We propose that grounded procedures may help explain psychological variations across cultures. Here we offer a set of novel predictions based on the interplay between the social and physical ecology, chronic sensorimotor experience, and cultural norms.

BackgroundMotor imagery training has a similar effect to that of physical training on motor performance. The objective of this study was to investigate the short-term effectiveness of motor imagery training on response inhibition using the stop signal task.MethodsParticipants were divided into a physical training group, a motor imagery training group, and a motor imagery combined with physical training group. All participants performed 10 SST training sessions over 5 days. Both stop signal reaction time and non-signal reaction time were measured before (...) and after SST training.ResultsThere were significant interaction and time effects, although the group effect was not statistically significant. Bonferroni post hoc analysis showed that MIPT group revealed a significantly greater change in SSRT than PT and MIT groups, while there was no significant difference between PT and MIT groups. SSRT significantly decreased after training in all groups. In NSRT, there was a significant effect of time, but there was no significant interaction effect or group effect.ConclusionResponse inhibition could be enhanced via training, and it was most effective when motor imagery and physical training were combined. We demonstrate that motor imagery training significantly improves response inhibition and should be accompanied by physical training when performing SST. (shrink)

Die Idee des «Gesamtkunstwerks» war schon längst vor Wagner gegenwärtig. In zahlreichen Schriften der deutschen Frühromantiker wird das Auseinandergehen der einzelnen Künste betrachtet, aber ihr Zusammenwirken als Utopie ersehnt. Die Verfasserin versucht, ausgehend von der Stellung der Musik in der Frühromantik, die Möglichkeit im Blick zu behalten, die Sehnsucht nach der Einheit der Künste, die zunächst im literarischen sowie im philosophischen Bereich rein theoretisch, daneben jedoch auch praktisch in der Poesie und Malerei ihren Ausdruck fand, in die musikalische Romantik zu (...) übertragen, sowohl in kompositorischer als auch in wirkungsästhetischer Hinsicht. Dadurch erscheint der Zusammenhang zwischen Musik innerhalb der Idee des «Gesamtkunstwerks» in der Romantik in neuem Licht. (shrink)

Culture has been identified as a significant determinant of ethical attitudes of business managers. This research studies the impact of culture on the ethical attitudes of business managers in India, Korea and the United States using multivariate statistical analysis. Employing Geert Hofstede's cultural typology, this study examines the relationship between his five cultural dimensions (individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and long-term orientation) and business managers' ethical attitudes. The study uses primary data collected from 345 business manager participants of Executive (...) MBA programs in selected business schools in India, Korea and the United States using Hofstede's Value Survey Module (94) and an instrument designed by the researchers to measure respondents' ethical attitudes (attitudes toward business ethics in general and toward twelve common questionable practices in particular). Results indicate that national culture has a strong influence on business managers' ethical attitudes. In addition to national culture, respondents' general attitudes toward business ethics are related to their personal integrity; their attitudes toward questionable business practices are related to the external environment and gender, as well as to their personal integrity. A strong relationship exists between cultural dimensions of individualism and power distance and respondents' ethical attitudes toward certain questionable practices. The analysis of the relationship between cultural dimensions of masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation and respondents' ethical attitudes toward questionable practices produced mixed results, likely due to the lack of notable differences in cultural dimension scores among the countries surveyed. (shrink)

In this article we study the problem of classifying φ-spaces with a fixed basis subspace. In the first part, this problem is treated in a more general topological context. The second part is devoted to effective φ-spaces.

In South Korea, English as a symbolic resource frequently mediates relations of class, privilege, and authority, and the Korean media play a significant role in the negotiation of the place and meaning of English in the country. This paper identifies interdiscursivity as an important semiotic mechanism for this process, and illustrates this through texts of the conservative print media which rationalize the privileges of Korean elites by representing them as successful learners of English. This paper identifies three distinct yet interrelated (...) processes of interdiscursivity that accomplish this work. First, the process of spatiotemporal extension links geographically and temporally distant communicative events with the here-and-now, setting up the relevance of the English language within local social context. Second, the process of recursivity reapplies global oppositional relations locally so that the linguistic legitimacy of native speakers of English comes to serve as a basis for local elites’ authority. Third, the process of mediatization allows the media institution to selectively highlight the achievements of elite learners while erasing the problems of unequal opportunities for English language learning in Korea. Together, the three interdiscursive processes in the texts naturalize the linguistic legitimacy of elite learners of English, thereby justifying and reproducing the structure of the linguistic market in which the global language of English indexes local relations of power and privilege. (shrink)

This paper presents the principles and techniques of unbiased history teaching practices. Goals of teaching history at schools are also formulated.

