Action Intentions Research Articles

The Unbearable Weight of Gender Inequalities: Development and Validation of the Social Treatment and Experiences of Women (STEW) Scale

Gender inequalities are pervasive across various life domains, yet research has often overlooked how people perceive that women are treated differently than men. To fill this gap, we developed and validated the 16-item multidimensional Social Treatment and Experiences of Women (STEW) scale across different samples of women and different cultural contexts, namely Italy and the UK N = 1,195). Using exploratory (Study 1, N = 703) and confirmatory (Study 2, N = 550; Study 3a, N = 132; Study 4, N = 201; Study 5, N = 233) factor analysis, we identified four dimensions: workplace inequalities, domestic imbalance, harassment towards women, and social expectations. Studies 3a and 3b (N = 96) demonstrated convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of the STEW, linking the STEW’s subscales to group-based emotions, reported experiences of sexism, attitudes towards affirmative action, and attitudes towards women’s sexual freedom. Replicating the factor structure in the UK, Study 4 found the STEW explained unique variance in group-based emotions and intergroup attitudes beyond personal experiences of sexism. Last, Study 5 showed that the STEW explains unique variance in collective action intentions and feminist identification beyond people’s attitudes towards gender equality. Highlighting the importance of conceiving gender inequalities as a multifaceted issue, the STEW provides a robust tool for assessing perceptions of differential treatment of women across domains and can inform more comprehensive interventions promoting gender equality.

성적 괴롭힘 피해연예인을 위한 인권행동의사에 정서적 성숙이 미치는 영향과 신체매력 후광효과인식 및 인권인식의 매개효과 검증

This study investigates the impact of emotional maturity on intentions to engage in human rights actions for celebrities who have experienced sexual harassment, with a focus on the dual mediating roles of perceived physical attractiveness halo and human rights awareness, alongside moderating effects of gender and generational differences (pre-MZ vs. MZ generation). Data were gathered from a nationwide sample of 624 adults aged 25 to 59 and analyzed using structural equation modeling with AMOS and Mplus. Results indicate that while women show higher human rights awareness than men regarding sexually harassed celebrities, gender differences are not observed in human rights action intentions. Additionally, the pre-MZ generation demonstrates higher human rights awareness compared to the MZ generation, with no significant generational difference in action intentions. Emotional maturity positively correlates with human rights action intentions across genders and within the MZ generation, mediated in part by increased human rights awareness. For the pre-MZ generation, emotional maturity indirectly affects action intentions via full mediation through human rights awareness. Finally, among women and the MZ generation, heightened perception of the physical attractiveness halo effect weakens the positive impact of emotional maturity on action intentions, illustrating this perception’s mediating effect. No similar effect is found in men or the pre-MZ generation, underscoring the moderating role of gender and generational characteristics. Practical implications of these findings are discussed.

State responsiveness, collective efficacy and threat perception: Catalyst and complacency effects in opposition to crime across eight countries.

Collective action can be a crucial tool for enabling individuals to combat crime in their communities. In this research, we investigated individuals' intentions to mobilize against organized crime, a particularly impactful form of crime characterized by its exercises of power over territories and communities. We focused on individuals' views and perceptions of state authorities, examining how these views may be linked to intentions for collective mobilization. Using a large dataset with participants from eight countries (NTotal = 2088), we tested two distinct and opposing indirect paths through which perceived state responsiveness may be associated with collective mobilization intentions against organized crime, namely increased collective community efficacy (a Catalyst Indirect Effect) and diminished perceived threat from criminal groups (a Complacency Indirect Effects). Results showed that state responsiveness was associated with stronger collective action intentions through increased collective community efficacy. There was also some evidence of reduced collective action intentions through diminished perceived threat. These findings highlight the complex role of state responsiveness in predicting people's intentions to mobilize against collective problems in their communities. Implications of the findings, limitations and future directions are discussed.

The role of hope and fear in the impact of climate fiction on climate action intentions: Evidence from India and USA

There is a growing consensus that climate fiction might be an effective communication strategy to move the public on climate. However, empirical evidence documenting such an effect is limited, especially when it comes to climate fiction's potential to induce emotions of hope and fear, which are of key importance to the ongoing debate about the social effects of climate messages. To address this gap, we conducted an experimental cross-cultural study (N = 2268) with participants from India and the USA. In line with the Extended Parallel Process Model, we hypothesized that climate fiction combining fear and hope appeals (“ambitopian climate fiction”) would be more effective at stimulating climate action intentions than either fear-appealing (“dystopian”) climate fiction or hope-appealing (“utopian”) climate fiction. The hypothesis was not supported. We found that, in the US sample, dystopian climate fiction was more effective at stimulating climate action intentions than ambitopian climate fiction. However, ambitopian climate fiction was found to be efficient at inducing both hope and fear in both samples and at stimulating climate action intentions indirectly, in the Indian sample, through these emotions. The practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

