas they had little influence on agency practitioners. Organizational factors as well as individual ethical values were more likely to influence the professional ethics of in-house practitioners than that of agency practitioners. Thus, to foster in-house practitioners’ professional ethics and commitment, professional associations in the PR industry should make efforts to provide in-house practitioners with more information on the PR industry and more opportunities for interacting and maintaining communication with their colleagues in the industry. (shrink)

This study examines how the corporate philanthropy decisions of group-affiliated firms in Korea are made. Based on the attention-based view, we argue that when corporate decision makers at group-affiliated firms focus their attention more on internal markets than external stakeholders because of the firm’s high reliance on intragroup transactions, the firm will decrease its level of corporate philanthropy. We further argue that the relationship will be stronger when governance mechanisms focus on the instrumental value of corporate philanthropy. Using a panel (...) sample of group-affiliated firms in Korea from 2011 to 2015, we find that as intragroup sales increase, the level of corporate philanthropy decreases, and such a negative relationship is stronger when outside director representation and foreign investor ownership are high. Our study suggests that internal dependence and corporate governance mechanisms jointly affect the level of corporate philanthropy at firms in a business group. Thus, this study contributes to the literature on corporate philanthropy, business group, and corporate governance. (shrink)

Increasingly, national governments across the globe are prioritizing investments in neuroscience. Currently, seven active or in-development national-level brain research initiatives exist, spanning four continents. Engaging with the underlying values and ethical concerns that drive brain research across cultural and continental divides is critical to future research. Culture influences what kinds of science are supported and where science can be conducted through ethical frameworks and evaluations of risk. Neuroscientists and philosophers alike have found themselves together encountering perennial questions; these questions are (...) engaged by the field of neuroethics, related to the nature of understanding the self and identity, the existence and meaning of free will, defining the role of reason in human behavior, and more. With this Perspective article, we aim to prioritize and advance to the foreground a list of neuroethics questions for neuroscientists operating in the context of these international brain initiatives. (shrink)