Although corporate social responsibility appears to be mutually beneficial for companies and consumers, the modern marketplace has left both parties in vulnerable positions. Consumers are increasingly subjected to incongruent CSR messages such as greenwashing, while companies are trapped in a strategic positioning dilemma with regard to how to most effectively and ethically approach CSR communication. This has led some companies to instead adopt a strategically silent approach, such as greenhushing. To capture this CSR positioning dilemma and test the positioning effects (...) on consumers’ attributions, this study applies attribution theory to conceptualize four distinct CSR positions which reflect varying combinations of congruence or incongruence between a company’s external CSR communication and its actual internal CSR actions. Using an online experiment, the effects of the CSR positions on consumer attributions for intrinsic and extrinsic CSR motivations and purchase intentions were tested across three CSR domains: environmental; labor; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender inclusion. Overall, the findings attest to the significant effect of internal–external congruence-based CSR positioning on how consumers respond to CSR communication. Importantly, the results indicate that discreet positioning is perceived similarly to uniform positioning, while misleading and unethical tactics such as CSR-washing are sure to backfire. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

Cultural pluralism has caused disturbing problems for philosophers in applied ethics. If moral sanctions, theories, and applications are culturally bound, then moral conflicts ensuing from cultural differences would seem to be irresolvable. Even human nature, good or evil, is not free from cultural determination. One way out of this pluralistic impasse is the expansion of the moral mind. It is the outlet taken by religion, the arts, and philosophy from the earliest time in human culture. In philosophy we find an (...) authentic example of this in Socrates. Following the practice of Socrates, we can try to expand the moral mind philosophically, that is, by working on various forms of reasoning, both deductive and non-deductive, including induction, abduction, dialectics, analogy, and pragmatics. (shrink)

Purpose The debate about the end-of-life care decision is becoming a serious ethical and legal concern in the Far-Eastern countries of Korea, China and Japan. However, the issues regarding end-of-life care will reflect the cultural background, current medical practices and socioeconomic conditions of the countries, which are different from Western countries and between each other. Understanding the genuine thoughts of patients who are critically ill is the first step in confronting the issues, and a comparative descriptive study of these perspectives (...) was conducted by collaboration between researchers in all three countries. Methods Surveys using self-reporting paper questionnaire forms were conducted from December 2008 to April 2009 in Korea (six hospitals in two regions), China (five hospitals in four regions) and Japan (nine hospitals in one region). The subjects were patients who were critically ill who had been diagnosed as having cancer. A total of 235 participants (Korea, 91; China, 62; Japan, 52) were eventually recruited and statistically analysed. Results Most respondents had sometimes or often thought of their own death, mostly fear of ‘separation from loved ones’. They wanted to hear the news regarding their own condition directly and frankly from the physician. A quarter of them preferred making end-of-life care decisions by themselves, while many respondents favoured a ‘joint decision’ with their family members. The most favoured proxy decision maker was the spouse, followed by the children. Most admitted the necessity of ‘advance directives’ and agreed with artificial ventilation withdrawal in irreversible conditions. The most common reason was ‘artificial prolongation of life is unnecessary’. Most respondents agreed with the concept of active euthanasia; however, significant differences were sometimes observed in the responses according to variables such as patient's country of origin, age, gender and education level. Conclusion Patients in Far-Eastern countries gave various responses regarding end-of-life care decisions. Although familial input is still influential, most patients think of themselves as the major decision maker and accept the necessity of advance directives with Westernization of the society. Artificial ventilation withdrawal and even active euthanasia may be acceptable to them. (shrink)

Jung has never pursued the "psychology of religion" apart from general psychology. The unique importance of his work lies rather in his discovery and treatment of religious, or potentially religious, factors in his investigation into the unconscious as a whole and in his general therapeutic practice. In Answer to Job , first published in Zurich in 1952, Jung employs the familiar language of theological discourse. Such terms as "God," "wisdom," and "evil" are the touchstones of his argument. And (...) yet, Answer to Job , perhaps Jung's most controversial work, is not an essay in theology as much as it is an examination of the symbolic role that theological concepts play in a person's psychic life. (shrink)

In the present paper we shall see that the different ways of understanding mind between Confucianism and Enlightenment in the 18th century. In this study each of these two different traditions is regarded as the East Asian context of mind study or as the Western European context of mind study. This idea comes from a kind of constructivism and constructive realism. The former, which comes from ideas of Lev Vygotsky, stresses that human mind is constructed on its cultural context. The (...) latter insisted by Fridriech Wallner approves that every truth constructed on its cultural context can be an absolute truth depending on its cultural context. Due to these two viewpoints, we can see that the truth about human mind is not singular but plural and it should be an important theme of discussionhow to communicate between different understandings of mind and cultural context. Therefore three steps to approach the difference between Asian and European should be discussed in the following way: first, I will explain Confucian ways of understanding mind. It is Confucian cultural context as a social being that used to be the basis of cultural construction of East Asian’s mind. There were three types of Confucianism in 18th century Korea; second I will explain Western European way of understanding mind and the philosophy of Enlightenment as the basic context of cultural construction of mind; and third, I will conclude by comparing these two different ways of understanding mind and mind construction and by looking for a feasible way to communicate and understand each other. (shrink)

