The objective of this research is to identify relationships between social context dimensions and hardiness in elite weightlifting athletes. Methods: The design: non-experimental, cross-sectional and correlational, the participants were 20 athletes who belong to the elite as the national team of Mexico, they are between 19 and 28 years of age, M = 22.05 SD = 2.91, 8 men (40%) and 12 women (60%). 2 instruments were used, the first is the Perception of Factors Related to Excellence in (...) Sport (PFED), (Simón, 2009) consisting of 54 items 6 variables, coach, environment and resources, athlete, family, nature of training and characteristics of the training and the second the questionnaire of hardiness in Central American and Caribbean Athletes (PRDCC) (Ponce, 2017; Ponce-Carbajal et al. 2015) of 18 items and three variables, commitment control and challenge. In the procedure, a file was created in google forms and coaches who are in charge of athletes from the Mexican national weightlifting team were contacted. The statistical analyzes used were frequencies, descriptive, reliability, and Spearman's bivariate correlations. Results: Adequate internal consistency in almost all the variables, between.40 and.92 in the 2 questionnaires. In the correlations between variables of the social context and those of the hardiness, relationships were evidenced between the total resistant personality and the nature of the training with an r =.767** and the challenge variable correlated with two, the first is the nature of the training r =.834** and with the characteristics of training r =.671**. Conclusion, the relationships between the variables of the social context and the resistant personality are confirmed. (shrink)

The aim of the study was to determine the role of self-efficacy, outcome expectancies, and risk perception in formulating the intention to undergo breast reconstruction in 178 women after total mastectomy. The social-cognitive variables were measured in the context of breast reconstruction, while depression was assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory. The structural equation modeling revealed that among the predictors there were only two that accounted for the intention to undergo breast reconstruction, i.e. self-efficacy and outcome expectancies. Subsequent (...) analyses of the related moderators, i.e. depression, age, and duration of the disease indicated a good fit to the data. Nevertheless, in subgroups with poorer resources the direct effects of self-efficacy on intention were less noticeable or non-existent. The results suggest that self-efficacy may play the regulating role in making a breast reconstruction decision if individual resources are taken into account. (shrink)

The advocates of “doing well by doing good” have advised firms to invest in corporate social responsibility (CSR), but firms may get lost on how to invest their limited resources in it since CSR is a complex concept involving many activities and different types of stakeholders. In this work, we draw upon the perspective of stakeholder saliency and the stakeholder resource-based view (SRBV) to propose that stakeholders may have different levels of expectations for CSR and contribute to firm value (...) creation differently. Therefore, firms using different CSR to treat different stakeholders (high CSR variability) will have better financial performance. We further propose that context, in particular media coverage and state ownership, moderates the relationship between CSR variability and firm performance, as stakeholders of highly visible firms and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) may frown upon a discriminate treatment in CSR. Findings based on a sample of 3313 publicly listed firms and 15,324 firm-year observations in China's stock markets during the 2010–2018 period provide good support for our predictions. (shrink)

This field survey in a fast food restaurant setting tested the hypothesized influences of two social context variables (role responsibility and interests of group members) and justice evaluations (distributive, procedural, and retributive) on respondents' inclination to report theft and their theft reporting behavior. The results provided mixed support for the hypotheses. Inclination to report a peer for theft was associated with role responsibility, the interests of group members, and procedural justice perceptions. Actual reporting behavior was associated with the (...) inclination to report and with retributive justice evaluations. Implications for future research and for management are discussed. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between organizational ethical context and the individual ethical decision-making process. In addition, a new statistical approach combining cluster and discriminant analyses was developed to overcome violations of regression assumptions, which are commonly not identified and/or ignored in behavioral and psychological research. Using regressions and this new alternative method, the findings indicated that ethical context does indeed influence the various components of ethical reasoning. However, social desirability was the (...) strongest predictor of ethical decision making, which raises new concerns about how this bias can confound business ethics research. Finally, the findings showed that the alternative method provided more useful and interpretive results, indicating that it has the capacity to influence future empirical work in the field of business ethics, particularly when dealing with data that do not satisfy regression assumptions. The implications and limitations of the study are discussed, and several noteworthy suggestions for future research are provided. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate the study of causal mechanisms in the social sciences. I argue that unless one adopts a clear notion of causation, such as Woodward's manipulability theory of causation, one does not find evidence for causal claims. I show that adopting Woodward’s theory entails that a researcher must take into account both the observable implications of the mechanisms, and possible interventions on those mechanisms. In a backlash against the pervasiveness of statistical methods, in the last decade (...) or so social scientists have become more focused on finding the causal mechanisms behind observed correlations. To provide evidence for such causal claims, researchers often rely on process-tracing, a method which involves contrasting the observable implications of several alternative mechanisms. Although process-tracing has gained prominence as a technique, researchers do not share a fundamental framework of what causation is. I will show what process-tracers’ reasoning would look like if they were to commit to Woodward’s manipulability theory. This theory tells us that any successful explanation of an effect must refer to causal factors that could be manipulated to change the phenomenon under study. Specifically, a variable X is a cause of another variable Y if there exists some ‘intervention variable’ I. I is an intervention variable if we can use I to change X, which will then in turn change Y without any interference of other variables linked to Y. In other words, using I we will be able to ascertain that it was X that made the change in Y happen. I will argue that if a process-tracing researcher were to adopt the manipulability notion of causation, she would not only have to find observable implications of the alternative mechanisms under study, but also information regarding an intervention variable for each link of the causal chain. (shrink)

