Basic Social Values Research Articles

Trust of Nations: Looking for More Universal Values for Interpersonal and International Relationships

The objective of this study is to review past research on people’s sense of trust as reflected in the data from longitudinal and cross-national comparative surveys by the Institute of Statistical Mathematics. First, I explain some history of our survey research. Second, I give a brief review of the studies on sense of trust. Third, I summarize some aspects of the fundamental social values of the Japanese and their sense of interpersonal trust as identified in our Japanese National Character Survey. Fourth, I present a crossnational comparative analysis of interpersonal trust and institutional trust, including the Seven Country Survey (Japan, the USA, and five European countries) (1987–1993), Japanese immigrant surveys, the East Asia Values Survey (2002–2005), the Pacific-Rim Values Survey (2004–2009), and the Asia-Pacific Values Survey (2010–2014). To overcome the limitations of the studies based mostly on the items of the General Social Survey or the World Values Survey, I explore more basic social values on human bonds that may underlie people’s sense of trust beyond differences in countries or time. The final section presents some comments for our future research.

The process of justifying assisted reproductive technologies in Iran.

Infertility is medically defined as one year of unprotected intercourse that does not result in pregnancy. Infertility is a noticeable medical problem in Iran, and about a quarter of Iranian couples experience primary infertility at some point in their lives. Since having children is a basic social value in Iran, infertility has an adverse effect on the health of the couple and affects their well-being. The various methods of assisting infertile couples raise several ethical questions and touch upon certain sensitive points. Although the present Iranian legislative system, which is based on the Shi'a school of Islam, has legalised some aspects of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), given the absence of a general officially ratified act (official pathway), such medical interventions are usually justified through a fatwa system (non-official pathway). Officially registered married couples can access almost all ART methods, including third-party gamete donation, if they use such pathways. The process of justifying ART interventions generally began when in vitro fertilisation was given the nod and later, Ayatollah Khamenei (the political-religious leader of the country) issued a fatwa which permitted gamete donation by third parties. This open juristic approach paved the way for the ratification of the Embryo Donation to Infertile Spouses Act in 2003.

Understanding Marriage System among Sakacheps of the Saitsama Village

Marriage is universal in all human societies. However, the universality of marriage does not mean that marriage system is same in all societies; much variation has been found across the cultures depending on belief system of any particular society. Marriage system symbolizes the basic social values, norms and world view of the whole community, because of which, the study on marriage has occupied the centre stage of anthropological research for a long time. It has provided not only the major field of enquiry, but also the central concept to generations of anthropologist for writing and analyzing the behavioural and organizational dimensions of human society. The present study has been an another attempt to understand the human society through the marriage system of the Sakachep of Saitsama village in Meghalaya. The whole study revolves around the marriage system of the “Sakacheps”, trying to understand their traditional marriage pattern as well as the changes. It has been observed that changes are mostly occurring due to Christianity and matrilineal “Pnars”, who are living amongst patrilineal “Sakacheps” in Saitama village.

Personality and prosocial behavior: linking basic traits and social value orientations.

Concerning the dispositional determinants of prosocial behavior and cooperation, work based on the classic 5 personality factors, and especially Agreeableness, has turned out somewhat inconsistent. A clearer picture has emerged from consideration of the HEXACO model of personality--though supported entirely by hypothetical behavior as criterion, so far. Thus, in 2 studies and a reanalysis, we investigated "actual behavior" in the form of individually and socially consequential distribution decisions. As expected, HEXACO Honesty-Humility consistently predicted prosocial behavior, including a theory-consistent pattern on the facet level. Importantly, this pattern might explain why five-factor Agreeableness has only sometimes been found to account for prosocial behavior. Indeed, further results indicate that five-factor Agreeableness comprises some aspects that are predictive of prosocial behavior--aspects well covered by HEXACO Honesty-Humility--but also others that play no role for this criterion. As such, the links between five-factor Agreeableness and prosocial behavior are well-covered by HEXACO Honesty-Humility, but not vice versa. Taken together, these findings hint that especially HEXACO Honesty-Humility (and certain aspects of five-factor Agreeableness) account for prosocial behavior--thus explaining previous inconsistencies and providing a more nuanced understanding of the links between basic personality and prosocial or cooperative behavior.

