Explanatory Constructs Research Articles

From the Phenomenon of Self-Sufficiency to the Mechanisms of Self-Determination

The paper presents a systematic analysis of key explanatory concepts of different levels of abstraction, being used in the psychological and interdisciplinary concepts for the explanation of the phenomenon of self-sufficiency. The phenomenon of self-sufficiency is defined basing on the understanding of person as the instance which human being as an autonomous agent may oppose to both internal impulses and external pressures, biological and social determinants acting both from within and from outside. The closest construct is that of agency. Agency is viewed as personality variable, reflecting the person’s capacity to initiate and control their actions. Agency appears as the explanatory construct as regards the observable phenomenon of self-sufficiency. However, being holistic and indivisible, it, in its turn, needs a more detailed analysis. Such a brief analysis is provided for the psychological constructs of proactivity, autonomy, personal causation and self-determination as well as for more specific theoretical models of intrinsic / extrinsic motivation, phases of a motivated action, personality potential as the potential of autoregulation, and freedom and responsibility as two sides of personal causation and autodetermination, taking shape during the transition from childhood to adulthood. Freedom is treated as the highest form of activity, a side of personal causation and autodetermination which allows us feeling independent of outer pressures and inner impulses. Responsibility is the second side of personal causation and autodetermination, the highest form of autoregulation, associated with viewing oneself as a cause of some events in the world, it is a controlled capacity of producing goal-directed changes in oneself and in the world. In conclusion the construct of personal life position as an integral person’s attitude to one’s own life is introduced. The constructs analyzed in the paper present the multilevel conceptual frame for treating the phenomenon of self-sufficiency.

СУБЪЕКТНО-БЫТИЙНЫЙ ПОДХОД В ИССЛЕДОВАНИИ ЛИЧНОСТИ: МЕТОДОЛОГИЯ И ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ РАЗВИТИЯ

The paper presents an analysis of the historical development of the subjective-existential approach to personality at Kuban State University. This review examines the most influential psychological concepts and theories that shaped the emergence and evolution of the subjective-existential approach within the broader field of subjective approach, over more than the past 50 years. It specifically focuses on the contribution of the Department of Personality Psychology and General Psychology at Kuban State University. It highlights the significant contributions of Soviet scholars, including B. G. Ananyev, S. L. Rubinstein, A. N. Leontiev, A. V. Brushlinsky, L. I. Antsyferova, and K. A. Abulkhanova, and of those who today determine the design of the subjective approach (V. V. Znakov, E. A. Sergienko, N. E. Kharlamenkova). The subjective approach has exerted a powerful influence upon the development of contemporary methodological discourse, particularly in the creation of a structural-dynamic model of personality as a subject of being/existence. The paper outlines the main theoretical and methodological provisions of the subjective-existential approach, which provides a panoramic vision of the studied reality and an interpretation of human psychological phenomenology from an axiological and existential perspective. The approach is based on the concepts of subjectivity, the unity of the individual and their being, and the individual's striving towards authenticity of being. It is proposed that the primary function of man is to be a subject of diverse existential domains, in which he asserts himself as a personality through the reorganization of these domains. The practical implementation of the subjective-existential approach to personality is exemplified by the investigations of researchers at Kuban State University. Their work concretizes and develops some ideas of the psychology of the subject and harmoniously integrates explanatory constructs and novel theoretical models within the humanistic traditions of psychological science. The potential of the subjective-existential approach to elucidate the procedural nature of diverse phenomenology is illustrated. The efficacy of this approach for addressing a number of fundamental problems in psychological science and acute social issues of our time, which are inextricably linked to global challenges of our time - bifurcation processes and social transitivity - is substantiated.

