Michael A. Petersa and Fazal Rizvib aBeijing Normal University, Beijing, PR China; bMelbourne University, Melbourne, Australia Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to ‘no...

This article explores the unusually high levels of cosmetic surgery in South Korea – for both women and men. We argue that existing explanations, which draw on feminist and postcolonial positions, presenting cosmetic surgery as pertinent only to female and non-western bodies found lacking by patriarchal and racist/imperialist economies, miss important cultural influences. In particular, focus on western cultural hegemony misses the influence in Korea of national identity discourses and traditional Korean beliefs and practices such as physiognomy. We show how (...) these beliefs provide a more ‘gendered’ as opposed to feminist analysis, which allows space for discussion of men’s surgeries. Finally, we critique the accepted notion of the ‘western body’, especially its position in some literature as a more unobtainable ideal for non-western than for western women. We argue that this body has little in common with actual western women’s bodies, and more in common with a globalized image, embodying idealized elements from many different cultures. (shrink)

This case study explores the ethical dimensions of the South Korean news media's coverage of the Dr. Woo Suk Hwang scandal and the extant journalism criticism. The study discusses the ethical issues associated with claims that Korean journalists acted too humanely, overemphasized scientific evidence, and were too culturally sensitive in their coverage of the Hwang scandal, and notes the broader implications for journalism ethical theory and criticism suggested by the study's findings. The case explores the differences in the (...) ethical foundations that underlay the press' efforts and the Korean-based criticism of the news media. Among other conclusions, the Hwang scandal illustrates the challenges of universalizing ethical standards in international journalism criticism. (shrink)

Olwen Bedford and Kwang-Kuo Hwang, Guilt and Shame in Chinese Culture: A Cross-cultural Framework from the Perspective of Morality and Identity, pp. 127–144.This article formulates a cross-cultural framework for understanding guilt and shame based on a conceptualization of identity and morality in Western and Confucian cultures. First, identity is examined in each culture, and then the relation between identity and morality illuminated. The role of guilt and shame in upholding the boundaries of identity and enforcing the constraints of morality (...) is then discussed from the perspective of each culture. The developed framework is then applied the emotions of guilt and shame in Chinese culture drawing on previous field research. Implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Guanxi, or social networks common in Confucian cultures, has long been recognized as one of the major factors for success when doing business in China. However, insider networks in business are certainly not confined to Asian cultures, nor is the attendant possibility for corruption. This study obtained original data to investigate current Taiwanese perceptions of (1) how guanxi is established and cultivated; (2) how guanxi actually is practiced now and people's acceptance of it; and (3) the effects of guanxi on (...) business operations, employment/promotion, and social justice and fairness. The researchers also hope to (4) verify some arguments made by pioneering researchers. The authors speculate on how these attitudes may affect behavior in business transactions in hopes of making readers more aware of differing cultural values that may create unexpected ethical dilemmas. They suggest that professional ethical codes should provide guidance on the practice of guanxi in a Confucian society and that special emphasis or training in interpreting those codes may be required. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the infamous case of Hwang Woo Suk, the South-Korean national hero and once celebrated pioneer of stem cell research. After briefly discussing the evolution of his publication and research scandal in Science, I will attempt to outline the main reactions that emerged within scientific and bioethical discourses on the problem of research misconduct in contemporary biosciences. What were the ethical lapses in his research? What kind of research misconduct has been identified? How this kind of (...) misconduct affects scientific integrity? How to avoid it? Focusing on these questions, the paper interprets the Hwang’s case as a case study that might shed light on the worst aspects of highstakes global science. This case presents a group of problems that might endanger scientific integrity and public trust. Regulatory oversight, ethical requirements and institutional safeguards are often viewed by the scientific community as merely decelerating scientific progress and causing delays in the application of treatments. The Hwang’s case represents how unimpeded progress works in contemporary science. Thus, the case might shed light on the often neglected benefits of “the social control of science”. (shrink)

