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The growing relevance of improvisation for successful organizing calls for a better understanding of how individuals develop improvisation skills. While research has investigated the role of training and simulations, little is known about how individuals develop improvisation skills when formal training is not an option and how individual-level factors shape development trajectories. We explore these issues in a longitudinal qualitative analysis of live action role-playing. Our findings reveal a three-stage process of improvisation development shaped by the presence of task and social structures, which act as both constraints and resources. Moreover, our findings illuminate how collaborative and competitive orientations shape whether improvisers perceive these structures as a resource that they need to nurture and renew (i.e., collaborative) or to seize and exploit (i.e., competitive). We also show that individual orientations are not always enduring but can change over time, engendering four types of improvisation development trajectories. Our work provides a longitudinal account of how individual orientations shape the process of improvisation development. In so doing, we also explain why individuals who are skilled improvisers do not necessarily improvise effectively as a collective, and we reconcile different conceptualizations of improvisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Gilbert Ryle, improvisation is a basic feature of ordinary action. In this paper, we take this idea seriously. Action is improvisation, in that it is situated: It is shaped by attentive responses to environmental circumstances. This is a crucial aspect of agency. However, it is neglected by causal theories of action (Bratman; Mele) and only partially addressed by Thompson's process-oriented theory. By resorting to Kant's theory of judgment, we argue for understanding action performance in terms of improvisational shaping of action in situ. The focus on improvisation points to a situated kind of practical rationality entailing the reciprocal shaping of intention and action instead of the ordinary instrumental kind of rationality of action as unidirectionally determined by intention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although much research has investigated why and how impulsive individuals indulge, little research has explored the conditions under which non-impulsive consumers do. This research examines the effects of the salience of the notion “rare,” or low frequency, on the tendency to indulge. The authors find that when the notion of rarity is salient, non-impulsive consumers’ tendency to indulge increases, but it does not affect indulgence tendencies of impulsive consumers. This effect occurs because, for non-impulsives, the actual act of indulging is a relatively rare occurrence—it is something that happens with low frequency. This means that they have formed a strong association between the concepts of rarity and indulgence. Thus, for these individuals, making the concept of rarity salient activates the concept of indulgence. Nine studies provide evidence for this association and its downstream consequences. Contributions emerge for the literatures on impulsivity and self-control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines why and how workers adhere and contribute to the perpetuation of the freedom fantasy induced by neoliberal ideology. We turn to Hannah Arendt's analysis of the human condition, which offers invaluable insights into the mechanisms that foster the erosion of human freedom in the workplace. Embracing an Arendtian lens, we demonstrate that individuals become entrapped in a libertarian fantasy—a condition enacted by the replacement of the freedom to act by the freedom to perform. The latter embodies the survivalist modus operandi of animal laborans (1) who renounces singularity, by focusing on the function of supervised labor, (2) who renounces solidarity, by focusing on individualist and competitive labor, and (3) who is deprived of spontaneity, by focusing on the measured productivity of labor. Therefore, we propose a new corporate governance perspective based on the rehabilitation of political action in organizations as the best way to preserve human capacity for singularity, solidarity, and spontaneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First sex is an important event in an individual's sexual development. Previous literature has, however, primarily investigated first heterosexual sex, overlooking important contextual factors specific to same-sex/gender sexual experiences. Seventeen in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and other sexual minority (LGB+) individuals, ages 18–23 years. Four themes emerged from thematic analysis of reported thoughts, affect, and behavior. First, participants reported difficulty defining sex between same-sex/gender partners, especially women who reported that this undermined their personal relationships and identity. Second, participants met partners through several means; however, it was almost exclusively men who reported meeting their first partners online. Third, motivations for first same sex/gender sex included affirmation of personal sexual identity, sexual exploration, social expectation, and spontaneity. Fourth, participants felt underprepared for their first same-sex/gender sex, noting that their earlier sex and relationship education had not included