We explore multi-scale relations in artificial intelligence (AI) use in order to identify difficulties with coordinating relations between users, machine learning (ML) processes, and “sociobuilt contexts”—specifically in terms of their applications to medical technologies and decisions. We begin by analyzing a recent COVID-19 machine learning case study in order to present the difficulty of traversing the detailed causal topography of “sociobuilt contexts.” We propose that the adequate representation of the interactions between social and built processes that occur on many (...) scales ought to drive interdisciplinary approaches for ML modification. Next, we describe ML algorithm development as a process that is partly dependent on methodological stabilization for reliability and partly on coordinating relations. In the coordination between user, ML process, and sociobuilt contexts, we propose that new methods can be explored that promote the inclusion of patients and communities for the purpose of cross-checking portions of the ML process. Finally, we suggest that the advantages of responsible innovation emerge through the iterative entanglement of ethical, methodological, and ontological considerations within the broader conceptual infrastructure of epistemic responsibility. (shrink)

Claims regarding negative strong reciprocity do indeed rest on experiments lacking established external validity, often without even a small Guala's review should prompt strong reciprocity proponents to extend the real-world validity of their work, exploring the preferences participants bring to experiments. That said, Guala's approach fails to differentiate among group selection approaches and glosses over cross-cultural variability.

This paper presents the interpersonal variability of harm challenge to Jerome Wakefield’s harmful-dysfunction account (HDA) of disorder. This challenge stems from the seeming fact that what promotes well-being or is harmful to someone varies much more across individuals than what is intuitively healthy or disordered. This makes it at least prima facie difficult to see how judgments about health and disorder could, as harm-requiring accounts of disorder like the HDA maintain, be based on, or closely linked to, judgments about well-being (...) and harm. This interpersonal variability of harm challenge is made salient by the difficulty faced by harm-requiring accounts of disorder in dealing satisfactorily with cases of intuitively disordered conditions that seem harmless because they do not deprive the individuals that they affect of anything that they value (e.g., desired infertility). I argue that this challenge is made more serious for the HDA by some clarifications Wakefield has recently made on harm. In recent publications, Wakefield dissociates himself from the sheer cultural-relativist view of harm attributed to him by some critics based on his linkage of harm to social values, and adopts a more qualified social-values-based view of harm that leaves room for criticism of the values endorsed by members of a cultural group at a given time. I show how Wakefield’s qualified view makes it more difficult for the HDA to deal with the interpersonal variability of harm challenge, at least when applied to a Western cultural context where a high value is placed on autonomy and individual choice. (shrink)

The goal of research in social epidemiology is not simply conceptual clarification or theoretical understanding, but more importantly it is to contribute to, and enhance the health of populations (and so, too, the people who constitute those populations). Undoubtedly, understanding how various individual risk factors such as smoking and obesity affect the health of people does contribute to this goal. However, what is distinctive of much on-going work in social epidemiology is the view that analyses making use of (...) individual-level variables is not enough. In the spirit of Durkheim and Weber, S. Leonard Syme makes this point by writing that just “as bad water and food may be harmful to our health, unhealthful forces in our society may be detrimental to our capacity to make choices and to form opinions” conducive to health and well-being. Advocates of upstream (distal) causes of adverse health outcomes propose to identify the most important of these “unhealthful forces” as the fundamental causes of adverse health outcomes. However, without a clear, theoretically precise and well-grounded understanding of the characteristics of fundamental causes, there is little hope in applying the statistical tools of the health sciences to hypotheses about fundamental causes, their outcomes, and policies intended to enhance the health of populations. This paper begins the process of characterizing the social epidemiological concept of fundamental cause in a theoretically respectable and robust way. (shrink)

The recent interest in some of the phenomena traditionally associated with the context dependence of quantificational expressions (QPs) has centered around the idea that some constituents of a sentence might serve as the locus of domain restriction for QPs might be present but lack for overt manifestation. In this essay, one such argument – due to Stanley (2000) – is critically examined. Specifically, I will present a number of different kinds of constructions where the predictions of a theory based (...) upon syntactically represented context variables are not confirmed. (shrink)

This paper draws evidence from a national survey conducted in the Republic of Cyprus. Respondents provided evidence about their own self-promotion on social media while assessing other users’ personal salience online. Furthermore, they provided evidence about their own reactions toward other people’s personal salience. The study shows that respondents display affective, perceptional, as well as behavioral reactions toward other people’s online visibility. Demographic characteristics along with certain types of control variables are associated with individuals’ personal salience. Although transferring personal (...) salience constitutes a segmented social media influence, this survey shows that it is recognized as a widespread objective and priority by ordinary individuals. (shrink)

This study examines social desirability bias in the context of ethical decision-making by accountants. It hypothesizes a negative relation between social desirability bias and ethical evaluation. It also predicts an interaction effect between religiousness and gender on social desirability bias. An experiment using five general business vignettes was carried out on 121 accountants (63 males and 58 females). The results show that social desirability bias is higher (lower) when the situation encountered is more (less) unethical. (...) The bias has religiousness and gender main effects as well as an interaction effect between these two independent variables. Women who were more religious recorded the highest bias scores relative to less religious women and men regardless of their religiousness. (shrink)

The need to fill three gaps in ethics research in a business context sparked the current study. First, the distinction between the concepts of “ethical” and “legal” needs to be incorporated into theory building and empiricism. Second, a unifying theory is needed that can explain the variables that influence managers to emphasize ethics and legality in their judgments. Third, empirical evidence is needed to confirm the predictive power of the unifying theory, the discernable influence of personal and organizational variables, (...) and the importance of the issue to the managers in determining their emphasis on the ethical and legal values of their judgments. Focused on these needs, the current research combines social identity theory with empirical findings from business ethics research. This theory building initiative framed hypothesis-driven research to investigate the influences on managers’ emphasis on ethical and legal values in making business judgments. An empirical research study was conducted involving 252 practicing managers who judged 12 newsworthy business events. Data was collected on the managers’ individual factors, on the groups that influence their judgments, and on the importance that the managers place on ethics and legality in judging the 12 scenarios. The research findings contribute to theory development (1) By successfully utilizing a blended extension of social identity and issue-contingent theories to understand managers’ judgments, and (2) By providing evidence on the relationships between the perceived importance of an issue and the emphases managers place on ethical and legal values in their judgments. The analysis of the data was extended to provide insights on the needs of employers to tailor management training on legal and ethical decision-making. The participating managers were clustered according to their emphases on Ethical Importance and Legal Importance in judging business situations. Analysis of Variance was then combined with Scheffé Multiple Comparison Tests to assess whether the factors derived from a blended extension of social identity and issue-contingent theories were significantly different across the clusters. The product of this analysis is unique sets of attributes that describe each cluster of managers, and provide an empirical basis for determining training priorities. Finally, the carefully constructed and thoroughly tested 12 research scenarios that form the core of the survey instrument enable their redeployment in subsequent research and their use by practicing executives who wish to compare data provided by their managers to results from the study participants. (shrink)

