Fear Of Punishment Research Articles

Opportunities and Challenges for Innovations in Qatar

Opportunities and Challenges for Innovations in <scp>Q</scp>atar

How is Forgiveness Possible? Toward an Orthodox and Ascetic Answer

Debates regarding the relationship between justice and mercy, which generally includes forgiveness, have long occupied a central place in Christian theological discussion. Beginning with the teaching of the Gospels and Pauline Epistles, among others, Christians sought to articulate their perspective in contradistinction to the norms of other various Jewish perspectives at the time, both within and without the Church (cf. Matthew 9:13, 12:7). Further complications have historically centered upon the theological question of the doctrine of the atonement. Yet another significant strand has to do with social ethics and criminal justice. Jordan J. Ballor, for example, outlines four schools of thought regarding the relationship between retributive justice, restorative justice, and forgiveness: complementary reformists, instrumentalist reformists, separatist radicals, and abolitionist radicals. Beyond all of these questions and distinctions, however, is the deeply pressing, personal and existential dilemma: how does one forgive?This essay, in a very limited manner, brings together social science research and the Orthodox ascetic tradition on justice, mercy, love, and forgiveness in effort to answer this question. Drawing from St. John Cassian, St. John Climacus, and St. Nicolas Cabasilas inter alia, I outline a three-tiered schema that ties together (1) sin, the antinatural, fear of punishment, and slavery; (2) justice, natural law, expectation of reward, and stewardship; and (3) mercy, the supranatural, love, and sonship. On the one hand, preliminary concrete findings of social science research are used to augment, confirm, and complicate this theoretical schema, while, on the other hand, the schema is used as an evaluative tool for the data. Understanding asceticism as the cultivation of virtue through various practices of self-denial in cooperation with divine grace, I conclude by suggesting that forgiveness, as an ascetic act, requires a flowering of the grace of God through personal discipline and situational prudence, sketching a picture of what this could look like and suggesting areas for further research.

Making Meaning Together: An Exploratory Study of Therapeutic Conversation between Helping Professionals and Homeless Shelter Residents

This exploratory study examined the nature of therapeutic conversation between helping professionals and homeless persons as an intervention to optimize health. Meaningful conversation occurred in relationships where there was a sense of connection and the presence of rapport. Emergent facilitators of therapeutic conversation included respectful engagement, casual nature of conversation, alternative settings for therapeutic conversation, effective listening, and establishing trust. Barriers included prejudging homeless persons, fear of punishment and authority, and academic and professional intimidation. Central to the study findings was the acknowledgement of the client's personhood. Acknowledgement of personhood is a critical element in engagement between homeless persons and helping professionals.

It Wasn't Me! Visibility and Free Riding in Waste Sorting

Free riding problems can be more severe in multiple-person social dilemmas than in two-person dilemmas, since agents can hide their actions behind the veil of anonymity. In this paper, we use field data on waste sorting to study the effect of visibility in social dilemmas. We compare the sorting behavior of households sharing (or not) their bin for unsorted waste. Since households have to pay a fee proportional to their unsorted waste production, sharing the bin means sharing the fee. We find that, on average, household unsorted waste production is higher if three or more households share the same bin. Surprisingly, when only two households share the same bin, and therefore the household sorting behavior can be identified, unsorted waste production decreases compared to users not sharing the bin. Our interpretation is that shame and fear of punishment may play a role between the two sharing users.

Free at Last: Rejecting Equal Sovereignty and Restoring the Constitutional Right to Vote: Shelby County v. Holder

Free at Last: Rejecting Equal Sovereignty and Restoring the Constitutional Right to Vote: Shelby County v. Holder

Testing yardstick competition through a vote-function: evidence from the Walloon municipalities

This paper aims at testing yardstick competition among the local jurisdictions of the Walloon Region (Southern part of Belgium) by directly testing its seminal hypothesis: yardstick voting. Actually the theory states that local incumbents are mimicking themselves because they fear punishment for implementing higher tax rates than in the neighbouring jurisdictions. Our research question is whether voters punish their incumbents for higher tax rates?We estimate different specifications of a vote function. None of them supports the yardstick voting hypothesis. One can thus exclude yardstick voting as a statistically supported behaviour of taxpayers. And we can exclude yardstick competition as a source of tax interactions in the Walloon region if yardstick voting is a testable hypothesis of yardstick competition. Indeed, if the tax rates of the neighbouring jurisdictions do not influence voters’ choices, incumbents do not have to fear an electoral punishment and then mimicking each other is meaningless.