information on same-sex/gender sex or LGB+ identities. Consequently, participants reported relying on experienced partners and seeking information on the internet, including pornography and social media. Greater cultural representation and more comprehensive sex education that recognizes sexual diversity is needed to better prepare LGB+ young people for early sexual encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from Zambian Facebook platforms, we argue for the complex intersectionality of the global-local semiotic assemblages for the production and consumption of a contested and unpredictable virtual landscape. While 'glocality' is a by-product of an on-going sociolinguistics of globalization, and that the local remains an active partner in the (co-)creation of glocality, the paper sees the virtual platform as a semiotic canvas on which individualized semiotic preferences are expressed within and beyond the pull and push of the sociolinguistics of globalization. The paper takes instances of translanguaging on Facebook as markers of semiotic and linguistic freedoms in which individual agency undercuts the global semiotic flows and goes against the normative expectation to act in an unpredictable way in the face of globalization. We thus argue for the role of assertiveness, spontaneity arising from the shared heritage, bilingualism and 'play' as motivation for the 'messy' yet meaningful virtual landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that spontaneous visual coupling supports frequency entrainment, phase attraction, and intermittent interpersonal coordination when co-actors are switched from a no-vision (NV) to vision (V) context. In two experiments, co-actors started in a NV context while producing the same or different amplitude movements. The same amplitude resulted in similar self-paced frequencies, while different amplitudes resulted in disparate frequencies. In experiment 1, co-actors were instructed to maintain amplitude while receiving no instructions to coordinate their actions. Frequency and phase entrainment was limited in the V context even when co-actors started the NV context with the same amplitude. In experiment 2, co-actors were instructed to maintain amplitude and intentionally coordinate together, but not at a specific pattern. Significant frequency modulations occurred to maintain amplitude as the co-actors sought to coordinate their actions. With the open-ended instructions, co-actors produced in-phase and anti-phase coordination along with intermittent performance exhibited by shifts between a variety of stable relative phase patterns. The proposed hypotheses and findings are discussed within the context of a shared manifold representation for joint action contexts, with the coordination dynamics expressed by the HKB model of relative phase serving to conceptualization the representations in the shared manifold. • Amplitude constrains the dynamics of rhythmic arm motions, with larger movements generating slower self-paced frequencies. • Sudden availability of vision supports spontaneous interpersonal coordination, yet instructions can constrain spontaneity. • Intention overcomes constrains on dynamics of arm motion and supports bistable interpersonal coordination within co-actors. • Intention without specific goals allows co-actors to exhibit flexibility in joint action contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on juxtaposing mass-scale protest movements erupting in summer 2020 in Belarus and Russia's Far East. Topics include common characteristics such as spontaneity, lack of well established leadership, and networking/horizontal structure; and containing mass gatherings and chants, exposure of slogans, organization of pickets, and spontaneous actions of in-group solidarity.

Spontaneity is a term with a wide range of meanings in the architectural and urban context. In principal, two predominant stereotypes of spontaneity have emerged, one related to "informal" architecture, recognized as a condition of material scarcity, and the other to urban actions performed without premeditation, which have been commonly identified as "unplanned". In many disciplines such as sociology, art, music, literature and natural sciences, spontaneous behaviour is largely viewed as a positive quality, identified as a natural process or act. In an architectural context, however, spontaneity is often associated with poor, deprived and dilapidated urban environments. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to determine the significance of spontaneity in the architectural and urban realm as well as its incorporation in the development of the urban landscape. The first part of this paper will focus on the definition of the term and its recognition in architecture, whereby spontaneity is portrayed as a dynamic, open and unmediated concept. Additionally, taking into account the stereotypical interpretations of spontaneous architecture as informal or unplanned, an epistemological paradox will be revealed in the interaction between the architectural project and its realization. By considering the practical example of Skopje, spontaneity is interpreted as the carrier of the city's genetic material and hence incorporated in the methodology for the urban development of Skopje city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes and explains patterns of growth and decline undergone by evangelical, fundamentalist, and Pentecostal/Charismatic (EFPC) denominations in