External Norms Research Articles

Machine Hearts and Wandering Spirits in Nietzsche and Zhuangzi

Both Nietzsche and Zhuangzi spurn the boundaries of human convention and traditional authority and maintain that the ego-self, based on the internalization of external norms is its unwelcome byproduct. In an attempt to counteract this, these thinkers espouse a wandering approach to existence, which would affirm the existence of the variegated and perpetually evolving cosmos and help to undo the often pernicious effects of the objectification of language. Paradoxically, they maintain that a deep connection to other beings and the natural world necessitates a willingness to embrace solitude and also the dissolution of the self.

Modifying the minimum criteria for diagnosing amnestic MCI to improve prediction of brain atrophy and progression to Alzheimer\u2019s disease

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a heterogeneous condition with variable outcomes. Improving diagnosis to increase the likelihood that MCI reliably reflects prodromal Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) would be of great benefit for clinical practice and intervention trials. In 230 cognitively normal (CN) and 394 MCI individuals from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, we studied whether an MCI diagnostic requirement of impairment on at least two episodic memory tests improves 3-year prediction of medial temporal lobe atrophy and progression to AD. Based on external age-adjusted norms for delayed free recall on the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT), MCI participants were further classified as having normal (AVLT+, above −1 SD, n = 121) or impaired (AVLT -, −1 SD or below, n = 273) AVLT performance. CN, AVLT+, and AVLT- groups differed significantly on baseline brain (hippocampus, entorhinal cortex) and cerebrospinal fluid (amyloid, tau, p-tau) biomarkers, with the AVLT- group being most abnormal. The AVLT- group had significantly more medial temporal atrophy and a substantially higher AD progression rate than the AVLT+ group (51% vs. 16%, p < 0.001). The AVLT+ group had similar medial temporal trajectories compared to CN individuals. Results were similar even when restricted to individuals with above average (based on the CN group mean) baseline medial temporal volume/thickness. Requiring impairment on at least two memory tests for MCI diagnosis can markedly improve prediction of medial temporal atrophy and conversion to AD, even in the absence of baseline medial temporal atrophy. This modification constitutes a practical and cost-effective approach for clinical and research settings.

Discourses of rivalry or rivalry of discourses: discursive strategies and framing of Chinese and Japanese foreign policies in Central Asia

This article analyzes discursive strategies of China and Japan to integrate newly emerging Central Asian (CA) states into their internal and external policies, norms and concepts, according to which they justify both their actions in CA and CA responses to these policies. This article elaborates the concept that to a certain extent, the interests of China and Japan in CA are similarly focused on mineral resources and political stability. However, these countries employ different discursive strategies to frame their approaches and goals. This article also emphasizes that the discourse of competition for regional domination prevalent in the English language, Russian and some CA media is largely an imposition of a zero-sum vision of international relations that is not proven by any empirical evidence. On the contrary, many of the projects conducted both by China and Japan are compatible – if not supplementary – and do not necessarily imply exclusivity of interest. At the same time, both China and Japan have different ways of reasoning their CA engagements, resulting in a rivalry of discourses for the ‘hearts and minds’ of the CA population.

Nationalism and Europeanization in LGBT Rights and Politics: A Comparative Study of Croatia and Serbia

LGBT rights have come to be seen as allied with the idea of “Europe” and a European identity, particularly in the process of European Union enlargement to the East. Scholars have examined the ways in which external norms interact with more local, often “traditional” norms and identities. In this process, nationalism and conceptions of national identity and gender/sexuality norms can be seen as important factors that influence the domestic adoption of LGBT rights, particularly in the post-war Balkans. Croatia and Serbia (from approximately 2000 to 2014) present two interesting and different cases to analyze how discourses and dynamics of national and state identity construction, nationalism, and LGBT rights relate to discourses of “Europeanness” and European identity and how these affect the political dynamics of LGBT rights. This article finds that in Croatia, national identity was constructed in terms of convergence with European norms and identity, homonationalism was used to distinguish themselves from a “Balkan” identity, and there was a lower threat perception of the LGBT community framed primarily as a “threat to the family.” In Serbia, state and national identity was constructed in opposition to Europe and homosexuality had stronger threat perception, framed primarily as “threat to the nation.” In short, nationalism and national identity were less disadvantageous as a domestic constraint to LGBT rights in Croatia than in Serbia. The dynamics between nationalism and LGBT rights played out, for example, in the politics of the marriage referendum, Pride Parades, and public discourse more generally. This research contributes to the scholarship on LGBT rights and nationalism by empirically analyzing the different ways that nationalism, gender/sexuality, and European identity interrelate and influence LGBT rights change in a changing post-war identity landscape and how domestic constraints affect human rights norm diffusion.