Compliance to Law and Effectiveness of the Rule of Law in Brazil

The goal of this paper is to debate the degree of effectiveness of the rule of law in Brazil, through a survey measuring perceptions, attitudes and habits of Brazilians in regard to compliance to law. The survey conducted in Brazil is based on the study conducted by Tom R. Tyler in the United States, entitled Why People Obey the Law? (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990). The main argument of Tyler´s study is that people obey the law when they believe it’s legitimate, and not because they fear punishment. We test the same argument in Brazil, relying on five indicators: (i) behavior, which depicts the frequency with which respondents declared to have engaged in conducts in disobedience to the law; (ii) instrumentality, measuring perception of losses associated with the violation of the law, specially fear of punishment; (iii) morality, measuring perception of how much is right or wrong to engage in certain conducts in violation of the law; (iv) social control, which measures perception of social disapproval of certain types of behavior in violation of the law, and (v) legitimacy, which measures the perception of respect to the law and to some authorities. Results indicate that fear of sanctions is not the strongest drive in compliance to law, but more than legitimacy, indicators of morality and social control are the strongest in explaining why people obey the law in Brazil.

Standards in mental health facilities – an in depth case study in Greece using the WHO QualityRights tool

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the quality of healthcare offered by a Greek Public Psychiatric Clinic. Special attention is paid to the degree to which the Clinic promotes human rights, social inclusion, and autonomy. Design/methodology/approach – The paper opted for an exploratory study using the open-ended approach of grounded theory, including 21 depth interviews with patients, staff members and patients’ relatives, documentation review and observation by an independent assessment team consisting of the author, a sociologist with mental disabilities, and a psychologist using the World Health Organization QualityRights tool kit which uses the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as its frame. The data complemented by a group discussion with employees in another Clinic of the same hospital. Findings – The paper provides empirical insights about how the steps taken by the Psychiatric Clinic to address several of the themes drawn from the CRPD require either improvement or initiation to comply fully with the convention's themes, and how this compares unfavorably with the Urology Clinic. Research limitations/implications – Sample size and restriction of the data to only one mental health facility limit the generalizibility of the results. Staff who reported professional burnout and cuts in wages may have been be susceptible to recall bias due to current negative mood. Respondent patients may also have failed to disclose their true experiences due to fear of punishment. Originality/value – The paper uses a new methodology and instrument to assess current practice in mental health facilities in relation to international human rights standards emanating from the CRPD as well as the degree of parity between mental health and general health services.

Triangular Assessment of the Etiology of Induced Abortion in Iran: A Qualitative Study