Switzerland from 1970 to 2013. We combine data from different censuses, membership registers of denominations, and a National Congregation Study (NCS) to establish and explain patterns of growth and decline. Our main results are that (1) the overall EFPC milieu has grown since the 1970s; (2) the growth is predominantly caused by a rather strong increase in membership of Pentecostal/Charismatic denominations. In contrast, evangelical denominations are overall rather stable, while fundamentalists seem to be in decline; (3) EFPC growth is not related to deprivation orientation, strictness, or socialization efforts, but to recruitment focus and spontaneity of ritual. We discuss these findings in the light of different theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary Anglophone scholarship on the Zhuangzi 莊子 tends to reject intellectualism, the view that all knowledge is propositional. Scholars usually state that Zhuangzi values practical knowledge more than propositional knowledge. This valuation, however, seems to presuppose that the Zhuangzi or its interpreters must recognize the distinction between these two kinds of knowledge. In this article, I argue that Zhuangzi sees all knowledge as practical, and if we situate him in the contemporary philosophical field we can extract several ideas from the text in arguing against the postulation of propositional knowledge. First, Zhuangzi's idea of spontaneity and forgetting defy attempts to explain our practice in terms of propositional knowledge, because spontaneous acts admit different levels and can be improved by forgetting. Second, Zhuangzi's perspectivism implies that the relationship between our language and the world is not fixed, and there is a theoretical price to pay if intellectualists want to avoid this indeterminacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies the student's perceptions regarding the lack of inhibition, spontaneity and codification of the tasks associated with corporeal expression. The aim was to identify the positive and negative feelings of the students regarding the expressive activities involved in the three phases of the exercise: exploration, expression and communication. The study sample comprised 14 students (22 ± 2,34 years old) of Primary School Teacher Degree at the University of Zaragoza (Spain). The students completed a diary on the eight practical sessions of corporal expression that form part of the physical education module of the primary education teaching degree. A content analysis of the comments made by the students was undertaken. Data was processed using the NVIVO 10 software. Results showed that visual and tactile interaction inhibits expressive commitment, instructions based on metaphors facilitate spontaneous movement and codification of gestures favours the transmission of messages. The results of this study are relevant because they allow for a better understanding of the expressive commitment of the student. This knowledge can be used for the development of pedagogical resources that can generate confidence and improve participation in corporal expression activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the conflict of cultures in James' fiction which is usually dramatized by a typical innocent American who is confronted by characters who represent sophisticated and somewhat crippling European traditions. This does not imply that James is against the observance of social manners. The heroine in Daisy Miller is condemned for being openly a flirt and she dies symbolizing her inability to adapt to European social standards. James is only against dogmatizing social conventions to the extent of restricting the freedom of individuals. Christopher Newman in The American retreats to America avoiding the evil and sophisticated Bellegardes in Paris without compromising his integrity. However, Isabel Archer in The Portrait of a Lady stands the challenge posed by European tradition. She is able to maintain her goodness and confront a world dominated by conventions and evil, although the price is quite high: it is her happiness and spontaneity that she has compromised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well established that engaging paradoxes and the role of space are important aspects of idea work. Although the significance has been recognized, studies that focus on the intersection between space and paradox are scarce. Accordingly, this article explores the intersection and focuses on the role of space in idea work characterized by paradoxes. More specifically, the aim of this article is twofold. First, the article aims at identifying the spatial conditions that enable organization members to think and act paradoxically. Second, the article aims at exploring how spatial conditions evoke a paradoxical way of thinking and doing. Based on three Scandinavian architectural firms, and through abductive inference, four spatial conditions are identified and outlined. The conditions are conceptualized as organized chaos, boundary(less)ness, premeditated spontaneity, and (re)framing. From the results, and through the discussion, the notion of "generative space" is introduced to explain the overall importance of spatiality, as well as how the interrelatedness of the conditions facilitates a paradoxical way of thinking and doing in idea work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Purpose: Relative to normally hearing (NH) peers, the speech of children with cochlear implants (CIs) has been found to have deviations such as a high fundamental frequency, elevated jitter and shimmer, and inadequate intonation. However, two important dimensions of prosody (temporal and spectral) have not been systematically investigated. Given that, in general, the resolution in CI hearing is best for the temporal dimension and worst for the spectral dimension, we expected this hierarchy to be reflected in the amount of CI speech's deviation from NH speech. Deviations, however, were expected to diminish with increasing device experience. Method: Of 9 Dutch early- and late-implanted (division at 2 years of age) children and 12 hearing age-matched NH controls, spontaneous speech was recorded at 18, 24, and 30 months after implantation (CI) or birth (NH). Six spectral and temporal outcome measures were compared between groups, sessions, and genders. Results: On most measures, interactions of Group and/or Gender with Session were significant. For CI recipients as compared with controls, performance on temporal measures was not in general more deviant than spectral measures, although differences were found for individual measures. The late-implanted group had a tendency to be closer to the NH group than the early-implanted group. Groups converged over time. Conclusions: Results did not support the phonetic dimension hierarchy hypothesis, suggesting that the appropriateness of the production of basic prosodic measures does not depend on auditory resolution. Rather, it seems to depend on the amount of control necessary for speech production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is impulse buying? Despite the marketing and lifestyle factors that encourage it today, impulse buying is not yet well understood. This is due in part to the long-standing absence of a compelling conceptualization of this distinctive type of purchasing behavior. This article reviews extant research on impulsive behavior and then introduces a new interpretation of impulse buying. Following this are the results of an exploratory study that investigates the phenomenology of consumers' impulse buying episodes. The research identifies: (1) the subjective experiences that distinguish the onset of the buying impulse, (2) how consumers cope with their impulsive urges to buy, and (3) the types of negative consequences they incur as a result of their impulsive buying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most leisure research does not consider collective action and social change, while most social movement research overlooks carnivality and spontaneity. A counter-example is the alternative bicycling movement critical mass (CM), a rebellious, liberatory leisure and cultural event. CM is goal-oriented and a libidinal expression of participant desire. This paper investigates CM’s production of happiness and freedom via three heterodox theories. Ecstatic rituals are repetitive, cathartic collective events that people engage in to express joy and flaunt convention. Political theories of play interpret individual’s physically-embodied, creative, and performative actions. Temporary autonomous zones are spatial locations of resistance to authority that evade state detection and suppression. CM - unlike standard bike races or conventional movement protest - transcends the limitations of physical exercise, lackadaisical leisure, and militant direct action. Instead it is a hybrid form of collective action, combining premeditated ritual, rebellious play, and mobile freedom-seeking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • A study of moments of attunement and misattunement in DMT workshops with four participants was conducted. • Attunement to self, others and the group as the main domains in DMT. • Attunement is experienced as being in the present moment. • Misattunement results in lack of spontaneity, unpleasant emotions and experiences of exclusion. Abstract Moments of attunement and misattunement were explored in a dance movement therapy workshops. The guiding question was; “how do participants experience moments of attunement and misattunement in dance movement therapy workshops?” The study employed a quasi-experimental design, with phenomenological inquiry, including a two part analysis: Laban Movement Analysis and descriptive grounded theory using coding. Four students of expressive arts therapies attended four experimental dance movement therapy workshops, emphasising the process of mutual attunement. All workshops were video recorded. Based on video movement analysis, key moments of nonverbal attunement and misattunement were selected, and then analyzed within group interviews with participants. The results of the study show that successful attunement in dance movement therapy draws the client’s attention to the present moment; it encourages individual spontaneity, playfulness, and creativity; promotes embodiment, and thus the integration of mind and body. Successful attunement to the other leads to an intersubjective interchange, where two people co-create an intersubjective experience. Successful attunement to the group leads to the experience of oneness with the group. Moments of misattunement trigger unpleasant feelings, and result in a lack of spontaneity, feelings of exclusion, and hinder contact. The limitations of the results should be considered, as the study was done on a small number of participants and in nonclinical experimental setting. Researchers propose a larger study with clinical populations to