Attitudinal Patterns Research Articles

The role of Confucian values in Korean administrative culture: a cultural-contextual perspective

ABSTRACT The Korean administrative culture and its philosophy have been developed through the philosophical underpinnings of religious and spiritual practices of Confucianism. This paper argues how, as an administrative culture, Confucian tradition has significantly impacted Korean bureaucrat’s and citizens’ behavioural and attitudinal patterns. The managerial values developed by Western countries still could not be absorbed and integrated with Korean administrative culture due to the strong ethical and cultural Confucian values. However, in contemporary times, there is a diminishing trend of public service motivation and an erosion of public trust towards public officials in Korea. Many aspects of bureaucracy have been standardised regardless of their applicability in the cultural context. Although the rule of law remains the universally accepted mode of governance, understanding the contextual or situated specificity of the role of religion in Asia Pacific states is significant as the world is reverting to traditions and culture. The conclusion offers that in rendering public services, public values shape the ethics or moral standards of the bureaucrats. The morality of Confucian values and ethics can complement in Korea’s public organisational behaviour and religion, which could be a way to achieve an impersonal ethical code in modern public governance.

Using Latent Class Analysis to Enhance Students' Positive Attitudinal Patterns in Mathematics

This study aimed to identify latent classes among Grade 8A – 8D students at Statefields School, Incorporated (SSI) during the 2023–2024 school year to enhance teaching-learning and promote positive attitudes toward Mathematics. The respondents completed the Mathematics Self-Efficacy and Anxiety Questionnaire (MSEAQ), developed by May D. (2017) for her Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Michigan, via Google Forms. Results indicated that a five-class model optimally fits the attitudinal patterns of the students. The latent classes, derived through Latent Class Analysis (LCA), were Class 1 (Math Anxiety), Class 2 (Growth Mindset), Class 3 (Competitive Achiever), Class 4 (Self-Efficacy), and Class 5 (Enthusiasm). Among the 143 respondents, most students were categorized in Class 4 (Self-Efficacy), indicating a high prevalence of self-efficient attitudes. Conversely, students in Class 1 (Math Anxiety) require educators who can proactively foster excitement about math and help them develop confidence as successful problem solvers.

The lexical divide: propositive modes and non-agentic attitudes define the progressive left in Chile

Internal factors-such as psychological traits or individual attitudes-relate to and explain political cleavages. Yet, little is known about how locus of control, agency, and modal attitudes impact political ideology. Utilizing textual analysis within the context of the Chilean 2015 constituent process, we go beyond traditional survey methods to explore community clusters in “Values” and “Rights” networks built upon the deliberation of 106,000 people. Our findings reveal distinct attitudinal patterns across political orientations: the progressive left generally exhibits a more propositive and non-agentic attitude, the traditional left adopts an evaluative stance towards values, and the right-wing community leans towards a factual attitude but shifts to an evaluative stance when discussing rights. These results underscore the role of psychological constructs in shaping political ideologies and introduce textual analysis as a robust tool for psychological and political inquiry. The study offers a comprehensive understanding of the complexities of political behavior and provides a new lens through which to examine the psychology of political ideology.

Bisexual erasure and homophobia: attitudinal patterns under consideration of sexual identity

With the increasing visibility of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer and other (LGBTQ+) individuals, sociological debates about attitudes towards the group and their intergroup dynamics have intensified. This article investigates the link between factors explaining homophobia and negative attitudes towards bisexuals, often referred to as ‘biphobia’ or ‘bisexual erasure’, using original data collected in August 2021 from Germany (N = 1,342). The study reveals that while factors influencing homophobia and favouring bisexual erasure are similar, they are not identical. Our findings indicate that when bisexual (N = 72) and homosexual (N = 70) individuals are grouped together, they exhibit lower levels of homophobia compared to heterosexuals (N = 1,200). However, we find no significant difference between them and heterosexuals regarding bisexual erasure. This effect is primarily driven by homosexuals’ prejudice towards bisexuals. Furthermore, bisexuals, in comparison with homosexuals, are less likely to disagree with the notion that homosexuals are less capable of being good parents than heterosexuals.

