Conceptual Clarity Research Articles

Commentary on “The epistemic harms of empathy in phenomenological psychopathology” by Lucienne Spencer and Matthew Broome

A critical commentary on the article “The Epistemic Harms of Empathy in Phenomenological Psychopathology” by Lucienne Spencer and Matthew Broome (2023) is presented. The authors committed the “fallacy of ambiguous or vague definition” by incorrectly interpreting Karl Jaspers’ conceptualizations, resulting in difficulties following logical arguments and arriving at reasonable conclusions. To overcome this fallacy, the commentary provides conceptual clarifications regarding Jaspers’ empathic understanding (einfühlendes Verstehen), conceived as the foundational concept of his project to develop a phenomenologically oriented psychopathology. Jaspers initially introduced this concept in the article “Die phänomenologische Forschungsrichtung in der Psychopathologie” [The Phenomenological Research Direction in Psychopathology], published in 1912, and extended in his magnum opus “Allgemeine Psychopathologie” [General Psychopathology], published in 1913.

Asset Performance Management: current status and future development

This investigation aims at discussing the current status of Asset Performance Management in its functionalities to enable decision support and to lead towards Asset Management excellence. The current status is drawn building from academic and industrial sources, and relying on a conceptual model aimed at providing an interpretative scheme of the Asset Performance Management functionalities in the information technology ecosystem for Asset Management. The key opportunities and future development paths are then identified. Overall, the findings of this study are meant to contribute to a clarification of the Asset Performance Management concept, together with a verification of the alignment on the meaning of the concept within the scientific and the industrial arenas.

Fake News Fatores de suscetibilidade e de disseminação

By mimicking journalistic formats and blending real facts with fabricated ones, with the deliberate intention of deceiving, fake news affects trust in the media and harms democratic debate. Thus, identifying the characteristics of fake news, how they differ from true news, and their dissemination enables the informing of policies on digital and media literacy. This article represents a review of the literature in this domain. Initially, it presents a clarification of the main concepts, then discusses the determinants of susceptibility and dissemination of fake news most addressed by the scientific community, namely individual, social, and contextual factors.

What Is Known About Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Among Sport Coaches? A Scoping Review

Mindfulness and self-compassion are two constructs positively related to well-being and mental health outside sport. Within sport, these constructs are emerging in research, yet the extant work has primarily been conducted with athlete samples. The aim of this scoping review was to provide a broad synthesis of the literature on mindfulness and self-compassion among coaches. Fourteen articles were included, 11 of them published 2019–2022. Of the 14 publications, the concepts studied were mindfulness (n = 10), self-compassion (n = 2), and a combination of both (n = 2). The samples were predominantly male coaches (68.7%), and most of the studies targeted coaches at the elite or competitive level. The most common area studied was developing and testing interventions and programs, followed by depicting relationships of mindfulness or self-compassion with desirable outcomes. This review significantly extends the current knowledge by illuminating critical issues in this rapidly moving area of research; the need for conceptual and contextual clarity of mindfulness and self-compassion; methodological considerations, such as measures that may allow reliable comparison across studies; and the need to further explore the potential benefits of mindfulness and self-compassion for coaches for sustainability and performance.