further investigate the phenomenon of attunement and misattunement in dance movement therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Although parents are acknowledged to be a part of their children's personality and narrative identity and to remain important across the life span, narrative personality research has not yet explored the spontaneous presentation of parents in life stories. Therefore, this study examined longitudinally the place given to parents when crafting one's life narrative and how this changes with age. Furthermore, in contrast to prior studies, we focused on spontaneous mentions of parents.Method: We investigated how often parents are mentioned in life narratives of six age groups spanning from age 8 to 69, how the parental relationship is evaluated, whether narrators express understanding of their parents, and whether they respond to parental values.Results: People of all ages dedicated a substantial part of their life narratives to their parents and evaluated their relationship with them in an increasingly differentiated manner. Parents were increasingly perceived as individuals beyond their parental nurturing role. Until late in life, individuals reflect on values and opinions that were transferred to them by their parents.Conclusions: Parents hold a consistent place in life narratives, emphasizing their importance for narrative identity. Results are discussed in terms of lifelong child-parent relationships. Directions for future research are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Time perspective predicts multiple health, antisocial, and prosocial outcomes, but the factors that explain it are rarely examined. Two studies examined the unique influences of resource amount and stability on time perspective. In both studies, participants (n = 300 college students for Study 1, 167 working adults for Study 2) reported the amount and stability of their income, and their time perspectives. The instability of financial and social resources was associated with present‐fatalistic perspective. The stability of personal resources was associated with future‐planful perspective. Implications for developmental and cognitive theories of risky behavior are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) occur when people infer, without intention or awareness, personality traits from other people’s behaviors. Spontaneous trait transferences (STTs) occur when the trait inferred from the behavior of an actor is erroneously transferred to a person who is not the actor of the behavior. Here, we show that STIs and STTs are similar in the activation of the trait from the behavior and they differ in the link that is established between the inferred trait and the person, with stronger link being created in the STIs than in STTs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the problem of intermodal perception, that of how warranted perception arises of objects having characteristics in multiple sense modalities. It first shows the inadequacy of the currently popular explanations of such perception in terms o f special, innate mechanisms. It proposes instead a phenomenological account in terms o f an infant's general capacities for observation and thought. To this end it prepares the terrain with brief investigations into four topics: spontaneity, non-symbolic thinking, the role of spontaneity in perception, and the lived body. It then traces how an infant may, through spontaneous observations of invariable co-presence and sequence, integrate tactile objects, then tastes, smells, and sounds, and finally, with the help from topological and dynamic congruence, visual objects into a single world with the lived body as centre of orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Looking intently into the underground world of the colliers and imaginatively descending into it, the major British writer of the twentieth century D. H. Lawrence (a coal - miner's son), notes wryly and with amusement the myriad ways the miners use to unsettle the reigning materialistic order driven by excessive cerebration. Lawrence's unique experience of growing up in the close-knit community of miners of Nottingham and around provide him with insight to look at the contemporary scene with sharp critical insight. He not only notes the various positives arising from the close bodily nearness among the miners in the underground mines, but also registers the many ways in which their small acts, gestures and language form a vociferous protest against the overtly rational, ruling western civilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Gestures are spontaneous hand movements produced when speaking. Despite gestures being of communicative significance, little is known about the gestural production in spoken narratives in six- to 12-year-old children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).Aims: The present study examined whether six- to 12-year-old children with ASD have a delay in gestural production in a spoken narrative task, in comparison to their typically-developing (TD) peers.Methods and Procedures: Six- to-12-year-old children with ASD (N=14) and their age- and IQ-matched TD peers (N=12) narrated a story, which could elicit spontaneous speech and gestures. Their speech and gestures were then transcribed and coded.Outcomes and Results: Both groups of children had comparable expressive language skills. Children with ASD produced a similar number of pointing and marker gestures to TD