The sources of moral motivation : studies on empathy, guilt, shame and values

The goals of this study were to analyze the forms of emotional tendencies that are likely to motivate moral behaviors, and to find correlates for these tendencies. In study 1, students narratives of their own guilt or shame experiences were analyzed. The results showed that pure shame was more likely to motivate avoidance than reparation, whereas guilt and combination of guilt and shame were likely to motivate reparation. However, all types of emotion could lead to chronic rumination if the person was not clearly responsible for the situation. In study 2, the relations of empathy with two measures of guilt were examined in a sample of 13- to 16-year-olds (N=113). Empathy was measured using Davis s IRI and guilt by Tangney s TOSCA and Hoffman s semi-projective story completion method that includes two different scenarios, guilt over cheating and guilt over inaction. Empathy correlated more strongly with both measures of guilt than the two measures correlated with each other. Hoffman s guilt over inaction was more strongly associated with empathy measures in girls than in boys, whereas for guilt over cheating the pattern was the opposite. Girls and boys who describe themselves as empathetic may emphasize different aspect of morality and feel guilty in different contexts. In study 3, cultural and gender differences in guilt and shame (TOSCA) and value priorities (the Schwartz Value Survey) were studied in samples of Finnish (N=156) and Peruvian (N=159) adolescents. Gender differences were found to be larger and more stereotypical among the Finns than among the Peruvians. Finnish girls were more prone to guilt and shame than boys were, whereas among the Peruvians there was no gender difference in guilt, and boys were more shame-prone than girls. The results support the view that psychological gender differences are largest individualistic societies. In study 4, the relations of value priorities to guilt, shame and empathy were examined in two samples, one of 15 19-year-old high school students (N = 207), and the other of military conscripts (N = 503). Guilt was, in both samples, positively related to valuing universalism, benevolence, tradition, and conformity, and negatively related to valuing power, hedonism, stimulation, and self-direction. The results for empathy were similar, but the relation to the openness conservation value dimension was weaker. Shame and personal distress were weakly related to values. In sum, shame without guilt and the TOSCA shame scale are tendencies that are unlikely to motivate moral behavior in Finnish cultural context. Guilt is likely to be connected to positive social behaviors, but excessive guilt can cause psychological problems. Moral emotional tendencies are related to culture, cultural conceptions of gender and to individual value priorities.

Avoimesti sitoutuneena : Lähetystyö kristillisessä kasvatuksessa ja vapaaehtoistyössä

In this study the junction of Christian mission, Christian education and voluntary work are examined in the Christian student voluntary association Opiskelijain Lähetysliitto (OL), which is the Finnish successor to the Student Volunteer Movement. The main subjects are the structure and content of the mission education as one aspect of Lutheran education and the reasons for expressing the mission interest through voluntary work. The research questions are as follows: What kind of organization has the OL been? What has mission education been like in the OL? Why have the former chairpersons participated in the OL? How have purposiveness and intentionality arisen among the former chairpersons? The study is empirical despite having a historical and retrospective view, since the OL is explored during the period 1972 2000. The data consists of the OL s annual reports, membership applications (N=629) and interviews of all 25 former chairmen. Data is analysed by qualitative and quantitative content analysis in a partly inductive and partly deductive manner. The pedagogical framework arises from situational learning theory (Lave - Wenger 1991), which was complemented with the criteria for meaningful learning (Jonassen 1995), the octagon model of volunteer motivation (Yeung 2004) and the definitions of intentionality and purposiveness in the theory of teachers pedagogical thinking (Kansanen et al. 2000). The analysis of the archive data showed that the activities of the OL are reminiscent of those of the missions of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church congregations. The biggest difference was that all OL participants were young adults, the age group that is the greatest challenge to the Church. The OL is therefore an interesting context in which to explore mission education and mission interest. The key result of the study was the forming of a model of mission educa-tion. The model has three educational components: values, goals and methods. The gist of the model is formed by the goals. The main goal is the arousing and strengthening of mission interest which has emotional, cognitive and practical aspects. The subgoals create the horizontal vertical and inward outward dimensions of the model, which are the metalevels of mission education. The subgoals reveal that societal and religious education may embody a missionary dimension when they are understood as missionary training. Further, a distinction between mission education and missionary training was observed. The former emphasizes the main goal of the model and the latter underlines the subgoals. Based on the vertical dimension of the model the study suggests that the definition of religious competence needs to be complemented with missional competence. Reasons for participating in the OL were found to be diverse as noted in other studies on volunteering and motivating factors, and were typical to young people such as the importance of social relations. The study created new motivational themes that occurred in the middle of the continuity newness and the distance proximity dimensions, which were not found in Yeung s research. Mission interest as voluntary work appeared as oriented towards one s own spirituality or towards the social community. On the other hand, mission interest was manifested as intentional education in order to either improve the community or to promote the Christian mission. In the latter case the mission was seen as a purpose in life and as a future profession. Keywords: mission, Christian education, voluntary work, mission education, mission interest, stu-dent movement

Conditionally One of 'Us' : A Study of Print Media, Minorities and Positioning Practices