When naming certain hand-held, man-made tools, American Sign Language signers exhibit either of two iconic strategies: a handling strategy, where the hands show holding or grasping an imagined object in action, or an instrument strategy, where the hands represent the shape or a dimension of the object in a typical action. The same strategies are also observed in the gestures of hearing nonsigners identifying pictures of the same set of tools. In this paper, we compare spontaneously created gestures from hearing (...) nonsigning participants to commonly used lexical signs in ASL. Signers and gesturers were asked to respond to pictures of tools and to video vignettes of actions involving the same tools. Nonsigning gesturers overwhelmingly prefer the handling strategy for both the Picture and Video conditions. Nevertheless, they use more instrument forms when identifying tools in pictures, and more handling forms when identifying actions with tools. We found that ASL signers generally favor the instrument strategy when naming tools, but when describing tools being used by an actor, they are significantly more likely to use more handling forms. The finding that both gesturers and signers are more likely to alternate strategies when the stimuli are pictures or video suggests a common cognitive basis for differentiating objects from actions. Furthermore, the presence of a systematic handling/instrument iconic pattern in a sign language demonstrates that a conventionalized sign language exploits the distinction for grammatical purpose, to distinguish nouns and verbs related to tool use. (shrink)

We discuss four methodological issues regarding cross-cultural judgment studies of facial expressions of emotion involving design, sampling, stimuli, and dependent variables. We use examples of relatively recent studies in this area to highlight and discuss these issues. We contend that careful consideration of these, and other, cross-cultural methodological issues can help researchers minimize methodological errors, and can guide the field to address new and different research questions that can continue to facilitate an evolution in the field’s thinking about the nature (...) of culture, emotion, and facial expressions. (shrink)

Studies on fair-trade consumption have concentrated on economic, demographic, and ethical issues, and research on consumers’ moral emotions and self-orientation is limited. Although consumers’ satisfaction with their consumption has been emphasized in consumer studies and marketing, little substantive empirical research has addressed ethical consumers’ emotional satisfaction and the link between their motivations and happiness. This study focused on ethical consumers who regularly purchase fair-trade coffee to understand their moral emotions and self-orientation as motivations for fair-trade consumption and determine whether empathy (...) and self-oriented motivations led to their happiness. A survey was conducted on 471 regular purchasers of at least one cup of fair-trade coffee weekly or a pack of fair-trade coffee beans monthly. The survey data were analyzed using partial least squares. The results showed that guilt was positively associated with empathy, which positively influenced self-actualization. Contrary to the proposed hypothesis, empathy did not elicit consumers’ happiness. As expected, narcissism affected self-actualization, which in turn elicited happiness. Happiness was positively associated with customers’ repurchase intentions for fair-trade coffee. The results of this study demonstrate the strong associations of the paths from narcissism to self-actualization, self-actualization to happiness, and self-actualization to repurchase intentions compared to the paths from guilt to empathy, empathy to happiness, and empathy to repurchase intentions. Contrary to common expectations, the results indicate that self-oriented motivations focused on self-actualization rather than moral emotions play key roles in ethical consumers’ happiness with fair-trade consumption. (shrink)

The Hwang affair, a dramatic and far reaching instance of scientific fraud, shocked the world. This collective national failure prompted various organizations in Korea, including universities, regulatory agencies, and research associations, to engage in self-criticism and research ethics reforms. This paper aims, first, to document and review research misconduct perpetrated by Hwang and members of his research team, with particular attention to the agencies that failed to regulate and then supervise Hwang’s research. The paper then examines the (...) research ethics reforms introduced in the wake of this international scandal. After reviewing American and European research governance structures and policies, policy makers developed a mixed model mindful of its Korean context. The third part of the paper examines how research ethics reform is proactive (a response to shocking scientific misconduct and ensuing external criticism from the press and society) as well as reactive (identification of and adherence to national or international ethics standards). The last part deals with Korean society’s response to the Hwang affair, which had the effect of a moral atomic bomb and has led to broad ethical reform in Korean society. We conceptualize this change as ethical modernization, through which the Korean public corrects the failures of a growth-oriented economic model for social progress, and attempts to create a more trustworthy and ethical society. (shrink)