Europeanised Attitudes, Nationalised Communication? Evidence on the Patterns behind Political Communication Output in Brussels

Studies of a communication deficit in the European Union (EU) have hardly taken a systematic look at the site where most of the political communication output is being created: within the elite bubble of EU politicians and correspondents in Brussels. This study builds on the communication culture approach to describe and explain the basic attitudinal patterns of EU politicians and journalists who critically shape the political communication output coming out of Brussels that is being consumed by European citizens. Based on a survey with more than 300 participating politicians and journalists, this study demonstrates that the internationalised communication context in Brussels reduces differences between the attitudes of actors from professional and national groups. We demonstrate that there is a tendency toward common elitist attitudes, complemented by a highly negative view of the public and a cynical mode of political communication. However, we observe predominantly national contact networks in Brussels and partly differing attitudes among some sub-groups of politicians and journalists, reflecting the partly conflicting national configurations of the European political and media system and the principal-agent relationships of EU politicians and journalists with their constituencies and media outlets.

The attitudinal space framework: Embracing the multidimensionality of attitudinal diversity

Attitude polarization describes an increasing attitude difference between groups and is increasingly recognized as a multidimensional phenomenon. However, a unified framework to study polarization across multiple dimensions is lacking. We introduce the attitudinal space framework (ASF) to fully quantify attitudinal diversity. We highlight two key measures-attitudinal extremization and attitudinal dispersion-to quantify across- and within-group attitudinal patterns. First, we show that affective polarization in the US electorate is weaker than previously thought based on mean differences alone: in both Democrat and Republican partisans, attitudinal dispersion increased between 1988 and 2008. Second, we examined attitudes toward wolves in Germany. Despite attitude differences between regions with and without wolves, we did not find differences in attitudinal extremization or dispersion, suggesting only weak attitude polarization. These results illustrate how the ASF is applicable to a wide range of social systems and offers an important avenue to understanding societal transformations.

KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE OF HEALTHCARE ETHICS AMONG DOCTORS WORKING IN SELECTED HOSPITALS OF PAKISTAN: AN ONLINE SURVEY

In healthcare professionals should possess sufficient knowledge of ethics and they should practice ethics with positive attitudes. However, review of literature shows that the healthcare ethics are neglected inside Pakistan. Keeping this in mind, this study has examined knowledge level, attitude type and nature of practice regarding Healthcare Ethics among doctors working in selected hospitals of Pakistan. Using the Cross-sectional design, data was collected from (n=544) doctors through an online self-reported questionnaire. Data were analyzed over descriptive and inferential statistics. The results revealed that doctors possessed sufficient knowledge about healthcare ethics. For such reasons, the doctors had adopted good ethical practices. Knowledge level, attitudinal patterns & types of practices varied according to sociodemographic characteristics. Also, sociodemographic variables were significantly associated with three dimensions of Healthcare Ethics. Findings obtained from this study have provided valuable insights regarding status of healthcare ethics in Pakistan. This study concludes that continuous emphasis should be made on increasing awareness about the healthcare ethics in Pakistan.

Shadow Spaces for Water Stress Adaptation: Supplemental Irrigation Application in Rainfed Fig Production

AbstractThe horticultural management of rainfed fig orchards under water stress conditions has developed using supplemental irrigation (SI) strategy. Diffusion of SI technology requires dealing with orchardists’ demands. The aim of this descriptive survey research was to investigate factors contributing to the SI application by fig growers under semi‐arid conditions. Orchard‐system, demographic features, attitudinal patterns, and economic characteristics of fig growers were assessed to identify the characteristics that lead to, or detract from SI application adoption, when rainfall is insufficient for normal plant growth. The sampling frame contained 377 out of 7,530 fig orchard addresses in Estahban region, southern Iran. Results revealed that higher yield, fruit quality including fruit size (as an indicator for fruit weight), and color of fig fruit were the most important components influencing fig growers’ perception of SI usefulness. SI technology adopters and non‐adopters indicated statistically different results in terms of average income and number of trees. The current research can benefit policymakers, researchers, farmers, water associations, etc. in determining the appropriate supplemental irrigation amount and time, and will be of significant value in water supply planning and higher agricultural productivity, considering the limited water resources.

Profiles of Attitudes Toward Dating Abuse and Association with Subsequent Adolescent Relationship Abuse.

This study investigates variation in adolescent attitudes regarding dating violence under different conditions, the association of these conditional attitudes with subsequent adolescent relationship abuse (ARA), and youth and parent-reported characteristics associated with youth attitudes. The sample consists of 607 youth, as a subset from those who responded to a nationally representative longitudinal survey of dating violence. A latent class analysis identified three profiles of attitudinal patterns: No Tolerance for Hitting Partners (NT), Some Tolerance for Hitting Partners (ST), and High Tolerance for Hitting Partners (HT). The HT profile predicted subsequent physical (compared to the NT profile), sexual ARA perpetration (compared to both the NT and the ST profiles), and physical ARA victimization (compared to the NT profile). The ST profile predicted subsequent psychological ARA perpetration and victimization (compare to the NT profile). Results inform youth dating violence prevention programs to reduce ARA and intimate partner violence by changing youth attitudes toward dating violence.