BackgroundAbout 46 million induced abortions occur in the world annually. The studies have reported 80000 cases of induced abortions in Iran annually.ObjectivesThis qualitative study was conducted to identify the causes of unsafe abortion in Iran from the standpoint of three groups of experts, women with a history of abortion or unwanted pregnancy and service providers.Patients and MethodsA total of 72 in-depth semi structured interviews were conducted in 2012 in Tehran and Shahroud. After coordination with 8 experts, sampling from them was done using the Snowballing method in their offices. Sampling from 28 married and 10 engaged women with a history of unwanted pregnancy or unsafe abortion and 12 providers was done in health care centers and a in number of gynecologists’ and midwives’ offices. Sampling from women with a history of unwanted pregnancy or unsafe abortion such as single women, HIV positive women and drug users, and women who had sexual intercourse for money was started by referring to the social rehabilitation center for women and continued using the snowballing method due to difficulties in accessing them. Participants were from different ethnic groups including Fars, Gilaks, Mazandarani, Arab, Azerbaijani, and Lor. Content analysis was performed on collected data.ResultsBased on the results of the interviews, participants have abortion for following reasons: 1. Wanted pregnancy (sub categories: fetal abnormalities, Concern about fetal health and lack of trust to prenatal diagnostic methods, Fetal sex, Lack of independent and free decision making regarding pregnancy in women, 2. Unwanted pregnancy (sub-categories: Socio-economic factors, Beliefs and feelings, Lack of information about family planning) 3. Predisposing factors (sub-categories: Lack of information on religious aspects of abortion, Easy access to easy abortion methods). Some people, despite having unwanted pregnancy due to social, economic, cultural and family grounds, continued their pregnancy and did not have an abortion for the following reasons: Religious beliefs, Beliefs (fear of punishment in the afterlife and believing in fate) , Attachment to the unborn baby, Influence of the other people’s opinions (physician, mother or spouse) Late diagnosis of pregnancy, Unsuccessful abortion attempts (Self-treatment, Unsuccessful medical abortion), Economic weakness and arbitrary treatment.ConclusionsIn the present study, women who continued their pregnancy despite being unwanted were also interviewed. Although they had the same social, economic, cultural, and family problems as women with a history of unsafe abortion and had easy access to abortion, analysis showed that the difference in religious beliefs between the two groups was the most important factor that led women to choose two different approaches. The authors believe that in-depth analysis of people’s beliefs and opinions in this regard and correction of false beliefs plays a crucial role in decreasing the rate of unsafe abortion.

On the acceptance of apologies

An apology is a strong and cheap device to restore social or economic relationships that have been disturbed. In a laboratory experiment in which apologies emerge endogenously, we find that harmdoers use apologies in particular if they fear punishment and if their intentions cannot be easily inferred. After offenses with ambiguous intention punishment for apologizers is lower than for non-apologizers. Victims expect an apology and punish if they do not receive one. An apology does not help at all after clearly intentionally committed offenses. On the contrary, after such offenses an apology strongly increases punishment compared to remaining silent.

Chanakya�s Chant

Woven in and around the context of one of the largest politically influenced and ruled countries in the world, whether in a monarchial era or in the so called developed and evolved democracy, Chanakya’s Chant emerges as an outstanding figment of Ashwin Sanghi’s imagination in carving out the characters from India’s unprecedented historical and present political scenario. The basic plot evolves from the time dating back to 2300 year old unanimous and mighty Maurya Empire, and the political Godfather disguised also as an economist, Chanakya. The story switches places between, the original kingmaker Chanakya and his aggressive political measures in crowning his protege Chandragupta Maurya as king, to a contemporary kingmaker Chanakya reincarnated as Gangasagar Mishra and Chandini substituting Chandragupta. The story begins in the backdrop of Mauryan empire with the murder of Paurus; contender for the kingship of Kaikey and Magadh empires and slowly unfolds Chanakya’s ruthlessness, and deceitful ways to win. On the parallel line of Chanakya; Mishra a believer in the great kingmaker’s mantras used everything at his disposal, good or bad, to succeed in his endeavors of taking Chandini to highest position of Prime minister of India. The author has meticulously revealed the fact that the society and political scenario remained as unchanged as the human nature itself. Society still remains divided on the basis of religion, caste, community and economic status and and is eventually exploited and ruled by the golden “Divide and Rule” policy. The basic four principles for winning and ruling over have strengthened rather than diminishing by time, i.e. ruling by intellectual pacifying ‘saam’, by using wealth as a foul means ‘daam’, by the fear of punishment ‘dand’ and by inducing inequality by social discrimination amongst individuals or populations ‘bhed’. The book has a flavor of reality, fiction, history, thriller and romance in calculated proportions that keeps its reader captivated and thrilled till the end. However historical events revolving around Chanakya’s neeti portray Chandragupta as a mere puppet with strings of his moral values and valor in the hands of a master strategist. Towards the end Suvasini, Chanakya’s lover, loses even the last chance to live a dignified life. She curses the strategist, that his strategies will stand naive and useless, unless for female empowerment. This very well showcases in the fact of the story where Chandini emerges as a national hero with a shining political career. The Chanakya’s Chant meditated upon by Gangasagar truly helped him achieve what he imagined for Chandini “Adi Shakti, Namo Namah Sarab Shakti, Namo Namah Prithum Bhagvati, Namo Namah”