Shaping technology, building society; the industrialization of the Norwegian cod fisheries

After the Second World War the Norwegian government planned a large scale modernization of the entire fishing industry in northern Norway. The industrialization of the land-based processing industry and the construction of a totally new trawler fleet gained massive public financial support. The new technological adaptations were built around a vertically integrated corporate model. As a reference to the modernization concept, the seasonal coastal fisheries were defined as outdated and not able to meet the modern expectations of full-time employment and improved salaries. In this context, the trawler fleet was supposed to feed the processing industry with stable supplies of fresh fish and thus secure a fully vertically integrated production model. However, almost from the start, the model never functioned according to the political goals, i.e. an economically viable sector with secure and stable employment. Instead, the project was characterized by efficiency problems, internal disputes between the fleet and the processing factories, institutional inertia within the public sphere and finally a decoupling of the entire model. This article outlines how deep-sea trawling originally gained acceptance in the political landscape, how it developed over the years (1950–2013) and how the technological development finally was uncoupled from the needs of the processing industry. The article explains this development through the idea of technological changes as socially constructed and modified, emphasizing that successful technological transformations have to be in line with basic social values and perceptions.

The Importance of Philosophy in Educational Administration/Management: The Democratic Model

A nation’s policy on education is the government’s way of attaining that aspect of the national goals which can be achieved through the instrumentality of education. No policy on education, however, can be formulated without the primary identification of the overall philosophy and goals of the nation. The general philosophy of Nigeria is to live in unity and harmony as one indivisible, indissoluble, democratic and sovereign nation founded on the principle of freedom, equality and justice, while promoting inter-African solidarity and world peace through understanding. This aim or goal can be realized through education, but this must be based on a firm philosophic foundation. This paper therefore explores the importance of philosophy for the study and practice of educational administration/management in a democratic society. It advocates that education is a normative enterprise that is, driven by basic social values anchored on certain imperatives of social justice. It is therefore these values and imperatives that principally shape every aspect and dimension of educational theory, policy and practice. Viewed from this standpoint, education needs a normative reference to model and drive the democratic processes of everyday life that can provide liberty and self-actualization. For this to be achieved there is need for careful reflection upon national discourses and activities that involve and concern social values. These imperatives must be modeled into educational purposes and practices. It is argued strongly that philosophy constitutes a potent mode of inquiry and epistemic activity that enriches the capacity for reflection and rational thinking which is vital for democratic development. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n9p501

Social Management of Cultural Conflict Resolution

In order to integrate the cultural concepts of basic social value judgments and make the members of society to form an active participation in the consensus, the study use the multi-form subculture and multi-value conflict form in the society as study aim to analysis of that the heterogeneous culture not only will not deconstruct the society but also will bring society to obtain the compatible capacity towards the same. This study indicates that the cultural inertia safeguard their own interests can easily turn into the fuse of conflict in different cultural patterns interactive cooperation of social management. The subcultures collision of the main of pluralistic society management, collectivism and individualistic culture conflict is the main form of social cultural conflict management, the emergence and impact of different cultures is an important driving force for progress and cultural shape.

Multidimensionality of Right‐Wing Authoritarian Attitudes: Authoritarianism‐Conservatism‐Traditionalism

Traditionally Right‐Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) has been seen as a unidimensional construct. Recently, however, researchers have begun to measure three distinct RWA dimensions (Feldman, 2003; Funke, 2005; Van Hiel, Cornelis, Roets, & De Clercq, 2006). One of these new multidimensional RWA approaches has conceptualized these three dimensions as Authoritarianism, Conservatism, and Traditionalism (ACT), which are viewed as expressions of basic social values or motivational goals that represent different, though related, strategies for attaining collective security at the expense of individual autonomy. Findings are reported from two studies to assess the validity and predictive utility of the multidimensional ACT approach. First, a direct cross‐national comparison showed that the three ACT dimensions were reliable and factorially distinct and demonstrated the measurement invariance of the three latent constructs across Serbian and NZ (New Zealand) samples. The three ACT dimensions predicted self‐reported behavior differentially in both samples, and a comparison of latent means showed the Serbian sample higher than the NZ sample on the ACT dimensions of Authoritarianism and Traditionalism but markedly lower on Conservatism. Second, a reanalysis of previously collected NZ data showed that the three ACT scales differentially predicted three dimensions of generalized prejudice in a theoretically meaningful manner. These findings underline the importance of studying ideological attitudes, such as RWA, multidimensionally.

