Attachment theory proposes that the activation of the attachment system enacts emotion regulation (ER) to maintain security or cope with insecurity. However, the effects of ER on attachment states and their bidirectional influences remain poorly understood. In this ecological momentary assessment study, we examined the dynamics between attachment and ER. We hypothesised that attachment states and ER influence each other through time. Specifically, we hypothesised bidirectional short-term cycles between state attachment security and reappraisal, state attachment anxiety and rumination, and state (...) attachment avoidance and suppression. We also tested how trait attachment is related to state attachment and ER. One hundred twenty-two participants (Mage = 26.4) completed the Experiences in Close Relationship–Revised and reported state attachment and ER seven times daily for seven days. The results were only partly consistent with our cycle hypotheses yet revealed a cycle between low state attachment security and rumination that was attenuated by reappraisal. Moreover, rumination and suppression predicted increased insecure states, and reappraisal predicted increased secure and insecure states. Finally, trait attachment showed associations with state attachment and ER. Our study suggests regulatory dynamics between attachment and ER and opens important questions about their functional relationship in maintaining attachment-related behavioural patterns and emotional well-being. (shrink)

This article illustrates how racial capitalism can enhance understandings of data, capital, and inequality through an in-depth study of digital platforms used for intervening in gender-based violence. Specifically, we examine an emergent sociotechnical strategy that uses software platforms and artificial intelligence chatbots to offer users emergency assistance, education, and a means to report and build evidence against perpetrators. Our analysis details how two reporting apps construct data to support institutionally legible narratives of violence, highlighting overlooked racialised dimensions of the data (...) capital generated through their use. We draw attention to how they reinforce property relations built on extraction and ownership, capital accumulation that reinforces benefits derived through data property relations and ownership, and the commodification of diversity and inclusion. Recognising these patterns are not unique to anti-violence apps, we reflect on how this example aids in understanding how racial capitalism becomes a constitutive element of digital platforms, which more generally extract information from users, rely on complex financial partnerships, and often sustain problematic relationships with the criminal legal system. We conclude with a discussion of how racial capitalism can advance scholarship at the intersections of data and power. (shrink)

The precarious rights of senior citizens, especially those who are highly educated and who are expected to counsel and guide the younger generations, has stimulated the creation internationally of advocacy associations and opinion leader groups. The strength of these groups, however, varies from country to country. In some countries, they are supported and are the focus of intense interest; in others, they are practically ignored. For this is reason we believe that the creation of a network of all these associations (...) is essential. The proposed network would act as a support for the already-existing policies of the United Nations’ High Commission for Human Rights, of independent experts, and of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Older People. All three have long ago recommended the creation of a recognized instrument for uniting presently scattered efforts. The proposed network, therefore, will seek to promote the international exchange of relevant expertise, and it will reinforce the commitments and actions that single countries are currently taking to meet these objectives. For example, informative public events can be organised to promote particular support initiatives and to provide an opportunity for new members of the network to be presented. The network will promote health for senior citizens, disease prevention, senior mobility, safe free time for seniors, alimentary education, protection against new risks and dangers, as well as equity in the services necessary for seniors to adopt new information and communication technologies. In the case of retired academic members, the network will promote equality with respect to continuing use of digital technologies (particularly email), continuing access to research libraries, and the guaranteed ability for seniors to fund their own research programs and to deliver free seminars. (shrink)

This paper combines the social psychology concept of moral elevation with the evolutionary concept of traditions as descendant-leaving strategies to produce a new explanation of the role of saints in Christianity. Moral elevation refers to the ability of prosocial acts to inspire people to engage in their own acts of charity and kindness. When morally elevating stories and visual depictions become traditional by being passed from one generation to the next, they can produce prosocial behavior advantageous to survival and reproduction (...) among many generations of descendants. Traditions that increase the number of descendants in future generations can be seen as descendant-leaving strategies. Stories and visual depictions of the sacrifices of saints appear to be designed to produce states of moral elevation, and they have been transmitted from one generation to the next for many centuries. We propose that this ability of sacrificing saints to inspire future generations to engage in prosocial acts has contributed to the continuation and spread of Christianity. (shrink)

Bioethics has made remarkable progress as a scholarly and applied field. A mere fledgling in the 1960s, it is now firmly established in hospitals, medical schools, and government agencies and boasts a number of professional associations and a handsome collection of journals.

