Influential Framework Research Articles

Rethinking predation under financialisation through the history of subprime mortgages: a case of raiding finance

ABSTRACT The ‘rentier’ model provides an influential framework for conceptualising the predatory traits of financialisation. It asserts that financialisation has empowered a class of rentiers who wield influence by controlling scarce money and charging others for its use. The development of subprime mortgages is often cited as a prime example of rentier exploitation, wherein banks capitalised on historically marginalised borrowers. This article revisits this history to argue that predation under financialisation has historically deviated from rentierisation. Specifically, subprime mortgages were not developed by entities fitting the rentier model, but rather by real estate actors operating outside the established financial system. The latter developed predatory capabilities by virtue of their ability to secure substantial funds through debt, thus reducing reliance on their own capital. This led to the creation of subprime mortgages, loans focused on home-equity stripping, which were crucial to sustain their funding model. Building on these insights, this study introduces the concept of ‘raiding’ as a form of predation that emphasises practices centred on the rapid extraction of money, alongside more traditional forms of rentierism.

Considering heterogeneity within negative emotionality can inform the distinction between diathesis-stress and differential susceptibility: Children's early anger and fear as moderators of effects of parental socialization on antisocial conduct.

The importance of interactions between child temperament and parenting has been accepted ever since Thomas and Chess (1977) proposed their "goodness-of-fit" construct, but over the last three decades, pertinent research has grown exponentially. Researchers examining child characteristics that can moderate the effects of socialization have tested increasingly complex, nuanced, and sophisticated models, largely inspired by the highly influential frameworks of child plasticity or differential susceptibility (Belsky & Pluess, 2009). Yet, multiple questions remain unsettled. We addressed four such questions as applied to predicting children's observed disregard for rules at age 4.5 in a study of 200 community families from the US Midwest. (a) We examined children's observed negative emotionality at 16 months, most commonly seen as a plasticity "trait," but separating anger and fear proneness, which may differently moderate effects of socialization. (b) We examined two separate aspects of observed parental socialization at age 3, mutually responsive orientation and power assertion. (c) We distinguished analytically diathesis-stress from differential susceptibility. (d) We examined all effects in mother- and father-child relationships. We supported both diathesis-stress and differential susceptibility, depending on the facet of negative emotionality, the aspect of socialization considered, and parental gender, highlighting the nuanced nature of the processes involved.

Identification of Relationship between Meta Cognition and Misconceptions

This study investigates the complex interplay between meta cognition and misconceptions within the educational context, focusing on implications for effective teaching and learning strategies. Aligning with India's National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which advocates for a transition from rote memorization to in- depth understanding, this research explores the concurrent presence of misconceptions and meta cognition in elementary science education. Meta cognition, the process of reflecting on one's cognitive processes, and misconceptions, or predefined notions that impede authentic learning, are analyzed through influential frameworks, including those developed by Flavell and Nelson and Narens. The MASRL model by Efklides is also incorporated to understand the interplay of meta cognitive knowledge, control strategies, experiences, task characteristics, and learning outcomes. The study highlights the impact of misconceptions as cognitive barriers and their influence on meta cognition, emphasizing the need for effective educational strategies. The literature review explores existing research on meta cognition and misconceptions, showcasing how meta cognition acts as a cognitive mirror, enabling learners to navigate and rectify misconceptions. This research has significant educational implications, highlighting the importance of cultivating self-directed learning, critical thinking, and evidence- based study strategies to enhance academic outcomes. The study concludes by emphasizing the dynamic interplay between meta cognition and misconceptions, offering insights for educators and researchers to design interventions fostering accurate conceptual understanding in learners.

A Typology of Psychological Mechanisms Underlying Prosocial Decisions

This theoretical article summarizes the various psychological and motivational processes that underlie prosocial decision-making. To this aim, we propose a novel way to organize and synthesize research related to emotions, thoughts, and beliefs (i.e., psychological mechanisms) that motivate or demotivate human prosociality. This is done with a new typology including four overarching interrelated categories, each encompassing multiple subcategories: (a) emotions; (b) moral principles; (c) anticipated impact; and (d) anticipated personal consequences. We highlight differences and commonalities to other influential frameworks and showcase how the proposed typology can help researchers and practitioners better differentiate and understand the diverse psychological mechanisms that underlie human prosociality.

