Reductionist View Research Articles

Are Brothels Markets? Situating Consumer Research at the Nexus of the Essential, the Embarrassing and the Exception: A Viewpoint from Sociological Traditions

This essay critiques the trend in consumer research that deliberately excludes subjects considered exceptional. Drawing from multiple traditions in sociological literature, we analyse the interaction of factors that create persistent paradoxes in social imaginaries - paradoxes that have also impacted the academic community. While the majority of scholarly publications tend to take a reductionist view of consumer concerns, the vulnerabilities faced by queer groups and sex workers are largely ignored, with sex workers being pushed to the absolute margins. The relentless pursuit of tokenism, quantified by novel contributions or citations, has further marginalized invisible narratives of hope and resilience. The article advocates for a more inclusive approach in the development of new areas of consumer research, particularly in the domains of macro marketing, public policy, and transformational consumer research.

Appealing, but misleading: a warning against a naive AI realism

AbstractScientists, educators, and instructional designers are facing numerous challenges due to the introduction of generative AI tools that can create appealing realistic imagery based on text prompts. Given that realism contributes to the trustworthiness of images coupled with people’s eagerness to externalize complex tasks to AI systems, the problem of a naive AI realism arises in which image creation and optimization is offloaded without considering the limitations of AI-driven technology. However, scientific visualizations and images used for educational purposes must go beyond an appealing presentation; above all, they should be accurate and factually correct. We argue that the utilization of generative AI tools for these types of visualizations requires human oversight, subject matter knowledge, and knowledge of effective design. In particular, we warn of a naive adoption of technological possibilities to “optimize” visualizations for educational purposes, such as memorability. A reductionist and naive view of AI-based optimization that fails to take into account the complex prerequisites for learning and instruction is likely to have negative consequences.

Rethinking the Complexities of the Body and Disability: Theological Account

The biological aspect of human embodiment frequently constitutes the primary basis for personal assessment, with an emphasis on rationality, free choice, material well-being, and happiness as fundamental attributes of worth. This perspective is also evident in cultural practices of body modification, which reflect societal standards and identity expression. The promotion of standards of bodily appearance that are often considered unrealistic within contemporary culture has the effect of creating a social environment in which those who do not conform to these standards are rejected and stigmatized. This can include individuals with disabilities, the elderly, or those with chronic illnesses and different bodily appearances. In the majority of cases, the so-called ‘body capital’ culture views the disabled body through the lens of a person’s physical appearance, which is, to a certain extent, associated with a biological dysfunction or reflects a kind of physical disability or vulnerable corporeality. This paper seeks to examine perspectives on the body through the lenses of major discourses surrounding disability, biblical anthropology, and disability theology. These perspectives advocate for the intrinsic dignity and value of the disabled body, challenging contemporary norms and projections upon the body, by underscoring the biographical, interdependent, and spiritual dimensions of human embodiment. This approach stands as an alternative to the reductionist view of the body, which prioritizes physical attributes over a comprehensive understanding of complete personhood.

Evolutionary Approaches to Religion and the Problem of Transcendent Meaning

This article analyzes the concept of religion within the framework of evolutionary biology. It critiques a reductionist view that understands religion primarily in terms of function and the grounding of such an interpretation in principles of chance. Common understandings of the role of chance do not derive from biological evidence; a broader understanding of this element is needed. Likewise, limiting religion to its evolutionarily ascertainable benefits overlooks the fact that these benefits only materialize when there is belief in the transcendent purpose that religion provides. Consequently, the article advocates for the recognition of religion as an emergent cultural phenomenon whose essence can never be fully captured through a purely functional, scientific lens.

Bring digital twins back to Earth

AbstractWe reflect on the development of digital twins of the Earth, which we associate with a reductionist view of nature as a machine. The projects of digital twins deviate from contemporary scientific paradigms in the treatment of complexity and uncertainty, and does not engage with critical and interpretative social sciences. We contest the utility of digital twins for addressing climate change issues and discuss societal risks associated with the concept, including the twins' potential to reinforce economicism and governance by numbers, emphasizing concerns about democratic accountability. We propose a more balanced alternative, advocating for independent institutions to develop diverse models, prioritize communication with simple heuristic‐based models, collect comprehensive data from various sources, including traditional knowledge, and shift focus away from physics‐centered variables to inform climate action. We argue that the advancement of digital twins should hinge on stringent controls, favoring a nuanced, interdisciplinary, and democratic approach that prioritizes societal well‐being over blind pursuit of computational sophistication.This article is categorized under: Climate Models and Modeling > Earth System Models Climate Models and Modeling > Knowledge Generation with Models Climate, History, Society, Culture > Disciplinary Perspectives

Words can only get us so far

The traditional ontological division between the lexicon and grammar has often resulted in a reductionist view of the lexicon and lexical competence as composed of individual words in isolation. This narrow view of the lexicon has transcended disciplinary boundaries and is apparent in the focus on single words of widely used psycholinguistic measures of language (e.g. picture naming, verbal fluency, lexical decision) and cognitive ability alike (e.g. Stroop, recall in working memory span). This article argues that such an approach has imposed limitations on the questions that can be examined by researchers and on the generalizability of some results. Here I propose that, rather than assigning multiword units their own ‘niche’ in psycholinguistic studies, they should be viewed as part of the way core lexical competence is measured and conceptualized, both in monolingual and bilingual speakers. I also review promising advances in recent years brought about by a surge in the number of studies focused on multiword units and by new tasks of individual cognitive skill (e.g. multiword-based chunking ability). These hold the potential to allow for a cross-disciplinary shift in the examination of lexical competence as grounded in community-based norms and in line with current usage-based approaches.

