The new technology and its human impact

In the years that have passed since publication of the Club of Rome's seminal report “Limits to Growth,” the issues raised in terms of development, resource use and the environment have become ever more pressing. The potential of advances in science and technology to affect all aspects of life, including development, was then little understood. Today's unparalleled burst in scientific and technological creativity has given new options and opportunities to the world economic system.

Central to this process is a series of concepts which includes the scientification of technology, by which technology is increasingly generated and developed on scientific bases, the breaking down of interdisciplinary barriers and mankind's new found capacity literally to invent resources, leading to the emergence of whole categories of new materials. These changes make possible a new approach to economic growth, relying on decentralization and flexibility and the selection of technology mixes best suited to different socio‐economic and cultural contexts. In parallel, the key importance above all of the information technologies is producing a dematerialization of goods, a trend exemplified by the shift from product oriented to function oriented industries.

The new technologies of the 1980s are cross‐fertilizing and self‐disseminative. They are creating an exceptional number of innovative options in processes, products, services, organization and markets. Mature industrial sectors can undergo a process of rejuvenation to recover competitiveness by the grafting of advanced technologies onto traditional activities. The results are already evident in industrialized countries, such as Italy. The flexibility offered by the new technologies offers perhaps our best hope for a solution to the widening gap between rich and poor nations, contrary to the belief that identifies in advances in science and technology the seeds of a process of polarization dividing the world.

The countries of the United States, Japan and Western Europe—the so‐called Triad Power—dominate the emerging technologies and their applications. In fact, given the pace of today's technological revolution, developing countries are effectively excluded from active participation in the process of technological change. New technologies are not “off the peg,” they have to be learned and controlled, to be introduced into an existing flexible system possessing trained manpower and an adequate capital base. Introduction into the Third World, where these essential conditions are frequently lacking, will not be a painless process. Technology transfer without adaptation is likely to have undesirable cultural and societal disadvantages.

North and South are simultaneously experiencing radically different processes of evolution: the former, through restructuring and innovation; the latter, through the drive for more quantitative growth. Continuing stress on quantitative growth carries with it the risk that other goals—environmental quality, even the eradication of poverty—may suffer. Here lies the possibility that unless economic patterns change, today's imbalance between the haves and the have nots may be perpetuated or even consolidated.

The countries of the North individually all face problems in addressing these issues. The international banking system is hamstrung with the problems of Third World debt. Primary producers no longer command high prices for their raw materials on world markets and so this source of development funding is also drying up. The need is therefore for a global approach. In each Third World situation, specific needs and requirements must be identified to be tackled via technology blending, whereby a mix of emerging and traditional technologies is selected to raise the quality of output to the levels now demanded by a sophisticated world economy.

Another important area is that of energy, together with the worsening environmental and even climatic effects of energy policies. The need is for a long term strategic view to marshall the contribution new technologies can make to improving the lot of mankind in full respect for his environment.

Technological change also implies societal change. In labor markets, labor mismatch creates pockets of employment which are difficult to eradicate. Yet, overall, the hope is that expanding economic horizons will create unlimited opportunities for new jobs and new skills. The key is education and training. A feed and feedback mechanism between education and the economy represents an intangible investment in the future.

Economic growth, technological innovation, development of culture and society, have always moved together with synergism. Current changes are not so much just physical as conceptual. We are passing from a mechanical (or mechanistic) society to one that can be termed cybernetic. Causality, sequentiality and hierarchy are giving way to a functional interdependence at a systems level. Greater participation will produce more opportunities for self‐fulfillment. As old social equilibria collapse, management of social change can be seen to be as important as management of technological change.

The technological revolution has deep roots in Western culture. It is a liberating force that can lead to greater cultural enrichment. By understanding the changes now underway, we can ensure that the new pattern of society that emerges from exploitation of the new technologies retains man at its center and so benefits the whole of humanity.     

Turning a blind eye: Meritocracy moderates the impacts of social status on corruption perception

Findings on the effect of social status on corruption perception are mixed. To make sense of the mixed results, three studies were conducted to examine whether meritocracy moderates this effect. In Study 1, we measured all variables using a questionnaire-based correlational design. In the preregistered Study 2, we adopted an experimental design in which we manipulated social status using a false feedback paradigm and measured corruption perception and meritocracy. In Study 3, we manipulated meritocracy using a scrambled sentence task and measured its effect on the relationship between social status and corruption perception. The results consistently demonstrated that meritocracy could moderate the influence of social status on corruption perception. Specifically, social status was negatively associated with corruption perception when meritocracy was weak, whereas the association was not significant when meritocracy was strong. Our results suggest that meritocracy critically affects acknowledgment of the pervasiveness of social injustice and even deters the disadvantaged from fighting against corruption.     