A growing epidemic of chronic illness in working populations contributes to a negative spiral of work and organizational outcomes including increased absenteeism, prolonged disability or illness claims, early work termination, and non-voluntary unemployment. Chronic illness, characterized by fluctuating trends in clinical and embodied experience along a prolonged time course, is intersubjectively experienced within a social context, and variably responded to and managed within and between organizations and countries. Drawing from global health, we discuss chronic illness experience and organizations (...) as context for chronic illness experience. We then propose a model of ‘organizational caregiving,’ highlighting how invested relational understanding, attitude, intent, and acts of care can enrich the work and organizational experiences of employees with chronic illness. (shrink)

The author examines, in the context of Litwin and Stringer''s (1968) operationalization, the influence of social inclusion (organizational warmth and organizational identity) as a marketing ethics correlate. The results indicate that both organizational warmth and organizational identity underlie marketing professionals'' ethical behavior. Furthermore, the influence pattern for each variable is consistent witha priori hypothesis.

Critical aspects in the field of education are currently related to low levels of socioemotional competences and high rates of school dropouts. However, there are no standard practices or guidelines for helping countries to assess and train social and emotional competences. To overcome this limitation, the project Learning to be (L2B) aims to propose a comprehensive model of the assessment and development of social and emotional competences that bring together policymakers, researchers, teachers, school authorities and learners from different (...) participating countries: Finland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain. The project attempts to create an international framework for regulating activities and supporting teachers working on the social and emotional competences of the students and to provide tools which can be used across countries. The aim of the paper is to describe how L2B has been developed in Spain by analyzing the contributions of the international framework and extracting the specific needs in the Spanish context. Specifically, we describe two products of the project: a) the process for creating a toolkit, a tool focused on creating activities and materials for helping teachers develop social and emotional competences of students and b) the results of an exploratory study in Spain in which social and emotional competences are assessed and compared to the international framework. First, we explain the definition of social and emotional competences used for creating the toolkit. Second, we analyze responses of Spanish students to questionnaires administered before applying the toolkit in the schools. The paper describes social and emotional competences in Spain and evaluates the overlap between relevant variables in Spain and those used for developing the toolkit, the international tool. Specific needs in Spain are discussed, as well as the contribution of the project for promoting the improved development of students’ social and emotional competences, improving learning outcomes and stronger social cohesion in schools and local communities, as well as the utility of the results for creating new educational policies. (shrink)

Due to domestication, dogs differ from wolves in the way they respond to their environment, including to humans. Selection for tameness and the associated changes to the autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulation have been proposed as the primary mechanisms of domestication. To test this idea, we compared two low-arousal states in equally raised and kept wolves and dogs: resting, a state close to being asleep, and inactive wakefulness, which together take up an important part in the time budgets of wolves (...) and dogs. We measured arousal via cardiac output in three conditions: alone, with a familiar human partner, or with pack members (i.e., conspecifics). Specifically, we compared heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) of six wolves and seven dogs. As patterns of resting can vary adaptively, even between closely related species, we predicted that dogs would be generally more aroused than wolves, because living with humans may come with less predictable contexts than living with conspecifics; hence, dogs would need to be responsive at all times. Furthermore, we predicted that due to the effects of domestication, emotional social support by familiar people would reduce arousal more in dogs than in equally human-socialized wolves, leading to more relaxed dogs than wolves when away from the pack. Overall, we found a clear effect of the interactions between species (i.e., wolf versus dog), arousal state (i.e., resting or awake inactive) and test conditions, on both HR and HRV. Wolves and dogs were more aroused when alone (i.e., higher HR and lower HRV) than when in the presence of conspecifics or a familiar human partner. Dogs were more relaxed than wolves when at rest and close to a familiar human but this difference disappeared when awake. In conclusion, instead of the expected distinct overall differences between wolves and dogs in ANS regulation, we rather found subtle context-specific responses, suggesting that such details are important in understanding the domestication process. (shrink)

: Contextualism in epistemology has been proposed both as a way to avoid skepticism and as an explanation for the variability found in our use of "knows." When we turn to contextualism to perform these two functions, we should ensure that the version we endorse is well suited for these tasks. I compare two versions of epistemic contextualism: attributor contextualism and methodological contextualism. I argue that methodological contextualism is superior both in its response to skepticism and in its mechanism for (...) changing contexts. However, methodological contextualism still faces two challenges: explaining why we are solidly committed to some contexts, and explaining why knowledge within a context is valuable. I propose virtue contextualism as a useful extension of methodological contextualism, focusing on the way that our virtues depend on our social roles. My proposed virtue contextualism retains the benefits of methodological contextualism while explaining both our commitment to particular contexts and the value of knowledge held within those contexts. (shrink)