Understanding the Influence of Chatbot Human-Likeness on User Satisfaction in Erroneous Customer-Chatbot Interactions

Increasingly, businesses rely on AI-driven tools like chatbots to facilitate customer communication. However, chatbot services might not always run flawlessly, yet there remains a gap in comprehensive research regarding consumer responses to such errors. In an experimental between-subjects design (N = 232), we manipulated the type of chatbot (robot-like vs. human-like) and the absence vs. presence of an error to investigate the interplay between visual chatbot human-likeness and error occurrence on user satisfaction and subsequent attitudinal and intentional variables. We discover that highly human-like chatbots increase satisfaction in error-free situations, but in error-prone scenarios, less-human-like designed chatbots might be the better choice. We further investigated the ascription of responsibility as a potential explanatory construct. From a managerial perspective, we advise that chatbots should incorporate human cues, while managing user expectations and acknowledging limitations. Future studies should consider different errors, contexts, and explanatory variables to deepen the understanding in this area of research.

Clean energy stock price forecasting and response to macroeconomic variables: A novel framework using Facebook's Prophet, NeuralProphet and explainable AI

The clean energy market analysis has seen a strong surge in the post-Paris agreement owing to its undeniable environmental sustainability. The present work investigates the predictability of clean energy investment in the US market by selecting eight sectoral stock indices. The predictive exercise is carried out separately during pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 timelines to draw key behavioral aspects of the underlying sectors. After scrutiny of previous research, we identify a set of technical and macroeconomic variables as explanatory constructs. We then utilize Facebook's Prophet and NeuralProphet to find future figures for the clean energy indices. Finally, Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) is used to draw deeper insights into the contribution patterns of the constituent explanatory variables and obtain their relative importance. The findings suggest that the future movements of the sectoral clean energy assets can be predicted with a very high level of accuracy. Also, the predictability marginally improves during the COVID-19 pandemic despite the unprecedented uncertainty. Technical indicators appear to be the dominant features, while market sentiment and fear exert significant influence.

Economic Variables as an Early Warning Sign for Monitoring Construction Cost Indices – “An Empirical Study on Egypt”

The construction industry plays a crucial role in any nation's economic growth and prosperity through the implementation of the SDGs. Researchers reveal that the 17 SDGs are directly dependent by 17% and indirectly reliant by 27% on the construction industry's activities. In addition, the construction projects, whatever their type or components, continue for several years, during which many price changes and sharp economic fluctuations occur, whether at the local or international level, reflected in overall economic performance and the construction industry's health, leading to the project's cost changes and a shortage in the allocated budgets. Due to the difficulties this industry faces in reaching these goals, including the Egypt Vision 2030, we chose to look into these effects by using the ENR methodology to develop an explanatory construction cost indices model in Egypt similar to models used in other countries while making appropriate changes for the Egyptian markets. To illustrate the relationship between these selected economic variables and construction costs in Egypt and to act as an early warning sign to quantify, track, and predict the construction cost movements and trends in Egypt's construction sectors through a reliable model. A mixed research methodology consisted of semi-structured interviews with 15 industry experts and an empirical study covering 1990 through 2020 for selected local and international economic variables. We concluded that national and international economic variables significantly impacted as explanatory and predictive variables in Egypt's construction industry's cost indices; these variables are as follows: gross domestic product (GDP), consumer price index (CPI), USD to EGP exchange rate ($), inflation rate, lending rate, money supply, and unemployment rate, as well as international crude oil prices, gold prices, and copper prices. Nevertheless, further investigation is required with more economic variables across various construction industry sectors over various time intervals and different time series statistical and econometric modeling techniques.

Controversies and progress on standardization of large-scale brain network nomenclature.

