The Role of Culture,Workgroup Membership,and Organizational Status on Cooperation and Trust: An Experimental Investigation

We examined how interactions among participants' cultural backgrounds (e.g., Australian vs. Singaporean) and multiple subgroups (e.g., cultural group membership, workgroup membership, organizational status) affect trust and cooperation in the workplace. University students (120 Australians, 120 Singaporeans) responded to hypothetical scenarios of cooperation and trust in the workplace. The results indicated that, for both Australians and Singaporeans, trust and cooperation were more strongly influenced by workgroup membership and organizational status than by cultural group membership. Participants trusted and cooperated more with work in‐group members than with work out‐group members, and trusted and cooperated more with superiors than with peers. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

Advertisement for the ontology for medicine

The ontology of medicine—the question of whether disease entities are real or not—is an underdeveloped area of philosophical inquiry. This essay explains the primary question at issue in medical ontology, discusses why answering this question is important from both a philosophical and a practical perspective, and argues that the problem of medical ontology is unique, i.e., distinct, from the ontological problems raised by other sciences and therefore requires its own analysis.     

What matters in the associative learning of visual cues in foraging parasitoid wasps: colour or brightness?

Visual cues are known to be used by numerous animal taxa to gather information on quality and localisation of resources. Because environmental lighting can interfere with the spectral features of visual cues, the specific characteristics of the colour signals that promote forager decision and learning are still not known in the majority of insects (excepted in bees). We analysed the effect of previous experience on the use of visual information by the wasp Venturia canescens, a parasitoid of pyralidae, in the context of host searching. These parasitoids search for hosts concealed in several fruit species, so visual cues from the host microhabitat could play a key role in host finding. We also investigated the type of visual cues on which wasps based their decision. We tested whether wasps are able to associate an achromatic cue (brightness) or a chromatic one (hue, i.e. dominant wavelength and/or chroma) with the presence of hosts. Our results show that in the context of host foraging, chromatic cues are more reliable than brightness in achieving the associative learning process. Therefore, understanding the behavioural ecology of foraging should make use of the knowledge about the visual information used.     

Parallel, independent attentional control settings for colors and shapes

Attentional capture can be contingent on attentional control settings (ACSs), such that peripheral cues influence processing for a subsequent target only when they share a critical feature with the target. Our previous demonstration that two ACSs from within the same feature category can be maintained simultaneously allows us to investigate the processing stage at which such ACSs are implemented. We compared the relative efficacy of ACSs from two different feature categories (shape and color) that are associated with different levels within the visual processing hierarchy. Participants were instructed to respond to one of two colors at one location and one of two shapes at another location, while ignoring the nontarget color and shape. We observed that spatial capture was modulated by whether the cues fit an ACS, with slightly greater contingent capture effects for ACSs defined by color than by shape. Thus, two ACSs from different feature sets (color and shape) can be maintained in parallel, although effectiveness of the control set varied with the type of feature.     

Malingering,Perceptions of Illness,and Compensation Seeking in Whiplash Injury: A Comparison of Illness Beliefs Between Individuals in Simulated Compensation Scenarios and Litigation Claimants1

This paper compares beliefs about whiplash injury between individuals in simulated compensation/no compensation scenarios and actual litigant claimants. Comparisons between simulators and the clinical sample revealed that chronic patients reported significantly more symptoms than all simulator groups. The beliefs of the real compensation claimants in the acute phase of the condition were similar to those in the ‘injury only’ simulator group. The analyses identified a trend towards beliefs in the expected timeline of the illness becoming more negative with time, whilst feelings of control over the symptoms improve. The paper discusses indicators of malingering behavior and the possible involvement of litigation and treatment processes in the transition to a chronic state of ill health.     

FOUR THEORIES OF FILIAL DUTY

Children have special duties to their parents: there are things that we ought to do for our parents, but not for just anyone. Three competing accounts of filial duty appear in the literature: the debt theory, the gratitude theory and the friendship theory. Each is unsatisfactory: each tries to assimilate the moral relationship between parent and child to some independently understood conception of duty, but this relationship is different in structure and content from any that we are likely to share with anyone apart from a parent. A more promising account will concentrate on what is unique about the parent-child relationship. I articulate and defend the 'special goods theory', according to which filial duties arise from the distinctive kinds of goods that healthy parent-child relationships typically involve.     

The Importance of Affective Beliefs and Attitudes in the Theory of Planned Behavior: Predicting Intention to Increase Physical Activity1

Standard theory of planned behavior (TPB) questions to elicit salient behavioral beliefs may elicit instrumental consequences of behavior, and overlook affective consequences. Two hundred thirteen English adults (35 to 75 years of age) completed a questionnaire that contained closed measures of TPB constructs, and open‐ended questions that asked not only about advantages and disadvantages, but also what respondents would like or enjoy and dislike or hate about being more physically active. Beliefs elicited by affective questions were associated more strongly with a closed affective attitude scale. Beliefs elicited by instrumental questions were associated more strongly with a closed instrumental attitude scale. Closed measures of the standard TPB variables explained 48% of the variance in intention to increase physical activity, while affective attitude explained an additional 11% of the variance. Applications of the TPB should consider affective and not just instrumental determinants of behavior.