Personality and support for universal human rights: a review and test of a structural model

All individual differences that predict support for international human rights are first reviewed: support for human rights is linked most positively to "globalism" (other international and environmental concerns), "identification with all humanity," principled moral reasoning, benevolence, and dispositional empathy. It is related most negatively to ethnocentrism and its root dispositions, the social dominance orientation, and authoritarianism. Other correlates are also noted. Secondly, a structural model of the effects of authoritarianism, social dominance, ethnocentrism and identification with all humanity upon commitment to human rights is presented and tested. Across 2 studies (Study 1, N=218 nonstudent adults; Study 2, N=102 university students), ethnocentrism and identification with all humanity directly predicted human rights commitment. The effects of authoritarianism upon this commitment were fully mediated through enhanced ethnocentrism and reduced identification with all humanity. The effects of social dominance were similar, but its direct effect upon human rights commitment remained significant and was not, in the second study, mediated by reduced dispositional empathy.     

The consumption and disposition behaviour of voluntary simplifiers

• Voluntary simplicity is a lifestyle choice that has received increasing media attention over time. A defining characteristic of voluntary simplicity is reduced material consumption and the removal of clutter from one's life, thus suggesting the topic of disposition may inform our understanding of voluntary simplifier lifestyle behaviour. This paper explores the disposition activities of voluntary simplifiers in the context of their overall consumption behaviour using a series of in‐depth interviews with 12 current voluntary simplifiers. The findings show that disposition plays an important role in voluntary simplifier behaviour, especially during the initial stages of adopting the lifestyle. The consideration of future disposition activities was also found to influence the day‐to‐day consumption behaviour of participants.

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Prioritizing Platonism

Philosophical Studies - Some see concrete foundationalism as providing the central task for sparse ontology, that of identifying which concreta ground other concreta but aren’t themselves...     

“The Team Behind the Team”: Exploring the Organizational Stressor Experiences of Sport Science and Management Staff in Elite Sport

This study explored the organizational stressors encountered by the “team behind the team” (viz., those operating in sport science and management roles) in elite sport and the consequences these can have. Forty support personnel working in elite sport were interviewed. Thematic analyses unveiled 36 lower and 6 higher order themes, which were separated into stressors encountered (e.g., relationship and interpersonal, physical resource, contractual and performance development, organizational structure and logistical) and their consequences (e.g., emotions and outcomes). Building on extant work, this study moves the focus beyond athletes' stress experiences to provide novel insight into those operating in sport science and management roles. The findings offer original insight into the educational needs of sport science and management staff, which can inform practitioners who face increasing demands to work with such personnel, and raise sports organizations' awareness of their duty of care to employees and the factors that need to be managed.     

The Hard Road to Presentism

It is a common criticism of presentism – the view according to which only the present exists – that it errs against truthmaker theory. Recent attempts to resolve the truthmaker objection against presentism proceed by restricting truthmaker maximalism (the view that all truths have truthmakers), maintaining that propositions concerning the past are not made true by anything, but are true nonetheless. Support for this view is typically garnered from the case for negative existential propositions, which some philosophers contend are exceptions to truthmaker maximalism. In this article, we argue that a ‘no truthmakers’ approach to the truthmaker objection is critically flawed.     

Visitors’ Experiences and Reactions to a Dark Heritage Site: The Case of the Cape Coast Castle (2010–2015)

This study investigates how different visitors experienced a dark heritage site (Cape Coast Slave Castle). Two main groups of people studied are those with historic links to the site and those without. Those with historic links include descendants of victims of the slave trade, people from countries, which participated in that dark heritage, and those whose ancestors may have collaborated. This study of 3,452 comments using directed content analysis found that recognition of the darkness of the heritage is universal, but experiences of the darkness are diverse. The different experiences highlight the complexity of reactions to, as well as contested meanings of, slavery and its enduring effects. The study also shows that the sense of "ownership" of the site is not defined by citizenship in the country of its location. One implication of this is that Cape Coast Slave Castle curators have a responsibility that goes beyond Ghana’s borders.