What Counts as Sustainable? Negotiating Legitimacy in Controversial Market Practices

Although much of the literature on moral legitimation focuses on alignment with external norms, less attention has been given to “recurring legitimacy contests” and to “negotiating legitimacy”. The...

The extraterritorial human rights obligations of the EU in its external trade and investment policies

The EU is bound by human rights obligations toward individuals outside the territory of its Member States who are affected by its trade and investment policies. Internal rules of the EU, namely the Founding Treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and various external norms, that is international law sources, impose human rights obligations on the EU. Those human rights obligations are increasingly interpreted by treaty monitoring bodies as requiring extraterritorial due diligence duties from States parties, in the sense that the creation of substantial and foreseeable effects outside the State’s territory establishes the jurisdiction of the State party. This jurisdiction leads to positive obligations, namely the duty to exert due diligence on trade and investment policies. The EU is expected to assess the risks of human rights violations by its trade and investment partners in and outside its Member States and take all reasonable efforts to avoid foreseeable human rights violations. Although those human rights are likely to continue to be unenforceable before the Court of Justice, the consistent reference to due diligence obligations by treaty monitoring bodies, the European Ombudsman and the European Data Protection Supervisor should encourage EU institutions to comply with their due diligence obligations.

Generalizability of gene expression programming and random forest methodologies in estimating cropland and grassland leaf area index

Leaf Area Index (LAI) is a very important structural attribute of ecosystems which affects the energy, water and carbon exchanges between the land surface and atmosphere. Direct measurement of LAI is costly and time consuming so indirect measurement approaches have been developed for determining its magnitude. The present paper aimed at modeling LAI in cropland and grassland sites using the available meteorological data through two heuristic data driven techniques, namely, gene expression programming (GEP) and random forest (RF). Different data set organizations were designed using local (temporal) and external (spatial) norms to provide a thoroughgoing data scanning strategy. The results showed that the external GEP and RF models (EGEP and ERF) might be suitable approaches for modeling LAI by average scatter index (SI) values of 0.275 and 0.270 (for cropland) and 0.273 and 0.279 (for grassland) when compared to the local GEP and RF models with average SI values of 0.207 and 0.204 (cropland), and 0.249 and 0.204 (grassland), respectively. The presented methodology allowed the evaluation in each site of models developed (trained) using local patterns and the models developed using the exogenous data (patterns from ancillary sites).

Beauty, Effort, and Misrepresentation: How Beauty Work Affects Judgments of Moral Character and Consumer Preferences

AbstractWomen engage in a variety of beauty practices, or “beauty work,” to enhance their physical appearance, such as applying cosmetics, tanning, or exercising. Although the rewards of physical attractiveness are well documented, perceptions of both the women who engage in efforts to enhance their appearance and the high-effort beauty products marketed to them are not well understood. Across seven studies, we demonstrate that consumers judge women who engage in certain types of extensive beauty work as possessing poorer moral character. These judgments occur only for effortful beauty work perceived as transformative (significantly altering appearance) and transient (lasting a relatively short time), such that they emerge within cosmetics and tanning, yet not skincare or exercise. This effect is mediated by the perception that putting high effort into one’s appearance signals a willingness to misrepresent one’s true self, and translates into lower purchase intentions for higher-effort cosmetics. We identify several boundary conditions, including the attractiveness of the woman performing the beauty work and whether the effort is attributed to external norms or causes. In examining how beauty work elicits moral judgments, we also shed light on why effortful cosmetic use is viewed negatively, yet effortful products continue to be commercially successful.

GĖDA KAIP STOKOS PATYRIMAS: NAUJAS FENOMENOLOGINIS POŽIŪRIS

Šio straipsnio tikslas yra pasiūlyti naujo fenomenologinio požiūrio į gėdą apmatus. Tvirtinama, jog dominuojančios gėdos teorijos yra pernelyg siauros ir gėdą supranta vien kaip socialinių sankcijų baimę ar intymią patirtį, kai subjektas tampa išorinių socialinių normų objektu. Parodoma, kad gėdą reikėtų suprasti kaip individo išgyvenimą, jog jis nėra pajėgus pasiekti ego idealo standartų, nes stokoja kažko vertingo. Žvelgiant iš šios perspektyvos, gėda yra labai intymus išgyvenimas, kai individas vertina save neigiamai, nes esą stokoja to, kas, jo nuomone, jam reikalinga. Kita vertus, kadangi stoka pasireiškia tik individui lyginant realųjį savo Aš su ego idealu, gėda visuomet pasižymi ideologiniu aspektu, nes ego idealas atspindi bendras ideologines vertybes, prie kurių individas prisirišęs ir kurios sudaro dalį jo savipratos.

