Belief in a just world and organisational loyalty: Trust as an underlying mechanism

This research examined whether employees' personal belief in a just world (BJW) is associated with their organisational loyalty and whether this relationship is statistically mediated by organisational trust. To test these hypotheses, we conducted two studies with employees from China (study 1, N = 314) and Germany (study 2, N = 189). The results from both studies supported the proposed model. In addition, study 2 revealed that the relationship between BJW and organisational loyalty persisted when controlling for global personality traits. These suggest that managers and organisations may increase employees' loyalty by providing an environment that fosters their sense of justice and trust.     

How Many Mechanisms Are Needed to Analyze Speech? A Connectionist Simulation of Structural Rule Learning in Artificial Language Acquisition

Some empirical evidence in the artificial language acquisition literature has been taken to suggest that statistical learning mechanisms are insufficient for extracting structural information from an artificial language. According to the more than one mechanism (MOM) hypothesis, at least two mechanisms are required in order to acquire language from speech: (a) a statistical mechanism for speech segmentation; and (b) an additional rule-following mechanism in order to induce grammatical regularities. In this article, we present a set of neural network studies demonstrating that a single statistical mechanism can mimic the apparent discovery of structural regularities, beyond the segmentation of speech. We argue that our results undermine one argument for the MOM hypothesis.     

Predicting alternative strategies for preserving a belief in a just world: The case of repressive coping style

Researchers suggest that observers of innocent suffering will negatively evaluate the victim as a strategy for maintaining their belief in a just world. We propose an alternative class of strategies and test whether individual differences in repressive coping style predict the type of strategy people will use. In the first two studies, we exposed repressors versus nonrepressors to victims whose suffering should pose a high versus low threat to the need to believe in a just world. Repressors had a greater tendency to positively reappraise the high threat victim's suffering. Nonrepressors had a greater tendency to negatively evaluate the high threat victim. A third study replicated the results for the high threat conditions and suggested that repressors' positive reappraisal is not because of a tendency to minimize suffering. Our research (i) demonstrates a class of strategies for preserving the belief in a just world other than negatively evaluating the victim and (ii) is among the first to examine directly an individual difference predictor of alternative just‐world preservation strategies. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘Protective donation’: When refusing a request for a donation increases the sense of vulnerability

May refusing a request for a donation be conceived as ‘tempting fate’? Do people feel more vulnerable when they do not comply with such a request? In this paper we examine the link between subjective perceptions of vulnerability and people's willingness to help address a threatening cause. Results of five studies, examining a real life situation, hypothetical scenarios and a controlled lab game with actual monetary costs and rewards, show first, that deliberately helping is positively correlated with the perceived likelihood of becoming a victim of the same misfortune. Second, we show that refusing to donate to a threatening misfortune increases sense of vulnerability. Both phenomena occur especially for people with strong belief in a just world, who believe in a causal relationship between people's behavior and their fortune (rewards and punishments).     

La croyance au monde juste comme facteur explicatif de diverses réactions à des injustices professionnelles

The belief in a just world is defined as the tendency to consider that “people get what they deserve and deserve what they get”, i.e. to consider that the world is, globally, a place of justice. Facing an individual unjustly victim of negative events and for whom it seems impossible to restore the justice objectively, we frequently deny the existence of the unjustice, even if we say the responsible of what he gets. But if we can react by adopting “passive” reactions (using the victim’s moral or behavioral responsibility, as in Lerner, or evocating a future favoring the victim,..), we can also adopt “active” strategies which can lead to an objective re-establishment of the justice. In the present study, we examined the influence of the degree of the belief in the just world on the selected strategy facing professional injustices. And effectively, our results indicate a some preferences in the use of such or strategy, preferences accentuated by the gender and the professional statute.     

公正世界信念对大学生助人意愿的影响：责任归因和帮助代价的作用

采用个人公正世界信念量表、自编的助人假设情境,先后以198名、415名大学生为被试,通过两项研究考察了责任归因和帮助代价在个人公正世界信念影响个体助人意愿中的作用。结果表明：（1）个人公正世界信念及个体对受困者遭遇的外归因,均可以显著正向预测个体的助人意愿,但个人公正世界信念与责任归因之间无显著相关。控制性别、年级和社会称许性的影响后,个体对受困者遭遇的外归因及个人公正世界信念分别可以解释5.7%和6%的变异;（2）个人公正世界信念对助人意愿的作用受到帮助代价与责任归因的调节,只有在低代价、外归因的条件下,个人公正世界信念越强,助人意愿才越高。这些结果对亲社会行为的促进具有重要启示。     

Beyond the Crisis of the Globalized “World System”: the Need For a New Civil Society

In my view, we need a sociological analysis to show how the crisis stemmed from a certain set-up of the so-called global society. Such a set-up is the product of a long historical development, which goes beyond the financial crisis’ outbreak in 2008. The question I ask is the following: from a sociological standpoint, why did this crisis break out? And what remedies can be put in place? The measures adopted these days cannot solve the crisis, but, for a number of reasons, they can at most provide temporary stoppers and remedies.     

Confucianism and cosmopolitanism

ABSTRACT

This essay investigates the Confucian cosmopolitan aspiration. First, it examines the nature of cosmopolitanism and its distinction from universalism. It demonstrates that cosmopolitanism is a philosophical doctrine that consists of two core tenets: (1) the tenet that humankind in whole is a social-political community under the rule of law; each person has global duty and obligation; (2) the tenet that a cosmopolitan world society is one of peoples of diverse cultures that are constellated into a community under the rule of law. Secondly, it explores Confucian cosmopolitanism consisting of five tenets: (1) the vision of humankind in whole as a community; (2) the concept of one’s cosmopolitan belonging; (3) the concept of equal moral worthiness of all human beings and inviolability of human dignity; (4) the concept of cultural diversity of humanity; and (5) the aspiration to a world society of permanent peace. Thirdly, it discusses why we must have a cosmopolitan reading, not a universalistic reading, of Confucianism.     

A Peaceful Clash: The U.S. And China: Which Model Holds Out Promise For The Future?

This article analyzes some prospects for the economic and political development of the United States and China. The first part of the article is devoted to the consideration of strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. model and of the Chinese one. The second part of the article considers the most probable scenarios of the future struggle for world leadership. The first scenario suggests that China will continue developing at a faster rate in the several coming decades and will be gradually catching up with the United States in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) production. However, after several crises in 2008–2020 the United States will likely regain a number of advantages over China as a result of assimilation of the newest technologies. The second scenario suggests that the United States will come across a whole range of internal social and political problems related to internal political splits. In this case, the United States will have to share its global leadership with China. The article attempts to answer the following questions: What scenario is more probable? Will the old world order change? What are the main conclusions for the European Union and for Russia?     

Convivial Acts for an Ecosensual Labyrinth

Abstract

This paper addresses queer conviviality across Crab & Bee’s “Plymouth Labyrinth” project (2018–19); a 6-month activity including group walks, ritual sharings, group readings, postal art, poetry groups, site-specific dance, exhibition and making workshops. Based around convivial web-walking, the account examines how, through spinning out of collaborations and unfolding new forms, a web of work and activity was generated to support intensity and connectivity. The paper attends to queer aspects of conviviality, such as attention to unhuman partners, becoming-animal, simultaneity/plateauing in haecceity, dispersals of subjectivity and relations of threads (lines of desire) to web making.