This paper traces the unspoken, implicit white racial logic of the brain disease model of addiction, which is based on seemingly universal, disembodied brains devoid of social or environmental influences. In the United States, this implicit white logic led to “context-free” neuroscience that made the social hierarchies of addiction and its consequences invisible to, and thus exacerbated by, national policies on opioids. The brain disease model of addiction was selectively deployed among the white middle-class population that had (...) long accessed narcotics and pharmaceutical treatments for narcotics disorders from biomedical clinics, as opposed to from illegal sources subject to law enforcement. In turn, new treatments for opioid addiction were racially marketed to the same white clientele to which newly patented opioid analgesics were marketed, tapping into a circumscribed but highly lucrative consumer base that has long benefited from a legally protected, racially segregated safe space for white narcotics consumption. The connecting thread for the contemporary white opioid “crisis,” therefore, is white race as a ghost variable in addiction neuroscience and in its pharmaceutical and biotechnological translation. (shrink)

This paper examines whether a firm’s financial performance is associated with superior environmental, social and governance scores in emerging markets of multinationals in Latin America. The study addresses the current research gap on this issue; it develops hypotheses and tests them by applying linear regressions with a data panel drawn from the Thomson Reuters Eikon™ database to analyse data on 104 multinationals from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru between 2011 and 2015. The results suggest that the relationship between (...) the ESG score and FP is significantly statistically negative. Furthermore, in examining environmental, social and governance separately to accurately determine each variable’s relationship to multilatinas’ FP, the results reveal a negative relationship. Finally, the empirical analysis provides evidence for a moderating effect of financial slack and geographic international diversification on the relationship between ESG dimensions and firms’ FP. This study furthers understanding of the relationship between ESG dimensions and FP for the Latin American business context. (shrink)

Considering the organization’s ethical context as a framework to investigate workplace phenomena, this field study of military reserve personnel examines the relationships among perceptions of psychosocial group variables, such as cohesiveness, helping behavior and peer leadership, employee job attitudes, and the likelihood of individuals’ withholding on-the-job effort, a form of organizational misbehavior. Hypotheses were tested with a sample of 290 individuals using structural equation modeling, and support for negative relationships between perceptions of positive group context and withholding effort (...) by individual employees was found. In addition, individual effort-performance expectancy and individual job satisfaction were negatively related to withholding effort. The findings provide evidence that individual perceptions of positive group context play a key role in the presence of misbehavior at work. The results indicate that positive group context might be an important element of ethical climate that should be managed to temper occurrence of such adverse work behavior. (shrink)

Drawing on risk mitigation theory, this article examines whether the improvement of firms’ social performance reduces debt financing costs (CDFs) in China, the world’s largest emerging market. Employing both the ordinary least square (OLS) and the two-stage instrumental variable regression methods, we find that improved corporate social responsibility (CSR) reduces the CDF when firms’ CSR investment is lower than an optimal level; however, this relationship is reversed after the CSR investment exceeds the optimal level. Firms with extremely (...) low or extremely high CSR are subject to a higher CDF. The results also suggest that the optimal CSR level for small firms is higher than that for large firms. This study is the first to document a U-shaped relationship between CSR and CDF and also the first to investigate this relationship within an emerging market context. (shrink)

We use an event study to capture the investor reaction to the first Newsweek Green Rankings in September 2009, a notable, multi-dimensional recent development in the rating of corporate environmental CSR performance. Drawing on stakeholder theory, we develop hypotheses about market investor reaction to the disclosure of new, relevant corporate environmental performance in both the short and longer term, whether market investors’ reaction reflects industry context, and whether firm-level contextual variables representing firm size, and market legitimacy significantly impacts the (...) investor reaction. We find that, for the sample of the largest 500 US firms ranked by Newsweek, investors react positively both to the raw and within-industry rankings of green performance in terms of both short-term and longer-term returns. Moreover, the investor reaction is significantly influenced by contextual variables such as firm size and firm market legitimacy. Our results are compatible with the inference that rating agencies like Newsweek serve a valuable information dissemination function such that investors in better ranked firms anticipate larger future cash flows due to more positive reactions from key stakeholders such as environmentally-conscious customers, employees, NGOs, regulators, and thus reward these firms with stock price increases. Finally, larger, more visible firms benefit more, while firms which have more market legitimacy benefit less. We believe these findings will be of considerable interest to scholars of environmental corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The paper attempts to investigate the constructivist approach to the social world and its implications for social forecasting. _Theoretical basis._ Social forecasting is mainly based on the idea that a human is "determined ontologically". Using the methodology of the natural sciences, most predictions and forecasts fail to encompass all the multiplicity and variability of the future. The postmodern interpretation of reality gave impetus to the development of the new approaches to it. A constructivist approach to (...) class='Hi'>social reality began to compete with essentialism. Social constructivism asserts that reality is a set of mental constructs, that it is ultimately a text. Radical constructivism interprets reality as a specific system of meanings emphasizing the artifact aspects of our reality. An interpretation of the social actors’ behavior is based on the ways of understanding accepted in a given society/community and do not possess ontological universality. The creators of social space are also its creations. _Originality._ Within the framework of the postmodern approach to reality, the second-order forecasting, or forecasting of forecasting, is particularly relevant. That means that the observers-forecasters must be included in the forecast as a part of one-unified process. At this stage, a forecaster must realize that he/she is a part of a larger system, a part of the world he/she observes (and actually creates). The situation changes dramatically – the forecaster is forced to take responsibility for his/her own observations. This ultimately leads to the "humanization" of forecasting. Acting in our world full of uncertainty, unpredictability, and turbulence, modern researchers of the future should be mindful of powerful social constructs of reality. _Conclusions._ Social forecasting should be embedded in a wider context, which requires a joint effort of philosophers, foresight practitioners, historians, psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, religious scholars, anthropologists, etc. To develop promising visions and scenarios of the future, it is necessary to answer the question "Why?", which is the task of philosophically oriented research, because without this answer, we will deal with the consequences; and the implementation of the negative scenarios will reproduce itself in new socio-cultural and historical conditions. An in-depth understanding of this "Why?" provides opportunities to be in the flow of transformations. The study of the deep mental processes of the actors of social changes, the multidimensional influence on the transformation of social structures can gradually expand an answer to the question "Why?", that can cause positive changes and, accordingly, allow to create fruitful projects of the future and form effective behavioral strategies that correspond to the desired level of social development. (shrink)