Progress in scientific disciplines is accompanied by standardization of terminology. Network neuroscience, at the level of macroscale organization of the brain, is beginning to confront the challenges associated with developing a taxonomy of its fundamental explanatory constructs. The Workgroup for HArmonized Taxonomy of NETworks (WHATNET) was formed in 2020 as an Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM)-endorsed best practices committee to provide recommendations on points of consensus, identify open questions, and highlight areas of ongoing debate in the service of moving the field toward standardized reporting of network neuroscience results. The committee conducted a survey to catalog current practices in large-scale brain network nomenclature. A few well-known network names (e.g., default mode network) dominated responses to the survey, and a number of illuminating points of disagreement emerged. We summarize survey results and provide initial considerations and recommendations from the workgroup. This perspective piece includes a selective review of challenges to this enterprise, including (1) network scale, resolution, and hierarchies; (2) interindividual variability of networks; (3) dynamics and nonstationarity of networks; (4) consideration of network affiliations of subcortical structures; and (5) consideration of multimodal information. We close with minimal reporting guidelines for the cognitive and network neuroscience communities to adopt.

Psychopathy facets, perceived power, and forms of aggression.

Despite research indicating that exerting dominance and control is characteristic of psychopathy, no research has examined the role that feelings of and desire for power plays in psychopathy-related aggression. Borrowing from various literatures and novel conceptualizations, we investigated the contributions of feeling powerful and/or desiring power and distinct psychopathy facets in explaining aggression manifested in different forms (i.e., physical, verbal, indirect) across 4 samples. Results from regression analyses within each sample and a meta-analysis across the samples indicated that the impulsive facet of psychopathy was generally related to multiple forms of aggression, and the unique variance in the affective facet was primarily related to physical aggression across samples. In contrast, the unique variance of the interpersonal facet showed a primary relationship with indirect aggression (e.g., relational, passive). Desiring power made unique contributions in relation to multiple forms of aggression, whereas feeling powerful was generally unrelated and/or negatively related to aggression. In sum, the unique variance in the psychopathy facets showed fairly specialized relationships with forms of aggression, and desire for power may be an independent explanatory construct for multiple forms of aggression proneness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Systemic kappa opioid receptor antagonism accelerates reinforcement learning via augmentation of novelty processing in male mice

Selective inhibition of kappa opioid receptors (KORs) is highly anticipated as a pharmacotherapeutic intervention for substance use disorders and depression. The accepted explanation for KOR antagonist-induced amelioration of aberrant behaviors posits that KORs globally function as a negative valence system; antagonism thereby blunts the behavioral influence of negative internal states such as anhedonia and negative affect. While effects of systemic KOR manipulations have been widely reproduced, explicit evaluation of negative valence as an explanatory construct is lacking. Here, we tested a series of falsifiable hypotheses generated a priori based on the negative valence model by pairing reinforcement learning tasks with systemic pharmacological KOR blockade in male C57BL/6J mice. The negative valence model failed to predict multiple experimental outcomes: KOR blockade accelerated contingency learning during both positive and negative reinforcement without altering innate responses to appetitive or aversive stimuli. We next proposed novelty processing, which influences learning independent of valence, as an alternative explanatory construct. Hypotheses based on novelty processing predicted subsequent observations: KOR blockade increased exploration of a novel, but not habituated, environment and augmented the reinforcing efficacy of novel visual stimuli in a sensory reinforcement task. Together, these results revise and extend long-standing theories of KOR system function.

An Overview of Dissemination and Implementation Science in Physical Activity and Health Promotion

Dissemination and implementation (D&I) science can be described as the scientific study of the strategies and mechanisms by which scientific evidence is disseminated and implemented in community or clinical settings to improve outcomes for a specified population. This paper provides an overview of D&I science as it relates to health and physical activity promotion. It provides definitions and specifications for D&I strategies and an overview of the types of theories, models, and frameworks used to advance this work. Finally, this review demonstrated the need for physical activity researchers to (a) test relationships between changes in D&I explanatory constructs and D&I outcomes; (b) determine the utility of D&I strategies, based on explanatory theories, to improve intervention reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance; (c) develop strategies to take interventions to scale and reduce disparities; and (d) develop interventions and D&I strategies, in collaboration with those who would ultimately be responsible for implementation.