Arbitration in Anarchy

The paper investigates the prospects for “neutral” arbitration in anarchy, in which the parties to a dispute have no recourse to legal forms of dispute resolution. A neutral arbitrator as we define it is someone who settles disputes according to some standard or norm external to the parties. In anarchy, the use of an external norm may reduce the likelihood that the parties will both agree to arbitration ex ante and comply with it ex post. This implies that, in anarchic settings, an arbitrator must take into account facts about the relative powers of the parties to prevail in a fight if she is to promote peaceful conflict resolution. Neutral norm enforcement is possible when the arbitrator has some coercive power permitting her to force the disputing parties to appear and to accept her proposed settlement. We show, however, that some degree of neutral norm enforcement is also possible under weaker conditions, without any power to coerce. Key conditions for approximately neutral arbitration are that the gains from arbitration are large and power asymmetries between the parties are not too extreme.

Alledaagse omgang tussen zorgprofessionals en zorgontvangers als vindplaats voor goede (LVB) zorg

Alledaagse omgang tussen zorgprofessionals en zorgontvangers als vindplaats voor goede (LVB) zorg

Shaping Rules and Practice for More Justice. Local Conventions and Local Resistance in Eastern Senegal

Participatory programs and the transfer of the means of regulation to local populations can move local people to adopt government or development project agendas. They do not always succeed. When externally driven agendas fail to match local norms and practices, they are resisted and re-worked to accommodate local views, needs, and aspirations. In this interaction both the external agenda and local norms are contested and reconstituted in ways that follow the contours of the power asymmetries among local actors and external resource users, government agents and project managers. In the Tambacounda Region of Senegal, forest-dwelling villagers constantly negotiate forest use with more powerful urban-based merchants and transhumant herders. Government and international development programs have introduced ‘local conventions,’ written agreements among resource users, to reduce conflict over resource-use decisions. However, despite elaboration through participatory processes these conventions impose rules of management and use that contradict local environmental subjectivities; consequently, local people resist and rework introduced rules, and thus reconstitute them as, at least partly, their own.

How Self-Control Shapes the Meaning of Choice

Abstract Self-control is an important driver of choice, but might it also change choice’s meaning, making it seem less indicative of preference? Decades of research suggest that preference and choice are often intertwined. Choice often originates from one’s preferences. As a result, choice is often seen as a reflection of preference, leading people to infer their preferences by observing their own choices. We suggest that self-control attenuates this process. Because self-control often overrides personal desires in favor of external constraints, norms, and long-term considerations, we propose that self-control is associated with a sense of attenuated correspondence between choice and individual preference. Five experiments suggest that when the notion of self-control is salient, people are less likely to see their choices as reflecting their preferences or to infer preference from previous choices. As a result, evoking the notion of self-control attenuates the tendency to view choice as indicative of preference, even in contexts unrelated to where self-control was originally evoked. Thus, self-control shapes not only choice itself, but also the perceived meaning of choice.

Does Foreign Aid Harm Local Institutions? External Subsidies, Giving Behavior, and Social Norms in a Lab Experiment

Evidence for the long-term effects of foreign aid on local communities is mixed. In a laboratory experiment, we investigate whether external subsidies, e.g. foreign assistance, promote or undermine giving. Subjects play two rounds of a dictator game followed by an elicitation of norms. In both rounds, leaders allocate earned endowments to passive recipients. With a between-subject design, we vary the presence of a subsidy and compare wealth redistribution to public good provision. We find that subsidizing public good provision increases giving, while subsidizing wealth redistribution does not. Furthermore, subsidies do not undermine giving or norms about giving in the long-term.