Cynicism, Denialism, and Fatalism: The Triple Pandemism of Covid-19 Conspiracy Theories

Humanity is under siege with Covid-19. Whilst the crisis aggravates, the world is also grappling with yet another challenge - a global misinformation conundrum. This arises from the spread of contagious conspiracy theories that obfuscate understanding the pandemic at best. Incidentally, the conspiracy theories have gone as viral as Covid-19 itself, spreading just as swiftly digitally as the virus does physically. The outcome has been a spectrum of attitudinal patterns, ranging from cynicism and skepticism to outright denialism and fatalism. Using a conversational analysis that is predicated on extant literature and personal insights, the paper examines the import of conspiracy theories as a major complication of the Covid- 19 challenge. The paper posits that the theories have produced narratives and attitudinal outcomes that not only misrepresent the pandemic but also complicate its mitigation.

Knowledge, Attitudes, and Perceptions of the Greek Population Regarding the COVID-19 Pandemic during the National Lockdown (March 23–May 03, 2020): A Web-Based Cross-Sectional Study

Introduction: The study assessed the knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions toward the COVID-19 pandemic during the total lockdown of spring 2020 in Greece. Methods: A web-based cross-sectional study was conducted from April 13 to May 5, 2020 using snowball sampling method. Adult residents of Greece anonymously completed an online survey that was distributed through email and social media. Demographic questions, questions regarding the knowledge about the disease etiology, diagnosis and prevention, and questions related to the respondents’ attitude and perception toward the restriction measures and the confidence in different kinds of institutions were included in the survey items. The appropriate statistical analyses were conducted according to the type of variable and the research question. Results: A total of 1396 fully complete questionnaires were collected. A moderate-high knowledge about COVID-19 was found in the study population (median 74.8%). The highest knowledge scores were found in females (74.8%, p = 0.015), individuals over 60 years old (77.3%, p < 0.001) and individuals having completed post-secondary or tertiary education (76.5%, p < 0.001). Five attitude patterns toward the pandemic were identified: “trust in institutions”, “trust in the restriction measures”, “trust in media and the internet”, “trust in traditional institutions”, and “measures deniers”. Age, education, and knowledge score were the factors defining the attitudinal patterns revealed. Conclusion: Education and public awareness seem to be the factors defining the successful management of the pandemic’s first wave in Greece. Repeated observations of attitudinal patterns are important for eliminating irresponsible behaviors in periods of health crises.

Mapping citizens' attitudes towards soil ecosystem services: A case study from New South Wales, Australia.

Soils deliver multiple ecosystem services (ES) that are essential for life on Earth, such as – among others - water and climate regulation, nutrient cycling, and biomass production. Understanding society's perception of the benefits provided by soils can provide valuable insights regarding the human-nature relation. However, despite soil's many contributions to human well-being, little is known about the social aspects of the ecosystem and the way society feels connected to it. Here, we contribute to addressing this issue by investigating the attitudes and perceptions of citizens of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, towards soil ES through the use of items drawn from the Norm Activation Model (NAM) and The New Environmental Paradigm scale (NEP). We found that citizens are highly concerned about environmental issues and have strong moral obligation values to contribute to soil conservation, which suggests high connectivity between citizens and soil. We explored the spatial distribution of the attitudes and found that people living in proximity to each other perceive similar benefits from the ecosystem and exhibit similar trends of attitudinal patterns. We also identified that people's connectivity to soil might depend on the level of exposure to agricultural activities and socioeconomic characteristics. Our findings contribute to the connectivity dimension of the Soil Security framework, constitute a step further to assess and map soil from a social perspective, and provide crucial information for governments and policy-makers to develop policies that promote sustainable use of soils.