The linkage between international trade and economic growth in Kazakhstan

Increased international trade flows and reduced trade restrictions have sparked ongoing debate and discussion about the influence of international trade on economic progress. Based on the empirical evaluation, the paper investigates the impact of trade openness on Kazakhstan's economic growth in a multivariate framework. It includes investment, international trade, labour force, human capital, and natural resource as explanatory constructs when gross domestic product per capita is the regressand variable. This research aims to assess the long-term relationship between trade and income development in Kazakhstan from 1992 to 2020. The Phillips and Perron (1988) and augmented Dickey and Fuller (1981) tests are used to check data stationarity. The bound test shows that the concerned variables have a long-term relationship. The results conclude that trade negatively impacts growth in the short and long run. While capital formation, labour quantity, quality, and natural resources positively affect the development of Kazakhstan's economy. This negative impact of trade on growth could be attributed to the country's shortage of good institutions and inefficient management, economic structure, and development policies. Also, it could be due to the substantial negative impact of imports countering the positive effect of exports.

Estimating farmers' intention towards institutional credit adoption by using extended theory of planned behavior

AbstractThe role of socio‐psychological factors on farmers' institutional credit adoption intention is rarely studied in the context of developing nations. This study estimates the direct and mediating association of various socio‐psychological factors with farmers' institutional credit adoption intention. An extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) was adopted and empirically tested using the cross‐sectional data from 384 farmers from West Bengal. The study used structural equation model for the mediation analysis. Results showed that primary TPB constructs like attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control were positively and significantly associated with the intention of institutional credit adoption. Besides direct effect, the primary TPB constructs mediated the relationship between institutional credit adoption intention and other explanatory constructs used in this study. Findings predicted a positive partial mediation between trusted information sources, formal education level, coping appraisal, risk perception, and farmers' formal credit borrowing intention. Risk perception displayed a direct and mediated, however, negative, association with farmers' institutional credit adoption intention. These findings provide a clear understanding of factors predicting farmers' intention to adopt institutional credit and comprehensive insight into establishing policies for effective institutional lending at the ground level. The study delivers a paramount scientific perspective to the policymaker of developing countries suffering from insufficient institutional credit penetration in the farming community to design practicable frameworks and incentivize policies to motivate farmers in institutional credit borrowing.

Understanding the relations between self-monitoring and authenticity: What are the roles of theory of mind and Machiavellianism?

The current study examined the role of two constructs in potentially explaining the linkages between Snyder's (1974) self-monitoring construct (adapting behavior to fit social expectations like a social chameleon) and authenticity (behaving consistently with one's thoughts)/well-being. The proposed explanatory constructs were theory of mind (ToM; predicting feelings/thoughts of others) and Machiavellianism (manipulating others for one's own benefit), with the first representing a skill set facilitating the healthy negotiation of successful relationships and the second representing a motivational mindset focused on obtaining advantages and status. Participants (N = 384, 17 to 60 years; Mage = 19.49; 69.5% female) responded to a questionnaire that included tests and measures of the aforementioned constructs. Regression analyses indicated that the link between other-directedness, one of two major self-monitoring dimensions, and authenticity (as well as well-being) could be explained in part as a function of Machiavellianism. On the other hand, the eyes-test, which serves as a measure of social-perceptual features of ToM, was not found to be related to self-monitoring, authenticity, or well-being in our data. The implications for advancing our understanding of the linkages between self-monitoring and authenticity are discussed.

Assessing Psychological Inflexibility Pertaining to Self in Patients With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Using an Indirect Measure of (Nonassociative) Propositions

Relational frame theory (RFT) is a modern behavioral account of human language and cognition, which focuses on relations or propositions, rather than associations, as core explanatory constructs. In an attempt to measure such propositions, RFT researchers have developed the implicit relational assessment procedure (IRAP). It has been argued that the size of an IRAP effect may provide a metric for psychological inflexibility. The current study aimed to determine whether psychological inflexibility, as measured by the self-focused Natural Language-IRAP (NL-IRAP), would be higher in a clinical sample of individuals with a diagnosis of PTSD (N = 29) when compared to a nonclinical sample. Subsequently, the study investigated whether the self-focused NL-IRAP could be used to predict the presence of a clinical diagnosis, using a ROC analysis. As predicted, higher levels of psychological inflexibility were observed for the clinical group. The self-focused NL-IRAP also correctly classified the presence of PTSD (AUC = 76%) with a sensitivity level of 79.3% and a specificity level of 59.2%. Overall, the use of the IRAP as a nonassociative clinical measure appears promising.

