Search

Pro-environmental behavioural spillover – when performing one pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) increases the likelihood of performing another – has been identified as a possible way to increase the amount of environmentally friendly behaviours that individuals perform. The current research investigated this spillover process, the role of chronic environmental motivations, goal priming and behavioural similarity. Three studies (two conducted with students and one conducted with the general Australian public) provided evidence to suggest that positive spillover occurs between PEBs that are similar in terms of the resources required to perform them, but not between PEBs that are resource-dissimilar. There was no evidence to suggest that negative spillover (the instance where performing one PEB lessens the likelihood of subsequently performing another) occurred. Chronic environmental striving seems to independently influence the performance of PEBs, especially spending time to be more environmentally friendly. The role of priming goals in the spillover process remains unclear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

»Alltagsleben im figurationalen Ansatz: Eine Meso-Ebene für die soziologische Analyse«. Moving from Elias and Scotson's "Established and outsiders" the article proposes a discussion about everyday life analytical category. This book clearly highlights what can be considered a constant in Elias' sociological methodology: the necessity for sociology to depart as little as possible from actual observable reality. Through a typically meso approach to social phenomena, the small things of everyday life, the ways that interactions and relations take place in specific places and times, become the observation plan to analyse the structural dimensions making society. Gossip, neighbours, free time, lifestyle, stigma and solidarity are just some of the topics dealt with in this text. With them, everyday life appears as the terrain on which social figurations reveal themselves, reproduce and are visible, in the ongoing game of the changing interdependencies of human living. I started by referring to the critical position that Elias assumed when invited to express himself on everyday life. The second part of the paper deals with the pars construens of Elias' thought: through the category of figuration everyday life as a meso tool to approach sociological analysis. He sees real individuals at work in it - with their Iand we-identities, their habitus - acting and reacting in networks of interdependencies. With the figurational approach, everyday life appears as life that is there, as the unique and inevitable dimension of sociological analysis. With the peculiar established-outsiders figurational one, everyday life appears as the ground to see and study production and reproduction mechanisms of social inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to present the results of our research regarding the role of emotions in local struggles. Focusing on the analysis from below, we have paid special attention to the emotions felt by ordinary people. Our research shows that emotions are useful in order to understand struggles because they are present in every phase and every aspect of protest. We have seen that emotions play an important role in the day-to-day practices of the groups we have studied and that they interact with cognition in determining an individual's behavior. Emotions not only motivate individuals but they might change their beliefs, too. In conclusion, we have seen that emotions play an important role in the protest. They not only influence the emergence and maintenance, but also affect some outcomes of the protest at the micro-level, like empowerment. Our research is based on in-depth interviews and narrative analysis of the biographical material, and the analysis gives special attention to the different labels we have assigned to different emotions, feelings, and moods that play an important role in the protest. We will present some results based on the analysis of four specific case studies: the insurgency of Oaxaca, Mexico (in 2006) and three resistances against dams in Spain and Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aristotle is routinely blamed for several errors that, it is supposed, held science back for centuries - among others, a belief in distinct, homogenous and unchanging species of living creatures, an essentialist account of human nature, and a suggestion that slavery was a natural institution. This paper briefly examines Aristotle's own arguments and opinions, and the perils posed by a contrary belief in changeable species. Contrary to received opinion even amongst some of his followers, Aristotle was not a species essentialist and his ethical theory, properly expanded, provides arguments against bioengineering human and other species without a clear view of what should count as beauty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestic faunal samples from farming sites from southern Africa dating from the Early (∼AD 200-900) and Middle (∼AD 900-1300) Iron Ages with large faunal samples are typically dominated by sheep/goats (both number of identified specimens and minimum number of individuals for large samples). However, four exceptions to this general pattern from these time periods are Bosutswe, Nqoma (both in Botswana), KwaGandaganda and Mamba (both in KwaZulu-Natal). At these sites, cattle outnumber sheep/goats, which have previously been measured using a Cattle Index. Intensive hunting is investigated at one of these sites, Bosutswe. Using various lines of evidence, including measuring high- vs. low-ranked prey, economic activities, as well as grease extraction and ageing from the most common taxon, plains zebra ( Equus quagga), it is suggested that resource depression of wild game likely occurred. This would fit the expectation, based on human behavioural ecology, that as high-ranked game resource diminished over time, more emphasis was placed on cattle herding. The greater emphasis could have influenced descent patterns of people at Bosutswe. By the Late Iron Age (∼AD 1300-1820s), cattle dominate most faunal assemblages in southern Africa with large sample sizes, and ethnographic and historical information confirm the central role these animals played in the social, political and economic lives of these farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout history, rare, influential, unexpected, catastrophic events with widespread significant long-term effects such as societal collapse, wars, revolutions, natural disasters, disease pandemics, droughts, famines, and financial crises have impacted humanity at large. These events seem to occur infrequently in a random manner that makes their prediction difficult. I examined closely the seemingly “random” occurrence of these events and observed a peculiar pattern: they occur at Fibonacci intervals and exhibit the irregular regularity of fractal phenomena. I identify three unique sets of patterns, to which I refer as cycles: (1) the Kuwae Cycle, (2) the Tambora Cycle, and (3) the Deflationary