How Does an Aristotelian Substance Have its Platonic Properties? Issues and Options

Attempts to explicate the substance-property nexus are legion in the philosophical literature both historical and contemporary. In this paper, I shall attempt to impose some structure into the discussion by exploring ways to combine two unlikely bedfellows—Platonic properties and Aristotelian substances. Special attention is paid to the logical structure of substances and the metaphysics of property exemplification. I shall argue that an Aristotelian-Platonic account of the substance-property nexus is possible and has been ably defended by contemporary philosophers.     

Regional Disparities in Employment of High-Skilled Foreigners – Determinants and Options for Labour Migration Policy in Germany

We investigate the regional disparities in high-skilled foreign employment in Germany. The importance of different factors that influence highly qualified migrants’ decision to migrate to specific regions and especially the role of labour migration policy is analysed. Our results show that labour market variables and the supply of tertiary education are important for the location choice. Based on these empirical results, we discuss options of decentralised labour migration policy in Germany.     

Surveys and Data Sources on Gay Men’s Lifestyles and Socio-Sexual Behavior: Some Key Concerns and Issues

This paper explores and reflects upon the body of relevant social science data sources containing insights into gay male socio-sexual lifestyles. Considerable deficiencies seem to feature in this regard with respect to coverage, consistency, content and usability. The various reasons for collecting data on gay male lifestyles are considered and thought given as to some particular strengths and weaknesses. Examples of datasets and surveys are used in this light to potentially inform future developments and a critical perspective on their usage.

How Do Chemistry Faculty and Graduate Students Engage in Decision Making on Issues Related to Ethical and Responsible Conduct of Research Including Authorship?

Science and Engineering Ethics - This article explores the impact of an Increase in the average Number of Authors per Publication (INAP) on known ethical issues of authorship. For this purpose, the...     

Personality,religiousness and spirituality – interrelations and structure – in a sample of religious Jewish women

The relations between measures of personality, mystical prayer experience, religious behaviour and multidimensional spirituality were examined on a sample of 121 young religious Jewish Israeli women. Bivariate correlations indicated that while all dimensions of personality were significantly related to some aspects of religiousness and spirituality, conscientiousness and agreeableness were related to most measures. Openness to experience was related to all experiential measures and extroversion was related only to Spiritual Well-being. These results provide support for the generalisability of past research with predominantly Christian samples of varied levels of religiousness and indicate the importance of using multidimensional measures for researching complex constructs such as religiousness and spiritually. In addition, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses did not provide conclusive support for the notion that religiousness and spirituality constitute a sixth dimension of personality.     

Integrating and Enacting ‘Social and Ethical Issues’ in Nanotechnology Practices

The integration of nanotechnology’s ‘social and ethical issues’ (SEI) at the research and development stage is one of the defining features of nanotechnology governance in the United States. Mandated by law, integration extends the field of nanotechnology to include a role for the “social”, the “public” and the social sciences and humanities in research and development (R&D) practices and agendas. Drawing from interviews with scientists, engineers and policymakers who took part in an oral history of the “Future of Nanotechnology” symposium at the Cornell NanoScale Facility, this article examines how nanotechnology’s ‘social and ethical issues’ are brought to life by these practitioners. From our analysis, three modes of enactment emerge: enacting SEI as obligations and problems-to-be-solved, enacting SEI by ‘not doing it’ in the laboratory, and enacting SEI as part of scientific practice. Together they paint a complex picture where SEI are variously defined, made visible or invisible, included and excluded, with participants showing their skill at both boundary-work (Gieryn Am Sociol Rev 48:781–795, 1983, 1999) and at integration. We conclude by reflecting on what this may mean for the design and implementation of SEI integration policies, suggesting that we need to transform SEI from obligations into ‘matters of care’ (Puig de la Bellacasa Soc Stud Sci 41(1):85–106, 2011) that tend to existing relationalities between science and society and implicate practitioners themselves.     

Reinforcement,Rationality, and Intentions: How Robust Is Automatic Reinforcement Learning in Economic Decision Making?

Reinforcement learning is often observed in economic decision making and may lead to detrimental decisions. Because of its automaticity, it is difficult to avoid. In three experimental studies, we investigated whether this process could be controlled by goal intentions and implementation intentions. Participants' decisions were investigated in a probability‐updating task in which the normative rule to maximize expected payoff (Bayes' rule) conflicted with the reinforcement heuristic as a simple decision rule. Some participants were asked to set goal intentions designated to foster the optimization of rational decision making, while other participants were asked to furnish these goal intentions with implementation intentions. Results showed that controlling automatic processes of reinforcement learning is possible by means of goal intentions or implementation intentions that focus decision makers on the analysis of decision feedback. Importantly, such beneficial effects were not achieved by simply instructing participants to analyze the feedback, without defining a goal as the desired end state from a first‐person perspective. Regarding intentions supposed to shut down reinforcement processes by controlling negative affect, effects were more complex and depended on the specified goal‐directed behavior. The goal intention to suppress the disappointment elicited by negative feedback was not effective in controlling reinforcement processes. Furnishing this goal with an implementation intention even backfired and strengthened unwanted reinforcement processes. In contrast, asking participants to keep cool in response to negative decision outcomes through the use of goal intentions or implementation intentions increased decisions in line with Bayes' rule. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Balancing Act—Ethical Issues in Parent Training Research: Confidentiality,Harm Reduction,and Methodology

