Moral personality of brave and caring exemplars

Two contrasting types of moral exemplars were examined so as to identify personality variables associated with moral action. The sample comprised 50 Canadian awardees for either exceptional bravery or caring, as well as 50 comparison participants. Participants responded to a set of personality questionnaires and a life-review interview. Personality variables were found to substantially augment moral cognition in the prediction of exemplary action. In support of the notion that there is a personological core to the moral domain, it was found that moral exemplars were distinguished from the comparison groups by themes embodied in their life narratives. Specifically, moral exemplars had stronger motivational themes of both agency and communion, were more likely to construe critical life events redemptively, more frequently identified helpers in early life, and reported more secure attachments. Furthermore, the personality of caring exemplars was more nurturant, generative, and optimistic than that of brave exemplars; these somewhat divergent personality profiles imply multiple ideals of moral maturity.     

Misunderstanding the affective consequences of everyday social interactions: the hidden benefits of putting one's best face forward

Positive self-presentation may have beneficial consequences for mood that are typically overlooked. Across a series of studies, participants underestimated how good they would feel in situations that required them to put their best face forward. In Studies 1 and 2A, participants underestimated the emotional benefits of interacting with an opposite sex stranger versus the benefits of interacting with a romantic partner. In Study 2B, participants who were instructed to engage in self-presentation felt happier after interacting with their romantic partner than participants who were not given this instruction, although other participants serving as forecasters did not anticipate such benefits. Increasing the generalizability of this self-presentation effect across contexts, the authors demonstrated that participants also underestimated how good they would feel before and after being evaluated by another person (Studies 3 and 4). This failure to recognize the affective benefits of putting one's best face forward may underlie forecasting errors regarding the emotional consequences of the most common forms of social interactions.     

Roles of moral philosophy in appropriated bioethics: a response to Baker and McCullough

Strong arguments support the notion that much of modern bioethics is a result of appropriation rather than strict application of traditional moral philosophy. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize these sources and approaches associated with them, even when working with appropriated theories, since traditional ethical theory does and should influence modern bioethics.     

Historical Emissions and the Carbon Budget

How should the world's remaining carbon budget be divided among countries? We assess the role of a fault‐based principle in answering this question. Discussion of the role of historical emissions in dividing the global carbon budget has tended to focus on emissions before 1990. We think that this is in part because 1990 seems so recent, and thus post‐1990 emissions seem to constitute a lesser portion of historical emissions. This point of view was undoubtedly warranted in the early 1990s, when discussion of fault‐based principles in this context began. While this view still has some intuitive force, we find that it and the associated focus on pre‐1990 emissions are now out of date. Emissions since 1990 in fact constitute a large and rapidly increasing proportion of emissions since 1750 – approximately half of the carbon emissions due to fossil fuel use and cement production, at the time of writing. We show that a restricted fault‐based principle, according to which emissions should be divided among countries on the basis of their emissions since 1990, is both viable and powerful. We consider standard objections to a fault‐based principle in this context, how such a principle might more concretely be applied, and its likely implications.     

Feminism and Couple Finance: Power as a Mediator Between Financial Processes and Relationship Outcomes

Sex Roles - Feminism is rarely used as a theoretical framework for couple finance research. The purposes of the present paper are (a) to discuss couple finance research in the context of feminism...