This study deals with how ethnic minorities and immigrants are portrayed in the Finnish print media. The study also asks how media users of various ethnocultural backgrounds make sense of these mediated stories. A more general objective is to elucidate negotiations of belonging and positioning practices in an increasingly complex society. The empirical part of the study is based on content analysis and qualitative close reading of 1,782 articles in five newspapers (Hufvudstadsbladet, Vasabladet, Helsingin Sanomat, Iltalehti and Ilta-Sanomat) during various research periods between 1999 and 2007. Four case studies on print media content are followed up by a focus group study involving 33 newspaper readers of Bosnian, Somalian, Russian, and 'native' Finnish backgrounds. The study draws from different academic and intellectual traditions; mainly media and communication studies, sociology and social psychology. The main theoretical framework employed is positioning theory, as developed by Rom Harré and others. Building on this perspective, situational self-positioning, positioning by others, and media positioning are seen as central practices in the negotiation of belonging. In support of contemporary developments in social sciences, some of these negotiations are seen as occurring in a network type of communicative space. In this space, the media form one of the most powerful institutions in constructing, distributing and legitimising values and ideas of who belongs to 'us', and who does not. The notion of positioning always involves an exclusionary potential. This thesis joins scholars who assert that in order to understand inclusionary and exclusionary mechanisms, the theoretical starting point must be a recognition of a decent and non-humiliating society. When key insights are distilled from the five empirical cases and related to the main theories, one of the major arguments put forward is that the media were first and foremost concerned with a minority actor's rightful or unlawful belonging to the Finnish welfare system. However, in some cases persistent stereotypes concerning some immigrant groups' motivation to work, pay taxes and therefore contribute are so strong that a general idea of individualism is forgotten in favour of racialised and stagnated views. Discussants of immigrant background also claim that the positions provided for minority actors in the media are not easy to identify with; categories are too narrow, journalists are biased, the reporting is simplifying and carries labelling potential. Hence, although the will for the communicative space to be more diverse and inclusive exists — and has also in many cases been articulated in charters, acts and codes — the positioning of ethnic minorities and immigrants differs significantly from the ideal.

RRI-GBT MULTI-BAND RECEIVER: MOTIVATION, DESIGN, AND DEVELOPMENT

We report the design and development of a self-contained multi-band receiver (MBR) system, intended for use with a single large aperture to facilitate sensitive and high time-resolution observations simultaneously in 10 discrete frequency bands sampling a wide spectral span (100-1500 MHz) in a nearly log-periodic fashion. The development of this system was primarily motivated by need for tomographic studies of pulsar polar emission regions. Although the system design is optimized for the primary goal, it is also suited for several other interesting astronomical investigations. The system consists of a dual-polarization multi-band feed (with discrete responses corresponding to the 10 bands pre-selected as relatively radio frequency interference free), a common wide-band radio frequency front-end, and independent back-end receiver chains for the 10 individual sub-bands. The raw voltage time sequences corresponding to 16 MHz bandwidth each for the two linear polarization channels and the 10 bands are recorded at the Nyquist rate simultaneously. We present the preliminary results from the tests and pulsar observations carried out with the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope using this receiver. The system performance implied by these results and possible improvements are also briefly discussed.

Phytoplankton periodicity: its motivation, mechanisms and manipulation

This review summarizes some recent work to find a generalized explanation of phytoplankton periodicity in lakes. Much of the observational and experimental evidence is drawn from work centred on the large enclosures (Lund Tubes) installed in Blelham Tarn, English Lake District. Observations on the phytoplankton in the tubes are related to the periodic changes that occur in natural lakes and it is suggested that such changes have common patterns, that they are due to common causes, that they are affected by similar processes and that they are therefore predictable and, potentially, manipulable.

Socioeconomic status, parental support, motivation and self-confidence in youth competitive sport

World Conference on Psychology and Sociology 2012

Intrinsic motivation and design of ICT for the ageing population

Chapter 11 Intrinsic Motivation and Design of ICT for ... Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems provide an increasingly promising platform with which to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare, ...

The Effect of Motivation on Movement: A Study of Bradykinesia in Parkinson's Disease

Background: Bradykinesia is a cardinal feature of Parkinson's disease (PD). Despite its disabling impact, the precise cause of this symptom remains elusive. Recent thinking suggests that bradykinesia may be more than simply a manifestation of motor slowness, and may in part reflect a specific deficit in the operation of motivational vigour in the striatum. In this paper we test the hypothesis that movement time in PD can be modulated by the specific nature of the motivational salience of possible action-outcomes. Methodology/Principal Findings: We developed a novel movement time paradigm involving winnable rewards and avoidable painful electrical stimuli. The faster the subjects performed an action the more likely they were to win money (in appetitive blocks) or to avoid a painful shock (in aversive blocks). We compared PD patients when OFF dopaminergic medication with controls. Our key finding is that PD patients OFF dopaminergic medication move faster to avoid aversive outcomes (painful electric shocks) than to reap rewarding outcomes (winning money) and, unlike controls, do not speed up in the current trial having failed to win money in the previous one. We also demonstrate that sensitivity to distracting stimuli is valence specific. Conclusions/Significance: We suggest this pattern of results can be explained in terms of low dopamine levels in the Parkinsonian state leading to an insensitivity to appetitive outcomes, and thus an inability to modulate movement speed in the face of rewards. By comparison, sensitivity to aversive stimuli is relatively spared. Our findings point to a rarely described property of bradykinesia in PD, namely its selective regulation by everyday outcomes. © 2012 Shiner et al.