Journal articles on the topic 'Beliefs about the world oneself and the future'

Conservation townscape ideas and understandings move with generations and innovations (Fallowwell et.al, 2010). As new generations respond to an electronic and globalised world, daily life and public policy seem to respond to events, often leaving the settings to take care of themselves. Often the only environmental response is to ensure basic facilities, or to enhance for the benefit of an essentially tourist market. The historic context of many decisions is having a hard time. One is not to compliment oneself on a job well done, nor does society often understand what one is doing. It is seen as a desirable commodity for those who can afford it, a significant factor in Western planning perhaps, but modest when faced with community protest for basic facilities. It is somewhat of a luxury, and it is treated as such. Culturally and politically one relies on the shared meanings and understandings behind current public life, and therefore on the landscape, both the green landscape and built settings provide a mental context for one's actions. So when London is mentioned a particular image of London comes to mind. That image might be a complex overlay of television images, personal visits, narrations from relatives, or political events. They all come together and everyone has a different image. The next decision about London, will be based on a combination of those images. The big question remains as to how, and to what degree, should these contexts be conserved, maintained and promoted in contemporary cultural life? The argument in this paper is around the fact that these past remnants are not just for the package holiday visitor, but their presentation serves as an essential, visible text to remind citizens of the origin of their current beliefs and aspirations. They are markers of where one has been. Urban squares, buildings, and routes, and the arrangement of rural land provide the textbook for what is to be retained, retrieved or rejected in the future, they are part of personal encyclopedias. They are often more eloquent and universal in their language than the modern polemic, and ways must be found for re-incorporating them into the thought process of a contemporary population. It is 'thinking differently' by the current generations, as well as the generations that are to follow, that is both interesting as well as very disturbing. Electronic media should be used to learn about place, but it also means that a lot of older ideas need to be re-evaluated with a big task at hand for teachers. The challenge for those who choose to conserve and understand such places is how to integrate them with the current ways of knowing. Keywords: Heritage, Urban Meanings, Culture, Landscape

An optimistic learning bias leads people to update their beliefs in response to better-than-expected good news but neglect worse-than-expected bad news. Because evidence suggests that this bias arises from self-concern, we hypothesized that a similar bias may affect beliefs about other people’s futures, to the extent that people care about others. Here, we demonstrated the phenomenon of vicarious optimism and showed that it arises from concern for others. Participants predicted the likelihood of unpleasant future events that could happen to either themselves or others. In addition to showing an optimistic learning bias for events affecting themselves, people showed vicarious optimism when learning about events affecting friends and strangers. Vicarious optimism for strangers correlated with generosity toward strangers, and experimentally increasing concern for strangers amplified vicarious optimism for them. These findings suggest that concern for others can bias beliefs about their future welfare and that optimism in learning is not restricted to oneself.

This article examines the implications of teachers’ beliefs about knowledge. We compare three epistemological world views we refer to as realist, contextualist, and relativist. An epistemological world view is a set of beliefs about knowledge and knowledge acquisition that influences the way teachers think and make important instructional decisions. We assume that different epistemological world views lead to different choices about curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. We describe ongoing research that examines the beliefs held by teachers, instructional practices, and the consistency between beliefs and classroom practices. We summarize findings from our research and discuss their implications for teacher training. We also consider environmental factors such as school culture and mandated standards that affect teachers’ beliefs. We relate our findings to implications for teacher training. We also identify directions for future research.

The world is complicated, and we hold a large number of beliefs about how it works. These beliefs are important because they shape how we interact with the world. One particularly impactful set of beliefs centers on emotion, and a small but growing literature has begun to document the links between emotion beliefs and a wide range of emotional, interpersonal, and clinical outcomes. Here, we review the literature that has begun to examine beliefs about emotion, focusing on two fundamental beliefs, namely whether emotions are good or bad and whether emotions are controllable or uncontrollable. We then consider one underlying mechanism that we think may link these emotion beliefs with downstream outcomes, namely emotion regulation. Finally, we highlight the role of beliefs about emotion across various psychological disciplines and outline several promising directions for future research.

Maternal mortality remains very high in many parts of the developing world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. While maternal deaths are observable, it may not be straightforward for individuals to learn about risk factors. This paper utilizes novel data on male and female perceptions of maternal risk in Zambia to document that superstitions about causes of maternal mortality are pervasive and to uncover evidence that such beliefs impede learning about maternal health risk levels and correlates. In our data, people who hold traditional beliefs disregard past birth complications completely in assessing future risk, unlike those who hold modern beliefs.

AbstractRecent studies indicate that limited understanding about causes and its potential impacts of climate change and fault beliefs by people across different countries of the world including Turkey is a real challenge. Acceptance of climate change as a real threat, believing its existence, and knowing causes and consequences are very significant for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Therefore, exploring underlying factors shaping or affecting beliefs of people is needed for designing educational interventions for a change in individuals’ attitudes and behaviours. The main purpose of the present study was to explore how and to what extent future time perspective, perceived knowledge about global climate change, and environmental attitudes explain the university students’ beliefs about occurrence, causes and consequences of GCC. A quantitative research was conducted with the participation of one thousand, five hundred and eighty undergraduate students (n=1580) of METU and the data was gathered through Future Perspective Related Beliefs about Global Climate Change Scale. The study findings suggested that ecocentric attitude and perceived knowledge are mainly two influential factors for the undergraduate students’ beliefs about global climate change. Future time perspective’s contribution although low, was found to be significant in beliefs about GCC. The results of this study would shed light to evaluate and improve educational programs and curriculum in higher education, and can be a guide because Turkish literature does not serve any research that seek students’ future time perspective related to global climate change.

AbstractBackground:Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) designates a self-reported cognitive decline despite preserved cognitive abilities. This study aims to explore, in older adults with SCD, the association between intensity of self-reported cognitive complaint and psychological factors including Young's early maladaptive schemas (EMSs) (i.e. enduring cognitive structures giving rise to beliefs about oneself and the world), as well as depression and anxiety.Methods:Seventy-six subjects (69.22 years ± 6.1) with intact cognitive functioning were recruited through an advertisement offering free participation in an intervention on SCD. After undergoing a neuropsychological examination (including global cognition (MMSE) and episodic memory (FCSRT)) and a semi-structured interview to assess depressive symptoms (MADRS), they completed a set of online self-reported questionnaires on SCD (McNair questionnaire), Young's EMSs (YSQ-short form), depression (HADS-D), and anxiety (HADS-A and trait-STAI-Y).Results:The McNair score did not correlate with the neuropsychological scores. Instead, it was highly (r > 0.400; p < 0.005) correlated with trait anxiety and three EMSs belonging to the “Impaired autonomy and performance” domain: Dependence/incompetence, Failure to achieve and Vulnerability to harm or illness. Our final regression model comprising depression, anxiety, and these three EMSs as predictors (while controlling for age, gender, and objective cognition) accounted for 38.5% of the observed variance in SCD intensity.Conclusions:The level of cognitive complaint is significantly associated with Young's EMSs in the category of “Impaired autonomy and performance”. We assume that SCD may primarily be driven by profound long-term inner beliefs about oneself that do not specifically refer to self-perceived memory abilities.

Abstract Active inference is an approach to understanding behaviour that rests upon the idea that the brain uses an internal generative model to predict incoming sensory data. The fit between this model and data may be improved in two ways. The brain could optimise probabilistic beliefs about the variables in the generative model (i.e. perceptual inference). Alternatively, by acting on the world, it could change the sensory data, such that they are more consistent with the model. This implies a common objective function (variational free energy) for action and perception that scores the fit between an internal model and the world. We compare two free energy functionals for active inference in the framework of Markov decision processes. One of these is a functional of beliefs (i.e. probability distributions) about states and policies, but a function of observations, while the second is a functional of beliefs about all three. In the former (expected free energy), prior beliefs about outcomes are not part of the generative model (because they are absorbed into the prior over policies). Conversely, in the second (generalised free energy), priors over outcomes become an explicit component of the generative model. When using the free energy function, which is blind to future observations, we equip the generative model with a prior over policies that ensure preferred (i.e. priors over) outcomes are realised. In other words, if we expect to encounter a particular kind of outcome, this lends plausibility to those policies for which this outcome is a consequence. In addition, this formulation ensures that selected policies minimise uncertainty about future outcomes by minimising the free energy expected in the future. When using the free energy functional—that effectively treats future observations as hidden states—we show that policies are inferred or selected that realise prior preferences by minimising the free energy of future expectations. Interestingly, the form of posterior beliefs about policies (and associated belief updating) turns out to be identical under both formulations, but the quantities used to compute them are not.

ABSTRACTBackground: Despite the increasing prevalence of Alzheimer's disease (AD), very few studies have examined advanced preparation for the possibility of becoming sick with AD, and these few studies indicate a general lack of preparation. This study aimed to expand knowledge regarding preparedness for AD among younger and older Israeli laypersons, and to explore the determinants of such preparedness, in terms of knowledge and beliefs concerning AD.Methods: This study was based on a national representative sample of 632 Israeli laypersons. Participants were interviewed by telephone to assess their preparedness for AD, beliefs related to AD in terms of vulnerability, worry, fear, and perceptions about the importance of planning for the future, and their perceived knowledge of AD.Results: Low levels of preparation for AD were reported, especially among younger participants. Multivariate analyses indicated that for both older and younger participants, taking actual steps to prepare oneself for AD was significantly associated with a general sense of preparedness, and that a general sense of preparedness was associated with perceptions regarding the importance of planning for the future. For older participants, a general sense of preparedness was also associated with greater knowledge of AD.Conclusions: Findings indicate that Israeli laypersons are not preparing for AD, and that attitudes and beliefs play an important role in this preparation. Thus, measures should be taken to emphasize the importance of planning for the future contingency of AD in younger and older persons and to expand the knowledge of older persons regarding the disease.

Abstract Context: Although research has begun to examine perceptions of being on the losing side of politics, it has been confined to electoral politics. The context of health disparities, and particularly the opioid crisis, offers a case to explore whether frames that emphasize racial disadvantage activate loser perceptions and the political consequences of such beliefs. Methods: White survey participants (N = 1,549) were randomized into three groups: a control which saw no news article, or one of two treatment groups which saw a news article about the opioid crisis framed to emphasize either the absolute rates of opioid mortality among whites or the comparative rates of opioid mortality among whites compared to blacks. Findings: Among control group participants, perceiving oneself a political loser was unrelated to attitudes about addressing opioids, whereas those who perceived whites to be on the losing side of public health had a less empathetic response to the opioid crisis. The comparative frame led to greater beliefs that whites are on the losing side of public health, whereas the absolute frame led to more empathetic policy opinions. Conclusions: Perceptions that one's racial group has lost ground in the public health context could have political consequences that future research should explore.

This study examined cross-cultural similarities and differences in beliefs about men and women of the past, present, and future. These dynamic stereotypes, or beliefs that a group's present characteristics differ from its past or future characteristics, correspond to the actual role change experienced by the group ( Diekman & Eagly, 2000 ). Participants in Germany and the United States perceived that women were increasing in their masculine characteristics from the past to the future, whereas they perceived comparatively more stability in men's characteristics. The largest cross-cultural difference stemmed from beliefs about 1950s women, who were perceived as possessing greater positive masculine personality, negative feminine personality, and less feminine physical traits in Germany than in the United States. This greater nontraditionalism of postwar German women reflects their assumption of stereotypically male-dominated roles immediately after World War II. Consistent with social role theory, perceived role nontraditionalism mediated the relationship between time period and levels of gender-stereotypic characteristics.

Social axioms are generalized beliefs about oneself, the social and physical environment, or the spiritual world, and take the form of assertions about the relationship between two entities or concepts (Leung &Bond, 2002). The cross-cultural five factors structure: Social Cynicism, Reward for Application, Social Complexity, Fate Control and Religiosity, has been identified in Greece, while a sixth factor emerged in past studies. The present qualitative study aims it investigating the cultural specific social axioms. 362 students, young and older adults participated in 52 semi-structured interviews and 374 participated in 54 focus groups presenting their social axioms regarding the following topics: work, socio-economic crisis, family, religion, mental health, interpersonal and intergender relationships. According to the findings, the participants seemed deeply concerned with all the aspects of theongoing socio-economic crisis in relation to the unemployment, while family, interpersonal relationships and religion seemed to be critical in supporting Greeks during their everyday life and life planning.

In this study, predictors of post-traumatic stress symptom levels (PTSSL) and post-traumatic growth levels (PTGL) resulting from the experience of violence were investigated. The sample of the study consisted of 514 Gezi Park demonstrators. Participants completed measures assessing stress symptoms, post-traumatic growth, social support and beliefs about the world as well as the open-ended event specific questions. Results showed that being politically active, psychologically prepared and experiencing mild levels of violence were related with decreased PTSSL individually but not in combination as the literature suggested. The two hierarchical regression analyses showed that: (1) PTSSL were predicted by violence exposure levels, perceived social support from significant others and “randomness” and “self-worth” beliefs about the world; (2) PTGL were predicted by violence exposure levels, total amount of time spent at the demonstrations and “benevolence” and “justice” beliefs about the world. These findings suggest that psychological preparedness might be an important variable in violence experience regarding human masses. Also, violence exposure levels and duration of participation seems to be important event- specific variables. Lastly, political activism needs to be more precisely operationalized and measured in future studies.

AbstractBackground:Poor motivation to engage in goal-oriented behavior has been recognized as a hallmark feature of schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SZ). Low drive in SZ may be related to anticipating rewards as well as to poor working memory. However, few studies to date have examined beliefs about self-efficacy and satisfaction for future rewards (anticipatory pleasure). Additionally, few studies to date have examined how these deficits may impact SZ patients’ real world functioning.Method:The present study examined SZ patients’ (n = 57) anticipatory pleasure, working memory, self-efficacy and real world functioning in relation to their negative symptom severity.Results:Results revealed that SZ patients’ negative symptom severity was related to decisions in effort allocation and reward probability, working memory deficits, self-efficacy and anticipatory pleasure for future reward. Effort allocation deficits also predicted patients’ daily functioning skills.Conclusions:SZ patients with high levels of negative symptoms are not merely effort averse, but have more difficulty effectively allocating effort and anticipating pleasure engaging in effortful activities. It may be the case that continuously failing to achieve reinforcement from engagement and participation may lead SZ patients to form certain negative beliefs about their abilities which contributes to amotivation and cognitive deficits. Lastly, our findings provide further support for a link between SZ patients functional daily living skills their effort allocation.

Moral injury emerged within clinical psychology and related fields to refer to a non-physical wound (psychological and emotional pain and its effects) that results from the violation (by oneself or others) of a person’s deepest moral beliefs (about oneself, others, or the world). Originally conceived in the context of warfare, the notion has now expanded to include the morally damaging impact of various non-war-related experiences and circumstances. Since its inception, moral injury has been an intersectional and cross-disciplinary term and significant work has appeared in psychology, philosophy, medicine, spiritual/pastoral care, chaplaincy, and theology. Since 2015, biblical scholarship has engaged moral injury along two primary trajectories: 1) creative re-readings of biblical stories and characters informed by insights from moral injury; and 2) explorations of the postwar rituals and symbolic practices found in biblical texts and how they might connect to the felt needs of morally injured persons. These trajectories suggest that the engagement between the Bible and moral injury generates a two-way conversation in which moral injury can serve as a heuristic that brings new meanings out of biblical texts, and the critical study of biblical texts can contribute to the attempts to understand, identify, and heal moral injury.

The objective of the study is to test a refined measure of attitudes about aging as a multidimensional construct reflective of a relational process that includes personal identity (i.e., beliefs about oneself), social identity (i.e., self-conception based on group membership), and collective identity (i.e., self-conception based on comparison of groups) as well as capturing awareness of ageism and its impact. Researchers refined the Aging Anxiety Scale and recruited a convenience sample of 329 participants via a social media platform. A principal component factor analysis revealed the specification of three latent factors: personal, relational, and collective aging anxiety. Awareness of ageism as a problem in society was lower than awareness of other forms of discrimination, and awareness of the negative impacts of ageism was low. The findings support the incorporation of this new measure of relational aging anxiety as a by-product of social identity and construction in future ageism studies.

A cognitive view of bereavement is outlined which argues that mourners are affected in two realms: (1) their core beliefs about themselves, their world, and the future are altered; (2) they process information differently. Specific beliefs that are salient include self-efficacy, vulnerability, and self-worth. It is also argued that the bereaved process information through their loved-one schema and this accounts for their enduring, intense symptoms. Treatment implications for each of these problem areas are addressed.

Mental disorders are increasingly conceptualized as biomedical diseases, explained as manifestations of genetic and neurobiological abnormalities. Here, we discuss changes in the dominant explanatory accounts of psychopathology that have occurred over time and the driving forces behind these shifts, lay out some real-world evidence for the increasing ascendancy of biomedical explanations, and provide an overview of the types of attitudes and beliefs that may be affected by them. We examine theoretical and conceptual models that are relevant to understanding how biomedical conceptualizations might affect attitudes and beliefs about mental disorders, and we review some empirical evidence that bears on this question. Finally, we examine possible strategies for combatting potential negative effects of biomedical explanations and discuss important conclusions and directions for future research.

Homophobia has been an issue of concern in the world of sport for decades. It has had a negative impact on the world of athletes, coaches, and sport psychology consultants. Both heterosexuals and homosexuals are affected. Homophobia has kept some from striving for excellence while interfering with and hindering some who pursued success in sport. Specialists in sport psychology who claim to care about the development of human potential in sport must be concerned about the impact of homophobia. An honest look at attitudes, beliefs, and values is a necessary step forward if change is to occur. A move in the direction of healthy acceptance of differing sexual preferences is suggested, along with an effective philosophy for doing so. A wish list for the future is included.

In high-stakes resource use struggles currently playing out across the world, different beliefs about economics and "growth-first" regional development underpin decisions and dynamics that have far-reaching consequences. Neoliberalizing political economies rely on the maintenance of particular beliefs associated with these themes, and work to delegitimize and silence alternatives. Thus understanding the beliefs of actors concerning these themes, especially with respect to neoliberal ideas, is key to understanding these sociopolitical struggles. This article uses a combination of literature review, critical discourse analysis and selected fieldwork data to explore the recent debate about coal seam gas (CSG) in Eastern Australia. In particular, it examines the ideas that underlie texts produced by CSG production companies, the Queensland Government, and Lock the Gate (a key group opposed to rapid CSG industry expansion). The analysis indicates that with respect to the above themes, Lock the Gate expresses their opposition to CSG through perspectives that mostly depart from those with a key role in maintaining neoliberalizing political economies. In contrast, the Queensland government and CSG companies, despite each encompassing significant internal diversity, have expressed relatively similar and consistent positions, aligned with neoliberalizing ideas. The article problematizes descriptions of the state government as a neutral arbitrator that can restore balance between the beliefs of gas companies and groups like Lock the Gate, and advances consideration of deeper differences.Key Words: coal seam gas, neoliberalizing discourse, regional development, role of government, Queensland

Purpose This study aims to understand how graduate students in a maker education course discuss beliefs about making and implement these beliefs as pedagogy in their curricular designs. Design/methodology/approach Interview transcripts from seven students were analyzed thematically for conceptions of making and learning. Lesson plans were also coded for elements of making, and the authors compared students’ articulated ideas about making with the practical implementation of making in their designs. Findings Students reflected on the nature of making and the possible benefits and tensions surrounding the use of making for learning. Multiple students discussed benefits for their future learning and careers. Comparisons between interview and lesson plans highlight both successful alignments and key gaps in the application of making principles, including struggles that students encountered when translating their beliefs about making into real-world pedagogy. Research limitations/implications Given the limited sample size, future research should explore the extent to which educators in other contexts encounter similar or different obstacles in their development of maker-focused pedagogies. Practical implications Findings can be used to inform future maker education courses to better support students in successfully translating core principles of making from general beliefs into effective and practical pedagogical strategies. Originality/value Despite widespread interest in combining making with educational spaces, much remains to be understood about the strategies that educators use to integrate elements of making into their pedagogy. This study contributes discussions of the benefits and tensions that maker educators may encounter when blending tenets of making with the needs of formal education.

This article stands for innovative learning opportunities to social inclusion by film education. The theoretical model is a combined structure coming from approaches and projects of social inclusion by film education. The aim is to describe and analyze the film education process in a project outside school. This research is based on a participant observation research conducted on children in a Brazilian slum. Cinema, as other art forms, is a political and ideological tool that can be used with different purposes. Film education is a strong mediator to facilitate transformative learning, changing one’s dysfunctional views and beliefs about oneself and the world by revising their frames of reference (Mezirow & Taylor, 2009). Films have a unique ability to promote empathy towards a role model, and promote resilience in situations similar to those the role model goes through. Furthermore, media, such as films, is capable of reaching people that might otherwise be uninterested (Buckingham, 2007; Gonnet, 2007; Silverstone, 2005; UNESCO, 2013).

Background: The U.S. population is becoming increasingly diverse; however, nursing remains a predominantly Caucasian profession. To promote positive outcomes among diverse patients, nurses must rely on rigorous transcultural research. When conducting research with people different from oneself, knowledge of one’s own values and beliefs is a necessary first step. In Transcultural Nursing Research, a required doctoral course, the first assignment is a reflexive exercise followed by online discussion about one’s personal culture and the origins of values and beliefs. Objectives: To (a) examine students’ responses to a reflexive exercise for evidence of cultural self-awareness, cultural humility, and insights gained and (b) assess the effectiveness of the teaching method.Methods: The setting was online within the Learning Management System (LMS), Blackboard. Participants: The sample consisted of twelve doctoral students enrolled in Transcultural Nursing Research. Methods: Student consent was obtained after course grades were submitted. Data was extracted from the LMS, de-identified, coded, categorized and collapsed into themes.Results: Four themes emerged from the data: “different versus familiar”, “cultural experiences”, “memories” and “reflections and implications”.Conclusions: Posts reflected insight into cultural awareness, values and humility. Students identified growth opportunities for themselves and their children. Suggestions for future education and research are presented.

Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) provide a principled framework for sequential planning in uncertain single agent settings. An extension of POMDPs to multiagent settings, called interactive POMDPs (I-POMDPs), replaces POMDP belief spaces with interactive hierarchical belief systems which represent an agent’s belief about the physical world, about beliefs of other agents, and about their beliefs about others’ beliefs. This modification makes the difficulties of obtaining solutions due to complexity of the belief and policy spaces even more acute. We describe a general method for obtaining approximate solutions of I-POMDPs based on particle filtering (PF). We introduce the interactive PF, which descends the levels of the interactive belief hierarchies and samples and propagates beliefs at each level. The interactive PF is able to mitigate the belief space complexity, but it does not address the policy space complexity. To mitigate the policy space complexity – sometimes also called the curse of history – we utilize a complementary method based on sampling likely observations while building the look ahead reachability tree. While this approach does not completely address the curse of history, it beats back the curse’s impact substantially. We provide experimental results and chart future work.

The concept of “dissociation” covers a rather wide array of psychopathological conditions, ranging from dissociation of consciousness (e.g., post-traumatic conditions), to dissociation of personality, (i.e., multiple personality disorder) and dissociation of the basic structures of the pre-reflexive self (as it is the case with schizophrenic abnormal experiences). I will focus on this last issue and describe the dissociation of time experiences in people with schizophrenia as a characterizing feature of this condition.Schizophrenic persons often describe their sense of temporal reality as: “things to a standstill”, “immobility, but not calm”, “time going back to same moment over and over”, “people like statues”, “frozen moment”, “out of time”, “marmoreal”, “unreal stillness”. Time is fragmented, there is a breakdown in time Gestalt, and an itemization of now-moments. The mere succession of conscious moments as such cannot establish the experience of continuity. Another typical phenomenon is that a revelation is on the verge to happen, the world is on the verge of ending, a new world is coming, one's own life is on the point of undergoing a radical change. The schizophrenic mood can be characterized as the dawn of a new reality, an eternally pregnant now in which what is most important is not present, what is really relevant is not already there, but is forever about to happen. Time in the schizophrenic mood is “a state of suspense”, “pregnant now”, “being is hanging”, “something imminent”, “something… I didn’t know what … was going to happen … between inspiration and expiration”. The main feature of abnormal time experience in schizophrenia is disarticulation – a breakdown of the synthesis of past, present and future. This includes four subcategories: disruption of time flowing, “déjà vu/vécu”, premonitions about oneself and the external world. The integrity of time consciousness is the condition of possibility of the identity through time of an object of perception as well as of the person who perceives it. Abnormal time experience may be related to the manifold of other schizophrenic subjective abnormal experiences and symptoms, including anomalies of phenomenal consciousness (e.g., disintegration of the appearance of external objects and itemization of external world experience), selfhood (e.g., disruption of the implicit sense of being a unified, bounded and incarnated entity), and sociality (e.g., breakdown of one's sense of being naturally immersed in a meaningful flow of social interactions with others).Disarticulation of time experience includes four subcategories. Disruption of time flowing: Patients live time as fragmented. Past, present and future are experienced as disarticulated. The intentional unification of consciousness is disrupted. The present moment has no reference to either past or future. The external world appears as a series of snapshots. Déjà vu/vécu: Patients experience places, people and situations as already seen and the news as already heard. This abnormal time experience entails a disarticulation of time structure as the past is no more distinguishable from the present moment. The already-happened prevails. Premonitions about oneself: patients feel that something is going to happen to them or that they are going to do something. This abnormal time experience entails a disarticulation of time structure as the immediate future intrudes into the present moment. The about-to-happen prevails. Premonitions about the external world: patients feel that something is going to happen in the external world. As the previous one, this abnormal time experience entails a disarticulation of time structure as the immediate future intrudes into the present moment. The about-to-happen prevails.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.

Background: A number of studies have examined beliefs about medicines reuse. Although the practice is prohibited in UK community pharmacy, it does take place elsewhere in the world where it relies on visual checks of returned medicines as an indicator of their quality. One proposal is to integrate sensor technology onto medication packaging as a marker of their quality instead. Our aim was to gauge people’s beliefs about medicines reuse, in an experiment, with or without sensor technology and with or without the promise of visual checks completed by a pharmacist, as experimental conditions, should the practice be sanctioned in the UK in the future. Methods: A between participant study was designed with two independent factors testing the hypothesis that sensors and visual checks would increase pro-medicines-reuse beliefs. A questionnaire was used to measure medicines reuse beliefs and collect qualitative comments. Results: Eighty-one participants took part. Attitudes toward medication offered for reuse, participants’ perceived social pressure to accept the medication, and their intention to take part in medicines reuse all increased with the presence of sensors on packaging and with the promise of pharmacist visual checking, with the former causing a greater increase than the latter, and the combination of both making the greatest increase. People’s qualitative comments explained their concerns about medicines reuse, validating the findings. The use of sensors on medication packaging warrants further investigation if regulators are to consider approving medicines reuse in the UK.

Things change, but the exact point at which they do is often unknown. After how many loveless nights is a relationship “officially” in trouble? After how many happy days has one’s depression “officially” passed? When do recurring patterns in the climate or economy “officially” warrant a response? When is a person’s identity “officially” accepted? Everyday fluctuations in oneself and the social world create ambiguities about when people will diagnose lasting, qualitative change (and therefore act). Recent research documents these tipping points of change as a psychological process, shaped by individual and situational forces. People judge tipping points asymmetrically across valence and asymmetrically across time. Here, I review discoveries and outline future directions in tipping-points research.

Abstract In this article, I discuss the pedagogical interventions I make in the health professions by combining core concepts in medical anthropology with creative writing methods, emphasizing the need for future health professionals to not only think critically about the dominant biomedical epistemologies they have learned, but to also actively imagine creative solutions for the future. Here, the objective is to use creative writing as a tool to stimulate and practice creative thinking as a way of transforming the world we live in, our relationships to our bodies, and complicating the ways in which we think about health and illness. Creative writing exercises that force future health professionals to think outside of their training and to re-inhabit their own bodies and social worlds can have a powerful impact on the culture of medicine, health and illness, and the overall social beliefs and practices surrounding health care. As a medical anthropologist, I teach future health professionals creative writing with a social responsibility component with the intention of transforming our present social world, but also and perhaps more importantly, with the goal of imagining and creating a healthier future.

Educational practice is directly connected with how and what teachers think about the students. In the text are presented the results of researches into common beliefs of students from teaching faculties concerning values in the children’s world. Analyses show worrying tendencies in the way of thinking of future teachers about the students: they perceive them as being passive, very dependent on adults, concentrated on themselves, potentially more prone to harm rather than to good. In the understanding of students, children learn bad values from pathological adults, peers, and the media.

The psychology of religion used to be a small and little known field. Although a few pockets of work in the area were done when Psychology began, it was functionally nonexistent for 1/3 of psychology’s history, and received little attention for most of the rest of it. However, in the past 20 years the field has become vast in scope. It now intersects all subfields of general psychology. Also, the psychology of religion no longer exists only in Western countries. It is now an international field with research being conducted worldwide. This article summarizes this trend and documents psychology of religion in the world and in Brazil as a part of it. The need for a multilevel interdisciplinary approach to research and theory is highlighted, as a way to synthesize knowledge of religiousness cross-culturally and trans-religiously. Future research should invoke a meaningmaking model in order to examine not merely observable religious behaviors, beliefs, or experiences, but their underlying roots, i.e., their meanings and attributions made about them. Such research can help us eliminate barriers between disciplines, cultures, religions, and nations.

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: Stigma has been recognized as a major impediment to accessing mental health care among Vietnamese and Asian Americans (Leong and Lau, 2001; Sadavoy et al., 2004; Wynaden et al., 2005; Fong and Tsuang, 2007). The underutilization of mental health care, and disparities in both access and outcomes have been attributed to a large extent to stigma and cultural characteristics of this population (Wynaden et al., 2005; Jang et al., 2009; Leung et al., 2010; Spencer et al., 2010; Jimenez et al., 2013; Augsberger et al., 2015). People with neurotic or behavioral disorders may be considered “bad” as many Vietnamese people believe it is a consequence of one’s improper behavior in a previous life, for which the person is now being punished (Nguyen, 2003). Mental disorders can also been seen as a sign of weakness, which contributes to ambivalence and avoidance of help-seeking (Fong and Tsuang, 2007). Equally important is the need to protect family reputation; having emotional problems often implies that the person has “bad blood” or is being punished for the sins of his/her ancestors (Herrick and Brown, 1998; Leong and Lau, 2001), which disgraces the entire family (Wynaden et al., 2005). In these cases, public stigma (as opposed to internal stigma) is the primary reason for delays in seeking help (Leong and Lau, 2001). Other research has also highlighted the influences of culture on how a disorder may be labeled in different settings, although the presentation of symptoms might be identical (see Angel and Thoits, 1987). In Vietnamese culture, mental disorders are often labeled điên (literally translated as “madness”). A điên person and his or her family are often severely disgraced; consequently the individuals and their family become reluctant to disclose and seek help for mental health problems for fear of rejection (Sadavoy et al., 2004). Despite the critical role of stigma in accessing mental health care, there has been little work in trying to understand how stigmatizing attitudes towards mental illness among Vietnamese Americans manifest themselves and the influences of acculturation on these attitudes. Some previous work indicated a significant level of mental illness stigma among Vietnamese Americans, and experiences of living in the United States might interact with the way stigma manifests among this population (Do et al., 2014). Stigma is a complex construct that warrants a deeper and more nuanced understanding (Castro et al., 2005). Much of the development of stigma-related concepts was based on the classic work by Goffman (1963); he defined stigma as a process by which an individual internalizes stigmatizing characteristics and develops fears and anxiety about being treated differently from others. Public stigma (defined by Corrigan, 2004) includes the general public’s negative beliefs about specific groups, in this case individuals and families with mental illness concerns, that contribute to discrimination. Public stigma toward mental illness acts not only as a major barrier to care, but can also exacerbate anxiety, depression, and adherence to treatment (Link et al., 1999; Sirey et al., 2001; Britt et al., 2008; Keyes et al., 2010). Link and Phelan (2001) conceptualized public stigma through four major components. The first component, labeling, occurs when people distinguish and label human differences that are socially relevant, for example, skin color. In the second component, stereotyping, cultural beliefs link the labeled persons to undesirable characteristics either in the mind or the body of such persons, for example people who are mentally ill are violent. The third component is separating “us” (the normal people) from “them” (the mentally ill) by the public. Finally, labeled persons experience status loss and discrimination, where they are devalued, rejected and excluded. Link and Phelan (2001) emphasized that stigmatization also depends on access to social, economic, and political power that allows these components to unfold. This study aims to answer the following research questions: (1) how does public stigma related to mental illness manifest among Vietnamese Americans? and (2) in what ways does acculturation influence stigma among this population? We investigate how the 4 components of stigma according to Link and Phelan (2001) operationalized and how they depend on the level of acculturation to the host society. Vietnamese Americans is the key ethnic minority group for this study for several reasons. Vietnamese immigration, which did not start in large numbers until the 1970s, has features that allow for a natural laboratory for comparisons of degree of acculturation. Previous research has shown significant intergenerational differences in the level of acculturation and mental health outcomes (e.g., Shapiro et al., 1999; Chung et al., 2000; Ying and Han, 2007). In this study, we used age group as a proxy indicator of acculturation, assuming that those who were born and raised in the United States (the 18–35 year olds) would be more Americanized than those who were born in Vietnam but spent a significant part of their younger years in the United States (the 36–55 year olds), and those who were born and grew up in Vietnam (the 56–75 year olds) would be most traditional Vietnamese. The language used in focus group discussions (FGDs) reflected some of the acculturation, where all FGDs with the youngest groups were done in English, and all FGDs with the oldest groups were done in Vietnamese. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Data were collected through a set of FGDs and key informant interviews (KIIs) with experts to explore the conceptualization and manifestation of mental illness public stigma among Vietnamese Americans in New Orleans. Six FGDs with a total of 51 participants were conducted. Participants were Vietnamese American men and women ages 18–75. Stratification was used to ensure representation in the following age/immigration pattern categories: (1) individuals age 56–75 who were born and grew up in Vietnam and immigrated to the United States after age 35; (2) individuals age 36–55 who were born in Vietnam but spent a significant part of their youth in the United States; and (3) individuals age 18–35 who were born and grew up in the United States. These groups likely represent different levels of acculturation, assuming that people who migrate at a younger age are more likely to assimilate to the host society than those who do at a later age. Separate FGDs were conducted with men and women. Eleven KIIS were conducted with 6 service providers and 5 community and religious leaders. In this analysis, we focused on mental illness public stigma from the FGD participants’ perspectives. FGDs were conducted in either English or Vietnamese, whichever participants felt more comfortable with, using semistructured interview guides. All interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and translated into English if conducted in Vietnamese. Data coding and analysis was done using NVivo version 11 (QSR International, 2015). The analysis process utilized a Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) approach, a validated and well-established approach to collecting and analyzing qualitative data. CQR involves gathering textual data through semistructured interviews or focus groups, utilizing a data analysis process that fosters multiple perspectives, a consensus process to arrive at judgments about the meaning of data, an auditor to check the work of the research team, and the development of domains, core-ideas, and cross-analysis (Hill et al., 2005). The study was reviewed and approved by Tulane University’s Internal Review Board. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Components of public stigma related to mental illness. The 4 components of public stigma manifest to different extents within the Vietnamese Americans in New Orleans. Labeling was among the strongest stigma components, while the evidence of the other components was mixed. Across groups of participants, Vietnamese Americans agreed that it was a common belief that people with mental disorders were “crazy,” “acting crazy,” or “madness.” “Not normal,” “sad,” and “depressed” were among other words used to describe the mentally ill. However, there were clear differences between younger and older Vietnamese on how they viewed these conditions. The youngest groups of participants tended to recognize the “craziness” and “madness” as a health condition that one would need to seek help for, whereas the oldest groups often stated that these conditions were short term and likely caused by family or economic problems, such as a divorce, or a bankruptcy. The middle-aged groups were somewhere in between. The evidence supporting the second component, stereotyping, was not strong among Vietnamese Americans. Most FGD participants agreed that although those with mental disorders may act differently, they were not distinguishable. In a few extreme cases, mentally ill individuals were described as petty thefts or being violent towards their family members. Similarly to the lack of strong evidence of stereotyping, there was also no evidence of the public separating the mentally ill (“them”) from “us”. It was nearly uniformly reported that they felt sympathetic to those with mental disorders and their family, and that they all recognized that they needed help, although the type of help was perceived differently across groups. The older participants often saw that emotional and financial support was needed to help individuals and families to pass through a temporary phase, whereas younger participants often reported that professional help was necessary. The last component, status loss and discrimination, had mixed evidence. While nearly no participants reported any explicit discriminatory behaviors observed and practiced towards individuals with mental disorders and their families, words like “discrimination” and “stigma” were used in all FGDs to describe direct social consequences of having a mental disorder. Social exclusion was common. Our older participants said: “They see less of you, when they see a flaw in you they don’t talk to you or care about you. That’s one thing the Vietnamese people are bad at, spreading false rumors and discrimination” (Older women FGD). One’s loss of status seemed certain if their or their loved one’s mental health status was disclosed. Shame, embarrassment, and being “frowned upon” were direct consequences of one’s mental health status disclosure and subsequently gossiped about. Anyone with mental disorders was certain to experience this, and virtually everyone in the community would reportedly do this to such a family. “You get frowned upon. In the Vietnamese culture, that’s [a family identified as one with mental health problems] the big no-no right there. When everybody frowns upon your family and your family name, that’s when it becomes a problem” (Young men FGD). This is tied directly to what our participants described as Vietnamese culture, where pride and family reputation were such a high priority that those with mental disorders needed to go to a great extent to protect—“We all know what saving face means” as reported by our young participants. Even among young participants, despite their awareness of mental illness and the need for professional help, the desire to avoid embarrassment and save face was so strong that one would think twice about seeking help. “No, you just don’t want to get embarrassed. I don’t want to go to the damn doctor and be like ‘Oh yeah, my brother got an issue. You can help him?’ Why would I do that? That’s embarrassing to myself…” (Young men FGD). Our middle-aged participants also reported: “If I go to that clinic [mental health or counseling clinic], I am hoping and praying that I won’t bump into somebody that I know from the community” (Middle-aged women FGD). Vietnamese people were also described as being very competitive among themselves, which led to the fact that if a family was known for having any problem, gossips would start and spread quickly wherever they go, and pretty soon, the family would be looked down by the entire community. “I think for Vietnamese people, they don’t help those that are in need. They know of your situation and laugh about it, see less of you, and distant themselves from you” (Older women FGD). Culture and mental illness stigma, much of the described stigma and discrimination expressed, and consequently the reluctance to seek help, was attributed to the lack of awareness of mental health and of mental health disorders. Many study participants across groups also emphasized a belief that Vietnamese Americans were often known for their perseverance and resilience, overcoming wars and natural disasters on their own. Mental disorders were reportedly seen as conditions that individuals and families needed to overcome on their own, rather than asking for help from outsiders. This aspect of Vietnamese culture is intertwined with the need to protect one’s family’s reputation, being passed on from one generation to the next, reinforcing the beliefs that help for mental disorders should come from within oneself and one’s family only. Consequently persons with mental health problems would be “Keeping it to themselves. Holding it in and believing in the power of their friends” (Middle-aged FGD) instead of seeking help. Another dimension of culture that was apparent from FGDs (as well as KIIs) was the mistrust in Western medicine. Not understanding how counseling or medicines work made one worry about approaching service providers or staying in treatment. The habit of Vietnamese people to only go see a doctor if they are sick with physical symptoms was also a hindrance to acknowledging mental illness and seeking care for it. Challenges, including the lack of vocabulary to express mental illness and symptoms, in the Vietnamese language, exaggerated the problem, even among those who had some understanding of mental disorders. It was said in the young men FGD that: “when you classify depression as an illness, no one wants to be sick,… if you call it an illness, no one wants to have that sort of illness, and it’s not an illness that you can physically see…” (Young men FGD). Another young man summarized so well the influence of culture on mental illness stigma: “Us Southeast Asian, like, from my parents specifically has Vietnam War refugees. I think the reason why they don’t talk about it is because it’s a barrier that they have to overcome themselves, right? As refugees, as people who have been through the war… [omitted]They don’t want to believe that they need help, and so the trauma that they carry when they give birth to us is carried on us as well. But due to the language barrier and also the, like, they say with the whole health care, in Vietnam I know that they don’t really believe in Western and Eurocentric medicine. So, from their understanding of how, like from their experience with colonization or French people, and how medicine works, they don’t believe in it” (Young men FGD). One characteristic of the Vietnamese culture that was also often mentioned by our FGD participants (as well as KIIs) was the lack of sharing and openness between generations, even within a family. Grandparents, parents, and children do not usually share and discuss each other’s problems. Parents and grandparents do not talk about problems because they need to appear strong and good in front of their children; children do not talk about problems because they are supposed to do well in all aspects, particularly in school. The competitiveness of Vietnamese and high expectations of younger generations again come into play here and create a vicious cycle. Young people are expected to do well in school, which put pressure on them and may result in mental health problems, yet, they cannot talk about it with their parents because they are not supposed to feel bad about school, and sharing is not encouraged. The Asian model minority myth and the expectations of parents that their children would do well in school and become doctors and lawyers were cited by many as a cause of mental health problems among young people. “Our parents are refugees, they had nothing and our parents want us to achieve this American Dream…. [omitted] It set expectations and images for us…. It was expected for all the Asians to be in the top 10, and for, like a little quick minute I thought I wasn’t going to make it, I was crying” (Yong men FGD). As a result, the mental health problems get worse. “If you’re feeling bad about something, you don’t feel like you can talk about it with anyone else, especially your family, because it is not something that is encouraged to be talked about anyway, so if you are feeling poorly and you don’t feel like you could talk to anybody, I think that just perpetuates the bad feelings” (Middle-aged women FGD). Acculturation and mental illness stigma Acculturation, the degree of assimilation to the host society, has changed some of the understanding of mental illness and stigmatizing attitudes. Differences across generations expressed in different FGDs indicated differences in perceptions towards mental illness that could be attributed to acculturation. For example, the young generation understood that mental illness was a health problem that was prevalent but less recognized in the Vietnamese community, whereas a prominent theme among the older participants was that mental illness was a temporary condition due to psychological stress, that it was a condition that only Caucasians had. Some of the components of public stigma related to mental illness seemed to vary between generations, for example the youngest participants were less likely to put a label on a person with mental health problems, or to stereotype them, compared to the oldest and middle-aged participants. This was attributed to their education, exposure to the media and information, and to them “being more Americanized.” However, there was no evidence that acculturation played an important role in changing the other components of public stigma, including stereotyping, separating, and status loss and discrimination. For example, the need to protect the family reputation was so important that our young participants shared: “If you damage their image, they will disown you before you damage that image” (Young men FGD). Young people, more likely to recognize mental health problems, were also more likely to share within the family and to seek help, but no more likely than their older counterparts to share outside of the family—“maybe you would go to counseling or go to therapy, but you wouldn’t tell people you’re doing that” (Young women FGD). The youngest participants in our study were facing a dilemma, in which they recognized mental health problems and the need for care, yet were still reluctant to seek care or talk about it publicly because of fears of damaging the family reputation and not living up to the parents’ expectations. Many young participants reported that it actually made it very difficult for them to navigate mental health issues between the 2 cultures, despite the awareness of the resources available. “I think it actually makes it harder. Only because you know to your parents and the culture, and your own people, it’s taboo, and it’s something that you don’t talk about. Just knowing that you have the resources to go seek it… You want advice from your family also, but you can’t connect the appointment to your family because you’re afraid to express that to your parents, you know? So I think that plays a big part, and knowing that you are up and coming, but you don’t want to do something to disappoint your family because they are so traditional” (Young men FGD). Some participants felt more comfortable talking about mental health problems, like depression, if it was their friend who experienced it and confided in them, but they would not necessarily felt open if it was their problem. Subtle cultural differences like this are likely overlooked by Western service providers. One older participant summarized it well “They [the young generation] are more Americanized. They are more open to other things [but] I think that mental health is still a barrier.” DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: This study investigated how different components of public stigma related to mental illness manifest among Vietnamese Americans, a major ethnic group in the United States, and how acculturation may influence such stigma. The findings highlighted important components of public stigma, including labeling and status loss, but did not provide strong evidence of the other components within our study population. Strong cultural beliefs underlined the understanding of mental health and mental illness in general, and how people viewed people with mental illness. Several findings have been highlighted in previous studies with Asian immigrants elsewhere; for example, a study from the perspectives of health care providers in Canada found that the unfamiliarity with Western biomedicine and spiritual beliefs and practices of immigrant women interacted with social stigma in preventing immigrants from accessing care (O’Mahony and Donnelly, 2007). Fancher et al. (2010) reported similar findings regarding stigma, traditional beliefs about medicine, and culture among Vietnamese Americans. Acculturation played a role in changing stigmatizing attitudes as evidenced in intergenerational differences. However, being more Americanized did not equate to being more open, having less stigmatizing attitudes, or being more willing to seek care for mental health issues. Consistent with previous studies (Pedersen and Paves, 2014), we still found some level of stigma among young people aged 18–35, although some components were lessened with an increased level of acculturation. There was also a conflict among the younger generation, in which the need for mental health care was recognized but accessing care was no easier for them than for their parent and grandparent generations. The study’s findings are useful to adapt existing instruments to measure stigma to this population. The findings also have important program implications. One, they can be directly translated into basic supports for local primary and behavioral health care providers. Two, they can also be used to guide and inform the development and evaluation of an intervention and an additional study to validate the findings in other immigrant ethnic groups in the United States. Finally, based on results of the study, we can develop a conceptual framework that describes pathways through which social, cultural, and ecological factors can influence stigma and the ways in which stigma acts as a barrier to accessing mental health care among Vietnamese Americans. The guiding framework then can be validated and applied in future programs aimed to improve mental health care utilization among ethnic minorities.

Discussed is influence of global processes on development of the individual and society involved in the new world created by modern technologies. This world was supposed to become a “paradise” for everyone living on Earth, but every year humanity's anxiety about its near future is felt, the number of local conflicts and social protests is increasing. Traditional values today are becoming an archaic monument, they are replaced by new ones. They blur the boundaries and, in fact, disorient the modern person, which causes the problem of identification of the individual and society in the context of global integration. Each of us is like a drowning man, for whom a raft (embodying fundamental values) is the only salvation, but its absence in the raging sea of information and many subcultures does not leave the hope that, sooner or later, the person in distress will again find a quiet and peaceful life. As a person (“I”) to “find oneself”, not allowing to replace «my» with “ alien”, and society (“We”) to become free, thanks to the preservation of its cultural and historical space, while not losing unity with the global world? We present our own vision of this issue, relying on futuristic models created by philosophers of the 20th century as a symbolic “time capsule” for future generations.

BackgroundHealthy older adults report greater well-being and life satisfaction than their younger counterparts. One potential explanation for this is enhanced optimism. We tested the influence of age on optimistic and pessimistic beliefs about the future and the associated structural neural correlates.MethodEighteen young and 18 healthy older adults performed a belief updating paradigm, measuring differences in updating beliefs for desirable and undesirable information about future negative events. These measures were related to regional brain volume, focusing on the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) because this region is strongly linked to a positivity bias in older age.ResultsWe demonstrate an age-related reduction in updating beliefs when older adults are faced with undesirable, but not desirable, information about negative events. This greater ‘update bias’ in older age persisted even after controlling for a variety of variables including subjective rating scales and poorer overall memory. A structural brain correlate of this greater ‘update bias’ was evident in greater grey matter volume in the dorsal ACC in older but not in young adults.ConclusionsWe show a greater update bias in healthy older age. The link between this bias and relative volume of the ACC suggests a shared mechanism with an age-related positivity bias. Older adults frequently have to make important decisions relating to personal, health and financial issues. Our findings have wider behavioural implications in these contexts because an enhanced optimistic update bias may skew such real-world decision making.

ABSTRACTObjective:The objective of this study was to examine the religious/spiritual beliefs of followers of the five major world religions about frequently encountered medical situations at the end of life (EoL).Method:This was a systematic review of observational studies on the religious aspects of commonly encountered EoL situations. The databases used for retrieving studies were: Ovid MEDLINE In-Process & Other Non-Indexed Citations, Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid EMBASE, Ovid PsycINFO, Ovid Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Ovid Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Scopus. Observational studies, including surveys from healthcare providers or the general population, and case studies were included for review. Articles written from a purely theoretical or philosophical perspective were excluded.Results:Our search strategy generated 968 references, 40 of which were included for review, while 5 studies were added from reference lists. Whenever possible, we organized the results into five categories that would be clinically meaningful for palliative care practices at the EoL: advanced directives, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, physical requirements (artificial nutrition, hydration, and pain management), autopsy practices, and other EoL religious considerations. A wide degree of heterogeneity was observed within religions, depending on the country of origin, level of education, and degree of intrinsic religiosity.Significance of results:Our review describes the religious practices pertaining to major EoL issues and explains the variations in EoL decision making by clinicians and patients based on their religious teachings and beliefs. Prospective studies with validated tools for religiosity should be performed in the future to assess the impact of religion on EoL care.

The explication of the Christian hope of resurrection requires Christianity to spell out the way in which God actually deals in the world. Only if we succeed, with regard to past, present, and future, in making the talk of God’s special action in history plausible, are we able to reasonably assert essential Christian beliefs. Yet due to past horrors, present ongoing suffering, and a future that promises of little else, it is precisely this talk that has become doubtful. This article tries to describe God’s action as a process enabling freedom and love in order to develop a theodicy-sensitive speech about God’s action.

The impact of climate change and the demand of people for water resources are dramatically increasing. In order to protect water supply in the world, it is essential to develop individuals’ sustainable water consumption behaviors. Teachers play a key role in fostering students’ beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviors about sustainable water consumption. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore pre-service teachers’ sustainable water consumption behaviors using the Value-Belief-Norm theory. 481 pre-service teachers completed a questionnaire measuring sustainable water consumption behavior, universal values, personal norms and beliefs that were categorized as awareness of consequences and ascription of responsibility. The results revealed that the Value-Belief-Norm theory could successfully explain sustainable water consumption behaviors of pre-service teachers. The study revealed that personal norm was a strong predictor to explain sustainable water consumption behavior. Mediation analysis confirmed the causal order of the variables in the model. In other words, personal norms mediated the relationship between ascription of responsibility and sustainable water consumption behavior; ascription of responsibility mediated the relationship between awareness of consequences and personal norms; awareness of consequences mediated the relationship between biospheric-altruistic values and ascription of responsibility; and lastly, personal norms mediated the relationship between biospheric-altruistic values and sustainable water consumption behavior. The results have important implications for education programs and environmental program designers. Through designing water conservation education programs, teachers and students’ sustainable water consumption behaviors can be fostered by strengthening their biospheric-altruistic values, environmental beliefs and personal norm to act for the environment.

Pakistan is one of the only two countries in the world where poliomyelitis virus is still not eradicated. Efforts from government such as Expanded Programme on Immunizations (EPI), which has received ample international funding, have not been successful as some sub-sections of population have a negative attitude towards vaccinations. These people generally belong to areas with a lack of education as well as strong influence of religious leaders, who are known to perpetuate misconceptions that the purpose of vaccinations is to sterilize future generations, they are not made from halal products, or are an agenda by Western intelligence agencies to gather information. Also, there are other cultural and social barriers, such as lack of female vaccinators and concerns about their handling. The stance of local people is compared with Muslim leaders and laws of other Islamic countries. Furthermore, a global vaccine confidence survey is discussed to evaluate Pakistan’s position in the broader context.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of moral conversations (MCs) within the context of youth justice as a potential resource for the process of change towards desisting from crime among a group of young offenders. It is centred on engagement with the perceptions and values of youth offenders in seeking to engage and work effectively with them, to consider in what ways the art of MCs and using askesis or practice to develop oneself can enable or constrain young people in their endeavours. Design/methodology/approach – Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 40 young offenders to ascertain their beliefs and values in relation to their attitude to offending. Findings – The research found that an examination of an individual’s worldview through a MC enables practitioners to identify the potential and motivation for change. It can identify both the enablers and barriers to change, and elicit a young person’s real attitudes to offending. Crucially, the research found that through this process individuals can begin to think more about the possibility of transformation and the steps needed to modify their offending behaviour, in order to move away from crime and to begin to implement an alternative future. Research limitations/implications – The research is based on a small sample of 40 young offenders. However, the findings suggest that further research should be conducted in this area. Social implications – The research raises questions about how the issue of beliefs and values in relation to young offenders is navigated within the youth justice system. Originality/value – The research examines an area of research that is often neglected and which has previously received little attention. The findings are of interest for academics and practitioners concerned with recidivism and the factors that contribute to changes in behaviour for young offenders.

The Maternal Interactive Beliefs Questionnaire (Johnston and Wong, 2002) assesses maternal beliefs about children’s language development. This study investigated the psychometric properties of a Persian translation of this questionnaire. The translation followed the protocol of the World Health Organization. Psychometric properties were evaluated using data from 301 Iranian mothers of children aged two to five years. The internal consistency and test–retest reliability of the total scores were calculated for comparative purposes, and an exploratory factor analysis was conducted to determine the underlying structure. A principal component analysis revealed two components (accounting for 14.46% and 7.57% of the variance, respectively). The first component represented supportive maternal beliefs. The second component represented directive maternal beliefs. Cronbach’s alpha for components one, two and the total scores were acceptable (0.73, 0.71, and 0.73, respectively), and the test–retest reliability of the total score was high (intra-class correlation coefficient = 0.97). Consistent with previous research, the findings indicated that the translated survey is reliable to be used with Iranian mothers. The novel finding is that the survey has two underlying and theoretically plausible components; therefore, the use of a total scale score is cautioned. We recommend future testing of the two components.

ABSTRACTInnovative methods to manage frailty are critical to managing the needs of an ageing population. Evidence suggests there are opportunities to reverse or prevent frailty through early intervention. However, little is known about older adults’, families’ and practitioners’ beliefs about the malleability of frailty. This study examined European stakeholders’ accounts of the acceptability and feasibility of frailty screening and prevention to inform future intervention development. Semi-structured focus groups and individual interviews were conducted in three European Union countries (Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom) with key stakeholders – frail and non-frail older adults, family care-givers, and health and social care professionals. Thematic analysis identified four themes: synchronicity between the physical and the psychological in frailty, living with frailty in the social world, the need for a new kind of care, and screening for and preventing frailty. Findings emphasised the need for a holistic approach to frailty care and early intervention. Integrated care services and advocacy were important in the organisation of care. Central to all stakeholders was the significance of the psychological and social alongside the physical elements of frailty and frailty prevention. Support and care for older adults and their family care-givers needs to be accessible and co-ordinated. Interventions to prevent frailty must encompass a social dimension to help older adults maintain a sense of self while building physical and psychological resilience.

Objective. The aim of this research was a comparative analysis of culture beliefs about Russia’s, Eastern and Western civilizations among the youth of Moscow City. Background. Civilization identity is the a basic constituent in forming of individual’s image of the world. Understanding and acceptance of civilization’s cultural particularities helps to save personal and social identity’s stability. But understanding of differences from other civilizations and comparison with them is no less important. Study design. The study examined the relationship between the various components of the cultural representations of civilizations. The presence and nature of the relationship was checked through correlation, qualitative and content analysis. Participants. 200 people (43% of men, 57% of women) from 18 to 2 years old, students of creative universities in Moscow, studying under the training programs for future media workers. Measurements. The study was carried out by the method of questioning, including the associative method, the method of unfinished sentences, closed and open questions. Results. The research’s results proved the hypothesis that culture beliefs of Russia’s youth are qualitatively different for each of the presented civilizations. Besides, the research discovered differences related to gender. Russia’s and Eastern civilizations turned out to be the closest for male according to the research’s results, and for female — Russia’s and Western civilizations respectively. Conclusions. There is a qualitative difference between the cultural ideas of Russian, Western and Eastern civilizations among Russian youth.

Lucretius' primary didactic aim in De Rerum Natura (DRN) is to teach his readers to interpret the world around them in such a way as to avoid the formation of false beliefs. The price of failure is extremely high. Someone who possesses false beliefs is liable to experience fear (of the gods, or of death, or both), and so will not be able to attain the state of tranquillity that, for Epicureans, constitutes the moral end. Equipping readers with sufficient knowledge always to form true beliefs about the phenomena they encounter thus serves no less a purpose than the enabling of their future happiness. This paper is concerned with how Lucretian intertextuality contributes to this primary didactic aim. For reasons to be explained below, I will focus on Lucretian engagement with the texts of Greek and Roman drama. I will show that allusions to drama in DRN, rather than functioning simply as ‘honey on the rim of the cup’, make a direct contribution to Lucretius' ethical project, teaching readers how to respond rationally to the full variety of their cultural experience.

The timing of thoughts and perceptions plays an essential role in belief formation. Just as people can experience in-the-moment perceptual illusions, however, they can also be deceived about how events unfold in time. Here, we consider how a particular type of temporal distortion, in which the apparent future influences “earlier” events in conscious awareness, might affect people’s most fundamental beliefs about themselves and the world. Making use of a task that has been shown to elicit such reversals in the temporal experience of prediction and observation, we find that people who are more prone to think that they predicted an event that they actually already observed are also more likely to report holding delusion-like beliefs. Moreover, this relationship appears to be specific to how people experience prediction and is not explained by domain-general deficits in temporal discrimination. These findings may help uncover low-level perceptual mechanisms underlying delusional belief or schizotypy more broadly and may ultimately prove useful as a tool for identifying those at risk for psychotic illness.

Lullabies are essentially sung for their soothing nature but, as this article shows, they have other important functions. One of the most important of these is that lullabies may provide much-needed language stimulation with important long-term consequences for future learning. This paper begins the work of addressing the dearth of scholarly research on lullabies, especially in the Yoruba (Nigeria: Niger-Congo) culture. It looks at the range of themes, dictions, and prosody that are intertwined to reveal Yoruba beliefs and world-views about children, starting with their time in the womb. The study uses a descriptive survey method to analyse data collected through participant observation. It shows that Yoruba lullabies not only offer insights into Yoruba cultural beliefs but also depend greatly on figurative expression and prosodic systems. These rich literary qualities identify lullabies as the earliest sub-genre of children's poetry.

This paper challenges both rationalist and constructivist approaches in explaining China’s foreign policy behavior toward multilateral institutions after the Cold War. Borrowing insights from socialization theory and operational code analysis, this paper suggests a ‘superficial socialization’ argument to explain China’s pro-multilateralist diplomacy after the Cold War. Using operational code analysis to examine belief changes across three generations of Chinese leadership and on different occasions, we argue that China’s pro-multilateralist behavior is a product of ‘superficial socialization’, in which Chinese foreign policy elites change their beliefs about the outside world and regarding the future realization of their political goals in multilateral institutions. However, Chinese policy makers have not changed their instrumental beliefs regarding strategies even in multilateral institutions. China is indeed socialized through multilateral institutions, but its scope is still far from the ‘fundamental socialization’ stage when states’ interests, preferences, and even identities change.

This study explores gender values and beliefs among Latino and African American men with diabetes and examines how these values and beliefs may influence their health behaviors. Participants were recruited from individuals who participated in one of three Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health Detroit Partnership diabetes self-management interventions. One focus group was conducted with African American men ( n = 10) and two focus groups were conducted with Latino men ( n = 12) over a 3-month period. Sessions lasted 90 minutes, were audiotaped, and analyzed using thematic content analysis techniques. Two themes emerged that characterize gender identity and its relationship to health behavior in men: (a) men’s beliefs about being men (i.e., key aspects of being a man including having respect for themselves, authority figures, and peers; fulfilling the role as breadwinner; being responsible for serving as the leader of the family; and maintaining a sense of chivalry) and (b) influence of gender values and beliefs on health behavior (i.e., the need to maintain a strong image to the outside world, and the need to maintain control of themselves served as barriers to seeking out and engaging in diabetes self-management behaviors). Results suggest that gender values and beliefs may have implications for how health behaviors among men with diabetes. Future research should study the direct impact masculine identity has on health behaviors among men with diabetes.

Religion has been in general neglected or even seen as a taboo subject in organizational research and management practice. This is a glaring omission in the business and society and business ethics literatures. As a source of moral norms and beliefs, religion has historically played a significant role in the vast majority of societies and continues to remain relevant in almost every society. More broadly, expectations for responsible business behavior are informed by regional, national, or indigenous cultures, which in many parts of the world are heavily influenced by religious belief systems and religious institutions. In this essay, we discuss examples of how religion has functioned as a macro social force affecting business and society, discuss some of the key questions and issues related to research in this domain, offer some observations about why religion may be problematic with regard to its effects on business, and conclude by summarizing the articles contained in the special issue.

We investigated how belief in a just world (i.e., that people get what they deserve) affects the perceived injustice of dying young versus dying old. Younger and older adult participants completed a measure of their just world beliefs and then were randomly assigned to read one of four newspaper articles purportedly about a person who died in an automobile accident. In the articles, both the victim's age (19 or 79) and the victim's outlook on life (concerned about the future or living for today) were varied. Results indicated that participants viewed the death of a younger victim as more unjust than the death of an older victim. Older adults, however, experienced less negative affect than did younger adults when reading the article. Older adults also expressed a higher belief in a just world (BJW) than did younger adults. In addition, BJW was related to perceived justice. Participants with a higher BJW perceived the deaths of both victims as more tragic and unjust than did those with a low BJW. The victim's outlook on life did not affect perceived justice. Implications for medical decision-making, the use of aggressive treatment, and the relative value of youth versus age are discussed.

Given poorer health and higher rates of chronic disease seen in Indigenous populations around the world and the evidence linking exercise with health and wellbeing, recommendations for encouraging and increasing Indigenous people’s participation in physical activity are needed. This paper systematically reviews published qualitative research papers exploring issues related to the perspectives of Indigenous Australians around physical activity. Key terms relevant to attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions of Indigenous Australians on physical activity and sport were explored in 11 electronic bibliographic databases including EMBASE, Medline and Web of Science. Of the 783 studies screened, eight qualitative studies met the selection criteria; only one was exclusively undertaken in a rural setting. Four major themes emerged: family and community, culture and environment, sport, and gender differences. Men highlighted sport and going on walkabout as preferred types of physical activity while women preferred family-focused activities and activities and support for women's sport. Several studies found exercise was supported when in the context of family and community but was considered shameful when done only for oneself. Sport was regarded as playing an influential role in bringing communities together. Group, community, or family activities were desired forms of physical activity with the environment they are conducted in of high importance. These findings should inform future research and intervention programs aimed at addressing the physical activity levels of Indigenous Australians and may be relevant to other Indigenous populations.