Social class and sex as determinants of future orientation (time perspective) in adults

This studv was designed to test hypotheses concerning the influence of sex roles and social status on future orientation (FO). The latter was measured in various categories (spheres of life),on the dimensions of density (number of hopes andfears cited by the subject), extension, and optimism-pessimism. Also included was a measure of ‘internal vs. external control’ (the subject's assessment as to whether the realization of his hopes and fears is dependent more on himself or more on external factors). Subjects were 100 employed men and women of the lower and middle class. It was found that, in comparison with women, men voiced more hopes/fears in the public sphere (economy, politics, environment) and fewer in the private sphere uamily, occupation, personal development). Men had a more extended FO in the occupational and economic spheres; women, in contrast, in the private sphere. (These results contradicted the assumption of earlier studies that FO is a general orientation, not varying across different domains of life.) Middle-class (in comparison to lowerclass) persons manifested a, wore extended FO, envisioned the distant future more optimistically, and believed more markedly that the realization of their hopes and fears depended on themselves.     

Marxismus und axiologie

Summary Marxist philosophers are increasingly beginning to elaborate a philosophical axiology of their own, to articulate the meaning of socialism in axiological terms. Traditionally, Marxist doctrine has been very eager to present socialism and its motivation as a matter of scientific prediction rather than in terms of value judgments, wishes, or the proclamation of ideals. A more accurate analysis, however, shows that the Marxist undertanding of human social practice presupposes some active striving in relation to which all objects and circumstances of human life receive a positive or negative meaning. It is just this practical relation of human subjects to their world (and of their world to them) that is conceptually grasped by the notion of value.From the theoretical point of view, Marxist axiology is not oriented towards some realm of values all values and value relations are understood strictly in anthropological terms as components of human and social practice, as some particular aspects which objects and circumstances assume in relation to actively striving beings and their qualitatively determined self-affirmation on a definite historical level. Marxist axiology presents itself both as a theoretical analysis of these value qualities and relations, and at the same time as a doctrine of practical involvement whose aim is to clarify and strengthen the socialist value consciousness.The basis of all these value relations lies in the system of human needs. According to Marxism, this system proves to be multi-dimensional, encompassing as its fundament the complex of material needs which are to be satisfied through work. But equally important and urgent for human beings are those needs and requirements in relation to which all social relations are characterized as being worthy or unworthy of man (such judgments being in accordance with some historical standard of claims). Finally, there are also those peculiar needs basic to the aesthetic qualities of objects as well as to the free (not imposed by natural or social necessities) and purposeless activities of human play and self-realization. The desideratum of socialism is to bring about a harmoniously proportioned synthesis in the satisfaction of the totality of human needs for the totality of human beings. Socialism is not only necessary and predictable in a scientific sense but also valuable and desirable for people.Several Marxist (and especially Soviet) authors have worked out the outlines of a Marxist philosophical axiology (V. P. Tugarinov, O. M. Bakuradze, V. A. Vasilenko and others). The opponents of such an enterprise (O. G. Drobnickij and others) have more or less radically contested the value and legitimacy of such a theory of value, for they consider value consciousness as a part of a pre-scientific way of thought. On the theoretical level the abstract specification of such value relationships constitute an artificial separation of the theoretical-practical unity and totality of human relations to the world.The author finds these objections not convincing because the danger of hypostatizing and isolating the values, of presenting them as some kind of substantial eternal entities, can fully be overcome by anthropological integration and sociological concretization of the value aspect. In a Marxist philosophy of practice something is not valuable in itself but is either positively or negatively significant for human beings. Certainly this development of axiology in Marxism is an attempt to set up a counterweight to the traditional scientific objectivism of the Marxist doctrine by confirming the right of people to judge and act subjectively on certain issues.

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Professor V. P. Tugarinov, Leningrad, zum 70. Geburtstag.     