Understanding micro-level resilience enactment of everyday entrepreneurs under threat

ABSTRACT Differences in independent retail small business entrepreneurs’ COVID-19 resilience enactment are investigated using a qualitative retroductive analytic approach. We observed that some entrepreneurs, even in the same industry, sector and city, with similar offerings, chose to adopt online store technologies while others did not. Identity motives are uncovered as a likely explanatory construct, as those with externally focused identity motives generally adopted these technologies while those with internally focused identity motives generally did not. Identity motives appear to influence entrepreneurs’ perceptions of technology affordances, potentially moderating the impact of these perceptions on technology adoption decisions. Contrary to conceptualizations of individual resilience being a trait or process, we find support that resilience is more appropriately viewed as a mindset. Implications for entrepreneurship theory, practice, and education are discussed.

ЛИЦО КАК МОДУСНЫЙ СУБЪЕКТ ИЗЪЯСНИТЕЛЬНОЙ КОНСТРУКЦИИ В ЯЗЫКЕ МЕДИА

The article analyzes Russian explanatory sentences, understood as a semantic type characterized by a combination of dictum and modus propositions. Each of them has a number of constructive embodiments, the technique of their connection varies, which generally determines a significant range of explanatory constructions – from a simple sentence (with and without introductory words) to a complex one – complex and non-union. Observations are being made on the language of the Russian media. The object of attention is the position of the modus subject. It is revealed that it is replaced in media texts not only by designations of persons (pronouns or personal nouns), which is trivial, but also by three types of non-personal nouns – the names of media institutions, power structures and social institutions. Such facts, illustrated by examples from the media texts of a number of publications (Kommersant, Izvestia, Fontanka.ru, Ogonyok, etc.), indicate that the explanatory construction in media speech opens up for stylistics, in particular, for regular action of metonymy (author / editorial board, authority / its locus, etc.). This circumstance is interpreted against the background of general judgments about the gender of metonymy and metonymic thinking in the modern media sphere.

Если что и что если как факты современной русской речи: употребление, семантика, синтаксический статус

The paper describes two semi-formed fragments of language system - esli chto (if what) and chto esli (what if) - that can be analytically divided into components but function as ready-to-use units (phrasemes). Their conventionality results from the dialogic nature of the speech situation and regular reproducibility. These proved to acquire new meanings following grammarization and idiomatization. Esli chto has been found to have the following meanings: 1) conditional (dictum information): the pronoun chto replaces the part of a sentence referring to the condition upon which the thing stated in the sentence has to be or may be done; 2) in asymmetric complex sentences, esli chto is transformed from an informationally reduced substitute for dictum information into an informationally reduced substitute for a condition with a non-verbalized modus predicate of an explanatory construction = uchti (take into account); 3) a complete loss of dictum content and the acquisition of only modus meaning = uchti / imey v vidu (take into account/bear in mind); 4) semantic devastation. What if has been observed to have the following meanings: 1) a dictum meaning, with a reduction in dictum content with a verbally expressed question; 2) the synonym for a modus introductory phrase mozhet byt’ (maybe); 3) the synonym for adverb vdrug (suddenly). Observing the functioning of the constructions in question has revealed their evolution coinciding with general grammaticalization and idiomatization processes, affecting entire syntactic structures, with idiomatization transferring the sentences from polypredicative and polypropositive to monopredicative and monopropositive ones and the semantic conjunction esli losing the semantic and grammatical properties of the subordinate conjunction.

Lessons from behaviorism: The problem of construct-led science.