With a growing corporate interest in pursuing public goods, numerous firms today endeavor to practice corporate social responsibility. Utilizing a multilevel structural equation modeling approach, we investigated the topic of employees' pro-environmental behavior, contributing to the growing literature on “green” issues in the workplace. We incorporated self-determination theory to examine how individuals' perceptions regarding their corporate environmental policies reflected in firm-level green psychological climate influence their environment-specific self-regulation, and whether support of autonomy, relatedness, and competence psychological needs moderates this relationship. (...) The relationship between environment-specific self-regulation and employees' engagement in pro-environmental behavior was also further explained. Analysis of the data from 649 employees working in 37 major South Korean companies revealed that firm-level green psychological climate is positively related to employees' environment-specific self-regulation and that environment-specific self-regulation is also positively related to their pro-environmental behavior. Moreover, while we found that the positive association between firm-level green psychological climate and employees' environment-specific self-regulation was stronger when they had a higher level of relatedness need satisfaction, interactions between firm-level green psychological climate with autonomy and competence need satisfaction did not demonstrate any significant effects. Theoretical and practical contributions together with suggestions for related future research are discussed as well. (shrink)

Background Nurses providing care to patients with end-of-life or terminal illnesses often encounter ethically challenging situations leading to moral distress. However, existing quantitative studies have examined moral distress using instruments that address general clinical situations rather than those specific to end-of-life care. Furthermore, qualitative studies have often been limited to participants from a single unit or those experiencing moral distress-induced circumstances. A comprehensive and integrated understanding of the overarching process of moral distress is vital to discern the unique circumstances surrounding (...) end-of-life care and its consequential impacts. Research objectives To explore the moral distress experiences of nurses who are frequently involved in caring for patients with end-of-life or terminal illnesses and apply it to two existing theories: the model of moral distress and the ecological model. Research design A qualitative descriptive approach was employed. Participants and research context Seven focus group interviews involving 30 nurses were performed. The subsequent transcriptions underwent rigorous content analysis. Ethical considerations We obtained Institutional Review Board approval from a university. Focus group interviews were conducted with nurses who agreed to participate and signed the consent form. Findings The moral distress-inducing factors and nurses’ perceived impact of moral distress were identified and categorized based on moral distress theories and ecological models. A total of 15 categories and 30 subcategories across the following 4 domains were derived: (1) intrapersonal, (2) interpersonal, (3) organizational, and (4) structural factors. Conclusions End-of-life-specific circumstances induced moral distress among nurses, with both negative and positive impacts identified. Effective organizational and policy support is essential to manage conflicts, form a healthy organizational culture, provide training, and prevent unnecessary expenses due to the negative consequences of moral distress. (shrink)

The experience of newborn screening for Krabbe disease in New York State demonstrates the ethical problems that arise when screening programs are expanded in the absence of true understanding of the diseases involved. In its 5 years of testing and millions of dollars in costs, there have been very few benefits, and the testing has uncovered potential cases of late-onset disease that raise difficult ethical questions in their own right. For these reasons, we argue that Krabbe screening should only be (...) continued as a research project that includes the informed consent of parents to the testing. (shrink)

Yul Kim erortert in seinem Buch die Bedeutung dieser Lehre mit Blick auf die Entwicklung der thomasischen Willenstheorie und rekonstruiert den, von polemischen Debatten gekennzeichneten, geistigen Kontext, aus dem diese Lehre entstand.

In the present article I wish to discuss the positive aspect of Nietzsche’s thought. This includes the attempt to avoid the nihilism of a simple inversion of Platonism and the fact that for Nietzsche, critical/genealogical philosophy is always subordinate to the will to affirm existence “as it is.” In this regard, I will be drawing especially on the work of Gilles Deleuze, whose Nietzsche and Philosophy remains the canonical defense of the positive in Nietzsche’s thought. In the secondpart of the (...) paper, however, I will argue that the “higher morality” generated by this position is essentially “otherless.” While this critique is not in itself devastating,I will go on to argue that this ethic ultimately generates a paradox in Nietzsche’s thought against which the will to affirmation is finally destroyed. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to analyze the response of John Duns Scotus to Godfrey of Fontaines’s argument against Henry of Ghent’s theory of the will’s self-motion. Godfrey’s argument is that, if the object is assumed to be causa sine qua non and the efficient causality is totally attributed to the will in the act of volition, it would also follow that not only the will’s motion but every motion in nature, such as, for example, the igniting of wood, (...) is a self-motion. In this paper, I will explain that Scotus’s refutation of this argument in Reportatio II, d. 25 is based on his reflection upon the general possibility of self-motion as well as upon the indeterminacy of the will’s act. In doing so, I will show that the development of Scotus’s theory of the will’s motion is closely related to his universalized theory of self-motion. (shrink)

German; one contribution each in English and French.

German; one contribution each in English and French.