Generalized Prejudice: Lessons about social power, ideological conflict, and levels of abstraction

ABSTRACT Prejudices tend to come as a package deal; people who are more racist tend to also be more sexist, and so on. Documentations of such attitudinal patterns – generalised prejudice – have a rich history, but the theoretical understanding thereof has been lagging. In recent years, we have seen clear theoretical advancement in the understanding of this phenomenon. We discuss classic premises in this research along with newer research that challenges some of the most ingrained ideas about generalised prejudice. For instance, we discuss research challenging the notions that generalised prejudice is an “us” versus “them” phenomenon, as well as a product of conservative ideology. We further argue that prejudice generalisations need to be studied at different levels of abstraction. Finally, we propose integrative perspectives on generalised and target-specific prejudice, with greater emphasis on processes of generalisation, rather than static generalised prejudice factors.

Death on the Page, Rebirth on the Screen: Literature Between Translation and Adaptation, Ghassan Kanafani's Men in the Sun as a Case Study

This research provides a comparative study between Hilary Kilpatrick's English translation and Tawfiq Saleh's film adaptation ʾ Al-Makhduʿun ( The Duped) of Ghassan Kanafani's Men in the Sun. Drawing on Narrative and Appraisal theories, this research investigates the ideological disparity between Kilpatrick and Saleh's approaches to Kanafani's text by examining their respective attitudinal stance and patterns of narrative (re)framing in relation to three dimensions: politics, religion, and culture. The research, thus, accentuates the ways in which the translator's identity, with its nexus of associated values, can reshape and reconfigure both narratives and reality by producing hegemonic or resistant translations. In doing so, the study, from a postcolonial perspective, aims to redirect the attention toward the ‘vertical’ power dynamics in and of translation, in addition to exposing the varying, often subtle, levels of negotiation, manipulation and intervention such politically loaded narratives, especially contested narratives, experience in translation. In fact, combining literary translation with adaptation reveals how narratives of the same objet d'art are creatively interpreted and re-negotiated differently when the translation medium involves visuals.

Directly observing household food waste generation using composition audits in a Canadian municipality.

This study complements a previous study that combined household survey data with weights of curbside separated organics in the residential sector (Parizeau et al., 2015). Our findings reinforce the need for the collection of detailed observational data in household food waste audits. We revisited some households from the original study and a new set of households in order to conduct compositional audits on all three streams of waste, and to combine these results with survey data. In the compositional audits, we observed an average food waste per capita of 1.64kg per week, and avoidable food waste per capita of 1.05kg per week. Overall, 64% of wasted food was avoidable. The highest proportions of total and avoidable food waste came from fruits and vegetables (63%; 59%), followed by bread products (14%; 22%). Combining the compositional audits with survey data, we confirmed some of the behavioural and attitudinal patterns assessed in our previous study, including that household composition, food awareness, waste awareness, and convenience lifestyles may impact household food waste generation rates. Individual household audits provide greater insight into food waste generation than do curbside weights.

The effects of digital media upon labor knowledge and attitudes: a study of Chinese labor subjectivity in a vocational training school

ABSTRACT Existing studies on digital media and labor seldom pay attention to youth in vocational education (VE), nor do they consider the use of and attitudes towards digital media in connection with labor subjectivity. This research fills the gap by exploring how patterns of digital communication relate to each other in exerting influence on labor knowledge and attitudes in the setting of a vocational school. We present findings from a unique survey dataset (N = 1761) collected in Shaanxi, China. Aided by fieldwork, interviews, and observations of online discussions among students, we constructed reliable composite variables for behavioral and attitudinal patterns of digital communication and found that (a) participation in online forum discussion enhances labor-rights knowledge and predicts more consumerist usage of WeChat, but it does not encourage more reflections on gaming or achieve more labor-related attitudes; (b) reflective attitudes does not increase labor knowledge, but it is positively correlated with work-related attitudes; (c) there is no significant relationship between consumerist usage on the one hand and labor knowledge or attitudes on the other; and (d) labor knowledge indeed helps enhance labor attitudes. Contributions and implications of these findings are discussed.

Direct democracy, political support and populism–attitudinal patterns in the German Bundesländer

ABSTRACT Empirical insights on the attitudinal correlates of direct democracy are inconclusive. On the one hand, direct democracy bears a conceptual resemblance with populist ideas. On the other hand, participatory democrats advocate the use of direct democracy precisely on grounds that it promises to educate citizens. This paper complements tests of arguments positing an educative potential of direct democracy with tests of its populist potential. We make use of original survey data collected in the German Bundesländer, which present a relatively underappreciated, yet interesting and representative case for studying direct democracy. Multilevel models indicate that political attitudes are neither more populist nor more supportive of the political system among citizens in direct democratic contexts. The story is more complicated though as the relationship between direct democracy and populist attitudes is conditional on the ideological orientation of a citizen.