A meta-analysis on the relationship between subjective cognitive failures as measured by thecognitive failures questionnaire (CFQ) and objective performance on executive function tasks.

The Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) has been widely used as a measure of subjective cognitive function in everyday life for decades. However, the evidence on how it relates to objective performance on executive function tasks is mixed. One possible reason for these mixed results is that the CFQ has selective relationships with some aspects of executive function and not others. Here, therefore, we classified tasks according to an influential framework of executive functions-switching, updating, inhibition, and we also considered the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) as a category because it was custom designed to gauge cognitive failures. We synthesized a large body of available evidence and performed four Bayesian meta-analyses on the relationship between CFQ scores and objective performance on executive function tasks in these four categories. Results suggested that CFQ scores were associated with objective performance on SART (18 effect sizes, μ = -.19, BF10 = 18.03, i.e., 18.03 times more evidence of a relationship versus no relationship), updating working memory (49 effect sizes, μ = -.06, BF10 = 17.80), and inhibition tasks (41 effect sizes, μ = -.07, BF10 = 15.40), whereas there was not definitive evidence regarding switching (34 effect sizes, μ = -.06, BF10 = .50, i.e., two times greater evidence for no relationship). This suggests that subjective cognitive function can predict objective performance on at least some executive function tasks. We discuss methodological and theoretical factors that constrain the maximum observable correlation and consider the relative insights that subjective measures versus task performance provide.

Attachment and body representations in adolescents with personality disorder.

Attachment theory has served as an influential framework for understanding psychopathology, partly due to reliable assessment methodology. The influence of insecure attachment on attitudes towardthe body and the impact this might have for the development of psychopathology is however less well elucidated. A total of 123 adolescents (35 with borderline personality disorder or BPD, 25 with other personality disorders [OPD]and 63 comprising a normative control group) were interviewed with the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and the Mirror Interview (MI). The MI questions respondents about how they feel about their bodies, as they look in the mirror. The AAIs from the Borderline group were predominantly insecure-preoccupied and unresolved. These adolescents had significantly lower levels of a positive and integrated sense of self and body than the other groups. Regression results revealed a high loving relationship with fathers, low involving anger with father, high coherence of mind, slight derogation of mother &low levels of unresolved loss uniquely and additively predicted 55% of variance in the summary score assigned to MIresponses, that is,the summary score for a Positive and Integrated Body Representation (PIBR). Unfavorable attachment experiences and current states of mind regarding attachment may give rise to problems with establishing PIBRs, and thus play a role in the development of psychopathology, especially BPD.

Play in Cognitive Development: From Rational Constructivism to Predictive Processing.

It is widely believed that play and curiosity are key ingredients as children develop models of the world. There is also an emerging consensus that children are Bayesian learners who combine their structured prior beliefs with estimations of the likelihood of new evidence to infer the most probable model of the world. An influential school of thought within developmental psychology, rational constructivism, combines these two ideas to propose that children learn intuitive theories of how the world works in part by engaging in play activities that allow them to gather new information for testing their theories. There are still, however, at least two pieces missing from rational constructivist theories of development. First, rational constructivism has so far devoted little attention to explaining why children's preferred form of learning, play, feels so fun, enjoyable, and rewarding. Rational constructivism may suggest that children are curious and like to play because reducing uncertainty and learning better theories of the causal workings of the world is enjoyable. What remains unclear, however, is why reducing uncertainty in play is interesting, fun, and joyful, while doing so in other forms of learning can be frustrating or boring. Second, rational constructivism may have overlooked how children, during play, will take control of and manipulate their environment, sometimes in an effort to create ideal niches for surprise-extraction, sometimes for developing strategies for making the world fit with their predictions. These missing elements from rational constructivism can be provided by understanding the contribution of play to development in terms of predictive processing, an influential framework in cognitive neuroscience that models many of the brain's cognitive functions as processes of model-based, probabilistic prediction.

Understanding power, culture and institutional change: a revised approach to political settlements analysis

ABSTRACT The institutions that govern how we distribute resources, protect rights, and accord status are widely recognised as important for progressive development outcomes. Political settlements analysis is an increasingly influential framework for (post)institutional analysis within development studies, arguing that institutions and their outcomes are shaped by political economy relations of power. This article builds on the strengths of political settlements analysis (PSA) but argues that its strongly materialist foundations overlook the role of social identity, status and moral beliefs in shaping institutional change. Future research employing PSA needs rebalancing, incorporating an understanding of power relations as ideational as well as material and based on cultural as well as political and economic sources. Drawing on insights from cultural political economy, this article presents an alternative approach to power in PSA. This emphasises the contingency inherent in meaning-making processes and conceives of power as embedded in cultural understandings, as well as political organisation and economic control. Adopting this cultural political economy approach to power allows PSA to produce a fuller understanding of the causal mechanisms generating institutional change.

