Equivalence of serufuesutei‐mu (self‐esteem) and jisonshin in Japan

Most studies of Japanese self‐esteem have implicitly assumed that the concept of self‐esteem (SE) is indigenously meaningful. However, this has not been shown to be true. The present research investigated whether the indigenous Japanese word jisonshin is semantically equivalent to the English expression SE and, by implication, whether it denotes the same concept as originally delineated by Rosenberg, that of having a positive attitude toward oneself. Japanese participants (N = 234) responded to 11 pairs of statements about SE and several other items. Half of the statements contained the expression serufuesutei‐mu (self‐esteem), the other half the expression jisonshin. Participants independently judged the two expressions to be ‘basically’ synonymous, but endorsed some otherwise identical statements significantly more often when they contained the expression serufuesutei‐mu, suggesting that the differences were due to the foreign connotations of the expression serufuesutei‐mu.     

Globalization and ecofeminism in the South: keeping the ‘Third World’ alive

The aim of the article is to discern, highlight and thus, give due cognizance to a pattern of women's environmental activism in the South that is getting increasingly pronounced with the exacerbation of injustice and inequality due to globalization. It provides a theoretical critique and highlights a practical resistance offered by a materialist ecofeminism in combating the devastating impact of multi-national corporations in the South in the fields of food and nutritional security, deforestation and the protection of biodiversity. Furthermore, it develops a philosophical and moral critique of globalization by elucidating an ecofeminist ethic which highlights an alternate model of development, based on care and responsibility. The research combines a literature survey of the most recent and classic ecofeminist theoretical literature and practical case-study based on the author's own field research on ecofeminist activism prevalent in the Garhwal Himalayan region of India.     

Charity Begins at Home: Cultural Differences in Social Discounting and Generosity

People often consider how their actions influence others when making decisions. However, we are not equally generous to everyone alike. Our willingness to share resources declines as a function of social distance between the decision maker and the recipient. This function is likely to be influenced by culture, but research on behavioral decision making is still lacking empirical evidence. In Western societies, individuals generally perceive themselves as autonomous and independent from others, whereas the distinction between self and close others is less sharply defined by Eastern individuals where relationships and group membership are more centralized. Therefore, the social discount function should reflect this difference in the distinction of self and others by a reduced decline in generosity over close social distances. A social decision‐making task was adapted to the intercultural context, and data were collected in Germany and China. For seven different social distances, we estimated how much money German and Chinese subjects were willing to forego to give a certain reward to another person. A hyperbolic model was fitted to the data. We found that other‐regarding generosity declines as a function of social distance independent of cultural identity. However, German subjects showed a marked drop in generosity across close social distances, which was significantly less pronounced in Chinese participants. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distributive Justice and Clinical Trials in the Third World

One of the arguments against conducting human subject trials inthe Third World adopts a distributive justice principle found ina commentary of the CIOM'S Eighth Guideline for internationalresearch on human subjects. Critics argue that non-participantmembers of the community in which the trials are conducted areexploited because sponsoring agencies do not ensure that theproducts developed have been made reasonably available to theseindividuals.I argue that the distributive principle's wording is too vagueand ambiguous to be used to criticize any trial. Furthermore,the mere fact that an experiment does not fulfill this particulardistributive justice principle does not entail that it isunethical.     

Is the Third‐Person Effect Real? A Critical Examination of Rationales,Testing Methods,and Previous Findings of the Third‐Person Effect on Censorship Attitudes

Regarding the effect of the third‐person perception on censorship attitudes, the present study first highlighted logical weaknesses of previously proposed rationales and limitations of previously used statistical models to test the effect. This study reanalyzed data from past research on the effect of the third‐person perception. In Study 1, the average effects of the other‐self perceptual gap in the media influence on censorship attitudes were estimated based on reports from 13 previous studies (total N = 6,414). Study 2 reanalyzed Schmierbach, Boyle, Xu, and McLeod's (2011) correlational data (N = 692). The results of these two studies showed that the presumed effect on others is a stronger predictor of censorship attitudes than the other‐self differential in perceived media effect.     

Self‐reported inner speech use in university students

Remarkably little is known regarding what people talk to themselves about (inner speech use) in their everyday lives. Existing self‐directed speech measures (e.g., thought sampling and questionnaires) either uniquely capture inner speech frequency and neglect its content or classify self‐reported thoughts instances in overly simplistic categories determined by the researchers. In the current study, we describe an open‐format thought listing procedure as well as a refined coding scheme and present detailed inner speech content self‐generated by 76 university students. The most frequently self‐reported inner speech activities were self‐regulation (e.g., planning and problem solving), self‐reflection (e.g., emotions, self‐motivation, appearance, behavior/performance, and autobiography), critical thinking (e.g., evaluating, judging, and criticizing), people in general, education, and current events. Inner speech occurred most commonly while studying and driving. These results are consistent with the self‐regulatory and self‐referential functions of inner speech often emphasized in the literature. Future research avenues using the open‐format inner speech listing procedure and coding scheme are proposed.