Cycle. They closely align with significant historical events, disease pandemics, famines, revolutions and warfare in England and the United States, and link to anomalous weather patterns induced by volcanism, heat, cold, rain and drought, all of which influence harvests dating back to the 6th century. These patterns also correlate with commodity price changes for which we have good data to study their behavior. Using commodities data, I show that, not only are commodity price changes closely associated with large historical events, but that they also occur at Fibonacci intervals in a complex cyclical and fractal manner. Short-term price cycles are part of larger fractal price waves which are themselves part of higher order fractals that measure the rise and fall of civilizations. I develop an algorithm that defines the cyclical nature and importance of Fibonacci intervals and advance a “Fractal Cycle Turning Point Theory” that explains historical price patterns and makes predictions about future price cycles, disease pandemics, warfare, financial crises and other influential events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Review of Applied Psychology is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article tries to answer the following questions: What types of individuals may be identified from 1944 to 1956 and from 1957 to 2000 in the field of Lithuania's politics of history? How did the behavior strategies of these personalities correlate with their chances to stay in the public discourse? What positive or negative deeds were these individuals able to accomplish during the Soviet epoch? How did these activities influence the processes of forming or deforming the historical memory of Lithuanian society during the Soviet period? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A particular type of self-control is exercised when the conflict between immediate and delayed consequences is associated with consequences that are more favorable either for the individual or for the group. In such cases, responding under the control of delayed consequences that are favorable for the group is characteristic of ethical self-control. This study investigated the selection, maintenance and transmission of ethical self-control in an arrangement depicting a macrocontingency. Participants in two microcultures were exposed to an ABAB design in which individuals repeatedly chose a row in a colored 10 x 10 matrix. In all conditions, choosing odd-numbered rows produced three tokens that could be exchanged for money, and choosing even-numbered rows produced only one token. In B conditions, even row responses had a second effect, which was to add one item to a cumulative effect comprising school items to be donated later to a public school. Thus, in B conditions, choosing an even row exemplified ethical self control. Microcultures comprised 16-18 generations of three participants as one participant was replaced after every 20th cycle. The results demonstrated the effectiveness of cumulative effect in the implementation and maintenance of ethical self-control responses, but only after a long exposure to the macrocontingency. The change in participants across generations may have also contributed to a longer exposure to the contingencies being required for the selection of ethical self-control responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethical self-control is conceived of as self-controlled responding under concurrent contingencies involving (conflicts of) consequences for the individual, and consequences for the group. The study assessed the production of ethical self-control repertoires in laboratory microcultures under four different macrocontingency arrangements. The experiment was held with eleven groups of four college students each. They were exposed to a task that required a choice of odd or even rows in an 8x8 matrix. Odd rows produced higher individual reinforcements and delayed aversive consequences for the group, thus being labeled impulsive selfish choices; even rows produced lower reinforcements for the individual participant, but positive delayed consequences for the group, thus labeled ethical selfcontrolled choices. Each group was exposed to only one condition. In the first condition, each participant was exposed alone to the task, producing high rates of impulsive selfish choices. In the second condition, the four participants were exposed to the task together, with access to one another's choices and being allowed to talk. The result was a high rate of ethical self-controlled choices. In the third condition, participants were exposed to the task together, could talk, but had no direct access to each other's choices, which also resulted in a high rate of ethical self-controlled choices. In the fourth condition, participants were exposed to the task together, but could not talk, and had no access to each other's choices. Results from this experiment show a higher rate of impulsive selfish choices. The data on the four conditions suggest that the possibility of verbal interaction has more effect on the emergence of ethical selfcontrolled responses than access to each other's responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A consensus has been forming among structural social psychologists that most Americans hold beliefs in both individualistic and structural explanations of inequality. Yet, even many who espouse structural beliefs nonetheless emphasize individual-level explanations of inequality to disproportionate extents. This study is aimed to identify common trends in the logic used by a conventional group of Americans – MBA students – to rationalize their more general political and economic beliefs. While a large number of studies have emphasized the prevalence of dominant ideology beliefs, and others have speculated theoretically on how such beliefs are reproduced, this study aims to bring these bodies of work together. I sought to build an initial understanding of how contradictions in Americans' political and economic ideologies are transmuted, and to identify heuristic concepts fundamental to this process. Findings suggest that particular assumptions about human nature serve to "fill" the cognitive "gap" which would otherwise present individuals with insurmountable ambiguities in their ideologies about economic justice. Respondents also reflected some level of awareness of the impact of ideology on their thought processes, even as they accept such processes, and the realities they constitute, as inevitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigating the previously neglected relationship between aging and masculinity in eighteenth-century England, this article examines representations of old men in medical advice literature. Acknowledging that 'politeness' shaped hegemonic codes of masculinity in this period, the article introduces the alternative concept of 'cheerfulness' as a behavioural code for older men. Although in many ways the rhetoric of cheerfulness allowed men to retain a 'polite' identity in later life, the trope also signalled a fundamental distancing of old men from