Implementing Stay Strong AIMhi for Youth: Protocol for Evaluation

Background: Good mental health and well-being are essential for fulfillment, productivity, and resilience. Mental disorders cause high levels of disability and economic impact worldwide. Vulnerable groups at significantly higher risk include youth and First Nations people. As the demand for mental health support and services increases, there is an urgent need to expand access to culturally appropriate quality mental health services (particularly for young people) and to promote self-care through integration of mobile health technologies. Objectives: This paper describes a protocol to evaluate implementation of the AIMhi for Youth support package into youth wellbeing services in urban, rural, and remote Northern Territory and South Australia. Codesign workshops will tailor the resources to these and other locations. The AIMhi-Y support package will be implemented as an innovative approach to suicide prevention through three years of codesign, training, implementation support and dissemination. Methods: Implementation is guided by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) incorporating the recent CFIR Outcomes Addendum and including strategies from the Expert Recommendations for Implementing Change. The protocol incorporates best practice principles in codesign and First Nations research. It builds on a decade of foundational work of the Stay Strong program implementing digital mental health resources in primary care and specialist settings. Implementation and related outcomes will be evaluated from each participant perspective (user, service provider, decision maker, First Nations people with lived experience and cultural consultants) using surveys and small group discussions. Intervention: AIMhi for Youth is a culturally responsive digital mental health solution codesigned with First Nations leaders and young people. Delivered via mobile device it is a gamified app supporting skills development in mental health literacy, emotional regulation, help seeking and goal setting. The app provides a structured intervention which complements existing services and addresses key risk factors for suicide and compromised mental health. The package includes training workshops and supplementary multimedia resources. Support resources will be hosted on a tailored website creating a seamless accessible ecosystem for users. Discussion: At the time of publication, 514 young people and 363 individual service providers have used the app, and 11 services have engaged in implementation planning discussions. Through our implementation evaluation we will identify why the AIMhi-Y package was implemented successfully in some contexts and not in others and will have an evidence-based strategy for successfully engaging First Nations young people and services in digital mental health solutions. This will inform further AIMhi-Y dissemination and provide a guide for implementation of other innovations in similar contexts. Conclusion: This study prospectively plans, monitors, and evaluates implementation through use of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. This threefold approach potentially strengthens the design and enhances likelihood of implementation success. The emphasis on Indigenist research principles, and the addition of measuring outcomes including reach, impact, adoption, implementation, and sustainment, has potential to contribute to conceptual development and clarification of implementation approaches in First Nations communities.

The relationship between fear of missing out, digital technology use, and psychological well-being: A scoping review of conceptual and empirical issues.

Given the rise of digital technology and its assumed impact on psychological well-being, this scoping review systematically examines the literature on Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), which is assumed to play a pivotal role in this dynamic. Although adverse effects of FoMO are commonly assumed, there is still no consensus on the nature of the phenomenon or its relations with psychological well-being and digital technology use, making a scoping review essential. To address this need, we comprehensively assess the conceptualizations of the construct of FoMO and its roles in relation to well-being and digital technology use. We conducted a literature search in PubMed, Ebsco/APA PsycINFO, and Web of Science (period 2013 to July 7, 2023), screening 4121 articles at the title and abstract level and assessing 342 full-text articles for eligibility, ultimately including 106 articles. The review revealed a fragmented FoMO literature, emphasizing the need for conceptual clarity to address critical gaps and inconsistencies in existing research. Consensus exists on FoMO's essence-an unpleasant feeling arising from missed social experiences driven by activity comparison. However, debates include FoMO's associated affective states and conceptual boundaries, as well as the need to disentangle FoMO as a trait or state. The review also underscored FoMO's multifaceted roles in well-being and digital technology use, highlighting the need for causal research, theoretical guidance, and unified terminology to advance understanding in the FoMO literature.

Purpose definition as a crucial step for determining the legal basis under the GDPR: implications for scientific research.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union, which became applicable in 2018, contains a new accountability principle. Under this principle, controllers (ie parties determining the purposes and the means of the processing of personal data) are responsible for ensuring and demonstrating the overall compliance with the GDPR. However, interpretive uncertainties of the GDPR mean that controllers must exercise considerable judgement in designing and implementing an appropriate compliance strategy, making GDPR compliance both complex and resource-intensive. In this article, we provide conceptual clarity around GDPR compliance with respect to one core aspect of the law: the determination and relevance of the purpose of personal data processing. We derive from the GDPR's text concrete requirements for purpose specification, which we subsequently apply to the area of secondary use of personal data for scientific research. We offer guidance for correctly specifying purposes of data processing under different research scenarios. To illustrate the practical necessity of purpose specification for GDPR compliance, we then show how our proposed approach can enable controllers to meet their compliance obligations, using the example of the overarching GDPR principle of lawfulness to highlight the relevance of purpose specification for the identification of a suitable legal basis.

Cultural evolution: A review of theoretical challenges.