In view of the fact that culture-inclusive psychology has been eluded or relatively ignored by mainstream psychology, the movement of indigenous psychology is destined to develop a new model of man that incorporates both causal psychology and intentional psychology as suggested by Vygotsky . Following the principle of cultural psychology: “one mind, many mentalities” , the Mandala Model of Self and Face and Favor Model were constructed to represent the universal mechanisms of self and social interaction that can be applied (...) to any culture; both models can be used as conceptual frameworks for analyzing mentalities of people in any given culture. Taking research works from Foundations of Chinese Psychology: Confucian Social Relation as exemplars , this article illustrates how to construct culture-inclusive theories of Confucianism by multiple philosophical paradigms. The mechanism of culture-inclusive theory can be applied to explain qualitative research findings on lifeworld events of people in a particular society. It can also be utilized to predict results of quantitative research conducted to verify theoretical propositions in the scientific microworld by empirical methods. (shrink)

The goal of this article is attempting to establish a research tradition of Chinese relationalism on the methodological grounds of constructive realism. Two of Ho’s key concepts, person-in-relations and persons-in-relation, are carefully examined and reinterpreted. Three of my theoretical models, namely, my Face and Favor model , Confucian ethics for ordinary people , and a conflict resolution model , are conceived of as microworlds for illustrating an account of person-in relations in Chinese culture. The manifestation of Confucian ethics for ordinary (...) people in one’s lifeworld results in the phenomenology of persons-in-relations as depicted by Fei’s differential order or Hsu’s psychosociogram. Applying constructive realism to my models and using the result as a framework for studying Chinese social behavior constitutes Chinese relationalism. (shrink)

The conservative antipornographic premise should be faulted for its groundlessness. Thus, conservative state censorship should be challenged by liberal individual rights to pornography and further by the value of moral harm. Along with the spirit of J. S. Mill’s harm principle, the right to free speech, including of course pornographic right, must prevail. And a number of feminist challenges to free pornographic rights are replied to in a variety of ways by some liberal thinkers who believe in the supremacy of (...) the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. The concept of neutralizability may be added among those replies. Liberal pornographic rights prevail these days. (shrink)

The deep structure of Confucianism is identified through structuralist analysis in order to provide a conceptual framework for conducting social psychological research in Chinese society. Through understanding and imitating the Way of Heaven (tiendao), Confucians constructed the Way of Humanity (rendao), which consists of two aspects; ethics for ordinary people and ethics for scholars. Ethics for ordinary people adopts the principle of Respecting the Superior for procedural justice and the principle of Favouring the Intimate for distributive justice; the person who (...) occupies the superior position should play the role of decision-maker and should allocate resources by favouring intimate relationships. Because Confucian cosmology suggests that the Way of Humanity corresponds to the Way of Heaven, Confucians required individuals to cultivate themselves with the Way of Humanity. Ethics for scholars further endows Confucian disciples with the mission of benefiting the whole society with the Way of Humanity. (shrink)

The summation of more than two thousand years of one of the world's most august literary traditions, this volume also represents the achievements of four hundred years of Western scholarship on China.

The three approaches for conducting psychological research across cultures proposed by Berry , namely, the imported etic, emic and derived etic approach are critically examined for developing culture-inclusive theories in psychology, in order to deal with the enigma left by Wilhelm Wundt. Those three approaches have been restricted to a certain extent by the pan-cultural dimensional approach which may result in the Orientalism of psychology in understanding people of non-Western cultures. This article is designated to provide the philosophical ground for (...) an alternative cultural system approach to construct culture-inclusive theories in psychology. Following the principle of cultural psychology: “one mind, many mentalities” , the alternative strategy contains two steps: First, based on Bhaskar's critical realism, all universal mechanisms should seek to represent the operation of the human mind. Second, based on Archer's analytical dualism, the mechanisms of the universal mind may be used as frameworks for analyzing any cultural tradition. The culture-inclusive theories thus obtained represent the synchronic morphostasis of a cultural system, which may be used as theoretical frameworks for conducting either qualitative or quantitative empirical research in studying the diachronic morphogenesis of socio-cultural interaction in a particular culture. (shrink)

Although structural priming has been considered to be an independent cognitive process, recent evidence suggests that structural priming is modulated by sociocognitive factors such as social perception; speakers are more likely to mimic the sentence structure of a socially desirable interlocutor than the structure of a less desirable interlocutor. This study aims to further address the role of sociocognitive factors in language use by investigating how individual differences in social perception and tendency to align with others modulate same-verb structural priming. (...) In particular, we investigate how likely students are to repeat a sentence structure of a teacher depending on their perception of the teacher and their social monitoring tendency. Our results demonstrate that students’ tendency to imitate a sentence structure of the teacher is positively influenced by their perception of the teacher but negatively by social monitoring. We suggest that the effects may be accounted for in terms of their influence on attention and memory encoding. (shrink)