Yarkoni makes a number of valid points in his critical analysis of psychology, but he misses an opportunity to expose the root of its problems. That root is the poor practice around the derivation of explanatory constructs. We make comment on this with an example from behaviorist history and relate this to the recent discussion of scientific understanding in the philosophy of science.

Семантическая обусловленность структуры конструкций с глаголами речи

Introduction. Explanatory constructions in the Buryat language, namely, those with verbs of speech as their main predicate, have not been studied in detail so far. Their systematic study involves a detailed analysis of both the semantics of the predicate of the main clause and the structure of the entire construction. The purpose of the article was to identify the correlation between the semantics of verbs of speech and the structural type of constructions. For the purpose, it was necessary i) to identify the group of verbs of speech, ii) to make an inventory of the structures in question, iii) to identify their structural types and specific characteristics, iv) to distribute verbs of speech according to structural types, and v) to study the interdependence between the semantics of verbs and the types of constructions. Original literary texts of the Buryat electronic corps served as material for the study. Linguistic observation, description, component analysis, and structural modeling were used as methods of the analysis. Research results. Buryat explanatory clauses are of the three structural types: participial, participial with postpositions, and bifinite constructions. Each of them specializes in expressing information of a particular level of abstraction: bifinite constructions introduce direct speech; participial constructions with the accusative case of the dependent predicate convey indirect speech; participial constructions with postpositions name the theme. As the analysis of the distribution of verbs of speech by structural types shows, verbs with semantics suggesting a long speech act like ‘to tell’ are more often used in bifinite and postpositional constructions. Those with the meaning of a short speech act, or of the type ‘to add’, implement the valence of the speech in constructions with direct speech and conjunction gezhe. Verbs of speech that differ in their role in communication, for example, asuu-, hura- (ask), implement the valence of the speech in bifinite constructions with gezhe and participles in the accusative case. The author concluded that the structure of the constructions under study is largely dependent on the semantics of the verbs of speech.

The development and disruption of relationships between leaders and organizational members and the importance of trust

Our contribution lies in extending theorizing on relationship quality, by illustrating how the interwoven relationships between a leader and ‘follower’ may support or disrupt relationship development over time. Based on a study of leaders and organizational members in high-tech start-up firms, we provide concurrently a broader, more in-depth understanding, and therefore a more detailed and nuanced view, of how relationship quality develops or is disrupted. In particular, we highlight the importance of trust, exploring the under-researched topic of how differing interpretations of trust by leaders and organizational members can impact leaps of faith, acceptance, short-term or longer-term relationship quality. The findings address critiques of Leader Member Exchange (LMX) theory as the dominant explanatory construct for relationship quality, and highlight the need for longitudinal qualitative studies to explore the meanings both leaders and individual members of their organization give to their relationship over time.

Self-regulation and Autonomy in the Job Search: Key Factors to Support Job Search Among Swiss Job Seekers

AbstractTechnology integration in the workplace context has led to substantial growth in high- versus low-skilled jobs, and thus, further disparities between workers and those who were already unemployed. Technology use is also being used more frequently in the job search process, which could further lead to disparities, especially for job seekers experiencing marginalization. Thus, we conducted a controlled longitudinal field deployment of two employment-based tools—RevueCV and InterviewApp—among 46 Switzerland-based unemployed job seekers. Using the theory of planned behavior (TPB), we sought to understand how the tools affected job search self-efficacy, subjective norms and job search attitudes—the three factors that influence a job seekers’ job search intention. Although participants appreciated the support the two tools provided, and the inherent study benefits, our interview and survey results showed no substantial changes in their TPB values, primarily because the tools provided overlapping services with the local job placement offices. However, results of our interviews found autonomy, or the lack thereof, to be a key factor contributing to job seeker dissatisfaction. We introduce the concept of self-regulation to the TPB as an explanatory construct and contribute design and theoretical implications to support autonomy among job seekers with less control of their job search.