Why do Irish pig farmers use medications? Barriers for effective reduction of antimicrobials in Irish pig production

BackgroundIn addressing the threat of antimicrobial resistance, it is critical to understand the barriers to the uptake of strategies for the reduction of antimicrobial use (AMU) in the pig industry. In several EU countries, factors such as education level, habits and social pressures are recognised as affecting farmers’ decision-making process in relation to AMU. However, there is a lack of information on the Irish scenario. The aim of this study was to investigate pig farmers’ perspectives and their behaviour towards AMU to identify potential barriers to effectively reduce AMU in Irish pig production. We conducted face-to-face semi-structured interviews with 30 pig farmers, 5 pig veterinarians and 4 focus groups of pig farm personnel. We employed qualitative analyses to explore the objective of the study.ResultsQualitative analysis revealed six convergent themes as potential barriers: perceptions about the need for AMU on farm, concept of animal welfare and associated management practices, legislation, culture, economics and standards of communication/type of advice-network. Overall, pig farmers believed that there is poor communication between stakeholders (i.e. farmers, vets and advisors) and a lack of reliable people to approach for advice. They considered themselves as operating responsibly in terms of AMU compared to their national and international colleagues and expressed the importance of a so-called ‘Irish solution’ to the problem of AMU because it was associated with what ‘has always been done’ and was therefore considered reliable and safe.ConclusionsBarriers and challenges were in line with those identified in other EU countries highlighting similarities in behavioural and attitudinal patterns among pig farmers. Overall, farmers appeared to be more likely to rely on previous experiences or to wait for an imposed change (e.g. legislation) instead of taking personal action. Thus, considerable behavioural and attitudinal changes are needed to adopt a more responsible AMU in Irish pig production and to develop effective intervention strategies.

Digital forest information platform as service innovation: Finnish Metsaan.fi service use, users and utilisation

Abundance of information characterises decision-making about forest use. This challenges forest owners. Digitalisation and diverse e-services may enhance the delivery of forest resource information and decision support. However, little is known on how e-services engage forest owners. This study explores the Finnish state-funded Metsaan.fi e-service portal as a service innovation. We use web-based survey data about forest owners' views on aforementioned e-service (N = 5170) and register data about Finnish forest owners. The identified factors explain the respondents' activity in using the service. Theories of innovation diffusion and e-service quality framed the content analysis of the open-ended questions of the survey. According to the quantitative analysis, owners with timber production objectives and multi-objective owners were the most active users. Forest owners who were compliant with the service's recommendations of silviculture and harvesting operations, used the service actively. This implies that these forest owners had found the service useful. The qualitative analysis shows that independence from time and place and the ease-of-use make the service more inviting. The lack of forest inventory data or its perceived low quality detract forest owners from using it. Many forest owners expect the service to replace forest management plans as decision support tool but the information content there does not fully fulfil those expectations. The study produced knowledge for developing further the online platform and its services. Furthermore, it created understanding about e-government services in the management of natural resources. Specifically, the results argue for noticing attitudinal patterns of intended users when designing governmental e-services. Further research is suggested to integrate innovation adoption theory and service-research theory to dig deeper into the value creation and service needs of different user groups.

A gender-differentiated analysis of climate-smart agriculture adoption by smallholder farmers: application of the extended technology acceptance model

The low adoption of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) technologies by farmers in developing regions where agrarian livelihoods are threatened by climate-related disasters remains a concerning enigma. Adoption patterns are not commensurate with merits of CSA on food security and climate resilience and attention to gender in relation to behavioral and attitudinal patterns in CSA adoption remains scarce. An exploratory-sequential mixed methods study was conducted, using a socio-psychological theoretical lens to test the applicability of the extended technology acceptance model in predicting CSA adoption among at-risk smallholder farming communities in Malawi and Zambia. Spearman’s rho correlation results show that relationship strengths between socio-psychological factors—perceptions on ease of use, usefulness and climate risk—differed between men and women householdheads. Results also show that social processes are central in influencing women’s decision-making on adoption. For practitioners and policy-makers, these findings reflect a critical need for gender-specific behavioral change communication strategies and inclusive participatory engagement. This will promote dialogue with diverse groups of smallholder-farmers aimed at changing negative, and leveraging on positive, behavior and attitudes toward new CSA technologies. CSA technology development for smallholder-farmers needs to appreciate the role of socio-psychological factors in adoption decisions. Further scientific research is required to establish causality between related socio-psychological factors.