Emerging Profile of Commerce and Management Education in India

This paper emphasizes that Business and Commerce are performing arts requiring inculcation of professional operative skills. However, every art and skill requires scientific knowledge as basic foundation in theory. Acquisition of theoretical knowledge sharpens human faculties of mind and intellect. Thus, a system of business and commerce education should equip the student with the knowledge of theory which he should apply in performing and practicing art, and getting knowledge from experience. A person should be made capable of thinking independently and should not depend on borrowed concepts or thorough. Similarly, he should develop a problem - oriented approach based on experience and not on a study of hypothetical situation. The paper stresses that training in applied business-science is a part of social responsibility of business. Business and Commerce education should be oriented to the practical problematic micro and macro situation. This orientation would enable a commerce graduate or a business graduate to meet several challenging situations in managerial decision-making. The paper emphasizes that commerce and business graduates must imbibe the fundamentals of language, logic, simple mathematics and business communication skills which create the power to think logically and present the problem in a lucid language. It is necessary to adopt an integrated approach which assumes that management of business and commerce should not be increasingly divided. The paper concludes that emphasis in business and commerce education should be on total personality against the Government policies creating uncertainty and difficulties created by bureaucracy. Education in business and commerce should create a personality which is not only adaptable but of a high moral character. While keeping in line with the developments in technology and computerization, basic social and Indian values, Indian culture and tradition and typical problematic situations which are Indian should never be lost sight of, while imparting business and commerce education in India.

Muslim Integration into Western Cultures: Between Origins and Destinations

To what extent do migrants carry their culture with them, and to what extent do they acquire the culture of their new home? The answer not only has important political implications; it also helps us understand the extent to which basic cultural values are enduring or malleable, and whether cultural values are traits of individuals or are attributes of a given society. The first part of this article considers theories about the impact of growing social diversity in Western nations. We classify two categories of society: Origins (defined as Islamic Countries of Origin for Muslim migrants, including twenty nations with plurality Muslim populations) and Destinations (defined as Western Countries of Destination for Muslim migrants, including 22 OECD member states with Protestant or Roman Catholic majority populations). Using this framework, we demonstrate that, on average, the basic social values of Muslim migrants fall roughly midway between those prevailing in their country of origin and their country of destination. We conclude that Muslim migrants do not move to Western countries with rigidly fixed attitudes; instead, they gradually absorb much of the host culture, as assimilation theories suggest.

Overt and Covert Ways of Responding to Moral Injustices in Social Work Practice: Heroes and Mild-Mannered Social Work Bipeds

This article explores overt and covert actions taken by social workers against perceived moral injustices in their work organisations. Covert and overt actions are defined and examples of these actions from a research study of social work ethics are presented. The paper argues that both covert and overt actions ought to be considered heroic in light of what appears to be timidity on the part of many social workers to act against perceived moral injustice in their workplaces. The concepts of multiple institutional logics and embedded agency are used as a means of moderating and contextualising the concerns social workers might have about acting in either covert or overt ways to address moral injustices, and to examine the potential pitfalls and merits of each type of action. The article concludes by encouraging social workers to consider more systematically avenues for overt actions to address perceived moral injustice, as basic social work values of client care can be paradoxically found even in the logics of dominantly neo-liberal organisations. If overt action is not possible or may have the potential of causing more harm to the client, covert actions can be morally justified.