Pond , Pottering, Potentiality: Action and its Critics

Abstract: This essay considers and critiques the fascination with action without will in contemporary theory. It reads Clare-Louise Bennett's 2015 novel Pond as engaged with the question of what counts as an action, and, specifically, with the idea of "pottering" as a hinge between purposive and nonpurposive behavior. It moves toward a discussion of some curious cases in G. E. M. Anscombe's Intention of action construed as willed but nonintentional, so as to argue against the association of will with sovereignty. Finally, theoretical work like that of Giorgio Agamben is shown to conceive of a more sovereign form of agency by elevating an idealized potentiality over the complexities of will.

Frontal Cortex Acts as Causality Transition Hub from Mirror Network to Mentalizing Network During Action Intention Understanding.

Introduction: While understanding other's action intention, mirror and mentalizing systems of human brain are successively activated in action perception and intention inference processes. Methods: To reveal the relationship between mirror and mentalizing systems during the two stages, this electroencephalogram study adopted the method of time-varying orthogonalized partial directed coherence (OPDC) to assess causal interaction between mirror and mentalizing networks during a "hand-cup interaction" action intention understanding task. Results: Task-related causal connectivity was found in gamma frequency band (30-45 Hz), primarily manifested as directed edges from sensorimotor to frontal areas in poststimulus 400-600 ms interval and directed links from frontal to parietal and temporal regions in 600-800 ms period. The analysis of event-related potential and source currents suggests that the change of inter-regional causality is related with functional transition of the brain from mirror matching to intention inference. The OPDC network modeling further finds that frontal area contains more inflow nodes in mirror network, whereas more outflow nodes in mentalizing network, with high betweenness centrality in temporally changing functional communities. Compared with intention-oriented actions, identification of unintelligible action intention particularly induces stronger OPDC from right superior frontal to inferior frontal gyrus and from sensorimotor to right frontotemporal regions during mentalizing inference process. Conclusion: These findings collectively suggest that, in the time ordering of information transfer within the directed networks, frontal area plays an important role of bridging hub between mirror and mentalizing systems, from maintaining and supervising perceptual information for mirror matching to controlling the mentalizing process for decoding other's action intention.

Exploration of the Application and Practice of Digital Twin Technology in Teaching Driven by Smart City Construction

Traditional engineering education cannot effectively respond to the demand for talents in the construction of smart cities. The application of digital twin technology in education is mostly based on case studies and lacks empirical tests. This study takes the practical teaching of a project-based course on smart city parks as an example to explore the action intention of graduate students to use digital twin technology consistently, and to provide a theoretical basis and teaching practice guidance to promote the rational application of digital twin technology in engineering education. This study set up a quasi-experimental design through the digital twin learning system, grouping 24 graduate students with 4 faculty members. The experimental group is digital twin-assisted practical teaching, and the control group is traditional teaching method, the experimental cycle is 12 weeks, and the total lesson time is 24 h. Secondly, combined with UTAUT2 model and TTF theory, the variable factor hypothesis was adopted as the scale design means, and the experimental validity was improved through questionnaire data analysis. Meanwhile, the influencing factors in the use of digital twin platform were recorded in detail through the process of data collection, data processing and modeling, as well as the application practice of digital twin platform. Finally, the results of the comprehensive survey data show that the graduate students in the experimental group are significantly better than the control group in terms of self-confidence, skill enhancement, learning outcomes, and learning experience. All these results provide information for course teaching practice, training professional teaching teams, optimizing innovative teaching paths, and promoting the cultivation and delivery of smart city technology talents.

From imagination to activism: Cognitive alternatives motivate commitment to activism through identification with social movements and collective efficacy.

Having a vision and being able to imagine socially and ecologically just alternatives can motivate people for societal transformation. However, which psychological processes drive this link between the mental accessibility of societal alternatives and collective action? We hypothesized that collective efficacy beliefs and politicized identification form two pathways mediating the effects of cognitive alternatives on high-cost activist behaviour. Two studies and a pooled analysis tested these hypotheses longitudinally. Data were collected in two field settings: a climate camp and an online conference on socio-ecological visions. In line with our assumptions, and across three of the four analysed timeframes, latent change score modelling showed that changes in cognitive alternatives predicted changes in collective efficacy beliefs and social movement identification, which in turn, predicted changes in collective action intentions. We found clear evidence for our hypotheses in the short term and mixed evidence in the long term. Additional analyses including participative efficacy showed no relevant effects. We concluded that the ability to envision social change may foster a sense of agency as members of social movements. These processes linking imagination to activism are less about individual efficacy than about realizing the collective possibilities for change and identifying with the groups enacting it.