Working Together on Climate Change: Policy Transfer and Convergence in Four Canadian Provinces

Sub-federal governments have played a prominent role in the development of climate change policies in North America. In Canada, four provinces in particular, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec, worked with each other and U.S. states, and engaged at the international level, when choosing policy instruments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. How did interjurisdictional dynamics influence the instruments these provinces selected and has there been convergence in their policy responses? The article finds that policy transfer, information sharing, and emulation among jurisdictions, was more likely to overcome competitiveness concerns and lead to policy adoption when it was driven by technical learning or the desire to conform to external norms, than when jurisdictions compared themselves to others or attempted to influence broader policies through political benchmarking and bandwagoning. Despite continued variation in some areas, there has been limited convergence on some provincial instruments.

Становление и особенности этического персонализма С.Л. Франка

The author reveals the evolution of Semyon Frank’s (1877-1950) views towards morality and its foundations. He stresses the influence on the philosopher as the concept of Vladimir Solovyov’s All-Unity so western European thought in the type of Kantian’s ethics of duty and F. Nietzsche’s voluntarism and gave them religion and philosophical interpretation. Frank also inherited ideas Nicholas of Cusa and Hegel. Though substantiating principles of his personalistic ethics Frank opposed any “despotism” in the sphere of morality, both rejecting as rigorism and external norm of moral law (Kant), so “imperative” ideal of “superman” (Nietzsche). In addition, the author considers the concept of freedom and theodicy in Frank’s ethics.

How Indian is Indian English?: Indian Words in Registers of Indian English

The rising status of English as a world language has led to the emergence of several non-native or new varieties of English, with Indian English being a major new variety. Much work on Indian English has focused on establishing the Indianness of the language. As Kachru points out, studies of Indian English consider “linguistic interference and the Indian cultural context as essential for the understanding and description of the Indianness in this variety of English” (The Indianness of Indian English 391). Other early research on the Indianness of Indian English includes Verma, Dubey, Hosali, and Bhatt, to name just a few. The work represented by most previous studies on Indian English, which focus largely on the nature and degree of difference of Indian English from external norms, does not, however, provide a clear picture of the system underlying Indian English. The current study focuses on the Indianness of Indian English, but tests Kachru’s claims regarding the progressive Indianisation of Indian English. The first part of the study is an empirical investigation of Indian words in three spoken and three written registers of the language from a corpus compiled in the year 2000 and earlier, and identifies distinct semantic categories of words in the registers. Based on the results of this first analysis, the second part of the study analyses the occurrence of Indian words in a smaller corpus of a register of written Indian English compiled in 2016. The first part of the study shows that there are marked differences in the degree of Indianisation of Indian English among different registers, and the second part of the study shows that with respect to the register studied, written Indian English seems to be undergoing a process of un-Indianisation.

INITIATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF NEW INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS IN LATER LIFE

According to contemporary family theory late modern relationships are guided less be external norms and more by internal negotiation between relatively equal partners. The purpose of this paper is ...

The outer influence inside us: Exploring the relation between social and personal norms

International efforts for a more sustainable society have often resorted to formal agreements. But these commitments are more effective if people, communities and institutions integrate them as relevant behavioural standards, or social norms. In this paper we propose to analyse how social norms are internalized as personal norms and environmental identity, and then how able they are to predict recycling and organic foods purchase behaviour in two countries—Portugal and Brazil. The role of group identification is also analysed. Results show that behaviours are better predicted by personal norms and environmental identity than by more external social norms. Moreover, the influence of social norms on personal norms and environmental identity is in part moderated by group identification: Injunctive norms predict personal norms and environmental identity better when participants are more identified with the group, while descriptive norms predict them more directly.

ІМПЕРАТИВНИЙ ХАРАКТЕР ГАСТРОНОМІЧНИХ ПРАКТИК В РАМКАХ СОЦІАЛЬНОГО ПРОСТОРУ СУЧАСНОЇ ЛЮДИНИ

This article analyzes the main approaches to the study of food practices in sociological tradition. The attention is paid to the imperative dimension of gastronomic practices, where they come out as the social way to influence people. Their creation, despite the existential nature, depends almost entirely on existing cultural norms. Some trends of modern gastronomic practices are considered, where their total character is focused on a set of almost all social positions, the growth of semantic-symbolic component when food gets extra meanings and values, diffuse essence and industrial nature, organized on the principles of rationality specialized production, are particularly evident. Such tendencies lead to new ways of social adaptation of modern society. The article is an attempt to provide the classification of main gastronomic practices of modern society, which offers four main discursive approaches: culinary, status, health and national discourse, in the framework of which food practices of modern man are formed. These modern practices on the one hand act as the need to ensure internal social harmony and identification, and on the other as an expression of social pressures external cultural norms.