Racial classifications are thought to be useful in biomedical settings because they can suggest medically relevant genetic ancestry and medically relevant social or environmental variables. This is the use of race as a proxy in biomedical settings. In this chapter, I argue that the pragmatic use of racial classifications in these settings can be no more than a stop-gap for variables of biomedical or clinical significance. I argue that the only appropriate use of racial classification in biomedical settings is (...) in the context of accounting for the victims and beneficiaries of racism in health, and in cases where we want to track and intervene in racial inequities or disparities in health irrespective of their history or cause. (shrink)

Grounded in achievement goal theory and self-determination theory, the aim of this study was to analyze the motivational determinants of precompetitive anxiety in the sports context, considering the horizontal motivational sequence: adaptive social factors, competence need, types of motivation, and consequences. This study was also conducted in order to analyze the mediating role of the need for competition and motivational regulations on social factors and consequences. The sample consisted of 217 athletes of both sexes engaged in elite (...) sport, who answered a series of questionnaires to measure study variables to develop an analysis of the structural equation model. The results showed that both the task-involving climate and autonomy support were associated with competence need, and competence need was associated with autonomous motivation in a positive way and with controlled motivation and amotivation in a negative way. On the other hand, autonomous motivation was positively associated with self-confidence, while amotivation was positively related to somatic and cognitive anxiety before a competition. Furthermore, there was a total mediation of competence need and autonomous motivation between task climate and self-confidence. In conclusion, these social factors favor self-confidence, and besides, these climates disfavor anxiety before a sport competition. (shrink)

Purpose This paper is concerned with the place of human rights in the process of technological development but specifically as this process is situated within the corporate-technological complex of modern digital communications and their derivatives. This paper aims to argue that expecting and institutionalizing the incorporation of human rights in the process of technological innovation and production, particularly in the context of global economic actors, constitutes a necessary act if we want to navigate the immediate future of artificial intelligence (...) and ubiquitous connectivity in ways that protect democracy and human dignity. Design/methodology/approach The discussion presents the case for defending human rights through a social control perspective, which assumes the conscious quest for impacting change and cartographing a path of actions and intentions. The authors approach the problem from James Ralph Beniger’s theory of the Control Revolution to explain the emergence of a new social order and to outline the main challenges brought particularly by media and information and communication technology corporations as global actors of power. Findings Ethics initiatives, considering human rights as an ethical framework for media and ICT businesses, can be based on social control perspectives to regard the more complex variables interacting in the formation of effective policy making. It is the right to participate in the construction of knowledge in society and, informed by this knowledge, help manage or control democratic issues, including influencing on the regulation of technology and other cultural formats of control. Knowing social control tools enable citizens to lead their destinies, plan their freedom and the change what they wish in the societies they live in. Originality/value Social control is often understood as a term taken for granted and many times faced as representing malignant and anti-democratic forms. Here, the authors try to build a theoretical ground where both sides – the benign and the malignant – can be taken in consideration to bring awareness to the need to discuss social control as a democratic endeavor, and consider human rights as part of this and not something apart and idealized. The practice of human rights is directly associated with social control forms and is from within these practices individuals must understand its role on social control and act. (shrink)

The term Methodological Cognitivism was introduced in the late 90s when cognitivism was dominated by the information-processing psychology approach. The model of the mind was of the Cartesian type, and the analogy was that of the digital Turing machine. The MC program was, however, open to incorporate within it the developments of neurocognitive sciences and embodied cognition. A dimension of wide embodied cognition of action incorporates both the causal role of the body and the causal variables of the extended, embedded, (...) and enactive dimension of individual action. Ultimately, it is an Embodied Individualism that structurally includes the environmental and social dimensions in individual action. The concept of social affordances and the individual enaction towards them demonstrates how there is a horizontal relationship and recursive interaction between individual action and the social environment. The embedded dimension of the action in the sense of the situational context that shapes it is another concept that expresses the founding social dimension of the action. Finally, the extended dimension of cognition, which is not limited only to what is contained in the individual’s skull, but is present in all mnemonic supports and external computing devices of an artificial but also social human type. (shrink)

This article argues that we could improve the design of research protocols by developing an awareness of and a responsiveness to the social contexts of all the actors in the research enterprise, including subjects, investigators, sponsors, and members of the community in which the research will be conducted. ?Social context? refers to the settings in which the actors are situated, including, but not limited to, their social, economic, political, cultural, and technological features. The utility of thinking (...) about social contexts is introduced and exemplified by the presentation of a hypothetical case in which one central issue is limitation of the probability of injury to subjects by selection of individuals who are not expected to live long enough for the known risks of the study to become manifest as harms. Benefits of such considerations may include enhanced subject satisfaction and cooperation, community acceptance, and improved data quality, among other desirable consequences. (shrink)

Moving on to a higher level of schooling represents a crucial developmental challenge for children: studies have shown that transitioning to a new school context can increase the perceived importance of peer acceptance, popularity, and adaptation to the new social environment. The aim of this study was to investigate simultaneously the influence of interpersonal variables and personal variables on role-taking in bullying episodes from a longitudinal perspective. These variables were assessed on 41 children in their last year of (...) kindergarten and in their 1st year of primary school. The main longitudinal results showed that prosocial behaviors are more stable than hostile, victim, and outsider behaviors. Moreover, social preference—together with affective empathy—at t1 had a clear negative predictive effect on hostile roles at t2, while social preference had a positive effect on prosocial roles at t2. Social impact at t1 negatively predicted being a victim at t2. On the other hand, social preference at t2 was negatively predicted only by the victim role at t1. Social impact at t1 had a significant and negative effect on being victimized at t2 while was negatively predicted at t2 by the outsider at t1. Our study—even if exploratory—seems to highlight the existence of a specific, differentiate effect of two distinct social status indices on the participant role-taking in bullying episodes in the transitional period from kindergarten to primary school. (shrink)