Citizen science promotes knowledge, skills and collective action to monitor and protect freshwater streams

Abstract Citizen science has great potential to foster ecological knowledge, skills and collective action for biodiversity conservation. To date, however, there are few experimental studies of behaviour change outcomes induced by citizen science. We assessed the effects of citizen science in ecological stream monitoring on participants' individual and collective behaviour and action intentions to protect streams beyond the immediate scope of the citizen science project. For this we applied a three‐wave, quasi‐experimental survey design with a citizen science treatment group (N = 213 participants of the project FLOW in Germany) and two control groups (waiting control group: N = 92, panel control group: N = 250). In addition, we analysed citizen science effects on potential predictors of freshwater conservation behaviour, such as knowledge, skills, awareness of stream stressors and group identification. Results of linear mixed‐model analysis showed that, compared to the control groups, citizen scientists significantly increased their objective stream‐related knowledge, their self‐reported stream monitoring skills and their awareness of stream stressors. These changes remained stable 6 weeks after the citizen science intervention. Notably, citizen scientists also reported increased identification with their citizen science project group and higher levels of collective and personal behaviour to protect streams at posttest (e.g. contacting local politicians with ideas for stream protection or using biodegradable detergents). Analysis revealed that increases in group identification and collective stream protection behaviour were significantly correlated. We could show that the citizen science intervention was particularly effective for participants with high intrinsic motivation and for those with low prior knowledge and experience in stream monitoring. Synthesis and applications. Citizen science can serve as a useful tool to promote ecological understanding, awareness and collective action to conserve freshwater streams. By fostering volunteer skills and community building, citizen science projects can empower participants with different levels of experience to engage in freshwater monitoring and protection. Decision makers should actively support approaches for citizen participation in freshwater monitoring, recognising that collective engagement of diverse community members is needed to finally meet the European Water Framework Directive's goal of restoring the good ecological status of freshwater ecosystems. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Exploring Secondary Transfer Generalisation Effects From Black and Gay Contact: The Role of Humanisation

ABSTRACTIntergroup contact is considered one of the most effective ways to reduce prejudice. An extension of contact theory, the secondary transfer effect (STE), stipulates that contact with a primary outgroup can impact attitudes toward a second, uninvolved outgroup. Here, we test the direct and indirect effects of contact with the primary outgroup on attitudes toward the secondary outgroup through outgroup humanisation, assessing White, heterosexual Americans' contact with both Black and gay people (N = 471; 52.7% men; Mage = 44.90, SD = 14.75). Path analyses were conducted on four fully saturated models that included intergroup contact (quantity, quality), humanisation of each group, and intergroup outcomes (attitudes, collective action intentions). Direct generalisation consistently occurred from gay contact (quantity or quality) to Black attitudes or Black collective action. Only one indirect generalisation pathway consistently occurred: a greater quantity of gay contact humanised Black people, which itself was associated with more positive attitudes and stronger collective action intentions toward Black people. However, the converse generalisation was not found: Black contact was rarely associated with direct or indirect intergroup outcomes toward gay people. The present study is the first to find indirect humanisation pathways for the STE, but from gay‐to‐Black contact only. Implications for future research are discussed. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

The various forms of anger about climate change in Australia and their relations with self-reported actions, intentions, and distress

Action on societal issues is often precipitated by feelings of anger. This has been demonstrated reliably for responses to social inequality, but less for other issues. We build on nascent research documenting the links between climate anger, pro-environmental action, and psychological distress, by focusing on the contents of eco-anger. Using a sample of 5,244 Australians, we found that 48.6% reported being at least ‘somewhat’ angry about climate change. Content analyses of the focus of this anger revealed diverse reasons for people’s anger. The most common focus was others’ inaction and apathy on climate change, followed by anger directed at deniers, and at big polluters. Altogether, we identified 13 major categories of anger in our corpus of data. In further exploratory analyses, we examined the correlations between anger forms, self-reported pro-environmental behaviour, collective action intentions, and distress. Our findings suggest that behavioural engagement with climate change could depend, in part, on why people are angry.

Expert and Novice Teachers' Cognitive Neural Differences in Understanding Students' Classroom Action Intentions.

