Influences of Affect Associated with Routine Out-of-Home Activities on Subjective Well-Being

A survey of a random sample of 1,330 Swedish residents assessed the relationships between affect associated with performance of routine out-of-home activities, mood, and judgments of life satisfaction (cognitive subjective wellbeing, CSWB). Regression analyses showed that sociodemographic variables accounted for most variance in CSWB (7%) and least in mood (2%). In agreement with previous research, CSWB increased with income, employment, and cohabiting with a spouse, and had a U-formed relationship with age. Affect associated with routine activities accounted for more variance than the socio-demographic variables in mood (30%) and in CSWB (13%). Mood partially mediated the effect on CSWB of affect associated with the activities. The results suggest that future policy-related research should consider the possibility that community-provided resources that facilitate performance of routine out-of-home activities would increase life satisfaction.     

Libertarianism,Climate Change,and Individual Responsibility

Much has been written about climate change from an ethical view in general, but less has been written about it from a libertarian point of view in particular. In this paper, I apply the libertarian moral theory to the problem of climate change. I focus on libertarianism’s implications for our individual emissions. I argue that (i) even if our individual emissions cause no harm to others, these emissions cross other people’s boundaries, (ii) although the boundary-crossings that are due to our ‘subsistence emissions’ are implicitly consented to by others, there is no such consent to our ‘non-subsistence emissions’, and (iii) there is no independent justification for these emissions. Although offsetting would provide such a justification, most emitters do not offset their non-subsistence emissions. Therefore, these emissions violate people’s rights, which means that they are impermissible according to libertarianism’s non-aggression principle.

     

The Problem of Justified Harm: a Reply to Gardner

In this paper, we critically examine Molly Gardner’s favored solution to what she calls “the problem of justified harm.” We argue that Gardner’s view is false and that her arguments in support of it are unconvincing. Finally, we briefly suggest an alternative solution to the problem which avoids the difficulties that beset Gardner’s proposal.     

Experiences of Longing in Norwegian and Swedish 4- and 5-Year-Old Children

Longing can be defined as a blend of the primary emotions of happiness and sadness. These primary emotions are experienced very early by children, and the meanings of the words happiness and sadness are also known by children early in their verbal development. To find out at what age children are able to understand and use the more developed concept of longing, the authors interviewed 74 preschoolers (4- and 5-year-olds) in Norway and Sweden about their experiences of longing. Chi-square analyses showed age and sex differences in knowledge of the concept, and some differences between categories of longing were also significant. Results showed that young children's ability to understand and use the concept of longing appears to be limited and that girls seem to mature earlier in this respect than boys do.     

Testing Antonovsky's sense of coherence (SOC) scale among Swedish physically active older people

In Antonovsky's salutogenic theory, the major concept sense of coherence (SOC) is constituted of three core components called comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness. Several scales that are intended to measure SOC are available and used by researchers in health and caring sciences all over the world. When using a scale, evidence of its quality in different study groups is needed in order to get reliable and valid data. The aim of this study was to test reliability and construct validity of the Swedish version of Antonovsky's original 29-item sense of coherence (SOC) scale in a group of physically active older people. The scale was tested with a convenience sample of 140 physically active older individuals, who took part in different fitness-training groups in eastern Sweden. Reliability was assessed as item to total correlations and with the Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Construct validity was assessed with the known groups technique, confirmatory factor analysis, and with logistic regression analysis. The results showed that in the studied group of older individuals, the instrument was a very reliable tool with a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.92. Construct validity of the scale was supported by the fact that the global concept sense of coherence was found to be hierarchically organized in a model that consisted of the three core components of comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness. Furthermore, perceived health could be explained to some degree by sense of coherence, but even more by comprehensibility, in both cases independently of chronological age. The results clearly corroborated Antonovsky's theory.     

Social exclusion modulates pre-reflective interpersonal body representation

Perception of affordance is enhanced not only when that object is located in one’s own peripersonal space, as compared to when it is located within extrapersonal space, but also when the object is located in another person’s peripersonal space [as measured by a spatial alignment effect (SAE)]. It has been suggested that this reflects the existence of an interpersonal body representation (IBR) that allows us to represent the perceptual states and action possibilities of others. Here, we address the question of whether IBR can be modulated by higher level/reflective social cognition, such as judgments about one’s own social status. Participants responded with either the right or the left hand as soon as a go signal appeared. The go signal screen contained a task-irrelevant stimulus consisting of a 3D scene in which a mug with a left- or right-facing handle was positioned on a table. The mug was positioned either inside or outside the reaching space of the participants. In a third of the trials, the mug was positioned within the reaching space of an avatar seated at the table. Prior to this task we induced an experience of social ostracism in half of the participants by means of a standardized social exclusion condition. The results were that the SAE that normally occurs when the mug is in the avatar’s reaching space is extinguished by the induced social exclusion. This indicates that judgments about one’s own social status modulate the effect of IBR.     

Common Knowledge and Reductionism about Shared Agency

Most reductionist accounts of intentional joint action include a condition that it must be common knowledge between participants that they have certain intentions and beliefs that cause and coordinate the joint action. However, this condition has typically simply been taken for granted rather than argued for. The condition is not necessary for ensuring that participants are jointly responsible for the action in which each participates, nor for ensuring that each treats the others as partners rather than as social tools. It is thus something of a mystery why the condition is so widely accepted. By rejecting three arguments that could potentially support it, I argue that reductionists should get rid of the condition. I show that two of the arguments fail. While the third argument is intuitively compelling, it builds on key premises that are unavailable to the reductionist.