This work describes the perceptions that Industrial Engineering students have regarding Colombian firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. It also explores the incidence of gender, academic level, work experience and entrepreneurial intention on students’ vision. A survey with 70 CSR practices was designed based on previous research. Practices were grouped in ten dimensions: shareholders, customers, employees, suppliers, stakeholders, ethics, environment, legal, human rights and society. A representative sample of 142 students was used. Results show that students perceive a higher (...) commitment of Colombian companies with the shareholders dimension, while a lower with the society, ethics and environmental CSR practices. Work experience and entrepreneurial intention are the only variables affecting the identified perceptions. Thus, as they gain experience, their perceptions become more favorable. On the other hand, potential entrepreneurs have a more critical view on the companies’ commitment. Additionally, the fact that the academic level does not impact students’ perceptions constitutes a challenge for the academic program, since it is expected that this will affect the vision of future engineers. This is the first study that evaluates perceptions of Industrial Engineering students, who, given their object of study, will be responsible for designing and managing production processes in organizations of the future. Results respond to a specific context (students at a Colombian public university), therefore further research to explore the subject is recommended. (shrink)

This study investigates the role of socially responsible management as a significant determining factor for employees’ morale engagement, employee vitality, and employee-based brand equity. Human resource management policies and strategies are important for addressing the interests of the employees and boosting the overall effectiveness of the organization. To examine this, this study analyzes the role of socially responsible management and organizational morality on EME with the mediation of EV. Also, the study examines the role of EME in EBBE. To conduct (...) this study, the data were obtained from 310 female employees working in software houses from home in China. The sampling technique used in the study is purposive sampling. A partial least square structural equation modeling technique is used to analyze the data of the study. The study found that socially responsible management has a positive effect on both EME and EV. The study also reveals that organizational morality has a positive impact on EME and consequently impacts the EBBE in a positive way. The results of the mediation analysis show that EV mediates the relationship between socially responsible management and EME. The study provides practical implications, explaining the strategies and policies that can be adopted by the HR department of the organization to boost employee interests. The study also provides some limitations and future recommendations, such as sample size, the context of the study, and adding new variables to the existing framework. (shrink)

Copresence, the idea that the presence of other actors shapes individual behavior, links macro- and micro-theorizing about social interaction. Traditionally, scholars have focused on the physical proximity of other people, assuming copresence to be a given, objective condition. However, recent empirical evidence on technologically mediated (e.g., e-mail), imaginary (e.g., prayer), and parasocial (e.g., watching a television show) interactions challenges classic copresence assumptions. In this article we reconceptualize copresence to provide theoretical building blocks (definitions, assumptions, and propositions) for a revitalized (...) research program that allows for the explicit assessment of copresence as an endogenous, subjective variable dynamically related to social context. We treat copresence as the degree to which an actor perceives mutual entrainment (i.e., synchronization of attention, emotion, and behavior) with another actor. We demonstrate the ramifications of this reconceptualization for classic theorizing on micro-macro linkages and contemporary research questions, including methodological artifacts in laboratory research and disparities in patient-provider rapport. (shrink)

Efforts to institutionalize ethics in corporations have been discussed without first addressing the desirability of norm conformity or the possibility that the means used to elicit conformity will be coercive. This article presents a theoretical context, grounded in models of social control, within which ethics initiatives may be evaluated. Ethics initiatives are discussed in relation to variables that already exert control in the workplace, such as environmental controls, organizational controls, and personal controls.

The contemporary situation within the realm of ethical theories is quite complicated. Were it not enough that many classical ethical theories are evolving into the new modern forms, new types of ethical theories are arising, as well. The main aim of the paper is to introduce this issue of ethical theories which are known under the term hybrid ethical theories. A secondary aim of the paper is to describe and characterize the contemporary ethical theory of ethics of social consequences, (...) and look for the answer whether it can be an example of this type of theory. To achieve the scope, the paper begins with a short introduction into the issue of contemporary consequentialism, followed by a presentation of the concept of hybrid ethical theories and its examples. Later the variability of consequentialism and ethics of social consequences are presented. The normative basis of this theory is subsequently analysed and explored in the context of hybrid ethical theories. Finally, the study clarify that the ethics of social consequences might be considered as a hybrid ethical theory. (shrink)

Mentalist view began to lose its standing among psychologists mainly during the first half of the twentieth century. As a result, the enthusiasm to build an objective science began to grow among behaviourists and ethologists. The rise of cognitive sciences around the 1960s, however, revived the debates over the importance of cognitive intervening variables in explaining behaviours that could not be explained by clinging solely to a pure behavioural approach. Nevertheless, even though cognitive functions in nonhuman animals have been identified (...) in many studies, attributing human mental properties to animals is still being criticized as anthropomorphism. Such anthropomorphic attributions have been considered as an open door to the return of subjective methodology. Representation of anthropomorphic attributions as scientific activities within the context of discovery as opposed to the context of justification casts a new light on this problem. The present analysis proposes that anthropomorphic attributions are formed based on top-down idiosyncratic intuitions on the cusp of hypothesis building, outside the context of scientific justification. In other words, an anthropomorphic attribution is a potential creative link between pure observations of behaviours and building testable hypotheses about cognition in the process of scientific discovery. Thus, serving a function within the context of discovery, anthropomorphism does not motivate the return of subjective methodology, simply because it is not inconsistent with the rule-governed path in the context of scientific justification. (shrink)