Teachers' intention understanding ability reflects their professional insight, which is the basis for effective classroom teaching activities. However, the cognitive process and brain mechanism of how teachers understand students' action intention in class are still unclear. This study used event-related potential (ERP) technology to explore the cognitive neural differences in intention understanding ability among teachers with different levels of knowledge and experience. The experiment used the comic strips paradigm to examine the ability of expert and novice teachers to understand students' normative and non-normative classroom actions under different text prompts ("how" and "why"). The results revealed that in the late time window, expert teachers induced larger P300 and LPC amplitudes when they understood students' classroom action intentions, while the N250 amplitudes induced by novice teachers in the early time window were significantly larger. In addition, for both types of teachers, when understanding the intentions behind students' normative actions, the N250 amplitude was the most significant, while the P300 and LPC amplitudes were more significant for non-normative actions. This study found that teachers at varying professional development stages had different time processing processes in intention understanding ability, which supported teachers' brain electrophysiological activities related to social ability.

The concepts of sustainability value and the application of big data in enhancing the ability of sustainability marketing

PurposeWe seek to contribute to the literature by comparing and analyzing the relationship between Australian and Taiwanese students regarding environmental value attitude, action intention and green marketing intention. Specifically, by comparing the green marketing intention of hospitality and tourism (H&T) students in the East with that in the West.Design/methodology/approachA well-designed curriculum examines student thinking and behavior (learn). This study compares and analyzes the value and attitude and the application of big data to green marketing among Taiwanese and Australian university students using the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses in a sample of 633 H&T students in Taiwan (389) and Australia (244).FindingsThis study also shows how the national differences between Australia and Taiwan have interference effects on the relationship between value attitudes and action intentions and between action intentions and the green marketing intention. We also combined the application of big data and related variables and estimated the mediating effect of related variables to evaluate the impact on action intentions and green marketing of big data applications.Practical implicationsThere are significant differences in the sustainable behavior and intentions of H&T higher education students that reflect the educational differences between the East and the West. These different results may be due to a lack of natural resources and the relatively smaller size of Taiwan. With the strengthening of environmental action intention (AI) and green marketing intention (GMI), Taiwanese hospitality and management (H&M) students' sense of crisis increases, and their performance in GMI is slightly higher than that in Australia.Originality/valueThese findings indicate that it is necessary to consider students' ecological concepts, environmental knowledge, environmental value attitude and environmental action intention to improve their intentions to engage in green marketing under the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework. We also found that environmental knowledge has a mediating effect on the relationship between ecological concepts and environmental value attitude.

From roadblocks to property damage: How injustice perceptions and trust in authorities are associated with participation in nonnormative climate protest

AbstractThe climate crisis calls for radical action, but what drives people to engage in climate protest? We recruited respondents during protests of Extinction Rebellion in the Netherlands and examined how intentions to engage in normative action (e.g., protest march), moderate nonnormative action (e.g., roadblock), and openness to more extreme nonnormative action (e.g., property damage) related to perceived injustice and trust in authorities. Study 1 found that perceived injustice was linked to all action intentions, while trust was only negatively associated with nonnormative protest. Study 2 revealed that nonnormative protest was specifically related to lower trust in democracy, judges, and the police. Furthermore, moderate action intentions were related to various injustice perceptions, whereas extreme actions were exclusively linked to social injustice.

Sustainable Development Revisited: Rethinking Growth-Centric Paradigms Through the Lens of the Sabbath

This paper argues that the current growth-centric paradigm of sustainable development is fundamentally flawed and proposes a paradigm shift towards the biblical concept of the Sabbath. It critiques the internal contradictions of the SDGs and challenges the unsustainable pursuit of infinite growth in addressing social and ecological crises. By exploring Sabbath's principles of rest, recalibration, and redistribution, the paper offers an ethical foundation for self-limitation and a basis for human identity beyond productivity—addressing the shortcomings of the degrowth movement. It proposes practical applications of Sabbath principles at individual, community, and structural levels, drawing upon empirical examples to demonstrate their potential as pathways to environmental justice. These multi-level applications aim to bridge the gap between the intentions of international agreements and impactful local action. The paper concludes that Sabbath presents a transformative vision for sustainable development and environmental justice, fostering a harmonious relationship between humanity and the planet. Keywords: Sustainability, Development, Sabbath, Degrowth, Capitalism, Environmental Justice, Poverty, Well-being, Ethics, Religion.

Measuring Collective Action Intention Toward Gender Equality Across Cultures

Measuring Collective Action Intention Toward Gender Equality Across Cultures

The association between mass media news about interethnic contact and relations between ethnic minorities and natives: The perspective of African immigrants in Italy.