their younger counterparts. This suggests that aging had great potential to affect what it meant to be a 'man' in eighteenth-century terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In three studies we examined the effects of private and public self-awareness on the saliency of behavioral standards. We used several well-known manipulations to test the effects of private or public self-awareness on the activation of behavioral standards. We expected and found that public self-awareness was related to relatively social standards, such as "getting along well" with others, conveying a positive image, and wanting to be accepted. Private self-awareness was related to the relatively individualistic standard to be authentic and even to being different from others. The consequences of these results are discussed in light of previous research. It is argued that it is important to acknowledge that awareness of different self-aspects may increase saliency of distinct behavioral standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of information technology has a significant influence on social structure and norms and also impacts human behavior. In order to achieve stability and social harmony, people need to respect various norms and codes, and have their rights protected. The MIS professional's recognition of ethical values is of critical importance in achieving this goal. In view of the important role played by China in the 21st century, particularly by Mainland China, which represents a hugely significant market to all global enterprises, it is hoped that this study will assist the business world in understanding the culture in which Chinese business is conducted. This paper attempts to make clear how the Confucian ethics and guanxi culture perspective affect the MIS professional's recognition of ethical values. In practice, this study will assist Chinese enterprises in preventing unethical conduct among Chinese MIS professionals in their workplace, and in reducing the negative consequences of such misconduct for the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudios Sociológicos is the property of El Colegio de Mexico AC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica is the property of Fundacion AIGLE and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Diffusion of innovation, as a successful western method that aims at spreading knowledge to change certain socio-economic behavioural attitudes in the context of production and consumption, succeeded in providing an alternative to mainstream communication theories. Despite its advantages in certain social contexts, there is still an urgent need to (re)consider the actual potential of diffusion in changing behaviours and attitudes in communities that does not own yet the optimal socio-economic basis for systematic application of diffusive models. A study of indigenous communities must necessarily focus on anthropological characteristics and hierarchies, in which kinship, sex, age and value system play a decisive role in the flow and (diffusion) of the communication and information. A second aspect, which needs to be highlighted is mainly the size of democratic components in a diffusion model, and its capability to cater for a two-way flow of communication, instead of only systemic persuasion and adoption. There is still a strong need to scrutinise the elements that systematically function to marginalise certain socio-economic and/or socio-political groups in the process of communication due to the systematic one way flow of information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differing from the previous studies, this study proposed a more integrated tourist behavior model by including destination image and perceived value into the “quality–satisfaction–behavioral intentions” paradigm. The structural relationships between all variables with respect to different stages of tourist behaviors were investigated in the study. The results show that destination image have both direct and indirect effects on behavioral intentions. In addition, the path “destination image→trip quality→perceived value→satisfaction→behavioral intentions” appears evident in this study. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Uncertainty reduction theory has been used to explain communication behavior in initial interaction as well as in more developed relationships. An extension of uncertainty reduction theory is predicted outcome value, in which individuals expect affiliation or attraction as a possible outcome during initial encounters. A complete theory of uncertainty reduction and its relation to affiliative outcomes requires an understanding of the relations among three components of any communicative encounter: preinteraction expectancies about another's anticipated communication behavior, the structure of the interaction (e.g., behavioral actions and reactions that evolve over the course of a conversation), and the outcome of uncertainty reduction (e.g., affiliation, more certainty, ambiguity). This essay examines the relations among these communicative components in expectancy-outcome studies in which behavior is ignored, in expectancy-structure studies that link expectancies to behavioral responses, in structure-outcome studies in which behaviors are aligned with postinteraction ratings of affiliation, and in studies that examine the conjoint effect of expectancy and structure on outcome. Uncertainty reduction is viewed as a lifelong cognitive process in which new information is processed, so that there is a vague sense of uncertainty despite accumulated knowledge in given areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Swiss Journal of Sociology / Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A conference paper about the failures in the forecast of behavior from survey responses in the Philippines is presented. It discusses the magnitude of correlation acquired between theoretically corresponding attitude and behavior measures and its relationship to the discrepancies in survey results. It also discusses the magnitude of relationship from Hartshorne and May, and Koyang in Korea.

The article discusses the several mechanisms employed in agitation of a social movement. The author states that agitation can be both a cause and an effect of restlessness and discontent flowing from undesirable manifestations in segments of the social order. He mentions several phases of the mental state which include convergence of perception, softening-up process, and convergence of solutions. Moreover, he emphasizes that an important mechanism used by agitators as a means of transferring identification is called the "enemy-effect."

The author reflects on the connection between people and place, and its relationship to the cultural identity. He states that the book published by Maria T. O'Shea states that there is a bond between people and place or setting, and that egocentrism and ethnocentrism are both traits of human. It also discusses the book by Robert Ardrey about man and his territory. The author suggests that man mysteriously wants to feel his wrong doings to feel right.