A genome-wide investigation into the underlying genetic architecture of personality traits and overlap with psychopathology.

Personality is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors and is associated with other psychiatric traits such as anxiety and depression. The 'big five' personality traits, which include neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness, are a widely accepted and influential framework for understanding and describing human personality. Of the big five personality traits, neuroticism has most often been the focus of genetic studies and is linked to various mental illnesses, including depression, anxiety and schizophrenia. Our knowledge of the genetic architecture of the other four personality traits is more limited. Here, utilizing the Million Veteran Program cohort, we conducted a genome-wide association study in individuals of European and African ancestry. Adding other published data, we performed genome-wide association study meta-analysis for each of the five personality traits with sample sizes ranging from 237,390 to 682,688. We identified 208, 14, 3, 2 and 7 independent genome-wide significant loci associated with neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness, respectively. These findings represent 62 novel loci for neuroticism, as well as the first genome-wide significant loci discovered for agreeableness. Gene-based association testing revealed 254 genes showing significant association with at least one of the five personality traits. Transcriptome-wide and proteome-wide analysis identified altered expression of genes and proteins such as CRHR1, SLC12A5, MAPT and STX4. Pathway enrichment and drug perturbation analyses identified complex biology underlying human personality traits. We also studied the inter-relationship of personality traits with 1,437 other traits in a phenome-wide genetic correlation analysis, identifying new associations. Mendelian randomization showed positive bidirectional effects between neuroticism and depression and anxiety, while a negative bidirectional effect was observed for agreeableness and these psychiatric traits. This study improves our comprehensive understanding of the genetic architecture underlying personality traits and their relationship to other complex human traits.

Conceptualizing maritime constabulary effectiveness (MCE)

This article conceptualizes the effectiveness of states’ constabulary efforts in maritime security and utilizes influential frameworks from both fields of research to design the maritime constabulary effectiveness (MCE) framework. The MCE represents a significant methodological and theoretical contribution to the fields of maritime security and effectiveness with a first-of-its-kind analytic framework that aims to determine how maritime constabulary effectiveness should be assessed and measured. This study’s research design includes a qualitative investigation of 64 case studies published in academic books and articles between 2012 and 2022. The analysis focuses on states and navies and their performances in creating seapower and managing maritime security commitments. The research method involves identifying the most common and suitable elements using Bruger’s ‘security practice theory’ and utilizing an existing framework structure (Brooks’ military effectiveness framework). The conceptualized framework’s dynamics are influenced by two independent factors: ‘governance and national politics’ and ‘maritime geopolitical factors’. Moreover, four mechanisms represent a set of prerequisite activities for effective constabulary performance: awareness, innovation, planning and cooperation. Furthermore, two main attributes reflect and measure the MCE: comprehensiveness and strategicness. While the existing academic literature on maritime security discuss issues of effectiveness, a comprehensive framework for effectiveness in nation-level constabulary activities does not exist. In effort to advance the current literature, this research aims to provide an innovative framework for a deeper empirical and academic discussion on maritime security than what was possible before and a tool for the assessment of maritime constabulary efforts.

Mastering Motor Skills: The Contributions of Motor Learning and Motor Development to the Growth and Maturation of Kinesiology

This paper traces the evolution of scholarship in motor learning and development over the last ∼100 years, with a focus on contributions by Fellows from the National Academy of Kinesiology (NAK). It begins with a brief discussion of the centrality of motor skillfulness in kinesiology, followed by a discussion of the appropriate label for the study of motor learning and development. The bulk of the paper focuses on the important events and milestones in the field and an examination of the most influential frameworks and models that NAK Fellows have put forward to guide research. The final section looks at future prospects and challenges for the field. Two key findings emerge: (a) Considerable overlap exists in the theoretical frameworks, conceptual models, empirical questions, research methodologies, and practical applications that dominate scholarship in motor learning and development, and (b) NAK Fellows have made enormous contributions to the field.