This article analyzes international scientific collaboration in the context of the globalization of science and technology as a crossing point not only between local and global identities but also between scientific and sociocultural identities. It also elucidates how international collaboration—where middle scientific actors in the hierarchical multilayered center-periphery in the globalization of science and technology obtain advanced knowledge from core science and technology—takes place and structures the global division of research labor. This article emphasizes that we should develop the context (...) of the globalization of science and technology with dynamic and interdependent interactions between multistructured, core-periphery scientific actors. Dichotomous colonialist discourse is not a useful analytical tool in this context. The author found that sociocultural factors, including economic, cultural, organizational, and political ones, as well as the multilayered center-periphery in the globalization of science and technology, operate as forces that encourage international collaboration. (shrink)

This study applied self-determination theory to youth purpose development among Korean college students. It examined the effects of students’ intrinsic motivation for volunteering and informative feedback from significant others on three dimensions of life purpose: confidence in purpose, commitment to purpose and social contribution. The study also tested whether informative feedback influenced the relationship of intrinsic motivation and life purpose development. Participants were 110 Korean college students taking a one-semester service-learning class. The results showed that informative feedback positively affected commitment (...) to purpose and social contribution, especially for students who had low intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation and feedback both positively predicted students’ confidence in purpose. To positively influence students’ life purpose development, these results suggest the importance of providing college students with intrinsically motivated experiences plus informative feedback that supports their competence during service work. (shrink)

The primary aim of this paper is to provide a new account of Descartes’s positive philosophical view on sensory perception, and to do so in a way that will establish a hitherto unnoticed continuity between his thought and that of his scholastic Aristotelian predecessors on the topic of sensory perception. I will argue that the basic framework of the scholastic Aristotelian view on sensory perception (as traditionally understood) is operative within Descartes's own view, and then reveal some insights on the (...) issue of whether Descartes was a representationalist about sensory perception by critically examining one kind of representationalist reading of Descartes under the lens of my account. I will conclude by examining the implications that my view has for the proposed distinction between Descartes and the scholastics based on attributing representationalism to the former and direct-realism to the latter. (shrink)

This interview with Kwang?Kuo Hwang offers an introductory insight into the emergence of the field of indigenous psychologies. In the process of doing so, it attempts to illuminate the main historical factors behind its development, its key issues of debate and the important challenges it faces. It also provides details pertaining to new theories and methods that have recently emerged in connection with the indigenous approach and how they have contributed to its advancement. In addition, it outlines Hwang?s (...) proposed strategy towards the goal of developing a universal psychology. (shrink)

Generalized structured component analysis (GSCA) is a component-based approach to structural equation modeling (SEM), where latent variables are approximated by weighted composites of indicators. It has no formal mechanism to incorporate errors in indicators, which in turn renders components prone to the errors as well. We propose to extend GSCA to account for errors in indicators explicitly. This extension, called GSCA_M, considers both common and unique parts of indicators, as postulated in common factor analysis, and estimates a weighted composite of (...) indicators with their unique parts removed. Adding such unique parts or uniqueness terms serves to account for measurement errors in indicators in a manner similar to common factor analysis. Simulation studies are conducted to compare parameter recovery of GSCA_M and existing methods. These methods are also applied to fit a substantively well-established model to real data. (shrink)

Professor Allwood (2011, ?On the foundation of the indigenous psychologies?, Social Epistemology 25 (1): 3?14) challenges indigenous psychologists by describing their definition of culture as a rather abstract and delimited entity that is too ?essentialized? and ?reified?, as well as ?somewhat old?fashioned? and ?too much influenced by early social anthropological writings? (p. 5). In this article, I make a distinction between the scientific microworld and the lifeworld and argue that it is necessary for social scientists to construct scientific microworlds of (...) theories for the sake of pushing forward the progress of any field in the social sciences. Allwood and J. W. Berry (2006, ?Origins and development of indigenous psychologies: An international analysis?, International Journal of Psychology 41 (4): 243?68) also recognized that western mainstream psychology is a kind of indigenous psychology. Therefore, theoretical construction in western psychology also implies a reification of culture. My central question is, then: why is the reification of the western culture of individualism a merit for the progress of psychology, and why the reification of non?western cultures by indigenous psychologists a mistake? (shrink)