We investigate what distinguishes social entrepreneurial ecosystems (SEEs) from entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) through appreciation of the importance of context—the multiplex of intertwined social, spatial, temporal, historical, cultural, and political influences. Community is incorporated as a key variable and hitherto overlooked dimension of the structure and influence of SEEs. We draw on extant literature and examples of a variety of SEEs to support our propositions and demonstrate why considerations of both context and community are critical to (...) advance understanding of SEEs. We contribute to the study of SEEs by presenting a new conceptual framework and theorizing SEE as an evolving composite of interdependent actors who interact and collaborate across multiple levels to collectively generate positive externalities and drive sustainable solutions to social problems. (shrink)

Teaching is, to date, one of the most prone jobs to experiencing occupational stress and burnout. Owing to burnout’s negative personal, social, organizational and economic impacts, researchers, practitioners and education policy leaders are interested in developing practices and interventions aimed at preventing/reducing its prevalence. With teachers’ main professional demands to be of a social and emotional nature, interventions designed with a view to promote teachers’ social and emotional competence appears to be particularly promising, positively impacting teachers’ well-being (...) and personal accomplishment and contributing to a decrease in their psychological distress, namely emotional exhaustion. However, theoretical and empirically grounded interventions with ecological validity and specifically targeting teachers are still scarce. Thus, to bridge the previously identified gaps, the present study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and the quality of the intervention’s implementation of the A+, an online social and emotional learning intervention for elementary-school teachers. A quasi-experimental study was conducted with a total of 81 participants from three different school contexts. School clusters were similar in size, organizational structure and socioeconomic level, and as regards previous attendance at social and emotional learning interventions; however, they differed with regards to perceived organizational climate. Data on the efficacy of the A+ was collected across four waves using a set of self-report questionnaires that assessed proximal variables and distal variables, and analyzed through Robust Linear Mixed-Effects Models. Coefficient omegas suggested adequate reliability of the measures. Additionally, two trained observers completed an observation grid to evaluate the quality of the A+ implementation, with excellent inter-rater reliability. Results suggested that, over time, the A+ had positive impacts across proximal and distal variables favoring the experimental group. However, results differed across the school contexts. These findings were accompanied by good implementation quality indicators, namely high fidelity in the delivery of the A+ contents and high participants’ responsiveness. Despite its limitations, this study contributes to a growing body of research which reinforces the importance of investing in social and emotional learning interventions to prevent teachers’ burnout and improve their occupational health. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of implementation quality research as a component of program planning with a view to enhancing programs’ efficacy, as well as the need to adapt and consider context variables in research and practice. (shrink)

BackgroundThe experience sampling method is an increasingly popular data collection method to assess interpersonal dynamics in everyday life and emotions contextualized in real-world settings. As primary advantages of ESM sampling strategies include minimization of memory biases, maximization of ecological validity, and hypothesis testing at the between- and within-person levels, ESM is suggested to be appropriate for studying the daily lives of educational actors. However, ESM appears to be underutilized in education research. We, thus, aimed to systematically evaluate the methodological characteristics (...) and quality of published ESM studies of social interactions among children and adolescents in school settings, as well as to explore how much variance in social interaction variables could be attributed to the within-person level.MethodUsing Academic Search Complete, APA PsycINFO, APA PsycArticles, ProQuest, Web of Science, Wiley Online Library, and SAGE Journals, and in accordance with PRISMA guidelines and pre-defined eligibility criteria, we conducted a systematic literature search of experience sampling studies up to November 2020. To assess methodological quality, we used a modified checklist for reporting of ESM studies.ResultsOf the originally 2 413 identified studies, a final 52 experience sampling studies were included in the present review. Findings on sample and study design characteristics generally revealed wide variability. Even if high-quality studies were associated with higher scores on the training of participants in using the ESM procedure, and use of incentives, these design strategies did not reveal a statistically significant impact on compliance. The intraclass correlation coefficient was reported in nine studies and on average 58% of the variance in social interaction variables could be attributed to within-person fluctuation between timepoints.ConclusionThe current study is the first to systematically review ESM-based studies on social interactions among children and adolescents in the school context. These observations suggest that ESM is a potentially favorable technique for extracting complex social phenomena in real-world settings. We hope that this review will contribute to improving the quality assessment of ESM studies as well as to inform and guide future experience sampling studies, particularly regarding social phenomena with children and adolescents in educational settings. (shrink)

The subject of this research is the new age beliefs, which can be considered as individual religiosity. The aim of the research is to measure the relationship between new age beliefs and the level of religious knowledge and religiosity of individuals. As it is known, classical secularization theorists predicted that religious, mythological and similar supernaturalist structures will gradually lose their importance with the modernization process. Accordingly, religion will not only lose its decisive influence on social institutions, but will also (...) withdraw from the life of the individual to a significant extent. However, it can be said that although established religion relatively has lost its decisive role in directing life in (post)modern societies in comparison to the past, it still continues to exist in different forms as an important social institution. In other words, it can be stated that religiosity takes on different forms in societies where institutional religion has weakened. In this context, it is seen that new forms of religiosity emerged in Western societies after 1960. Concepts such as new religions, new religious movements, new age movement or new age spirituality have been put forward to describe these forms of religiosity in the tradition of sociological research. It has been determined that similar religious structures have begun to gain visibility in our modernizing country. The subject is investigated from different angles in many sub-disciplines of social science. In this context, the current research, which was designed in a quantitative design, was conducted with 382 university students studying in Bursa. In the study, a negative correlation was found between giving subjective importance to religion and new age beliefs. (shrink)

