The present research attempts to understand the importance of altruistic and egoistic values in determining consumers’ motives and intention to purchase organic foods. Using the face-to-face survey approach, a total of 1,067 responses were collected from consumers in China. Data analysis was performed using a two-step structural equation modeling approach, i.e., measurement and structural models. The findings indicated that both values influence the intention to purchase organic foods through the mediation of motives. Specifically, the altruistic value influences the environmental concern, (...) and the egoistic value influences the health concern. Moreover, the perceived uncertainty negatively moderates a relationship between consumer HC and organic purchase intention while positively moderating a relationship between consumer EC and organic purchase intention. Several implications and suggestions are also discussed. (shrink)

Responding to serious environmental problems, requires urgent and fundamental shifts in our day-to-day lifestyles. This paper employs a qualitative, cross-cultural approach to explore people’s subjective self-reflections on their experiences of pro-environmental behavioral spillover in three countries; Brazil, China, and Denmark. Behavioral spillover is an appealing yet elusive phenomenon, but offers a potential way of encouraging wider, voluntary lifestyle shifts beyond the scope of single behavior change interventions. Behavioral spillover theory proposes that engaging in one pro-environmental action can catalyze the performance (...) of others. To date, evidence for the phenomenon has been mixed, and the causal processes governing relationships between behaviors appear complex, inconsistent and only partly understood. This paper addresses a gap in the literature by investigating accounts of behavioral spillover in three diverse cultural settings using qualitative semi-structured interviews. The analysis shows that while around half of participants overall who were questioned recalled spillover effects, the other half had not consciously experienced spillover. There were few significant differences across cultures, though some forms of spillover effects were reported more in some cultures than others. More environmentally-engaged participants across all three countries were significantly more likely to experience spillover than those who were less engaged. Accounts of within-domain spillovers were most commonly reported, mainly comprising waste, resource conservation and consumption-related actions. Accounts of between-domain spillover were very rare. Recollection of contextual and interpersonal spillover effects also emerged from the interviews. Our findings suggest that more conscious behavioral spillover pathways may be limited to those with pre-existing environmental values. Behavioral spillover may comprise multiple pathways incorporating conscious and unconscious processes. We conclude that targeting behavioral catalysts that generate more socially diffuse spillover effects could offer more potential than conventional spillover involving a single individual. (shrink)

ObjectiveNumerous studies have demonstrated that religious belief is associated with prosocial behavior. However, how do they maintain cooperation in societies with a predominating atheist population, such as China? Different primings and a quasi-experiment are used to examine the link between communist authority and prosocial behaviors among college students in China.Materials and methodsIn Study 1, the subjects’ communist authority in the university lab was primed by a communist-authority video. In Study 2, we compared the priming effects of communist authority and religion (...) on prosocial intention. Study 3 investigated the priming effect of communist authority on prosocial behaviors by employing a scrambled sentence task in the university lab. A quasi-experiment was conducted in Study 4.ResultsResults showed that communist-authority, a reminder of secular authorities, increased prosociality among college students. And empathy moderated the relationship between secular authorities and prosociality in Study 3 and Study 4.DiscussionCommunist authority, a secular authority prime, has a positive effect on promoting prosocial behaviors. These results provided a feasible yet novel way to reveal the mechanism of the relationship between secular authorities and prosociality in China. (shrink)

The issues of organizational wrongdoing damage organizational performance and limit the development of organizations. Although organizational members may know the wrongdoing and have the opportunity to blow the whistle, they would keep silent because of the interpersonal risks. However, leaders can play an important role in shaping employee whistleblowing. This study focuses on discovering the mechanisms of how authentic leaders influence employee whistleblowing with a sample from China. Results demonstrate that authentic leadership is positively related to internal whistleblowing. Team psychological (...) safety partly mediates the relationship between authentic leadership and internal whistleblowing. Personal identification partly mediates the relationship between authentic leadership and internal whistleblowing. The study contributes to the extant theory by filling the gap between leadership and whistleblowing. (shrink)

The objectivity is a basic requirement for the measurements in the classical world, namely, different observers must reach a consensus on their measurement results, so that they believe that the object exists “objectively” since whoever measures it obtains the same result. We find that this simple requirement of objectivity indeed imposes an important constraint upon quantum measurements, i.e., if two or more observers could reach a consensus on their quantum measurement results, their measurement basis must be orthogonal vector sets. This (...) naturally explains why quantum measurements are based on orthogonal vector basis, which is proposed as one of the axioms in textbooks of quantum mechanics. The role of the macroscopicality of the observers in an objective measurement is discussed, which supports the belief that macroscopicality is a characteristic of classicality. (shrink)