Approach–Avoidance versus Dominance–Submissiveness: A Multilevel Neural Framework on How Testosterone Promotes Social Status

Approach–avoidance generally describes appetitive motivation and fear of punishment. In a social context approach motivation is, however, also expressed as social aggression and dominance. We therefore link approach–avoidance to dominance–submissiveness, and provide a neural framework that describes how the steroid hormone testosterone shifts reflexive as well as deliberate behaviors towards dominance and promotion of social status. Testosterone inhibits acute fear at the level of the basolateral amygdala and hypothalamus and promotes reactive dominance through upregulation of vasopressin gene expression in the central-medial amygdala. Finally, the hormone can, depending on social context and prenatal hormone exposure, promote both pro- and antisocial behaviors and decisions through its effects on prefrontal–amygdala interactions. All these effects of testosterone, however, serve to increase and maintain social status.

Message from Moriah – Part II: The Akeda: The Instruction of Abraham – Balance and Boundaries in Divine Devotion

In a short nineteen sentences towards the end of chapter 22 of Genesis, the “binding” of Isaac, in preparation for his sacrifice to the One God by his father is recounted. This account of parental fealty to a Divine Over-Lord that supersedes devotion to one’s offspring normative of civilized creatures is disturbing to most, regarded with repulsion by many, yet considered an exemplar of stellar piety by some. It has led to dozens of conflicting accounts and interpretations, resulting in leaving most of us confused or mystified, tempting us to reject the entire opus as maniacal, or worse, blindly accept the superficial account without question. Here, I review the disparate positions of five medieval authorities, including one who asserts Abraham failed the test, and attempt to reconcile these with the divergent texts of the Torah (Genesis) and Mishnah. I explore the concept that Abraham’s seemingly irrational actions derive from his ripening “love of heaven,” a psychological state that is both exemplary, and one requiring balance and boundaries lest it lead to unacceptable, over-zealous conduct. In viewing Abraham’s mind-set as one seeking to perform the mitzvah enumerated in Deuteronomy ch 6. V. 5-8, “And you shall love Gd with all your heart…,” the texts of both Genesis and Deuteronomy become mutually interdependent and translucent, and the holistic nature of the Bible becomes manifest. In addition, I re-examine the Kaballistic view that Abraham, whose soul-root derives from the Sephirah of Chesed (commonly translated as kindness), required testing in the opposing Sephirah of G’vurah, to wit that Abraham’s nature is one of soft-heartedness and he is put to the test to develop his capacity for “toughness” or “strength.” Instead, I postulate that the Sephirotic tests refer not to Abraham’s psychological state, but to his spiritual state, meaning that his capacity for “perfect” love of heaven (Ahavat Shamayim) must be balanced by an awe of heaven and a fear of punishment (Yirat Shamayim). Only when he is able to reach that state can he successfully elevate the spiritual levels of those around him, who begin their journey towards Gd from that plane. That this occurs at a location that Gd calls “Har HaMoriah,” and Abraham re-names as “Hashem Yireh” telegraphs that this entire episode is meant to be a “teachable-moment” to Abraham and to us, and that Abraham, the paragon of Love of Gd, has mastered the ability to fear him as well, demonstrating to us the journey of reaching Gd must proceed along two levels.