The voice of the most vulnerable: lessons from the nuclear crisis in Fukushima, Japan

The voice of the most vulnerable: lessons from the nuclear crisis in Fukushima, Japan

The Next Wave: Using Digital Technology to Further Social and Political Innovation

The digital revolution is in full force but many public and private sector leaders are stymied: How can they maximize the full potential of digital technology? This hesitancy puts a brake on the transformational power of digital technology and means private companies and governmental bodies fall well behind other digital pioneers. Darrell West focuses on the next wave of technologies and how they can further enhance U.S. social and political innovation. West champions exploiting technological advances to help organizations become faster, smarter, and more efficient. Consumers can deploy new digital technology to improve health care, gain access to education, learn from the news media, and check public sector performance. New storage platforms such as high-speed broadband, mobile communications, and cloud computing enable and improve both social and economic development. However, to gain these benefits, policymakers must recognize the legitimacy of public fears about technology and the privacy and security dangers posed by the Internet. Their goal must be to further innovation and investment while also protecting basic social and individual values. West argues that digital technology innovation is consistent in many ways with personal and social values; people can deploy digital technology to improve participation and collaboration, and political leaders can work with the private sector to stimulate a flowering of innovation in a variety of policy areas.

Public Attorney's office between judiciary and public administration

The aim of the research was the positioning of the institution of the Public Attorney within the Serbian legal system. De lege lata, the focus was on examining the compliance of the institution's functions with the challenges of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Serbian Constitution and the new Civil Procedure Code. Based on the criticism of positive law, the author builds the legal policy stance regarding this institution de lege lata. The author primarily uses the dogmatic method, and where necessary, other legal science methods: comparative, historical, sociological and philosophical. The study resulted in knowledge with regard to the position of the institution, which is closer to the executive than to the judiciary, the incompatibilities of its functions and deficits, primarily in terms of concretization of the constitutional principle of the rule of law and direct implementation of the constitutionally guaranteed human rights. Property rights and interests of the state cannot be reduced to private law. Furthermore, if an agent of the state is a public institution, putting it in a role of a private person makes the litigation unfair. The agent of the state is supposed to be a much more reliable partner of the court in exercising the rule of law, human rights and the quest for truth. Ultimately, the pro et contra stances expressed in this study certainly depends on understanding the basic social values and their hierarchy. Perhaps the problem can be expressed, in terms of a legally-axiological approach, as a question of valuation. Which social values should be given priority: the common good or the justice and truth? The author opts for the latter, believing we should be more concerned about the legal and moral collapse of the state, than its economic demise.

The Indispensability of the Basic Social Values in African Tradition: A Philosophical Appraisal

There are indispensable basic social values in African tradition which are for genuine development. The West in her own ways has attempted to jettison these values for theirs to take place, but in all, it is seen that theirs do not tally with the African society. Also, the Western aim is to render Africa dependent on them. The indispensability of African basic values presupposes that Africa has value system that is in consonance with her environment and conditions, and any way to displace it renders the society backward. These values are the guiding principles for genuine development which must remain indispensable to the Western values of colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism. With emphasis on these basic values by her leadership the future of Africa (and Nigeria in particular) will be of radical development.

A Tripartite Approach to Right-Wing Authoritarianism: The Authoritarianism-Conservatism-Traditionalism Model

Right‐Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) has been conceptualized and measured as a unidimensional personality construct comprising the covariation of the three of authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, and conventionalism. However, new approaches have criticized this conceptualization and instead viewed these three traits as three distinct, though related, social attitude dimensions. Here we extend this approach providing clear definitions of these three dimensions as ideological attitude constructs of Authoritarianism, Conservatism, and Traditionalism. These dimensions are seen as attitudinal expressions of basic social values or motivational goals that represent different, though related, strategies for attaining collective security at the expense of individual autonomy. We report data from five samples and three different countries showing that these three dimensions could be reliably measured and were factorially distinct. The three dimensions also differentially predicted interpersonal behaviour, social policy support, and political party support. It is argued that conceptualizing and measuring RWA as a set of three related ideological attitude dimensions may better explain complex sociopolitical phenomena than the currently dominant unidimensional personality based model.