The rapid growth of cultural evolutionary science, its expansion into numerous fields, its use of diverse methods, and several conceptual problems have outpaced corollary developments in theory and philosophy of science. This has led to concern, exemplified in results from a recent survey conducted with members of the Cultural Evolution Society, that the field lacks 'knowledge synthesis', is poorly supported by 'theory', has an ambiguous relation to biological evolution and uses key terms (e.g. 'culture', 'social learning', 'cumulative culture') in ways that hamper operationalization in models, experiments and field studies. Although numerous review papers in the field represent and categorize its empirical findings, the field's theoretical challenges receive less critical attention even though challenges of a theoretical or conceptual nature underlie most of the problems identified by Cultural Evolution Society members. Guided by the heterogeneous 'grand challenges' emergent in this survey, this paper restates those challenges and adopts an organizational style requisite to discussion of them. The paper's goal is to contribute to increasing conceptual clarity and theoretical discernment around the most pressing challenges facing the field of cultural evolutionary science. It will be of most interest to cultural evolutionary scientists, theoreticians, philosophers of science and interdisciplinary researchers.

What is public trust in national electronic health record systems? A scoping review of qualitative research studies from 1995 to 2021.

Public trust in national electronic health record systems is essential for the successful implementation within a healthcare system. Research investigating public trust in electronic health records is limited, leading to a lack of conceptual clarity. In response, the objective of this study is to gain a clearer understanding on the conceptualizations of public trust in electronic health records, which can support the implementation of national electronic health record systems. Guided by the PRISMA-ScR checklist, a scoping review of 27 qualitative studies on public trust in electronic health records found between January 2022 and June 2022 was conducted using an inclusive search method. In an iterative process, conceptual themes were derived describing the promoters and outcomes of public trust in electronic health records. Five major conceptual themes with 15 sub-themes were present across the literature. Comprehension, autonomy, and data protection promote public trust in electronic health record; while personal and system benefits are the outcomes once public trust in electronic health records exists. Additional findings highlight the pivotal role of healthcare actors for the public trust building process. The results underscore comprehension, autonomy, and data protection as important themes that help ascertain and solidify public trust in electronic health records. As well, health system actors have the capacity to promote or hinder national electronic health record implementation, depending on their actions and how the public perceives those actions. The findings can assist researchers, policymakers, and other health system actors in attaining a better understanding of the intricacies of public trust in electronic health records.

Workplace Spirituality: A Systematic Review and Future Research Agenda

Organizations continue to be challenged and enriched by the workplace spirituality phenomenon. The field has made significant strides, making it a burgeoning research area, but it lacks conceptual clarity due to multiple conceptualizations and constructs. This study aims to integrate the study in the field to provide a holistic understanding of the concept through a systematic review of the extant literature, from 2000 to December 2022. The study synthesizes literature with full-text review of 92 papers in the field extracted from Scopus database using bibliometric and TCCM analysis. While the bibliometric study identified the latest trends, TCCM provided new avenues for future research in form of research questions. The study revealed that the field suffers from conceptual confusion because spirituality as a phenomenon is idiosyncratic. Further, research highlights the need for more qualitative in-depth, multi-theory, longitudinal, multicontext, and cross-cultural studies to enhance methodological rigor. The review further highlights the development to formulate a solid theoretical foundation and help managers devise strategies to promote spiritual values in the workplace and foster spiritual experience among employees. To best of the author's knowledge, this study is the first comprehensive literature review using a hybrid approach.

A bibliometric review of positive psychology and well-being research in Africa.

Positive Psychology rapidly developed into an influential field of study and intervention, initially situated in Psychology, and later becoming multidisciplinary. Research interest in the study of (psychological) well-being has gained global popularity, with increasing salience in Africa. Although the global trends of these developments are relatively well-known, a bibliometric analysis of positive psychology research in Africa was necessary to shed light on the present hotspots and trends and future trajectories in this region of the world. The data source of the present bibliometric analysis study was Scopus, from which Positive Psychology and well-being research literature from Africa between 1983 and 2023 were searched. Using biblioshiny and VOSviewer, the 622 extracted articles were analysed, from which findings about the current condition, research hotspots, and thematic developmental patterns could be made. Africa experienced an initial slow growth period from 1983 until 2005, after which a rapid growth in research productivity, relevance and impact was experienced. In this regard, the results show that the focal point of scientific productivity is South Africa, with the dominance of South African institutions, particularly the North-West University, from where most positive psychology research is produced and cited. Even with potential access to international journal, African researchers seem to prefer to place their publications in the regional journals such as Journal of Psychology in Africa and South African Journal of Psychology. The research reviewed tends to be characterised by more dominant thematic clusters of positive psychology, psychological well-being, and subjective well-being, with a focus on human individuals. An increasing concern for contextual factors and potential antecedents and dynamics of well-being is also observed. The findings provide a good map from which identification of future research priorities can be deduced. As such, we speculate that future positive psychology research in Africa ought to be concerned with the following: greater distribution and intercountry collaborations across the continent, questions of conceptual clarity of terms, better understanding of contextual factors which influence well-being, and well-being research embracing the complexity of bio-psycho-social-ecological well-being, and science concerned with health-promotion interventions.

