Sense of community improves community participation in Chinese residential communities: The mediating role of sense of community responsibility and prosocial tendencies

Community participation is essential for community development and enhancing quality of life. Several studies have focused on the relationship between sense of community (SOC) and community participation in organizational settings. Guided by the community experiences framework, this study aims to examine how a SOC improves community participation in Chinese residential communities. Moreover, the study aims to assess the mediating role of SOC responsibility (SOC-R) and prosocial tendencies in that relationship. A sample of 433 residents completed questionnaires regarding their SOC, sense of community responsibility, prosocial tendencies, and community participation. Using a linear regression model, we found that a SOC can positively predict the level of community participation. Mediation effect analysis revealed that a SOC-R mediated the relationship between SOC and community participation. In addition, prosocial tendencies mediated the association between the SOC and community participation. Using multiple mediation analysis, we found that SOC-R and prosocial tendencies mediated the link between a SOC and community participation in a sequential manner. The findings of this study complement existing research by uncovering the mechanism underlying the relationship between a SOC and community participation.     

RESPONSIBLE AGENCY: A HUMAN DISTINCTIVE?

While agent responsibility appears to be one of the clearest examples of a human distinctive, practices of holding responsible are bound up with social expectations and emotional reactions, many of which are shared with other social animals. This essay attends to the ways in which what Peter Strawson first identified as the reactive emotions, including notably anger, resentment, and indignation, are key to making sense of both the shared and distinctive features of responsible human agency. Like human beings, other social animals express a range of reactive emotions in response to others’ conformity with or violation of implicit social expectations and norms; human beings sometimes reflect on these reactive attitudes and their justifiability, asking whether and when it is appropriate to hold others accountable, blame, and/or punish them. We should recognize that we often praise and blame others for attitudes and desires which they have not chosen and over which they have no direct control, and that this is appropriate.     

Intellectual humility predicts COVID-19 preventive practices through greater adoption of data-driven information and feelings of responsibility

Preventive health practices have been crucial to mitigating viral spread during the COVID-19 pandemic. In two studies, we examined whether intellectual humility—openness to one's existing knowledge being inaccurate—related to greater engagement in preventive health practices (social distancing, handwashing, mask-wearing). In Study 1, we found that intellectually humble people were more likely to engage in COVID-19 preventive practices. Additionally, this link was driven by intellectually humble people's tendency to adopt information from data-driven sources (e.g., medical experts) and greater feelings of responsibility over the outcomes of COVID-19. In Study 2, we found support for these relationships over time (2 weeks). Additionally, Study 2 showed that the link between intellectual humility and preventive practices was driven by a greater tendency to adopt data-driven information when encountering it, rather than actively seeking out such information. These findings reveal the promising role of intellectual humility in making well-informed decisions during public health crises.     

The responsibility of engineers, appropriate technology, and lesser developed nations

Projects importing technology to lesser developed nations may raise five important concerns: famine resulting from substitution of cash crops for subsistence crops, the use of products banned in the United States but permitted overseas, the use of products safe in the U.S. but unsafe under local conditions, ecological consequences of technological change, and cultural disruption caused by displacing traditional ways of life. Are engineers responsible for the foreseeable hunger, environmental degradation, cultural disruption, and illness that results from the project? Are engineers guilty of paternalism if they refuse to accept the project for that reason? Criteria are given to help engineers assess the extent of their responsibility when working in lesser developed nations.     

Group Wrongs and Guilt Feelings

Can it ever be appropriate to feel guilt just because one's group has acted badly? Some say no, citing supposed features of guilt feelings as such. If one understands group action according to my plural subject account of groups, however, one can argue for the appropriateness of feeling guilt just because one's group has acted badly - a feeling that often occurs. In so arguing I sketch the plural subject account of groups, group intentions and group actions: for a group to intend (in the relevant sense) is for its members to be jointly committed to intend that such-and-such as a body. Individual group members need not be directly involved in the formation of the intention in order to participate in such a joint commitment. The core concept of joint commitment is in an important way holistic, not being reducible to a set of personal commitments over which each party holds sway. Parties to a group intention so understood can reasonably see the resulting action as "ours" as opposed to "theirs" and thus appropriately respond to the action's badness with a feeling of guilt, even when they themselves are morally innocent in the matter. I label the feeling in question a feeling of "membership guilt." A number of standard philosophical claims about the nature of guilt feelings are thrown into question by my argument.     