The ethics of assisted reproduction

Issues concerning the beginning of life and medical intervention in the onset of human existence are very delicate in their nature; they involve multi-dimensional knowledge, they are difficult to comprehend and sensitive to handle. When pure scientific elements are combined with profound emotions, when the genius of technological discoveries touches upon human dignity and sanctity, when passion for the technological achievement intervenes in basic human rights, then the sense of inadequacy and ignorance becomes intense and critical. Silence seems more sought-after than words, and willingness to learn more prudent than the desire to speak. Fear of the inconceivable consequences and even more so the inability to assess them, experiments with the unknown, the likelihood that basic historical, ethical and social values may change forever, but mainly the replacement of God in His wondrous work of creation--the onset of human life--places the ethics of reproductive technologies on the frontline of contemporary bioethics. This opinion paper does not deal with dangers, insults, fears, threats, "speed limits" or ethical controversies, but rather with the very mystery of life. Although there are no generally accepted replies to the various questions being posed, some thoughts and reservations, which can shed some light upon complicated dilemmas are presented. Firstly, the content of reproductive technologies, the problem of infertility today, the methods of fertility treatment, and of prenatal and pre-implantation testing are described, and then the social impact of IVF, complicated cases, deontological dilemmas and some ethical concerns are discussed.

Basic Income and Social Value

This article suggests that the justification of basic income should take account of the evidence of a divergence between growing incomes and stagnating subjective well-being (SWB) in the affluent countries. It argues that this implies taking the debate outside the orthodox model of economic development and the strict methodological individualism adopted by Van Parijs and others. This demands more attention to social relations and an analysis in terms of the production of social value rather than utility and culture rather than contract.

Basic Social Values In Modern Nigerian School System

A careful study of current event in modern Nigerian scene, religious institutions and of course all othersectors of the society clearly show that there is an unbalanced equation as regards the input and outputof societal values in the school system. It is either there is a reduction of the necessary and compulsorysocietal values which must be introduced and imbibed in the school system or that there is a wantondisregard, disrespect, or negligence of the excellent societal values already introduced or madeavailable to the Nigeria school system. In these two probabilities the society receives the blame if theformer probability is the case while the school deserves the blame if the latter is the case Enomah(2003).

Ecological Management, Cultural Reform, and Religious Creativity

Complex environmental problems frustrate practical reasoning and scientific research, and thereby challenge relations between ethics and ecology. Sustainability crises, in which human powers affect ecological systems in ways that jeopardize basic social values, become practical problems only as cultures create capacities to take responsibility for them. They become real problems, that is, only as cultural reform processes generate ways to confront and learn from social crises. Issues such as climate change therefore require professionals who can make challenges to environmental science and moral culture into sites for adaptive learning and social change, thereby making inchoate threats into intelligible civic problems. How to make crises into problems shapes an ongoing debate over competing strategies of practical reason. Should ethics critique the cultural worldviews and metaphysical assumptions at root of environmental crises, or should it develop practical responses to specific problems from broadly available cultural values? The question seems to force a dilemma: choosing the cosmological route lets one critique the depth of problems, but at the cost of distance from the moral imagination and political values of most citizens, while choosing the pragmatic route lets one deploy cultural values to support specific policy solutions, but at the cost of being constrained by the modest reforms those values permit. Work in religious ethics, and its companion field of religion and ecology, tends to pursue a cosmological strategy, examining background worldviews and ontological assumptions in order to challenge the cultural ideas that underlie sustainability problems. This approach allows ethicists to critique deep cultural roots, but at the cost of distance from the way particular moral communities can respond to environmental problems and of abstraction from the specific problems faced by ecological science. Because our scholarship has often been abstract from science-based interpretation of problems and from the cultural reform processes by which communities generate responses to them, I have elsewhere argued that religious ethics should adopt methods from the problem-based approaches proposed by pragmatists. Problem-based methods allow religious ethicists to better critique and cultivate the ways communities invent moral change in response to practical challenges.1 Here I argue the other side; that problem-based approaches can benefit from considering the role of religious communities in generating cultural reform. Pragmatic approaches depend on cultural reform when they use adaptive ecological management as an instrument to deal with complex problems. Adaptive management is primarily a tool for doing ecological research in conditions of uncertainty, but as I will show, can be extended as a civic process of ethical