Osteitis of the Fourth Metatarsal Caused by a Date Palm Thorn in a Child: Why the Dorsum of the Foot Is the Most Commonly Injured Site

The palms are frequent in the region of eastern Morocco. An insidious onset of a lytic lesion in the base of the fourth metatarsal caused by a date palm thorn in a 20-year-old patient is presented. An untreated embedded thorn can cause late complications, including periostitis or osteomyelitis. In most cases, removal of the foreign body is easy, and no surgical care is needed. If detected, these injuries can be treated without complications. In children, however, the diagnosis can be very easily missed, especially if the child has aphasia and deafness, which was present in our patient. These can influence communication between the child and family, such that the patient is unable to inform the family about what object pricked him (e.g., date palm thorn, toothpick, insect) and is unable to tell the family that the foreign object remains embedded. This major communication issue between the child and family can result in potentially avoidable complications such as osteitis. No other issues were present in our patient that could have caused a delay in diagnosis, such as fear of punishment or fear of medical treatment. We present a case of date palm thorn-induced periostitis of the base of the fourth metatarsal. Surgical exploration revealed a 2.5-cm palm tree thorn embedded in granulation tissue, forming an abscess. The lesion was successfully treated by curettage of the lesion and removal of the thorn embedded in the periosteum of the metatarsal base. The purpose of the present report was to explain the mechanism of this rare entity and the frequency of this lesion on the dorsal aspect of the foot rather than on the plantar. Despite the absence of a definite history of trauma, organic foreign material should be in the differential diagnosis of a lytic lesion of the bone, especially in patients who have a problem with deafness or aphasia.

Learning from Taiwan patient-safety reporting system

ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to create a national database to record incidents that endanger patient safety. We try to identify systemic problems in hospitals in order to avoid safety incidents in the future and improve the quality of healthcare. MethodThe Taiwan Patient Safety Reporting System employs a voluntary notification model. We define 13 types of patient safety incidents, and the reports of different types of incidents are recorded using common terminology. Statistical analysis is used to identify the incident type, time of occurrence, location, person who reported the incident, and possible reasons for frequently occurring incidents. ResultsThere were 340 hospitals that joined this program from 2005 to 2010. Over 128,271 incident events were reported and analyzed. The three most common incidents were drug-related incidents, falls, and endo tube related incidents. By analyzing the time of occurrence of incidents, we found that drug-related incidents usually occurred between 8 and 10am. Falls and endo tube incidents usually occurred between 4 and 6am. The most common location was wards (57.6%), followed by intensive care areas (13.5%), and pharmacies (9.1%). Among hospital staff, nurses reported the highest number of incidents (68.9%), followed by pharmacists (14.5%) and administrative staff (5.5%). The number of incidents reported by doctors was much lower (1.2%). Most staff members who reported incidents had been working for less than five years (58.1%). ConclusionThe unified reporting system was found to improve the recording and analysis of patient safety incidents. To encourage hospital staff to report incidents, hospitals need to be assisted in establishing an internal report and management system for safety incidents. Hospitals also need a protection mechanism to allow staff members to report incidents without the fear of punishment. By identifying the root causes of safety incidents and sharing the lessons learned across hospitals is the only way such incidents can be stopped from happening again.

Barriers and motivators affecting tuberculosis infection control practices of Russian health care workers

Five in-patient and out-patient tuberculosis (TB) care facilities in two regions of Russia. To identify barriers and motivators to the use of infection control measures among Russian TB health care workers. In this qualitative study, a convenience sample of 96 health care workers (HCWs) was used to generate 15 homogeneous focus groups, consisting of physicians, nurses, and laboratory or support staff. Barriers and motivators related to knowledge, attitudes and beliefs, and practices were identified. The three main barriers were 1) knowledge deficits, including the belief that TB was transmitted by dust, linens and eating utensils; 2) negative attitudes related to the discomfort of respirators; and 3) practices with respect to quality and care of respirators. Education and training, fear of infecting loved ones, and fear of punishment were the main motivators. Our results point to the need for evaluation of current educational programs. Positive health promotion messages that appeal to fear might also be successful in promoting TB infection control. Individualized rewards based on personal motivators or group rewards that build on collectivist theory could be explored.