The current study examined youths’ and their parents’ perceptions concerning participation in an investigation of spontaneous and induced pain during recovery from laparoscopic appendectomy. Youth and their parents independently completed surveys about their study participation. On a scale from 0 to 10, both parents and youth rated their experience as positive. Among youth, experience ratings did not differ by pain severity and survey responses did not differ by age. Most youth reported that they would tell another youth to participate. Ethical (...) issues regarding instigation of pain in youth for research purposes are examined. (shrink)

As nursing continues to develop as a professional discipline, it is important for nurses to have a central question to guide their research. Since the 1800s, nursing practice and research have covered a wide scope in cooperation with other disciplines. This wide area of nursing practice and research has led to the proposal that the central question be: How can the well‐being of a person, family, community, or population be improved? The proposed question must remain flexible and open to revision (...) because nurses will continue to adapt to the changing needs of their patients and populations and to their complex and evolving work environments. (shrink)

In the paper “An archeology of corruption in medicine”, Miles Little, Wendy Lipworth, and Ian Kerridge present an account of corruption and describe its prevalent forms in medicine. In presenting an individual-focused account of corruption found within “social entities”, Little et al. argue that these entities are corruptible by nature and that certain individuals are prone to take advantage of the corruptibility of social entities to pursue their own ends. The authors state that this is not preventable, so the way (...) to remedy corruption is via management and, where necessary, punishment. This commentary will briefly lay out the key features and functions of corruption as presented by Little et al., before providing a critical discussion that will focus on whether corruptibility is a necessary feature of social entities. I will propose that it is not a necessary feature, though it may frequently arise where individualistic values are unchecked. Corruption can be prevented within social entities by enhancing structures that direct toward virtue and which promote and reward cooperation instead of competition. (shrink)

Digital communication between a patient and their clinician offers the potential for improved patient care, particularly for young people with long term conditions who are at risk of service disengagement. However, its use raises a number of ethical questions which have not been explored in empirical studies. The objective of this study was to examine, from the patient and clinician perspective, the ethical implications of the use of digital clinical communication in the context of young people living with long-term conditions. (...) A total of 129 semi-structured interviews, 59 with young people and 70 with healthcare professionals, from 20 United Kingdom -based specialist clinics were conducted as part of the LYNC study. Transcripts from five sites were read by a core team to identify explicit and implicit ethical issues and develop descriptive ethical codes. Our subsequent thematic analysis was developed iteratively with reference to professional and ethical norms. Clinician participants saw digital clinical communication as potentially increasing patient empowerment and autonomy; improving trust between patient and healthcare professional; and reducing harm because of rapid access to clinical advice. However, they also described ethical challenges, including: difficulty with defining and maintaining boundaries of confidentiality; uncertainty regarding the level of consent required; and blurring of the limits of a clinician’s duty of care when unlimited access is possible. Paradoxically, the use of digital clinical communication can create dependence rather than promote autonomy in some patients. Patient participants varied in their understanding of, and concern about, confidentiality in the context of digital communication. An overarching theme emerging from the data was a shifting of the boundaries of the patient-clinician relationship and the professional duty of care in the context of use of clinical digital communication. The ethical implications of clinical digital communication are complex and go beyond concerns about confidentiality and consent. Any development of this form of communication should consider its impact on the patient-clinician-relationship, and include appropriate safeguards to ensure that professional ethical obligations are adhered to. (shrink)

The name of the third author was incomplete in the initial online publication. The original article has been corrected.

To call attention to and motivate action on ethical issues in business or society, messengers often criticize groups for wrongdoing and ask these groups to change their behavior. When criticizing target groups, messengers frequently identify and express concern about harm caused to a victim group, and in the process address a target group by criticizing them for causing this harm and imploring them to change. However, we find that when messengers criticize a target group for causing harm to a victim (...) group in this way—expressing _singular concern_ for the victim group—members of the target group infer, often incorrectly, that the messenger views the target group as less moral and unworthy of concern. This inferred lack of moral concern reduces criticism acceptance and prompts backlash from the target group. To address this problem, we introduce _dual concern_ messaging—messages that simultaneously communicate that a target group causes harm to a victim group and express concern for the target group. A series of several experiments demonstrate that dual concern messages reduce inferences that a critical messenger lacks moral concern for the criticized target group, increase the persuasiveness of the criticism among members of the target group, and reduce backlash from consumers against a corporate messenger. When pursuing justice for victims of a target group, dual concern messages that communicate concern for the victim group _as well as_ the target group are more effective in fostering openness toward criticism, rather than defensiveness, in a target group, thus setting the stage for change. (shrink)