French Chambers of Commerce and Industry as Participants in Local Collaborative Governance and Collaborative Management

Local governance continues to be one of the key concepts in the contemporary approach to the functioning of local government, administration, and public management. The most crucial premise of this concept is the interactive way of exercising power, where various actors identify and implement joint projects, including residents, community organizations, and public and private institutions. Despite significant interest in this concept, it needs further analysis and refinement. In academia, the lack of conceptual clarity makes it difficult to analyze and identify the differences in collaborative governance and management processes. In practice, the concept’s full potential is not recognized, which hinders its application in local decision-making. An attempt has been made to fill this research gap by analyzing the role of French chambers of commerce and industry as participants in local collaborative governance and collaborative management. Chambers of commerce and industry have a long tradition and are a permanent element of the French political system. Their current status is the outcome of a long historical process and institutional development closely linked to France’s significant political and economic changes. Through literature and data analysis, as well as the study of documents, selected aspects of the activity of chambers of commerce and industry in local collaborative governance and collaborative management are presented, as well as identifying the challenges faced by these institutions in the process of collaboration with local authorities and other stakeholders.

The ethical significance of user-control in AI-driven speech-BCIs: a narrative review.

AI-driven brain-computed interfaces aimed at restoring speech for individuals living with locked-in-syndrome are paired with ethical implications for user's autonomy, privacy and responsibility. Embedding options for sufficient levels of user-control in speech-BCI design has been proposed to mitigate these ethical challenges. However, how user-control in speech-BCIs is conceptualized and how it relates to these ethical challenges is underdetermined. In this narrative literature review, we aim to clarify and explicate the notion of user-control in speech-BCIs, to better understand in what way user-control could operationalize user's autonomy, privacy and responsibility and explore how such suggestions for increasing user-control can be translated to recommendations for the design or use of speech-BCIs. First, we identified types of user control, including executory control that can protect voluntariness of speech, and guidance control that can contribute to semantic accuracy. Second, we identified potential causes for a loss of user-control, including contributions of predictive language models, a lack of ability for neural control, or signal interference and external control. Such a loss of user control may have implications for semantic accuracy and mental privacy. Third we explored ways to design for user-control. While embedding initiation signals for users may increase executory control, they may conflict with other aims such as speed and continuity of speech. Design mechanisms for guidance control remain largely conceptual, similar trade-offs in design may be expected. We argue that preceding these trade-offs, the overarching aim of speech-BCIs needs to be defined, requiring input from current and potential users. Additionally, conceptual clarification of user-control and other (ethical) concepts in this debate has practical relevance for BCI researchers. For instance, different concepts of inner speech may have distinct ethical implications. Increased clarity of such concepts can improve anticipation of ethical implications of speech-BCIs and may help to steer design decisions.

Conditioned inhibition, inhibitory learning, response inhibition, and inhibitory control: Outlining a conceptual clarification.

Inhibition can be defined as a phenomenon in which an agent prevents or suppresses a behavioral state that would otherwise occur. Associative learning studies have extensively examined how experiences shape the acquisition of inhibitory behavioral tendencies across many species and situations. Associative inhibitory phenomena can be studied at various levels of analysis. One could focus on the trajectory of behavioral change involved in learning from negative statistical associations between discrete events (inhibitory learning). Alternatively, one could be interested in the effects of accumulated experience with those negative associations (conditioned inhibition). One could rather be interested in how organisms implement what they learn through experiences involving negative associations (response inhibition). Yet, one could inquire into how the capacity of learning negative associations and performing accordingly varies between individuals and along time for the same individual (inhibitory control). This article presents a tentative taxonomy addressing different levels of analysis of associative inhibitory phenomena by using different terms for each. In addition, recent evidence and certain unresolved issues at each level are thoroughly scrutinized and contrasted with prior findings. The empirical and theoretical advances made by modeling inhibition as an associative learning phenomenon have provided scaffolds for the current knowledge and emerging accounts of the topic. Some of those emerging accounts have the potential to bridge different levels of analysis and foster "cross-pollination" of ideas among broad fields beyond associative learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Exploring Challenges Towards Learning Mathematics Among Secondary School Students in Nepal