Cultivating Inclusive Leadership in Management Education: Bridging the DEI Competency Gap

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in management education is a critical subject that has increasingly become important in preparing future leaders for a diverse world. The research problem is the lack of knowledge on how management education programmes develop inclusive leadership skills by identifying and building necessary capabilities. This study aimed at identifying DEI competencies, evaluating existing approaches to teaching and learning and analyzing the factors that hinder or facilitate the development of inclusive leadership skills. By conducting a conceptual literature review, it examined academic journals and authoritative sources while focusing on DEI in management education. Historical development towards more inclusive practices, identification of core competencies required for an inclusive leadership model, and efficacy of different teaching methods are the major points. It therefore calls for incorporation of DEI principles into management education; providing innovative ways to overcome these barriers. The study thus has serious implications for management education as it provides an influential framework for improving educators’ preparation of future leaders who can navigate through diverse and inclusive workforces.

Why are Actions but not Emotions Done Intentionally, if both are Reason-Responsive Embodied Processes?

AbstractEmotions, like actions, this paper argues, are typically embodied processes that are responsive to reasons, where these reasons connect closely with the agent’s desires, intentions, or projects. If so, why are emotions, nevertheless, typically passive in a sense in which actions are not; specifically, why are emotions not cases of doing something intentionally? This paper seeks to prepare the ground for answering to this question by showing that it cannot be answered within a widely influential framework in the philosophy of action that has been dubbed the Standard Conception of Action, shared by such diverse theorists as G.E.M. Anscombe, Donald Davidson, Jennifer Hornsby, Michael Smith. and Michael Thompson. The Standard Conception approaches agency via the notion of someone’s doing something intentionally, and links the latter notion closely to that of doing something for a reason, so as to imply ‘Anscombe’s Thesis’ that, if someone is doing something for a reason, they are doing it intentionally. The paper shows how emotions, as reason-responsive embodied processes, counterexemplify this claim. Qua processes, they can aptly be described in the progressive, as cases of trembling with fear, exploding with anger, etc. They are a kind of ‘doing’ something, for a reason, yet not intentionally.

ETS Skills Taxonomy

In an era driven by rapid technological advancements human skills are becoming ever more important. As millions of workers reskill and upskill to meet the challenges of the modern workforce, it’s critical they understand what skills are being emphasized by employers and pathways leading to skills acquisition. This paper reviews influential frameworks for essential workforce skills and proposes the ETS Skills Taxonomy 2025. The Taxonomy brings a broad set of cognitive, interpersonal, intrapersonal, digital, and lifelong learning skills with definition and assessment considerations. In particular, it highlights new skills such as sciential skills, remote work, and coachability as a new workforce is being jointly shaped by shifting skills requirements and societal needs that call for inclusion and agility.

From Fitness-Centered to Trait-Centered Explanations: What Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality Teach Us About Fitness

AbstractFitness has taken center stage in debates concerning how best to identify evolutionary transitions in individuality (ETIs). An influential framework proposes that an ETI occurs only when fitness is exported from constituent particles to a collective. We reformulate the conceptual structure of this framework as involving three steps. The culminating step compares “counterfactual” fitnesses against a long-run measure of fitness. This comparison assumes that collective-level fitness mereologically supervenes on particle fitness. However, if this assumption is rigorously enforced, the proposed conditions for identifying ETIs prove to be too weak. We here suggest an alternative model of ETIs centered around traits.

Association between problem gambling and personality traits: a longitudinal study among the general Norwegian population

ObjectiveThe present study investigates the longitudinal relationship between problematic gambling (PG) and the five factor model’s personality traits using autoregressive cross-lagged models.MethodsThe data used in the current study was collected by a national survey in 2013 (n = 10,081) and a follow-up study (n = 5,848) in 2015. PG was measured using Canadian Problem Gambling Index (CPGI) while personality was assessed using Mini-International Personality Item Pool (MINI-IPIP). Participants who completed the CPGI and all the personality items during both waves (n = 2,702) were analysed.ResultsThe results show that neuroticism had positive cross-lagged associations with CPGI. In contrast, conscientiousness and agreeableness in 2013 were found to have inverse cross-lagged effect on CPGI in 2015. Finally, openness and extraversion did not have any cross-lagged associations with CPGI.ConclusionPG poses serious negative implications for the involved individuals as well as their associated close social circle. Hence, it is important to understand predictors of PG for prevention purposes. Personality traits are one of the influential frameworks for examining uncontrolled psychopathological behaviors like PG. The study findings offer significant theoretical as well as practical implications.