In Moral Passages, Kathryn Pyne Addelson presents an original moral theory suited for contemporary life and its moral problems. Her basic principle is that knowledge and morality are generated in collective action, and she develops it through a critical examination of theories in philosophy, sociology and women's studies, most of which hide the collective nature and as a result hide the lives and knowledge of many people. At issue are the questions of what morality is, and how moral theories (...) (whether traditional or feminist) are implemented. Addelson takes up a large number of historical cases and contemporary social problems, including teen pregnancy, contraception and abortion, and gay rights. These cases allow her to see how the knowledge and lives of some people are declared deviant or immoral, while those of others appear to show the public consensus. One case she uses throughout the book is Margaret Sanger's early work on birth control with the anarcho-syndicalist movement--a revisionist history that reveals rather than hides the collective nature of morality and knowledge. Addelson shows how the usual individualist philosophies promote theories which hide the authority of the professionals who make them. A collectivist approach, she argues, must show the part professionals play in collective action. Her aim is to allow professional knowledge makers to be morally and intellectually responsible. Based on Addelson's twenty years of work in feminist philosophy and interactionist sociology as well as her long-standing involvement in women's community organization, Moral Passages investigates how morality and knowledge are collectively enacted in today's world. (shrink)

This paper proposes that public health is the sort of institution that has a role in producing structures of virtue in society. This proposal builds upon work that describes how virtues are structured by the practices of institutions, at the collective or whole-of-society level. This work seeks to fill a gap in public health ethics when it comes to virtues. Mainstay moral theories tend to incorporate some role for virtues, but within public health ethics this role has not been fully (...) articulated. Two recent papers have proposed ways in which the virtues might be incorporated: working from a structural account, Rozier suggests that public health could work to instil virtues, like temperance, in the public in order to achieve its health-related goals; Nihlén Fahlquist suggests that compassion is among three virtues that practitioners of public health should cultivate in order to do their work well. In the end, both accounts recommend incorporating virtues at the level of individuals, among the public and among practitioners. I propose a third kind of role for virtue in public health that focuses on structures. Public health activities take place at the population level, and a public health virtue ethics must also be suitably population-focussed. (shrink)

Building upon Thornton's (1991) work on teachers as “curricular-instructional gatekeepers,” the author explores what guided the curricular decision-making for one novice teacher concerning controversial issues that center on race, social class, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues. Qualitative case study revealed context, student demographics, and teacher positionality as influencing this teacher's choices regarding these themes in her curriculum. Findings indicated that this teacher was willing and able to challenge racist views in her classroom when she was a student (...) teacher and her students more closely mirrored her own race and social class. When she was a full-time teacher of students who were of a different racial and class background, she was unable to similarly challenge their homophobic beliefs. Implications for teacher education are discussed. (shrink)

How Doctors Think defines the nature and importance of clinical judgment. Although physicians make use of science, this book argues that medicine is not itself a science but rather an interpretive practice that relies on clinical reasoning. A physician looks at the patient's history along with the presenting physical signs and symptoms and juxtaposes these with clinical experience and empirical studies to construct a tentative account of the illness. How Doctors Think is divided into four parts. Part one introduces the (...) concept of medicine as a practice rather than a science; part two discusses the idea of causation; part three delves into the process of forming clinical judgment; and part four considers clinical judgment within the uncertain nature of medicine itself. In How Doctors Think, Montgomery contends that assuming medicine is strictly a science can have adverse side effects, and suggests reducing these by recognizing the vital role of clinical judgment. (shrink)

A significant portion of the scholarship in analytic philosophy of psychiatry has been devoted to the problem of what kind of kind psychiatric disorders are. Efforts have included descriptive projects, which aim to identify what psychiatrists in fact refer to when they diagnose, and prescriptive ones, which argue over that to which diagnostic categories should refer. In other words, philosophers have occupied themselves with what I call “diagnostic kinds”. However, the pride of place traditionally given to diagnostic kinds in psychiatric (...) research has recently come under attack, most notably by a recent initiative of the National Institute of Mental Health, the Research Domain Criteria Project, that seeks to exclude diagnostic categories from experimental designs and focus on other sorts of psychiatric kinds. I argue that philosophical accounts privileging diagnostic kinds must respond to this new line of criticism, and conclude that philosophers need to either counter psychiatrists’ growing suspicion about the hegemony of diagnostic categories in the clinic and the laboratory, or join in redirecting their efforts toward the development of robust accounts of other sorts of psychiatric objects and processes. (shrink)