A social psychological perspective on World War II collaboration in the 21st century: A Belgian case

The present study addresses antecedents and consequences of attitudes towards collaboration in the context of World War II (WWII) in Belgium. A survey conducted on 922 Belgian French- and Dutch-speaking participants shows that, on overall, Dutch-speakers perceive collaboration as more moral and support amnesty of the former collaborators at a higher level than their Francophone counterparts. In addition, we show that these attitudes are predicted by the generational belonging, linguistic and national identification of the participants. Finally, we find that attitudes towards WWII collaboration are linked to specific political prospects for the future of the country only among Dutch-speakers. These findings suggest that, 75 years after its end, the issue of collaboration during WWII still divides the Belgian society. Furthermore, they underline the added value of a multilevel approach in the understanding of social psychological phenomena.     

And justice for all: Revisiting the Global Belief in a Just World Scale

The Global Belief in a Just World Scale (GBJWS) has been widely used in measuring the Belief in a Just World (BJW) personality trait. Despite its widespread application across the social sciences, the validity of this scale has not been sufficiently tested in the literature. In this research, the authors examine the internal and external validity of the GBJWS using both standard correlational analyses and structural equation modeling (SEM). Specifically, the authors test the concurrent validity, internal consistency, unidimensional structure, convergent validity, and both measurement and latent mean invariance of the scale across gender and culture. The results of a pilot study suggest strong concurrent validity of the GBJWS with other BJW scales, and the findings of the two main studies support the internal and external validity of GBJWS across gender and culture. The authors’ results further show an overall greater level of BJW of Chinese individuals compared to Americans. The present research provides a much needed investigation of the validity of the GBJWS, and answers calls for research examining the scale’s utility across different populations.     

Shifting from nervous to normal through love machines: Battle exhaustion,military psychiatrists and emotionally traumatized soldiers in World War II

At the onset of World War II, both military and civilian psychiatrists were keen on designating internal factors, such as, cowardice, an overbearing mother, or a henpecked father as determinants of war neuroses. By the end of the war, the notion that anyone could break down under extreme pressure displaced most other explanations of war neuroses. In this paper, using feminist emotional geographies as a framework, I look at how love contributed to this shift. I read three types of texts created through the practices engaged by military psychiatrists in the Canadian Army during World War II at three different sites—in units treating only exhaustion, at a convalescent depot, and at a field dressing station. These texts as both the outcome and record of Canadian military psychiatric practices in World War II form the basis upon which I read how love as a machine (a lá Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari) passes through both psychiatry and the military as it contributes to enacting a reality in practice (a lá Annemarie Mol).     

Teacher pilgrims at World Youth Day: a preliminary examination

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the experiences of six teachers from a regional, Australian diocese who attended World Youth Day (WYD). It also reports on aspects of their worldview and their experience working in Catholic schools. Overall participants were very positive about working in Catholic schools, and though not connected in an ongoing way with parish communities, they were happy to support the religious dimension of Catholic schools and were often involved in parish-based programmes when there was a connection with school activities. Their worldview could be characterised as having much in common with dominant cultural paradigms that sees religion in moral terms along with a deistic sense of God. Established social networks supported them in these views. Teacher pilgrims reported that WYD gave them the opportunity to experience a broader, more diverse Catholicism as well as the experience of going overseas and being part of a large gathering. Participation in WYD may open up opportunities for reflective discernment on the part of teacher pilgrims and a result has implications for the formation of teachers working in Catholic schools.     

A framework for designing socially assistive robot interactions

Robots are increasingly tested in different socially assistive scenarios. Future applications range from dieting, coaching, tutoring to autism therapy. In such applications the success of the system is commonly evaluated by the ability to encourage the user to keep up with a task. Hence, one important requirement for supportive systems is to have an interactional motivational model that formalizes the way how users can be assisted. In this paper we describe our framework for coordinating motivational interaction scenarios with socially assistive robots (SAR) in the context of sport assistance. We exemplify three different sport scenarios where we have used the same motivational interaction model. Furthermore, we show how this model can be used to systematically test the different aspects of motivation in the context of SAR in sport domains. Therefore, we have conducted an experiment to evaluate the importance of acknowledgement from SAR for human interaction partners. The results show that users exercise longer if acknowledgment is included into the motivational model.     

Providing an analytic structure for key system design choices

The design of a system, especially a system architecture, requires the balancing of multiple performance parameters with the system cost and other implementation issues. Multi-attribute utility theory provides a structured, coherent framework for conducting an analysis in which system designs are evaluated on multiple performance parameters. This paper describes the application of multi-attribute utility analysis to the design of the Worldwide Digital Signal Systems Architecture (WWDSA), a telecommunications system, by the United States' Defense Communications Agency (now called the Defense Information Systems Agency). The advantages of using multi-attribute utility theory during the system design are highlighted. In addition, we discuss several key analytical issues that led to this application being a success in the eyes of the decision makers.