children and significantly more iconic gestures in their spoken narratives. While children with ASD produced more reinforcing gestures than their TD counterparts, both groups of children produced comparable numbers of disambiguating and supplementary gestures.Conclusions: Our findings indicate that children with ASD may be as capable as TD children in gestural production when they engage in spoken narratives, which gives them spontaneity in producing gestures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although impulsivity has been implicated in the development and maintenance of obesity, evidence linking impulsivity to obesity has been mixed. These mixed findings may be related to differences in the type of impulsivity measures used and the varied domains of impulsivity assessed by each measure. The present meta-analysis aimed to examine the impact of measurement selection on the relationship between impulsivity and body mass index (BMP. A total of 142 articles met inclusion criteria and were comprised of 315,818 participants. Effect sizes consisted of Fisher's z-transformed correlation coefficients, which were weighted by the inverse variance to establish the grand mean estimate of the relationship between impulsivity and BMI. Overall weighted mean effect sizes also were computed for each type and domain of impulsivity measure. Moderator analyses were conducted using a mixed-effects approach to determine if the relationship between impulsivity and BMI varied between the types of impulsivity measures used. On average, participants were 32.25 (SD = 12.41) years of age, with a BMI of 26.63 (SD = 5.73) kg/m². The overall relationship between impulsivity and BMI was small but significant (r = .07). Behavioral task measures of impulsivity produced significantly larger effect sizes (r = .10) than did questionnaire measures of impulsivity (r = .05). Domains of impulsivity that assessed disinhibited behaviors (r = .10), attentional deficits (r = .11), impulsive decision-making (r = .10), and cognitive inflexibility (r = .17) produced significant effect sizes. These meta-analytic findings demonstrate that impulsivity is positively associated with BMI and further document that this association varies by the type of impulsivity measure used and the domain of impulsivity assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I try to defend McDowell's empiricism from a certain objection made by Davidson, Stroud and Glüer. The objection states that experiences cannot be reasons because they are-as McDowell conceives them-inert. I argue that, even though there is something correct in the objection (only an accepted content can be a reason), that is not sufficient for rejecting the epistemological character that McDowell attributes to experiences. My strategy consists basically in showing that experiences involve a constitutive attitude of acceptance of their contents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given recent interest in the analysis of naturally produced spontaneous speech, a large database of speech samples from the Canadian Maritimes was collected, processed, and analyzed with the primary aim of examining vowel-inherent spectral change in formant trajectories. Although it takes few resources to collect a large sample of audio recordings, the analysis of spontaneous speech introduces a number of difficulties compared to that of laboratory citation speech: Surrounding consonants may have a large influence on vowel formant frequencies and the distribution of consonant contexts is highly unbalanced. To overcome these problems, a statistical procedure inspired by that of Broad and Clermont [(2014). J. Phon. 47, 47–80] was developed to estimate the magnitude of both onset and coda effects on vowel formant frequencies. Estimates of vowel target formant frequencies and the parameters associated with consonant-context effects were allowed to vary freely across the duration of the vocalic portion of a syllable which facilitated the examination of vowel-inherent spectral change. Thirty-five hours of recorded speech samples from 223 speakers were automatically segmented and formant-frequency values were measured for all stressed vowels in the database. Consonant effects were accounted for to produce context-normalized vowel formant frequencies that varied across time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay offers an initial account of the Occupy Central movements of 2011 and 2014, focusing on the dynamic practices and processes of the two occupations through a comparative perspective. It provides a description of the scenes, demands and relationships of ordinary occupiers at the protest zones and considers the implications of the “leaderless” logic in relation to the organization of popular power. Contrary to the romanticizing notion of a leaderless movement and the celebration of Occupy Central as “a spontaneous one without leaders and without the need of leaders”, I propose that it is necessary to pay attention to the tensions and confrontations taking place within the movements. Although the first Occupy Central “set seeds of possibility, gave a sense of new modes of organizing, of direct democratic expression”, its leadership and organizational problems resurfaced in the second occupy protest. The struggle over the freedom to nominate and elect a leader – as manifested in the second occupy movement – has been paradoxically dismantled by its leaderless propensity. The historical conditions