Contemporary bioethics education has been developed predominately within Euro-American contexts, and now, other global regions are increasingly joining the field, leading to a richer global understanding. Nevertheless, many standard bioethics curriculum materials retain a narrow geographic focus. The purpose of this article is to use local cases from the Asia-Pacific region as examples for exploring questions such as ‘what makes a case or example truly local, and why?’, ‘what topics have we found to be best explained through local cases or (...) examples?’, and ‘how does one identify a relevant local case?’ Furthermore, we consider the global application of local cases to help extend the possible scope of the discussion, opening new avenues for the development of practical bioethics educational materials. We begin with a background description and discussion of why local cases enhance bioethics education, move to an overview of what is currently available and what is not for the region, and then outline a discussion of what it means to be local using example cases drawn from Hong Kong, Australia, Pakistan, and Malaysia. We are not creating a casebook but rather constructing by example a toolbox for designing active and dynamic learning cases using regional diversity as contextualised cases with generalised principles. (shrink)

This article explores the scientific fraud case of the South Korean stem cell scientist Woo-Suk Hwang, which represents a struggle over political identity. The South Korean state supported Hwang’s research hoping to establish Korean scientific-technological leadership in biotechnology, but it combined this globalization strategy with an identity politics built around the Korean people. The emerging bionationalism exceeded traditional ethnic nationalism insofar as the traditional ethnicity marker of ‘‘blood’’ was displaced by biologically scientifically grounded notions such as the stem (...) cell or the oocyte. These new biological markers defined national identity and embedded the transformative potential of modern biomedicine to be put into the service of Korean bodies and the nation’s economic future. Bionationalistic mobilization became hegemonic in South Korea in 2000 and undermined the democratic process, giving rise to violations against core principles of good governance. This bionationalistic narrative was challenged by an attempt to define political identity through the ideas of political citizenship, liberal democracy, and participation. The South Korean government has terminated its bionationalistic mobilization, but the struggles over Hwang and Korean identity linger. (shrink)

We review the concepts and the physics behind electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and lasing without inversion (LWI) for various models of the V-type configurations.

(2013). Linking Science to Culture: Challenge to Psychologists. Social Epistemology: Vol. 27, Neoliberalism and STS in Japan, pp. 194-194. doi: 10.1080/02691728.2013.808448.

The culture concept used in the indigenous psychologies is important since these psychologies aim to be rooted in the local culture of the research participants. Culture is an empirical phenomenon. Thus, the extent to which meaning content is shared in a society, and by what categories of people, is an empirical issue. It should not be solved by default by the use of a culture concept that assumes that all cultural content is shared. The philosophical and pragmatic?political reasons suggested by (...) Hwang and Liu are not convincing enough to change this conclusion. Moreover, irrespective of the cultural concept used, it is imperative that the researcher has empirically informed him/herself about the cultural understanding of the participants in the study. Finally, the indigenous psychologies are not intrinsically allied with the nation state and need to be seen as a part of cross?cultural psychology. (shrink)

Frontoparietal connectivity has been suggested to be important in conscious processing and its interruption is thought to be one mechanism of general anesthesia. Data in animals demonstrate that feedforward processing of information may persist during the anesthetized state, while feedback processing is inhibited. We investigated the directionality and functional organization of frontoparietal connectivity in 10 human subjects anesthetized with propofol on two separate occasions. Multichannel electroencephalography and a computational method of assessing directed functional connectivity were employed. We demonstrate that directed (...) feedback connectivity is diminished with loss of consciousness and returns with responsiveness to verbal command. We also applied the Dendrogram classification method to assess the global organization of directed functional connectivity during consciousness and anesthesia. We demonstrate a state-specific hierarchy and subject-specific subhierarchy in functional organization. These data support the hypothesis that specific states of human consciousness are defined by specific states of frontoparietal connectivity. (shrink)

Reorienting the Political examines the reception of two controversial German philosophers, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss, in the Chinese-speaking world. This volume explores the powerful resonance of both thinkers in Chinese political thought from a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspective.