Moral expansiveness: Examining variability in the extension of the moral world

The nature of our moral judgments—and the extent to which we treat others with care—depend in part on the distinctions we make between entities deemed worthy or unworthy of moral consideration— our moral boundaries. Philosophers, historians, and social scientists have noted that people’s moral boundaries have expanded over the last few centuries, but the notion of moral expansiveness has received limited empirical attention in psychology. This research explores variations in the size of individuals’ moral boundaries using the psychological construct of moral expansiveness and introduces the Moral Expansiveness Scale (MES), designed to capture this variation. Across 6 studies, we established the reliability, convergent validity, and predictive validity of the MES. Moral expansiveness was related (but not reducible) to existing moral constructs (moral foundations, moral identity, “moral” universalism values), predictors of moral standing (moral patiency and warmth), and other constructs associated with concern for others (empathy, identification with humanity, connectedness to nature, and social responsibility). Importantly, the MES uniquely predicted willingness to engage in prosocial intentions and behaviors at personal cost independently of these established constructs. Specifically, the MES uniquely predicted willingness to prioritize humanitarian and environmental concerns over personal and national self-interest, willingness to sacrifice one’s life to save others (ranging from human out-groups to animals and plants), and volunteering behavior. Results demonstrate that moral expansiveness is a distinct and important factor in understanding moral judgments and their consequences.

Theories of moral education and implementation in Indonesia: Re-energizing cultural identity and addressing future challenges

School is regarded as a site of moral training for the younger generation to encounter nation’s future challenges as well as to re-energize nation’s cultural identity. The more competitive global society led by free market trade in terms of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), requires the school to adapt and change its curriculum more frequently. Like many other countries, Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture has introduced and nurtured universal values and traditional values respectively through school curriculum reforms to develop students’ ability to participating in global society. This paper will describe classical and contemporary theories related to moral education that have been implemented in Indonesia’s school curriculum and school activities. The theories developed by Durkheim, Alastair MacIntyre, and Basil Bernstein will be discussed. This includes explaining how far the theories have been adopted in Indonesia and how the approaches are currently being used in Indonesian schooling. This paper suggests despite the implementation of those theories in Indonesian schools, the government needs to optimise the operation of those theories to gain significant outcomes.

Pimeä hehku : Satanismi ja saatananpalvonta 1990-luvun suomalaisessa nuorisokulttuurissa

Satanism in the Finnish Youth Culture of the 1990s The aim of this study was to investigate Satanism among Finnish youth in the 1990s. Thematic interviews of young Finnish Satanists are the basic material of this study. The research employs a theoretical framework derived from narrative psychology and the role-theoretical thinking of Dan P. McAdams. The young Satanists in Finland have been divided into two different groups: the criminal and drug using "devil-worshipping gangs"; and the more educated and philosophically oriented "Satanists" (Heino 1993). What can we say about this division? In the 1990s around Finland, there were young people calling themselves as devil- worshippers (either singular or in groups). They were strongly committed to a mythical devilish and cosmic battle, which they believed was going on in this world. They had problems with their mental health, also in their family socialization and peer groups. In their personal attitudes they were either active fighters or passive tramps. There were also rationally oriented young Satanists, that were ritually active and mainly atheistic. They strongly expressed their personal experiences of being individual and of being different than others. In their personal attitudes they were critical fighters and active survivors. They saw their lives through the satanistic 'finding-oneself experience'. They understood themselves as a "postmodern tribe" (Michel Maffesoli's sosiocultural concept): their sense of themselves was that of a dynamic collectivity which is social, dynamic, nonlocal and mythically historical. Death and black metal culture in the 1990s formed a common space for youth culture, where young individuals could work out their feelings and express their attitudes to life using dark satanic themes and symbols. The sense of "otherness" (also other than satanic) and collective demands for authenticity were essential tools that were used for identity work here. Personal disengagement from satanic/satanistic groups were observed to be gradual or quite rapid. Religious conversions back-and-forth also accured. At the end of the 1990s all off satanism in Finland bore a negative devil-worshipping stigma. Ritual homicide in South-Finland (Kerava/Hyvinkää) was connected to Satanism, which then became unpopular both in the personal life stories and alternative youth cultural circles at the beginning of the 2000s.

Christianity and Christian Identity in the Gospel of Philip (NHC II,3)

Previous scholarship has often maintained that the Gospel of Philip is a collection of Valentinian teachings. In the present study, however, the text is read as a whole and placed into a broader context by searching for parallels from other early Christian texts. Although the Valentinian Christian identity of the Gospel of Philip is not questioned, it is read alongside those texts traditionally labelled as "mainstream Christian". It is obvious from the account of Irenaeus that the boundaries between the Valentinians and other Christians were not as clear or fixed as he probably would have hoped. This study analyzes the Valentinian Christian Gospel of Philip from two points of view: how the text constructs the Christian identity and what kind of Christianity it exemplifies. Firstly, it is observed how the author of the Gospel of Philip places himself and his Christian readers among the early Christianities of the period by emphasizing the common history and Christian features but building especially on particular texts and traditions. Secondly, it is noted how the Christian nature of an individual develops according to the Gospel of Philip. The identity of an individual is built and strengthened through rituals, experiences and teaching. Thirdly, the categorizations, attributes, beliefs and behaviour associated on the one hand with the "insiders", the true Christians, and, on the other, with outsiders in the Gospel of Philip, are analyzed using social identity theory the insiders and outsiders are described through stereotyping in the text. Overall, the study implies that the Gospel of Philip strongly emphasizes spiritual progress and transformation. Rather than depicting the Valentinians as the perfect Christians, it underlines their need for constant change and improvement. Although the author seeks to clearly distinguish the insiders from the outsiders, the boundaries of the categories are in fact fluid in the Gospel of Philip. Outsiders can become insiders and the insiders are also in danger of falling out again.

We can close the Indigenous nutrition gap – here’s how

After years of neglect and a notable absence in last week’s Closing the Gap report, nutrition is finally being recognised as integral to closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage. This belated realisation is puzzling, given poor diet is a major cause of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease and some cancers. Nutrition is particularly poor in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, where it is estimated that at least 19% of the burden of disease is due to poor diet; much more than due to smoking...

Reflexivity and self-care for creative facilitators: Stepping outside the circle

Those who work with others to explore new and creative ways of thinking about community and organizational participation, ways of engaging with others, individual well-being and creative solutions to problems, have a significant role in a cohesive society. Creative forms of learning can stimulate reflexive practices of self-care and lead to enhanced relationships and practices both personally and professionally. We argue that those who facilitate such practices for others do not always practice their own self-care, which potentially leads to burnout and disillusionment. This research sought to explore understandings and practices of self-care with such facilitators in order to develop resources or techniques to support more sustainable professional identities. A key finding is that reflexive processes are most effective and transforming when shared as a social practice.

State Agent, Identity and the "New World Order" : Reconstructing Polish Defence Identity after the Cold War Era

National identity signifies and makes state s defence- and foreign policy behaviour meaningful. National consciousness is narrated into existence by narratives upon one s own exceptionalism and Otherness of the other nations. While national identity may be understood merely as a self-image of a nation, defence identity refers to the borders of Otherness and issues that have been considered as worth defending for. As national identities and all the world order models are human constructions, they may be changed by the human efforts as well; states and nations may deliberately promote communitarian or even cosmopolitan equality and tolerance without borders of Otherness. The main research question of the thesis is: How does Poland constitute herself as a nation and a state agent in the current world order and to what extent have contextual foreign and defence policy interactions changed the Polish defence identity during the post-Cold War era? The main empirical argument of the thesis is: Poland is a narrated idea of a Christian Catholic nation-state, which the Polish State, the Catholic Church of Poland, the Armed Forces of Poland as well as a majority of the Polish nation share. Polish defence identity has been almost impenetrable to contextual foreign and defence policy interactions during the post-Cold War era. While Christian religious ontology binds corporate Poland together, allowing her to survive any number of military and political catastrophes, it simultaneously brings her closer to the USA, raises tensions in the infidel EU-context, and restrains corporate Poland s pursuit of communitarian, or even cosmopolitan, global equality and tolerance. It is not the case that corporate Poland s foreign and defence policy orientation is instinctively Atlanticist by nature, as has been argued. Rather, it has been the State s rational project to overcome a habituated and reified fear of becoming geopolitically sandwiched between Russian and German Others by leaning on the USA; among the Polish nation, support for the USA has been declining since 2004. It is not corporate Poland either that has turned into a constructive European , as has been argued, but rather the Polish nation that has, at least partly, managed to emancipate itself from its habituation to a betrayal by Europe narrative, since it favours the EU as much as it favours NATO. It seems that in the Polish case a truly common European CFSP vis-à-vis Russia may offer a solution that will emancipate the Polish State from its habituated EU-sceptic role identity and corporate Poland from its narrated borders of Otherness towards Russia and Germany, but even then one cannot be sure whether any other perspective than the Polish one on a common stand towards Russia would satisfy the Poles themselves.

Patterns of support in an online community for smoking cessation

Social support offers various benefits for health and behaviour change. However, previous work has shown that individuals are typically reluctant to ask for support on social network sites, unless they can present a changed, healthier identity. To examine the relationship between stage of change and social support we conducted a thematic analysis of messages posted in a public Facebook support group for people trying to quit smoking. Our findings show that the kind of support exchanged online is related to participants' stage of change. Contrary to our expectations, supportive responses and leadership in the support group came mainly from users who just started their change process rather than people who had already changed. We discuss contributions to theories of online participation and impression management as well as implications for practitioners who seek to establish support groups.

Displaying and celebrating the "other": A study of the mission, scope, and roles of ethnic museums in Los Angeles

In the last thirty years, ethnic museums have mushroomed in American cities. Although this is certainly a national phenomenon, it has been particularly evident in Los Angeles. In this paper we examine the genesis and evolution of these emerging institutions. We survey the mission, scope, and role of ethnic museums in Los Angeles, and we contrast them with the stated mission and scope of “mainstream” museums in the city. We further present case studies of three Los Angeles ethnic museums. The museums vary considerably in the ways they perceive their role in the community, the city, and the nation and in the preservation and display of ethnic culture. At their best, ethnic museums serve to make new art and histories more accessible and visible and provide a forum in which to debate contemporary issues of politics and identity. The paper highlights some of the tensions faced by ethnic museums as they seek to define their audience and role(s) in multi-ethnic, twenty-first century Los Angeles.

Reconstituting identity and history in post-war Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina

This paper by Carl Grodach demonstrates the careful unravelling of complexity, diversity, contestation and contradictions involved in the reconstruction of symbolic urban spaces after violent conflict, and the allied processes of cultural reinterpretation, political reconfiguration and material revaluation which accompany it. The paper analyses the reconstruction and redevelopment of the 16th-century historic centre of Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, following the Bosnian Wars of 1992–1995. Reconstruction efforts centre around Stari Most, the 16th-century Ottoman bridge destroyed by Bosnian Croat military in 1993. In Mostar, both international and local organizations are in the process of reinterpreting Bosnia’s legacy of Ottoman city spaces. This research and analysis illuminates how such spaces can be central to contemporary projects to redefine group identities and conceptions of place. It provides insight into the ways various groups are attempting to reshape outside perceptions of the city—and Bosnia’s ethnic conflict—to articulate a new definition of local identity and ethnic relations and to remake a stable tourist economy through Mostar’s urban spaces.

Functional dissection of alternative secretory pathways in the yeast S. cerevisiae

Eukaryotic cells are characterized by having a subset of internal membrane compartments, each one with a specifi c identity, structure and function. Proteins destined to be targeted to the exterior of the cell need to enter and progress through the secretory pathway. Transport of secretory proteins from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) to the Golgi takes place by the selective packaging of proteins into COPII-coated vesicles at the ER membrane. Taking advantage of the extensive genetic tools available for S. cerevisiae we found that Hsp150, a yeast secretory glycoprotein, selectively exited the ER in the absence of any of the three Sec24p family members. Sec24p has been thought to be an essential component of the COPII coat and thus indispensable for exocytic membrane traffic. Next we analyzed the ability of Hsp150 to be secreted in mutants, where post-Golgi transport is temperature sensitive. We found that Hsp150 could be selectively secreted under conditions where the exocyst component Sec15p is defective. Analysis of the secretory vesicles revealed that Hsp150 was packaged into a subset of known secretory vesicles as well as in a novel pool of secretory vesicles at the level of the Golgi. Secretion of Hsp150 in the absence of Sec15p function was dependent of Mso1p, a protein capable of interacting with vesicles intended to fuse with the plasma membrane, with the SNARE machinery and with Sec1p. This work demonstrated that Hsp150 is capable of using alternative secretory pathways in ER-to-Golgi and Golgi-to-plasma membrane traffi c. The sorting signals, used at both stages of the secretory pathway, for secretion of Hsp150 were different, revealing the highly dynamic nature and spatial organization of the secretory pathway. Foreign proteins usually misfold in the yeast ER. We used Hsp150 as a carrier to assist folding and transport of heterologous proteins though the secretory pathway to the culture medium in both S. cerevisiae and P. pastoris. Using this technique we expressed Hsp150Δ-HRP and developed a staining procedure, which allowed the visualization of the organelles of the secretory pathway of S. cerevisiae.

Are We The One?

A collaborative, performative and relational experience for two people, woven together by a custom digital phone App. Two walkers, who have never met, simultaneously use a phone App to record a personalised walk around their locality, crafting a series of special moments and surprises for each other. The App then allows participants to continue their two walks, but now directed by what the other person has just created for them. Finally, at the end of the experience they can then choose whether they would like to actually meet in person. Based loosely on the idea of a date, each participant is initially asked to give a little bit of personal information, and then actually speak volumes about themselves through how they choose to care for their 'date's future experience. After walking in parallel universes, but never far away from each other, both daters can ultimately choose to then meet in person -- if what they have experienced tells them that maybe "We Are The One".

The death of newspapers: Have we reached the tipping point?

News Corp’s only substantial competitor in the print journalism sector may be on the brink of giving up the ghost, as has long been speculated even by its natural supporters such as Beecher. If it does, hundreds more jobs will go, along with the many hundreds of experienced, skilled journalists and editors already shown the door by the company.