Bordering, ordering and othering through tourism: the tourism geographies of borders

The interplay between borders and tourism has fascinated tourism geographers for decades. However, only recently has tourism geographies research on borders mirrored border studies by interweaving tourism with its spatial, cultural, political and economic embedding in order to understand tourism’s socio-spatial place-making and bordering effects. We utilize the highly influential framework for border studies of van Houtum and van Naerssen to reflect on the state of the art of the tourism geographies of borders and make sense of recent developments in the field. The framework focused on the bordering, ordering and othering of society and space, referring, in turn, to creating a sense of boundedness, a process of meaning-making and a process of socio-spatial distinction through the symbolic and material construction of borders. We show that after decades of often descriptive research underpinned by state-centered understandings of how territorial borders have influenced tourism’s growth and development, recent developments in tourism geographies started linking up process-based understandings of borders with reflections on tourism’s place-making role. Our review highlights two important points. First, while massive strides have been made in recent years regarding the process-based understanding of tourism’s constitutive role in bordering processes (and vice versa), the cross-pollination between border studies and tourism geographies research on borders is still incomplete. Second, there is a need to move beyond insular tourism research to see how tourism’s place-making role related to borders and territory manifests in practice. We conclude that tourism is deeply embedded in bordering, ordering and othering society and space, both as an expression and as a driver of, or agent in, these processes, leading to tourism-specific impacts on the spatial environment and to broader socio-spatial (and inherently political) place-making outcomes.

Supporting Solidarity

Supporting Solidarity

Agroforestry policy development in England: a question of knowledge transference

Agroecology as a concept for reimagining food systems has grown in popularity and is now used in several food and agriculture policy frameworks around the world. While there is a significant body of research around agroecology, its origins, applications, and as a much-needed transition pathway to sustainable food systems, there is limited understanding on how agroecology may be situated within policy frameworks and how agroecological knowledge may be used to inform decision-making. In England, as the Government’s post-Brexit subsidy scheme – the Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMs) – is developed, various sectoral actors are employing different frameworks in attempts to deliver multiple objectives around land use, food, agriculture and biodiversity. This paper reviews 3 influential frameworks (Sustainable Development Goals, Ecosystem Services, FAO’s 10 Principles of Agroecology) and assesses the degree to which they contribute to the development of agroecologically-oriented policy in England. With a specific focus on agroforestry as an exemplar agroecological approach, this paper contributes to the limited policy literature on agroecology. Using thematic and content analysis, nine policy documents pertaining to agroforestry were reviewed, resulting in a ‘degree of embeddedness’ being assigned to each framework. Results showed that all three frameworks had a low degree of embeddedness in policy; in other words, none of the frameworks considered have been coherently integrated into current policy documents. With such urgency to halt environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, climate breakdown and food insecurity, the apparent lack of knowledge transfer within critical policy documents is noteworthy. This paper concludes with a set of broad policy recommendations, applicable at both the EU and national level, alongside a set of recommendations specifically for agroforestry policy development in England.

Mind the gap: The nation form and the Kohn dichotomy

AbstractThe dichotomy between civic Western nationalism and ethnic non‐Western nationalism (also known as “the Kohn dichotomy” after the historian of nationalism Hans Kohn) remains one of the most influential frameworks for understanding nationalism. It is also one of the most controversial: The binary schema has been criticised not only for its conceptual inconsistencies but also for entrenching an ethnocentric hierarchy that depicts Western nations as fountains of civic virtue. This article enriches these longstanding debates by excavating the neglected inverse side of the Kohn dichotomy. Since the late nineteenth century, the idealised Western nation is imagined not only as a civic polity united by common political traditions but also as an organic community blessed with natural boundaries. In short, Western nations are depicted as both civic and ethnic. Meanwhile, non‐Western nations are denied the privilege of being contradictory and deemed to suffer from a perennial mismatch between civic and ethnic elements: Non‐Western nations are depicted either as ethnic communities lacking civic traditions or as artificial political constructions lacking organic roots. Without taking into account this intricate dialectic between the civic and ethnic poles of the nation form, critics of the Kohn dichotomy will struggle to fully grasp its ideological functions or historical longevity.