Mobilising knowledge across organisational boundaries: addressing human issues in the telecommunications industry

The key question addressed in this research is ‘how can we effectively manage and mobilise knowledge in the extended enterprise?’. We explore how knowledge sharing and transfer occur when developing new products, with special reference to the telecommunications industry. The benefits of implementing knowledge management strategies have been proven but research has largely focused on technology as a solution. Working together with European-based telecommunication companies, we focus instead on the softer, human issues. The main human barriers identified include international differences, accuracy and protection of knowledge, maintenance of communication channels, lack of time, fear of penalties and market position.

Preparing the Child Facing Surgery: The Use of Play Therapy

Early psychoanalytic reports suggest how surgery can arouse children's unconscious fears and fantasies about the anticipated assault on their body. Psychological preparation programs seem to help in preventing the negative effects of surgery and in dealing with other potentially traumatic experiences in the future. Most of these programs have focused mainly on the cognitive-behavioral level and less on the emotional part of the experience. Puppet play seems to provide an opportunity for expressing and mastering common children's concerns such as confinement, abandonment, fear of punishment, and the feeling of helplessness. In addition, puppets can be used effectively by children for the projection of unpleasant feelings or fantasies. This function is further facilitated by modeling as the therapist models for the child that the verbalization of feelings is acceptable. A relevant manual-based semi-structured intervention is discussed here.

Invoking the Authority of Feelings as a Strategic Maneuver in Family Mealtime Conversations

ABSTRACTThis paper is centred on family conversations and focuses on the conditions that allow a specific strategic maneuver, the invocation of the authority, to be an effective argumentative strategy when used by parents to convince their children to accept rules and prescriptions. Within a corpus of argumentative sequences selected from 30 video‐recordings of family mealtime conversations, an argumentative sequence between parents and children, which brings to light the results obtained through the qualitative analysis of a corpus of 60 argumentative sequences, is presented and discussed. The analysis relies on a communicative‐argumentative methodology based on the extended pragma‐dialectical theory and on the Argumentum Model of Topics to identify the participants' moves and to analyze the inferential configuration of arguments, respectively. The findings of the analysis show that the invocation of the authority by parents represents an argumentative strategy that is effective when two conditions are met: (i) the nature of the relationship between the person who represents the authority and the person to whom the argument is addressed is based on the certainty of positive feelings, rather than on the fear of punishment, and (ii) the reasons the prohibition is based on are not to be hidden from the child's eyes, but are to be shared by family members. The analysis has thus brought out a specific type of invocation of authority that we have defined as the authority of feelings. The results of this study contribute to research on family argumentation and on the interactional dynamics between parents and children. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Stated response to increased enforcement density and penalty size for speeding and driving unbelted

To what extent can traffic offences be reduced through stronger enforcement, higher penalties, and the provision of information to road users? This question was addressed with respect to the offences of “speeding” and “driving unbelted.” Data were collected by a telephone survey of admitted speeders, followed by 438 face-to-face stated response interviews. Based on the data collected, separate statistical models were developed for the two offences. The models predict the behavioral effect of increasing enforcement density and/or penalty size as well as the additional effect of providing information to car drivers. All three factors are predicted to be effective in reducing speeding. According to the model, one additional enforcement event per year will cause a driver to reduce his current frequency of speeding by 5%. A penalty increase of 10 Euros is predicted to have the same effect. An announcement of stronger enforcement or higher fines is predicted to have an additional effect on behavior, independent of the actual magnitudes of increase in enforcement or fines. With respect to the use of a seat belt, however, neither an increase in enforcement density nor its announcement is predicted to have a significant effect on driver behavior. An increase in the penalty size is predicted to raise the stated wearing rate, which is already 90% in Austria. It seems that both the fear of punishment and the motivation for driving unbelted are limited, so that there is only a weak tradeoff between the two. This may apply to most traffic offences, with the exception of speeding, which accounts for over 80% of tickets alone, whereas all other offences account for less than 3% each.