This study examines the feature of reasoning talk used by 37 Chinese families at the dinner table across three generations with the background of co-parenting and in consideration of different communicative contexts. Drawing upon Hasan’s semantic framework, reasons were mainly coded as logical or social types. We categorize the communicative context of reasoning talk into contextualized and decontextualized topics. When the proportion of social reasoning was found slightly higher than that of logical reasoning, the families’ reasoning talk account for only (...) 3.85% of the total language. Specifically, the count of mothers’ total reasoning talk was significantly above other family members, while there were no significant differences among the other participants. The effect of the communicative contexts on family members’ social reasoning was found. The reasoning talk grounded on local rules and coercive power occurred significantly more frequently in contextualized than decontextualized context. A higher rate of local-rule grounded reasoning talk of all family members appeared in contextualized than decontextualized context, and this gap was particularly obvious among mothers. These findings reveal the significant role of mothers in family communications and confirm the pedagogical values of decontextualized communicative context for promoting children’s learning opportunities at the dinner table. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo investigate the characteristics of response inhibition of overweight/obese people, using behavior experiments combine with neural electrophysiological technology and discussing the difference in impulse level between obesity/overweight and normal-weight people through EEG data, questionnaire, and behavior experiment.Method All participants completed the Go/Nogo task; meanwhile, behavior data and 64 channel EEG data were recorded. Participants completed the Stop-Signal task and behavior date was recorded.Results During Go/Nogo task, no significant differences were found in reaction time, omission errors of the Go task between (...) the two groups, while commission errors of the Nogo task of the control group were significantly greater than the overweight/obesity group. About SSRT during the Stop-Signal Task, the interaction of stimulus type and group was significant. No significant differences were found between the two groups in amplitude and latency of N2. About the amplitude of P3, the interaction of task type, electrode point, and groups were significant, the control group P3 amplitude was significantly greater than overweight/obesity group during the Nogo task. Regarding about latency of P3, the interaction of group and electrode point were not significant, but the main effect of task type was significant.Conclusion In terms of behavioral outcomes, overweight–obese subjects had lower dominant response inhibition and response cessation compared to normal-weight subjects. In terms of EEG results, overweight–obese subjects showed no difference in processing speed and level of conflict monitoring for early inhibitory processing compared to normal-weight subjects, but there was a deficit in behavioral control for late inhibitory processing. (shrink)

The paper discusses the Tangut translation of the famous Entry into Two Truths. This composition by Atiśa was important in the formation of the doctrinal system of the Tangut Buddhism. The paper examines the possible variations of the source text of the Tangut translation, its relationship with the texts on valid cognition. The paper discusses the possible division of the text and provides the translation of the Tangut version and compares it with the Tibetan original.

One of the more controversial uses of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) involves selecting embryos with a specific tissue type so that the child to be born can act as a donor to an existing sibling who requires a haematopoietic stem cell transplant. PGD with HLA tissue typing is used to select embryos that are free of a familial genetic disease and that are also a tissue match for an existing sibling who requires a transplant. Preimplantation HLA tissue typing occurs when (...) parents select embryos that are not at risk of a familial genetic disease to be a match for an existing sibling who requires a transplant. In Victoria, Australia, applications to use PGD with HLA tissue typing are reviewed by the Infertility Treatment Authority on a case by case basis. Preimplantation HLA tissue typing is prohibited prima facie because the embryo to be tested would not be at risk for a genetic abnormality or disease. Arguments for or against the use of PGD/HLA tissue typing are based on several key issues including the commodification and welfare of the donor child. This essay aims to show that that the same arguments apply to both PGD with HLA tissue typing and Preimplantation HLA tissue typing, and that the policy distinction between the two procedures is therefore ethically inconsistent. (shrink)

At present, although artificial intelligence (AI) has made great progress in the aspects of control policy and operation, there is still no unified ethical decision mode, laws and regulations in ethical dilemma, which seriously affect application and development of artificial intelligence. Therefore, this paper studies and analyzes various ethical decision mode of AI system, then the current research status and advantages, deficiencies of these decision modes are analyzed and summarized. According to the characteristics of the current ethical decision modes and (...) existing problems, the future implementation mode for the future ethical decision of artificial intelligence is explored and discussed. A hierarchical hybrid ethical decision mode will be proposed and designed, which has the advantages of the existing ethical decision modes. In addition, it will provide a few references for research, design and formulation of laws, regulations of AI. (shrink)

Metrics and their weaker forms are used to measure the difference between two data. There are many metrics that are available but not desired by a practitioner. This paper recommends in a plausible reasoning manner an easy-to-understand method to construct desired distance-like measures: to fuse easy-to-obtain pseudo-semi-metrics, pseudo-metrics, or metrics by making full use of well-known t-norms, t-conorms, aggregation operators, and similar operators. The simple reason to do this is that data for a real world problem are sometimes from multiagents. (...) A distance-like notion, called weak interval-valued pseudo-metrics, is defined by using known notions of pseudo-semi-metrics, pseudo-metrics, and metrics; this notion is topologically good and shows precision, flexibility, and compatibility than single pseudo-semi-metrics, pseudo-metrics, or metrics. Propositions and detailed examples are given to illustrate how to fabricate an expected or demanded WIVP-metric in practical problems, and WIVP-metric and its special cases are characterized by using axioms. Moreover, some WIVP-metrics pertinent to quantitative logic theory or interval-valued fuzzy graphs are constructed, and fixed point theorems and common fixed point theorems in weak interval-valued metric spaces are also presented. Topics and strategies for further study are also put forward concretely and clearly. (shrink)