The evolving landscape of workforce learning underscores the increasing importance of self-directed learning (SDL) within business organizations. SDL shifts the learning responsibility to learners themselves, requiring self-control, self-management, and autonomous motivation. Despite its numerous benefits for both business organizations and workers, it is challenged by the varying degrees of workers’ individual self-direction. This literature review aims to articulate the significance of social context – the support from leaders and peers – in facilitating workers’ SDL. It highlights leader autonomy (...) support as the key factor of fostering workers’ autonomous motivation in SDL. Moreover, it examines the role of learner-peer interactions, including help, feedback, and information seeking, as specific aspects of peer support. These interactions further facilitate positive attitudes towards SDL and advance problem-solving, potentially leading to collaborative learning. The literature review is concluded by outlining possible future research directions. (shrink)

Few phenomena have found such divergent descriptions in sociological lit­ erature as have social inconsistencies. They were studied by George Herbert Mead as eruptive "natural" events constituting a social temporality. Alfred SchUtz described them as "explosions" of the individual actor's anticipatory action patterns. Talcott Parsons attempted to grasp social inconsistencies into his frame of "pattern variables," while Erving Goffman dealt with them as disruptions of "fostered impressions of reality" maintained by one or the other dominant team. The (...) present study traces these divergent approaches back to various un­ checked assumptions concerning the structure and the constitution of social types. Thus, to further clarify the relationship between social types and the relevance structure of interactional situations has been my first objective. This initially rather limited intention widened when the role of social incon­ sistencies for analysing the differences between play, game, and social action proper in the immediate context of social interaction became apparent. The structure of social inconsistencies seems to hold a key to unifying the theo­ ries of play and social,action. (shrink)

This article examines the evolution of Zygmunt Bauman’s theory of culture during his over-sixty-year-long scholarly activity. Bauman wrote his first books on the theory of culture (Culture and Society; Sketches in the Theory of Culture) when he was a Professor at Warsaw University. The ideas put forward at that time were later developed in his writings. This applies in particular to the critical nature of his thought, the combination of synchronic and diachronic perspectives, the inclusion of the context of (...) the social structure as well as his references to the structural dimension and to agency. Later years – starting with the publication of the book, Culture as Praxis – saw Bauman’s growing emphasis on the transcendence of the existing reality and the creative role of an individual in the transformation of cultural reality. This article shows how other theorists of culture inspired Bauman and how he critically referred to them. The article offers a holistic look at Zygmunt Bauman’s oeuvre. It also creates an opportunity for English-speaking readers to become familiar with Bauman’s writings in his mother tongue. (shrink)

Social capital is frequently offered up as a variable to explain such educational outcomes as academic attainment, drop-out rates and cognitive development. Yet, despite its popularity amongst social scientists, social capital theory remains the object of some scepticism, particularly in respect of its explanatory ambitions. I provide an account of some explanatory options available to social capital theorists, focussing on the functions ascribed to social capital and on how these are used as explanatory variables (...) in educational theory. Two of the most influential writers in this field are Coleman and Bourdieu. I explore their commonalities and differences, both in respect of their writing and in respect of some of the many theorists they have influenced. I argue that social capital theorists have made substantial progress in responding to sceptically minded critics, but that significant questions remain, especially about the success of the more ambitious explanatory variants as these apply to educational outcomes—functional explanation in particular. Functional explanation, and its association with Bourdieu, is discussed in ‘Bourdieu and functional explanation’; thereafter I discuss the more modest ambition of identifying the functions associated with social capital. In ‘Coleman, intergenerational closure and educational outcomes’ I show how Coleman provides resources for revealing how social structure features in social explanation in an educational context, and in ‘Inequality, class and ethnicity’ I suggest that some of the questions raised in his account are most satisfactorily responded to by educational theorists who adopt Bourdieu’s emphasis on social class and inequality. (shrink)

Many philosophers have called for elimination of racial taxonomies in biomedical contexts, basing their arguments on one of two claims: that the use of racial terminology is unjust, and that the use of racial terminology in scientific contexts is inappropriate because race is scientifically meaningless. I argue that each of these claims is flawed, because justice sometimes demands the use of racial terminology, and because the utility of race in biomedical contexts makes it scientifically meaningful. I suggest a third argument (...) that eliminativists might utilize: in spite of its usefulness, we should forego racialized medicine because given our long history of racism, any use of race will tend to crowd out other relevant factors. So, instead of continuing to use race as a convenient proxy for unknown “x-factors,” we ought to forego race and insist that researchers name the x-factors. The result will be better science, both morally and epistemically. (shrink)

This study aimed to explain the development of tourists’ pro-social intentions during heritage tourism within the pandemic context by combining the norm activation model and two significant variables in the theory of planned behavior. The quantitative data analysis results indicated that the proposed hypotheses have been partially supported, which resonated and enriched the existing studies on COVID-19-related pro-social tourism and tourist behaviors from a theoretical angle. Based on the research outcomes, the corresponding managerial implications for heritage tourism (...) practitioners and meaningful references for future researchers to promote sustainable and pro-social heritage tourism products have been discussed. (shrink)

This research explores the interplay of individual, organisational and institutional variables that produce the current pattern of social responsibility practices within a specific religious organisation, namely the Church of England. By combining elements primarily of neo-institutional theory with Bourdieu’s theory of practice, we construct a theoretical framework to examine the extent to which social responsibility activity is modified or informed by a distinctive faith perspective. Given that neo-institutional theory predicts a convergence of structures and practices between different organisations (...) operating in the same institutional sector, this research draws on a single case study focusing on social responsibility activity in six different Church of England dioceses and shows that the opposite is actually the case: there is evidence of a significant degree of divergence in terms of organisational practice within the same institutional structure. Reasons for that were found to be the impact of human agency and loose institutional structures. This paper thus contributes to the understanding of social responsibility in religious organisations by exploring the dynamics between institutional pressures, organisational context and individual agents operating in the field of faith-based social responsibility. It thereby also contributes to neo-institutional theory. (shrink)