Attention and disruptive behavior disorders present considerable challenges for children and their parents. These challenges have led to the development of parenting programs; however, there is a paucity of literature that discusses the ethical dilemmas parent training researchers face. This article reviews ethical principles and professional standards relevant to parent training research and provides case material to illustrate the challenge of balancing ethical adherence and empirical rigor using three ethical issues that commonly arise in parent training research. In particular, this article focuses on ethical issues surrounding confidentiality in a group setting, use of control groups, and limiting changes in medication/treatment status outside of the treatment protocol.     

Philosophical and Political Issues in Research on Women’s Violence and Aggression

This essay organizes the philosophical and political issues raised by researching women’s aggression and violence by posing three questions. What does a research focus on women’s violence and aggression offer feminist scholars and activists? What are the potential hazards of such a focus? What are promising directions for research? To focus on women as aggressors and perpetrators as well as victims sheds light on compelling and difficult questions of gender and violence, especially violence and aggression between intimate partners. It also presents some political pitfalls for the most vigilant researchers, including oversimplification and misinterpretation of complex empirical findings. The author concludes with a call for researchers to follow the lead of the ideas and evidence collected in this special issue.     

Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation: Existentialism,Aging, and Newly Emerging Issues in Group Therapy

This paper seeks to generate existentialist ideas about emerging issues of aging and its treatment in group therapy for the generations now entering their 60s and 70s. Group therapy had its heyday in the 1970s, and one could say that group therapy has never returned to the level of popularity that it had at that time. Using existential concepts, this paper will explore ways of rejuvenating work with this population now that they are growing older. Rather than just focusing on the common existential themes of death and dread, this article will focus on time, overcoming isolation, finding meaning, and what it means to be in the world now that we are older.     

Co-evolution,Knowledge and Education: Adding Value to Learners’ Options

The paper adopts the co-evolutionary perspective on the human society/natural environment relationship developed, particularly, by the economist Richard Norgaard. This implies that human environmental knowledge is necessarily dynamic and incomplete. By extension, it is also fragmentary, in the sense that what may hold true when considering particular spatial and/or temporal scales may otherwise be false. The paper briefly explores the implications for rationality and belief, focusing particularly on the powerful role of metaphor in our collective and individual sense-making. The implications of one particular metaphor—that of natural capital—are explored. Tentative conclusions about useful educational design are proposed, drawing on recent research.     

Meditation,well-being and cognition in heartfulness meditators – A pilot study

Meditative practices can vary considerably in technique as well as their effects. Heartfulness is a popular meditation technique that includes in its repertoire, a unique passive form of meditation. We carried out a pilot study recruiting male heartfulness meditators (proficient n = 24, with 6–28 years of meditation experience; novice n = 24, 5 to 16 months of experience) and subsequently recruited matched controls (n = 15). We examined well-being, and carried out high-density EEG recordings to examine indices of meditation and cognition in these groups. Well-being scores were significantly higher for the proficient meditators as compared to novice and intermediate for the controls. We did not find any group differences in cognitive processing. During meditation, enhanced occipital gamma was found in proficient meditators as compared to controls. We discuss the findings from this pilot study and suggest avenues for future research.     

Decision Frame,Procedural Justice,and Survivors′ Reactions to Job Layoffs

Behavioral decision theory suggests that the perceived favorability of outcomes depends on how they are framed. Recent research in the justice literature suggests that perceived outcome favorability and procedural fairness interactively combine to influence employees′ reactions to a resource allocation decision. The present study tested a hypothesis derived from the integration of these two literatures: that decision frame-by affecting perceived outcome favorability-would interact with procedural fairness to influence individuals′ reactions to the decision. All participants were layoff survivors; the primary dependent variable was their trust in and support for the organization subsequent to the layoff. Through a framing manipulation, half evaluated the criteria that the organization used to keep certain employees rather than others (Keep condition), whereas the other half judged the criteria that the organization used to dismiss certain employees rather than others (Dismiss condition). Survivors also evaluated the procedural fairness of the layoff. As predicted, decision frame and procedural fairness interacted to influence survivors′ trust in and support for the organization. When procedural fairness was low, survivors reacted more favorably in the positive frame (Keep) than in the negative frame (Dismiss) condition. When procedural fairness was high, however, decision frame had no effect on survivors′ reactions. Possible explanations of the findings, as well as their theoretical and practical implications, are discussed.