Confluences and differences in the early work of Gurwitsch and Schutz

Conclusion In these highly selective and condensed considerations, I could only offer a comparison of the main sociological themes in Gurwitsch's inaugural dissertation with the corresponding themes in Schutz's first book. Other sociological themes were not discussed, mainly because they were not developed far enough in one or the other or both sources. The crucial theme of explicit and implicit ontological presuppositions had to be ignored because it demands an extensive treatment of its own. The same goes for the proper consideration of the particular conceptions of Husserl mobilized by each author for his purposes.Even so, I hope to have conveyed an idea of the convergences and differences in the early views of Gurwitsch and Schutz, as mirrored in the studies which were compared. This article should be seen as a small beginning of the huge task of studying comprehensively the unique personal and intellectual friendship of two seminal thinkers and the influences they exercised upon each other's work, even though they operated in substantively quite different areas.For pertinent reasons, I have worked from the English translation of Gurwitsch's book under frequent consultation of the German original. By contrast, I relied completely on the original German text of the book by Schutz. Translations from it are my own.For reasons of space-economy, I have refrained from listing all secondary sources. The more important ones of these have been cited by either Gurwitsch or Schutz; the interested reader will have no trouble finding bibliographic information on them in the two books compared.     

On the Conditional Relevance of Controls: An Application of Situational Action Theory to Shoplifting

Classic self-control theory and the pure deterrence argument have both been recently challenged by integrative theory and appropriate empirical evidence suggesting that controls are only conditionally relevant to action. Situational Action Theory (SAT) provides a fertile framework within which to study the effectiveness of controls. Specifically, SAT’s principle of the conditional relevance of controls states that controls only influence behavior when a person is forced to deliberate over action alternatives because of conflict between his/her own moral rules and those of the setting. That the moral filter does not preclude crime from the action alternatives perceived by an individual can be due to weak personal moral norms or exposure to a crime-conducive moral context. In particular, SAT states that (1) deterrence (external control) only becomes relevant to deliberations when personal morality is weak and (2) the process of self-control (internal control) only becomes relevant to deliberations when an individual is exposed to criminogenic moral contexts. Both these hypotheses are tested with a large-scale Austrian student survey dedicated to the explanation of adolescent shoplifting. The results provide firm support for these key propositions of SAT.     

Dimensions in appreciation of car interior design

We report two studies in which the interplay between stimulus properties and perceiver characteristics in the appreciation car interiors was investigated. In Experiment 1 three design components, complexity, curvature and innovativeness, which are all thought to affect design appreciation were combined in a fully factorial design. All dimensions were confirmed to affect ratings, and curvature and innovativeness particularly affected the attractiveness ratings. Curved and non‐innovative designs were generally preferred. Moreover, participants who were particularly interested in art were more sensitive to curvature and innovativeness. In Experiment 2 two dimensions of Experiment 1 were replicated using similar stimuli. Moreover, the specific effects of a design knowledge treatment were investigated. Results replicated the preference for curved and non‐innovative (rather classic) designs. The treatment had only small effects, which support a general rather than dimension‐specific effects of cognitive pre‐information. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developing the Horizons of the Mind: Reich's Response to the Commentators

Some aspects of my writing the monograph Developing the Horizons of the Mind (2002) are highlighted, the central characteristics of relational and contextual reasoning (RCR) are explained, and the contributions to this symposium by John Albright, Varadaraja V. Raman, and John Teske are discussed.     

It felt fluent but I did not like it: fluency effects in faces versus patterns

Whether you like a person or not is often appraised in a glance. However, under such short presentation durations stimuli are harder to perceive and, according to hedonic fluency theory-which holds that higher fluency is linked to higher liking-thus, are liked less. Given that liking considerably influences person perception, we tested how shorter and longer presentation durations affect liking for faces and compared this with abstract patterns. To capture facets of fluency of processing we assessed felt fluency, liking, and certainty ratings. Following predictions of fluency theory, longer presentation durations led to higher felt fluency, certainty, and positively affected liking judgments in the abstract patterns. In faces, felt fluency and certainty also increased with longer durations. However, with longer durations, faces were liked less, and liking was not related to felt fluency. In other words, in contrast to hedonic fluency theory, faces are more attractive when only seen for a short amount of time. Thus, fluency does not inevitably lead to more positive evaluations—it rather depends on the stimulus category. We discuss these findings in terms of the special status that faces have with regard to human perception and evaluation.