There is conflicting experimental evidence about whether the “stakes” or importance of being wrong affect judgments about whether a subject knows a proposition. To date, judgments about stakes effects on knowledge have been investigated using binary paradigms: responses to “low” stakes cases are compared with responses to “high stakes” cases. However, stakes or importance are not binary properties—they are scalar: whether a situation is “high” or “low” stakes is a matter of degree. So far, no experimental work has investigated the (...) scalar nature of stakes effects on knowledge: do stakes effects increase as the stakes get higher? Do stakes effects only appear once a certain threshold of stakes has been crossed? Does the effect plateau at a certain point? To address these questions, we conducted experiments that probe for the scalarity of stakes effects using several experimental approaches. We found evidence of scalar stakes effects using an “evidence seeking” experimental design, but no evidence of scalar effects using a traditional “evidence-fixed” experimental design. In addition, using the evidence-seeking design, we uncovered a large, but previously unnoticed framing effect on whether participants are skeptical about whether someone can know something, no matter how much evidence they have. The rate of skeptical responses and the rate at which participants were willing to attribute “lazy knowledge”—that someone can know something without having to check—were themselves subject to a stakes effect: participants were more skeptical when the stakes were higher, and more prone to attribute lazy knowledge when the stakes were lower. We argue that the novel skeptical stakes effect provides resources to respond to criticisms of the evidence-seeking approach that argue that it does not target knowledge. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose significant health, economic, and social challenges. Given that many of these challenges have moral relevance, the present studies investigate whether the COVID-19 pandemic is influencing moral decision-making and whether moralisation of behaviours specific to the crisis predict adherence to government-recommended behaviours. Whilst we find no evidence that utilitarian endorsements have changed during the pandemic at two separate timepoints, individuals have moralised non-compliant behaviours associated with the pandemic such as failing to physically distance themselves from (...) others. Importantly, our findings show that this moralisation predicts sustained individual compliance with government-recommended behaviours. (shrink)

The paper identifies the phenomenal rise of increasingly invasive forms of elective cosmetic surgery targeted primarily at women and explores its significance in the context of contemporary biotechnology. A Foucauldian analysis of the significance of the normalization of technologized women's bodies is argued for. Three "Paradoxes of Choice" affecting women who "elect" cosmetic surgery are examined. Finally, two utopian feminist political responses are discussed: a Response of Refusal and a Response of Appropriation.

The nature of moral action versus moral judgment has been extensively debated in numerous disciplines. We introduce Virtual Reality (VR) moral paradigms examining the action individuals take in a high emotionally arousing, direct action-focused, moral scenario. In two studies involving qualitatively different populations, we found a greater endorsement of utilitarian responses–killing one in order to save many others–when action was required in moral virtual dilemmas compared to their judgment counterparts. Heart rate in virtual moral dilemmas was significantly increased when compared (...) to both judgment counterparts and control virtual tasks. Our research suggests that moral action may be viewed as an independent construct to moral judgment, with VR methods delivering new prospects for investigating and assessing moral behaviour. (shrink)

In the paper “An archeology of corruption in medicine”, Miles Little, Wendy Lipworth, and Ian Kerridge present an account of corruption and describe its prevalent forms in medicine. In presenting an individual-focused account of corruption found within “social entities”, Little et al. argue that these entities are corruptible by nature and that certain individuals are prone to take advantage of the corruptibility of social entities to pursue their own ends. The authors state that this is not preventable, so the way (...) to remedy corruption is via management and, where necessary, punishment. This commentary will briefly lay out the key features and functions of corruption as presented by Little et al., before providing a critical discussion that will focus on whether corruptibility is a necessary feature of social entities. I will propose that it is not a necessary feature, though it may frequently arise where individualistic values are unchecked. Corruption can be prevented within social entities by enhancing structures that direct toward virtue and which promote and reward cooperation instead of competition. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAnna Letitia Barbauld's poem ‘To Mr. Barbauld, with a Map of the Land of Matrimony’ and its illustrated companion piece, ‘A New Map of the Land of Matrimony, Drawn from the Latest Surveys’, first published anonymously by Joseph Johnson in 1772 but attributable to Barbauld, show their creator playing in original ways with courtly and libertine variants of the map of love and marriage: a genre of allegorical and sentimental map tracing its provenance to ‘La Carte de tendre’ or ‘The (...) Map of the Country of Tenderness’, conceived by Madeleine de Scudéry for inclusion in her multi-volume prose romance Clélie and given illustrated form by François Chauveau. Taken together, map and drawing indirectly serve to illuminate Barbauld's complicated position within Enlightenment feminism and invite new insights into her relationship with the canonical male Romantics, reaffirming her status as a key transitional figure between Neoclassicism and Romanticism in the contribution she makes to the historical debate over the relationship between different arts. (shrink)