that have facilitated the condition for a “leaderless” and “spontaneous” movement and the consequences engendered by these tendencies deserve a critical analysis. The case of Hong Kong, with all its ambivalence about hierarchy and representation, raises deep questions about the notion of leaderlessness and the privileging of tactics over strategy in the context of the global waves of occupy movements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: To better understand the process of quitting from the ex-smokers' perspective, and to explore the role spontaneity and planning play in quitting.Methods: Qualitative grounded theory study using in-depth interviews with 37 Australian adult ex-smokers (24-68 years; 15 males, 22 females) who quit smoking in the past 6-24 months (26 quit unassisted; 11 used assistance).Results: Based on participants' accounts of quitting, we propose a typology of quitting experiences: measured, opportunistic, unexpected and naïve. Two key features integral to participants' accounts of their quitting experiences were used as the basis of the typology: (1) the apparent onset of quitting (gradual through to sudden); and (2) the degree to which the smoker appeared to have prepared for quitting (no evidence through to clear evidence of preparation). The resulting 2 × 2 matrix of quitting experiences took into consideration three additional characteristics: (1) the presence or absence of a clearly identifiable trigger; (2) the amount of effort (cognitive and practical) involved in quitting; and (3) the type of cognitive process that characterised the quitting experience (reflective; impulsive; reflective and impulsive).Conclusions: Quitting typically included elements of spontaneity (impulsive behaviour) and preparation (reflective behaviour), and, importantly, the investment of time and cognitive effort by participants prior to quitting. Remarkably few participants quit completely out-of-the-blue with little or no preparation. Findings are discussed in relation to stages-of-change theory, catastrophe theory, and dual process theories, focusing on how dual process theories may provide a way of conceptualising how quitting can include elements of both spontaneity and preparation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that at the heart of Kant’s Critical philosophy is the claim that the mind possesses an essentially spontaneous power or capacity (Vermögen). It is also sometimes maintained that Kant’s appeals to this spontaneous power are intimately tied to his recognition of there being a fundamental and irreducible normative dimension to judgement. However, I attempt to complicate this picture by way of appeal to some less appreciated influences upon the development of Kant’s epistemology. A different conception of the role of spontaneity in judgement has clear precedents, I claim, in the works of Cudworth and Rousseau. There the imagined role for the active power of the mind is not to identify criteria that might serve as norms for epistemically responsible judgement. Rather the spontaneous power of the mind is cited as the source of representational contents that secure the truth conditions of our everyday claims to empirical knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This commentary on Kathleen McPhillips’s (this issue) “‘Unbearable Knowledge’” paper looks at implications for theory of the model she uses to analyze collective trauma. While affirming the model’s robustness, it is suggested that it has both theoretical and political ramifications that need to be further spelled out. The commentary ends with several questions regarding the leap from individual to collective trauma. These include the importance of maintaining a steady appreciation of multiplicity, which is foundational to relational psychoanalytic theory; second, the need to appreciate the complexity of dismantling a collective dissociative defense; and finally, the significance of spontaneity in healing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, I examine the television comedy of the late 1960s, with a focus on the duo Konto 55-gō. Through analysis of some of the critical and popular reception of the duo, I argue that their meteoric rise reflected a watershed moment in the history of Japanese television, as the medium discovered an aesthetic that, uniquely its own, positioned the affective alongside the visual. Numerous accounts from the era emphasized the pair's speed, as well as their tendency to disregard the conventions of the industry and characterized their energy as one that seemed to "burst out" from the frame. This reputation, I demonstrate, laid the foundation for a narrative, in which the pair were portrayed as ushering in a new epoch of television. Konto 55-gō, according to this narrative, had overcome the boundaries of the television apparatus and forged a direct and immediate connection with viewers. Exploring several facets of this narrative as well as its resonance with contemporary trends in Japanese television, I consider in conclusion the role that the live audience laughter of Konto 55-gō's performances played within it. Characterized as being as raucous and uncontrollable as the duo itself, that laughter served within the discourse on the pair as both a vehicle for the affective connection that they created with viewers and synecdoche for the sensibilities of a vast mass audience that extended beyond the studio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]