The present research investigated the role of a pervasive and often negative form of indirect contact, exposure to mass media news on interethnic contact. Specifically, we examined the associations between mass media exposure and both African immigrants' attitudes toward native Italians and their collective action intentions to achieve higher intergroup equality in the host country. We conducted two survey studies, one cross-sectional (Study 1, N = 285) and the second longitudinal (Study 2, N = 423) with African immigrants living in Italy. Exposure to negative mass media news was linked to less positive attitudes toward native Italians and more collective action of African immigrants. The negative link between negative mass media news exposure and intergroup attitudes was stronger for those African migrants who reported relatively low positive and negative direct intergroup contact. These findings were consistent across both studies. The positive link between negative mass media news exposure and collective action was stronger among African immigrants with relatively low negative direct intergroup contact. The evidence illustrates the independent and combined ways in which the valence of direct and indirect contact can affect immigrants' attitudes toward natives, and their motivation to build a more inclusive and equal society. Overall, results highlighted the greater strength of negative rather than positive indirect contact of immigrants, especially when they reported less positive direct contact experience with native Italians. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Action expectancy modulates activity in the mirror neuron system and mentalizing system

Action understanding involves two distinct processing levels that engage separate neural mechanisms: perception of concrete kinematic information and recognition of abstract action intentions. The mirror neuron system and the mentalizing system have both been linked to concrete action and abstract information processing, but their specific roles remain debatable. Here, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study with 26 participants who passively observed expected and unexpected actions. We performed whole-brain activation, region of interest, and effective connectivity analyses to investigate the neural correlates of these actions. Whole-brain activation analyses revealed that expected actions were associated with increased activation in the left medial superior frontal gyrus, while unexpected actions were linked to heightened activity in the left supramarginal gyrus, left superior parietal lobule, right inferior temporal gyrus, and left middle frontal gyrus. Region of interest analyses demonstrated that the left ventral premotor cortex exhibited greater activation during the observation of expected actions compared to unexpected actions, while the left inferior frontal gyrus, left superior parietal lobule, and left precuneus showed stronger activation during the observation of unexpected actions. Effective connectivity was observed between the left ventral premotor cortex and the left angular gyrus, left intraparietal sulcus, left dorsal premotor cortex, and left ventromedial prefrontal cortex with the middle frontal gyrus when observing unexpected, but not expected, actions. These findings suggest that expected actions are primarily processed by the mirror neuron system, whereas unexpected actions engage both the mirror neuron system and the mentalizing system, with these systems playing complementary roles in the understanding of unexpected actions.

Online Contacts Supported with Recategorization Strategies: Do They Affect Outgroup Attitudes and Collective Action Intentions?

Studies on face-to-face intergroup contact demonstrate varied effects for members of advantaged and disadvantaged groups on harmonious relations and collective action intentions. This study extends the literature by examining to what extent those effects exist when the contact is online and also by examining which recategorization strategy would be more effective in producing positive outcomes for those groups. For this aim, students of the two universities—CU and ATU (higher and lower status, respectively)—in Adana, Turkey were made to contact in small groups on a text-based online platform. Participants were distributed into four-people groups—either mixed of ATU and CU students or ATU students only. Either a common ingroup identity or dual identities were made salient in the mixed groups, whereas the individual identity was made salient in the groups consisting of ATU students only. Data were collected at three time periods: Two weeks before (368 participants), immediately after (159 participants), and one month after the contact (138 participants). Concerning outgroup attitudes, irrespective of salient identities, mixed groups improved attitudes, sustained in follow-up. Regarding collective action intentions, CU students’ intentions increased (T1 to T3), while for ATU students in all groups, intentions decreased-whether cross-group contact was experienced or not.

Human in the collaborative loop: a strategy for integrating human activity recognition and non-invasive brain-machine interfaces to control collaborative robots.

Human activity recognition (HAR) and brain-machine interface (BMI) are two emerging technologies that can enhance human-robot collaboration (HRC) in domains such as industry or healthcare. HAR uses sensors or cameras to capture and analyze the movements and actions of humans, while BMI uses human brain signals to decode action intentions. Both technologies face challenges impacting accuracy, reliability, and usability. In this article, we review the state-of-the-art techniques and methods for HAR and BMI and highlight their strengths and limitations. We then propose a hybrid framework that fuses HAR and BMI data, which can integrate the complementary information from the brain and body motion signals and improve the performance of human state decoding. We also discuss our hybrid method's potential benefits and implications for HRC.