Facial EMG reactions to facial expressions: A case of facial emotional contagion?

The purpose of this study is to explore whether subjects exposed to stimuli of facial expressions respond with facial electromyographic (EMG) reactions consistent with the hypothesis that facial expressions are contagious. This study further examines whether males and females differ in facial EMG intensity. Two experiments demonstrated that subjects responded with facial EMG activity over the corrugator supercilii, the zygomatic major , the lateral frontalis , the depressor supercilii , and the levator labii muscle regions to stimuli of sad, angry, fearful, surprised, disgusted and happy faces, that, to large extent, were consistent with the hypothesis that facial expressions are contagious. Aspects of gender differences reported in earlier studies were found, indicating a tendency for females to respond with more pronounced facial EMG intensity.     

结果预期与结果反应对儿童意图认知和道德判断的影响

考察了结果预期与结果反应对儿童意图认知和道德判断的影响。结果表明,结果预期影响幼儿园和小学儿童的意图认知,结果反应仅影响幼儿园儿童的意图认知;结果预期和结果反应显著地影响幼儿园和小学儿童的道德判断,但结果预期对小学儿童道德判断的影响要比结果反应大。     

Reaction times of pigeons on a wavelength discrimination task

After extensive pretraining, three pigeons were exposed in 2-second trials to a random series of 14 light wavelengths, ranging in one nanometer (nm) steps from 575 nanometers to 589 nanometers. Responses to one of the wavelengths, 582 nanometers, were intermittently reinforced. The relative frequency of response approached 1.0 at 582 nanometers, and decreased with progressively higher and lower wavelengths. Reaction times shorter than about 0.2 second occurred with a low frequency that was largely independent of wavelength. Wavelength controlled the frequency of longer reaction times, but did not affect the distribution of these reaction times. Consequently, receiver-operating characteristic curves constructed by using reaction time as a rating measure did not conform to the signal-detection model, in contrast to such conformity when response rate is used in a similar way. The data suggest that stimulus onset as such triggers early response emission with some small probability; the probability of responses with longer latency is controlled by wavelength, but their time of emission is controlled by some independent process.     

Reaction times of younger and older men and temporal contingencies of reinforcement

Influences of extended training and temporal contingencies on reaction time were studied in relation to developmental differences. Older and younger men were trained on a chained schedule in which completion of a variable interval produced a terminal link in which reaction time was measured. The reaction-time procedure involved a conditional discrimination with matching to sample in one component and oddity matching in the other. During baseline training, no time limit was placed on the response to the discrimination choice stimuli. Subsequently, increasingly severe time limits were imposed over a series of sessions. Older and younger men showed increased speeds (decreased reaction times) when temporal contingencies were imposed, and these changes were maintained during post-training baseline sessions when there was unlimited time in which to respond. The younger men generally responded faster than the older ones, and age differences were not appreciably reduced during the course of the experiment. The results indicated the feasibility of studying reaction time in human subjects using operant procedures analogous to those developed for the study of nonverbal organisms.     

How expert witnesses' counterfactuals influence causal and responsibility attributions of mock jurors and expert judges

Past research has shown that counterfactual (“If…then…”) thoughts influence causal and responsibility attribution in the judicial context. However, little is known on whether and how the use of counterfactuals in communication affects lay jurors' and judges' evaluations. In two studies, we asked mock lay jurors (Study 1) and actual judges (Study 2) to read a medical malpractice case followed by an expert witness report, which included counterfactuals focused on either the physician, the patient, or external factors. Results showed that counterfactual focus had a strong effect on both lay jurors' and judges' causal and responsibility attributions. Counterfactual focus also moderated the effect of outcome foreseeability on responsibility attribution. Discussion focuses on how counterfactual communication can direct causal and responsibility attribution and reduce the importance of other factors known to influence judicial decision‐making. The potential implications of these findings in training programs and debiasing interventions are also discussed.