Ethical Criteria for Health-Promoting Nudges: A Case-by-Case Analysis

Health-promoting nudges have been put into practice by different agents, in different contexts and with different aims. This article formulates a set of criteria that enables a thorough ethical evaluation of such nudges. As such, it bridges the gap between the abstract, theoretical debates among academics and the actual behavioral interventions being implemented in practice. The criteria are derived from arguments against nudges, which allegedly disrespect nudgees, as these would impose values on nudgees and/or violate their rationality and autonomy. Instead of interpreting these objections as knock-down arguments, I take them as expressing legitimate worries that can often be addressed. I analyze six prototypical nudge cases, such as Google’s rearrangement of fridges and the use of defaults in organ donation registration. I show how the ethical criteria listed are satisfied by most—but not all—nudges in most—but not all—circumstances.     

Dimensions of Religion Associated with Suicide Attempt and Suicide Ideation in Depressed,Religiously Affiliated Patients

There is substantial evidence to support the claim that religion can protect against suicide ideation, suicide attempts, and completed suicide. There is also evidence that religion does not always protect against suicidality. More insight is needed into the relationship between suicidal parameters and dimensions of religion. A total of 155 in‐ and outpatients with major depression from a Christian Mental Health Care institution were included. The following religious factors were assessed: religious service attendance, frequency of prayer, religious salience, type of God representation, and moral objections to suicide (MOS). Multiple regression analyses were computed. MOS have a unique and prominent (negative) association with suicide ideation and the lifetime history of suicide attempts, even after controlling for demographic features and severity of depression. The type of God representation is an independent statistical predictor of the severity of suicide ideation. A positive‐supportive God representation is negatively correlated with suicide ideation. A passive‐distressing God representation has a positive correlation with suicide ideation. High MOS and a positive‐supportive God representation in Christian patients with depression are negatively correlated with suicide ideation. Both are likely to be important markers for assessment and further development of therapeutic strategies.     

Sound and vision

When a brief flash appears at the same position as a moving object, the flash is perceived to lag behind. This so-called flash-lag effect tells us something about the perception of space and time: where is the moving object when the flash appears? A recent paper by Alais and Burr on auditory and crossmodal flash-lag effects indicates that our (often implicit) models of the perception of space and time might be flawed.     

The impact of need for closure on conservative beliefs and racism: differential mediation by authoritarian submission and authoritarian dominance

The present study explores the influence of need for closure as well as authoritarian submission (Right-Wing Authoritarianism [RWA]) and authoritarian dominance (Social Dominance Orientation [SDO]) on the genesis of conservative beliefs and racism. For this purpose, two structural equation models were compared. In Model 1, RWA and SDO were entered as independent variables and the need for closure facets Decisiveness and Need for Simple Structure acted as mediator variables. In Model 2, the need for closure facets served as independent variables and RWA and SDO acted as mediators. In two student samples (Sample 1, N = 399, Sample 2, N = 330) and one adult sample (Sample 3, N = 379), Model 2 showed superior fit to the data. These results corroborate the hypothesis that authoritarianism should be interpreted in terms of generalized beliefs rather than in terms of personality characteristics. In addition, analyses show that the effects of Need for Simple Structure on conservative beliefs and racism are fully mediated by RWA but only partly by SDO. These results suggest a differential genesis of RWA and SDO.     

The congruence of personal life values and work attitudes

The authors examined the congruence between an individual's personal-life value placement and attitudes at work. Specifically, they examined how people place value on work, family, religion, and themselves (the personal life values), respectively, and how that choice influences affect, commitment, conscientiousness, and honesty in the workplace (attitudes at work). The authors also examined and tested exploratory hypotheses by using both simple correlations and multiple linear regression analyses. Results suggested varying relationships between value placement and work attitudes. The authors discussed implications and directions for future research.     

Religiosity and conservatism revisited: relating a new religiosity measure to the two main conservative political ideologies

The relation between the two religiosity dimensions which Wulff (1997) described (Exclusion vs Inclusion of Transcendence and Literal vs Symbolic) and two conservative political ideologies (Cultural and Economic Conservatism) was investigated in a sample of 714 students, a heterogeneous sample of 262 adults, and a sample of 301 religiously affiliated adults gathered in Flanders (Belgium). Both Exclusion vs Inclusion of Transcendence and Literal vs Symbolic were expected to relate only to Cultural Conservatism. Analysis supported these hypotheses, providing further evidence for the close association between religiosity and Cultural Conservatism and the validity of the Post-Critical Belief scale as a measure of Wulff's dimensions of religiosity.     

Scholastic achievement and family marital structure: Bedouin-Arab adolescents from monogamous and polygamous families in Israel

In a sample of Bedouin-Arab adolescents from monogamous and polygamous families in the Negev region of Israel, the authors examined scholastic achievement levels in the subjects of Arabic, English, Hebrew, and mathematics. There were no significant differences in the scholastic achievement levels in those 4 disciplines between adolescents from monogamous families and those from polygamous families. There was, however, a significant interaction between gender and family marital structure for Hebrew scores: Polygamous family structures tended to engender higher Hebrew scores for the male participants, whereas monogamous family structures tended to engender higher Hebrew scores for the female participants. However, the major overall finding was that polygamous family marital structures did not affect deleteriously the scholastic achievement levels of the Bedouin-Arab participants.     

The resurrection of vocational interests in human resources research and practice: Evidence,challenges, and a working model

A large number of studies conducted over the past two decades reconsidered and supported the validity of vocational interests for predicting a range of important work outcomes. Yet to date, interests remain relatively underused in professional settings, in part because discussions of why, how, and where to use interest assessment tools in an evidence-based manner are lacking and often incomplete. In this article, we briefly review and summarize the available evidence to then further discuss ways in which interest assessment can support various stages of the human resources (HR) cycle, including recruiting, selecting, retaining, and developing employees. From this overview, a number of challenges and apparent paradoxes are derived when working with interests, which may hinder the effective application of these assessments. Therefore, we propose a new working model that treats interest assessments both as “select-out” and “select-in” tools, to identify personal attributes that can either be “must-haves” for an organization in the short term, but at the same time can represent “unique potential” for that organization in the long term. Throughout the text, we also discuss where additional research is needed to further substantiate the use of interests in the HR cycle.     

Patterns of nonverbal behavior among adolescents responding to a formal reasoning task

This study investigated nonverbal behavior patterns of 11 adolescents who responded to the Inhelder-Piaget (1958) balance task, which provides an assessment of proportional reasoning and was the first study of how students behave while being assessed for formal reasoning ability. Interdependency among the precisely defined categories of behavior was found, even when the categories were collapsed on a conceptual basis. Consequences of this categorical interdependency were discussed.