Mathematicians had been concerned with everyday problems. However, today's students are uninterested in learning mathematics. The main objective of this research is to identify students' challenges to learning mathematics. Employing an interpretative research paradigm, the study utilizes a narrative research design involving eight students from public and private schools in the Kaski district. To achieve the research objective, in-depth interviews were conducted with research participants. I had narrated views about challenges towards learning mathematics from my participants. After analysis and interpretation of data, challenges towards learning mathematics were difficulties in learning mathematics, negative perception and external pressure, disruption in learning environment and foundation, changing teacher and lack of support, enjoyment in mathematics practice and fear of teacher, barriers in conceptual clarity and guidance, obstacles in effective mathematics teaching and disinterest, unclear teaching and insufficient support respectively. Moreover, Students face a multitude of challenges in learning mathematics, including issues related to teacher behavior, lack of motivation, the current curriculum, low parental socio-economic status, ineffective teaching strategies, poor home environments, low academic achievements, math anxiety, impractical curricula, and traditional teaching methods.

The moderating effect of political skills and mediating impact of career self-efficacy on the relationship between personality traits and self-perceived employability in education sector.

In 1990s, the changes in the atmosphere of the business and change in paradigm from the technological to the economy of knowledge has resulted in the world of business evolution. Due to these severe changes many institutions were required and even forced to take few steps through which they can help graduates by introducing them to the corporate world. Moreover, on the researchers of management has been put in immense pressure in order to discover the cause-and-effect relationship in the employability. However, in the employability field skills has gained importance and edge. The previous literature has been given the importance to the association of personality traits, emotional intelligence and employability. Furthermore, this study will explore and provide fundamental understanding of personality factors that are traits of personality and influence of emotional intelligence on employability on the undergraduate students. In addition, to add more knowledge in the body of this study, a conceptual clarity of the variables consents the opportunity for understanding the experiences and the concepts of employability consequences and the constructs.

Competition, competitiveness, and competitive advantage in higher education institutions: a systematic literature review

ABSTRACT The higher education (HE) sector has witnessed escalating competition, resulting in an increase in scholarly interest. Despite this, a comprehensive review of the existing literature in this domain remains absent. Thus, based on Tranfield et al.’s (2003) methodology, we systematically review 80 articles published between 2012 and 2022, extracted from four databases, namely Scopus, Web of Science, University of Hull (UoH), UK library database, and Google Scholar; with focus on competition, competitiveness, and competitive advantage in higher education institutions (HEIs). We present these three concepts, their sources, types, implications, and improvement strategies, while noting their interconnectedness. In our discussion, we highlight that although competition in HE results from both internal and external sources, internal competition is attributable largely, to external pressures from the government, ranking institutions, and global corporations. Additionally, we observe that competition has both positive and negative consequences, with the latter having a stronger impact on institutions, academics, and students. Consequently, we advocate that a balanced approach is required to optimize institutional performance and growth. This systematic review offers six contributions bothering on future research trajectories, significance of HEIs, strategic insights for practitioners, a harmonious balance between competitiveness and service quality, the governments’ impact, and conceptual clarity via two frameworks introduced. The first framework illustrates the interconnections between the three focal concepts, and the second visualizes the interplay among diverse resources for which HEIs strive. This paper is therefore vital for scholars and practitioners, in the face of persistent competition in the HE sector.