Summary Sister and brother Anna Letitia Barbauld (née Aikin; 1743–1825) and John Aikin (1747–1822) are two famous Rational Dissenting writers who strategically appropriated republican discourse to advance the Dissenting cause. Both make the case that, far from being subversive, Rational Dissent actually granted its adherents the independence that, from a republican perspective, was considered essential to true patriotism. In a fresh formulation of republican discourse, they present the strength of the Rational Dissenting commitment to ‘free inquiry’ as security for continuing (...) independence, enabling liberal Dissenters to act as patriotic guardians of British virtue and liberty against the dangerous effects of luxury, even as they continued to contribute towards the development of the British commercial economy and to promote the benefits of commerce, traditionally regarded with hostility by classical republicans. Effectively exploiting the classical republican belief in the central role of education, Barbauld and Aikin particularly sought to publicize the role that the Dissenting academies had played in producing patriots by making ‘free inquiry’ the basis of their pedagogical philosophy and practice. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe opening reference to masturbation in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels provides evidence of not only an embedded cultural commentary on the masturbatory tendencies of modernity but also specific contempt for the novel as a masturbatory literary form. The same point is made elsewhere in Swift’s poetry and his parody of the erotic scene of female masturbation that continued to be a staple of amatory fiction. Yet the same body of writing reveals Swift’s recognition that he too was guilty of producing (...) literary fuel for masturbation, as were the Ancients themselves whose works continued to invite a sexualized response from readers. As such, Swift reveals an ironic point of agreement with female authors of amatory fiction such as Delarivier Manley and Eliza Haywood, who represent instances of the poetry of the Ancients being put precisely to this use, providing tacit excuse for their own erotically charged writing. In his later notorious diagnosis of Swift as a chronic masturbator literary physician Thomas Beddoes is arguably responding at least in part to Swift’s own sense of entrapment within masturbatory modernity. (shrink)

This edited collection brings together keynote articles from the journal _Disability & Society_ to provide a comprehensive and though-provoking exploration of the place of technology in disabled people’s lives, documenting and analysing the growing impact of technology on disability and society over recent decades. The authors explore theoretical, empirical and moral dilemmas that arise with the changing relationship between technological change and the lives, aspirations and possibilities of disabled people. The volume is organised into three parts which consider early foundational (...) work connecting disability and technology; key empirical studies related to the optimum use of technologies for independence and inclusion; and new moral and social dynamics thrown up by technological developments for disabled people’s lives. (shrink)

Although there is evidence parent–child attachment security is associated with trait-like emotion indices, trait perspectives do not fully capture children's responses to context, an important emotion regulation component. This paper evaluates whether attachment is associated with two dynamic emotion indicators: emotion reactivity and emotion recovery. We review conceptual and empirical connections, describe the dynamic emotion perspective, discuss hypotheses, and review evidence. Our review (15 studies) shows that secure attachment was more consistently related to recovery than reactivity, avoidant attachment was related (...) to low emotion reactivity and recovery, ambivalent attachment was associated with greater emotion reactivity, and disorganized attachment was related to high reactivity and recovery difficulties. We close by comparing trait-like and dynamic emotion conclusions then propose future research directions. (shrink)

The human right to health, insofar as it is widely recognized, is typically thought to include the right to fair access to adequate healthcare, but the operating conception of healthcare in this context has been under-defined. This lack of conceptual clarity has often led in practice to largely Western cultural assumptions about what validly constitutes “healthcare” and “medicine.” Ethnocentric and parochial assumptions ought to be avoided, lest they give justification to the accusation that universal human rights are mere tools for (...) Western imperial agendas. At the same time, a right to healthcare that is not also explicitly the right to effective healthcare rapidly loses meaning. This paper strives to provide an account of medicine with the flexibility to accommodate cultural difference in forms of practice, while also aiding in the articulation of a minimum for medical systems to meet the standards set out in a human right. (shrink)

Clinical ethics consultants represent a multidisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners with varied training backgrounds, who are integrated into a medical environment to assist in the provision of ethically supportable care. Little has been written about the degree to which such consultants are accountable for the patient care outcome of the advice given. We propose a model for examining degrees of internally motivated accountability that range from restricted to unbounded accountability, and support balanced accountability as a goal for practice. Finally, (...) we explore implications of this model for training of clinical ethics consultants from diverse academic backgrounds, including those disciplines that do not have a formal code of ethics relating to clinical practice. (shrink)