Addressing Challenges With Sedation in End-of-Life Care

In 2009, Quill and colleagues stipulated that there are three types of sedation practices at the end of life: ordinary sedation, proportionate palliative sedation (PPS), and palliative sedation to unconsciousness (PSU). Of the three, PPS and PSU are described as “last-resort options” to relieve refractory symptoms, and PSU as the most ethically controversial type that “should be quite rare.” Unfortunately, little is known about actual sedation practices at the end of life in the United States. This may be due in part to a lack of conceptual clarity about sedation in end-of-life care. We argue that, until more is known about what sedation practices occur at the end of life, and how practices can be improved by research and more specific guidelines, “palliative sedation” will remain more misunderstood and controversial than it might otherwise be. In our view, overcoming the challenges posed by sedation in end-of-life care requires: 1) greater specificity regarding clinical situations and approaches to sedation, 2) research tailored to focused clinical questions, and 3) improved training and safeguards in sedation practices. Terms like PPS and PSU are relatively simple to understand in the abstract, but their application comprises various clinical situations and approaches to sedation. An obvious barrier to empirical research on sedation practices in end-of-life care is the challenge of determining these elements, especially if not clearly communicated. Additionally, we argue that training for palliative care specialists and others should include monitoring and rescue techniques as required competencies.

Interrupted gender transitions: underlying motivations as correlates of psychosocial risks

Background Previous research on what is often termed “detransitioning” experiences among transgender and nonbinary individuals has frequently lacked conceptual clarity, failed to differentiate interrupted gender transition experiences by underlying motivations, and failed to examine correlations with psychosocial risks by the various motivations. Aims Utilizing a proposed conceptual framework that captures motivational differences between various interrupted gender transition experiences, this examination seeks to provide a more nuanced understanding of these interrupted gender transitions and their associations with psychosocial risks, underscoring the importance of improved conceptual clarity and empirical precision in this body of scholarship. Methods This secondary data analysis of the 2015 US Transgender Study (N = 26,026) examines how three specific interrupted gender transitions (i.e. interpersonal adaptive gender transitions, structural adaptive gender transitions, and gender recalibration) are correlated with a series of lifetime (i.e. suicide attempts and physical relational violence) and recent (i.e. illicit drug use, fear-based avoidance of medical providers, homelessness, and arrests) psychosocial risks. Multivariate models examine the relationships of interest controlling for age, gender identity, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, partner status, education, employment status, and household income. Results Across all six examined risks, we find that interrupted gender transitions due to interpersonal pressure from others (interpersonal adaptive gender transition) and structural barriers facing transgender and nonbinary people (structural adaptive gender transition) are associated with the highest likelihoods of risks. Transgender and nonbinary (TNB) respondents who experience an interrupted gender transition due to a shift in their gender identity from one identity to another identity within the TNB umbrella (gender recalibration) are not significantly different than TNB respondents who had never undergone a gender transition in the first place. Discussion The study’s findings underscore not only the importance of disaggregation of gender transition interruptions by their underlying motivation, but also highlight one other way in which interpersonal and structural transphobia negatively impact the lived experiences of TNB people.

Genesis of national legislation and scientific thought development regarding criminal liability for perjury

One of the ways to mislead a court or other authorised body is to provide deliberately false testimony by a witness or victim, for which the legislator provides for criminal liability in Article 384 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Based on the social danger of this criminal offence, which is an encroachment on the lawful procedure for the administration of justice, in particular, ensuring the rule of law, legality in the procedural activities of courts, law enforcement agencies, and other institutions entrusted with the enforcement of court decisions, the importance of ensuring a high-quality investigation of these criminal offences has been emphasised. The purpose of the study is defined as clarification and generalisation of theoretical concepts of the emergence and historical development of the peculiarities of criminal liability for knowingly false testimony of a witness and a victim, and outlining the areas for improvement of modern scientific knowledge on this issue.
 The article analyses certain aspects of the development of national legislation on criminal liability for perjury of a witness and a victim. The author summarises the theoretical developments of scholars whose research focused on the issues of criminal liability for committing criminal offences of this type, as well as the procedural features of obtaining witness and victim testimony, and the specifics of their verification and evaluation. Given the above, the article assesses the development of scientific thought in this regard, and outlines the prospects for further research in the context of determining the grounds and specific features of criminal prosecution of persons who have induced or forced a witness and a victim to give false testimony. The author describes the current state of scientific support for the organisational and tactical principles of investigation of criminal offences of this type, as well as the procedural aspects of obtaining testimony, its verification and evaluation.