Culture in Russian as a foreign language (RFL) textbooks in Italian universities: Critically analyzing concepts of culture and intercultural competence

This paper examined the representation of culture in Russian as a foreign language (RFL) textbooks to understand the problem of creating a theory of intercultural textbooks, with Italy as a case study. The four most popular RFL textbooks used by first-year students in Italian universities were studied: Poyekhali, Molodets, Mir tesen, and Davayte. A comparative content analysis of the chosen sample was performed to test how Russian culture is represented in RFL textbooks. The results reveal that such textbooks reflect only a partial and sometimes stereotypical image of Russian culture, with a strong correlation between ideologies and bias derived from RFL theories and textbook creation. In other words, these textbooks convey essentialist and/or reductionist views of the culture of Russia (e.g., poor attention paid to the Russophone dimension, stereotypes, and lack of opportunities for intercultural dialogue). The cultural topics contained in the textbooks evaluated do not quite contribute but rather hinder the formation of students' intercultural communicative competence. Therefore, it is argued that the content of an RFL textbook should help students create complex, multilayered notions of Russian and Russophone cultures for themselves.

Evidence of the classical management approach in the guidelines of the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC) and its implications for brazilian education

The present work aims to present evidence of the classical approach to administration, discovered in the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC), seeking to identify some of its implications for Brazilian education. To achieve this, this qualitative research makes use of the BNCC itself, specifically its introductory part and its pedagogical foundations. The BNCC is a document that specifies the skills, abilities and knowledge that every Brazilian student must acquire throughout their basic education. Analysis of the document demonstrates that the BNCC incorporates some of the principles found in the classical management approach, including the focus on worker efficiency and work standardization. Some objections to the document focus on the excessive standardization of teaching, which restricts teachers' autonomy and limits the diversity of pedagogical approaches. Furthermore, the emphasis on efficiency and measurable results can lead to a reductionist and utilitarian view of education, disregarding subjective aspects and the integral development of students.

Data mining, research ethics and practice: A view from Italy

This article explores the intersection of ethics and methodology in anthropological research, focusing on squats in Rome. It juxtaposes traditional ethnographic practices with contemporary ethical regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), to examine the nuanced relationship between researchers and their subjects in socially vulnerable and legally sensitive environments. The article critiques the reductionist view of ethnographic data as mere information to be extracted, arguing for a more engaged and reciprocal approach to anthropology that respects the agency of research subjects and emphasizes the co‐production of knowledge. The document challenges conventional ethical frameworks and advocates for anthropology's commitment to listening and giving voice to marginalized communities through examining interactions with squatters and the Roma population. This enquiry scrutinizes the bureaucratic imposition on ethnographic research and reaffirms the discipline's role in contributing to a broader understanding of ethics in anthropological practice.

Don’t Call It a Failure: Systemic Risk Governance for Complex Financial Systems

The probability that an event will avalanche into an impairment of essential services constitutes a “systemic risk.” Owing to the inherent complexities of modern societies, the outbreak of a novel disease or the failure of a financial institution can rapidly escalate into an impact significantly larger than the initial event. Through the lens of complex system theory, this article draws a parallel between financial crises and disasters to contend that the regulatory framework for financial systemic risk is unequipped to address its fundamental dynamics. Epitomized by the market failure rationale, financial regulation is premised on a reductionist view that purports both systemic risk and law as external to the actions of market participants. Conversely, this article advances a twofold conceptual framework. First, it shows that systemic risk emerges from the same complex dynamics that generate the financial system. Second, it understands law as an agent of complexity, thus contributing to the emergence of finance and its inherent instability. Normatively, this conceptual framework reveals the limits of current regulatory approaches and constructs a holistic risk governance framework that is akin to the one adopted to govern disaster risks.

The Spemann-Mangold organizer discovery and society

This paper analyzes the influence of Hans Spemann and Hilde Mangold's discovery of the embryonic organizer on society outside the narrower confines of embryology. It begins by overviewing how in the 1920s–1930s, the organizer discovery fit well into the agenda of both right-wing and left-wing political camps, as it supported holistic theories of biological development that aligned with their ideological views. The paper then explores the organizer's influence on the formation and interdisciplinary discussions of the 1930s Cambridge Theoretical Biology Club. Club member C.H. Waddington's concept of the epigenetic landscape, inspired in part by Spemann and Mangold's work, went on to impact diverse fields including mathematics, psychology, anthropology, architecture, and art. Examples include mathematician René Thom's catastrophe landscapes and the field of ekistics (the science of human settlements). Spemann and Mangold's creation of an embryo chimera by combining tissues from different newt species also helped shape philosophers' and artists' understanding of the relationship between nature and technology as an integrated whole rather than separate entities. Additionally, Spemann's embryonic field concept helped influence field theories in other areas of science, and thinkers have pointed out metaphorical similarities between the organizer experiment and philosophical dialectics, film editing, or historical events. However, several factors likely limited the long-term societal impact of Spemann's holistic perspective, notably the rise of molecular biology and DNA-centric reductionist views of biology in the mid-late 20th century. While such reductionism still dominates public perceptions of biology, there seems to be a renewed openness to holistic perspectives reminiscent of Spemann's views.

Sensory perception is a holistic inference process.

Sensory perception is widely considered an inference process that reflects the best guess of a stimulus feature based on uncertain sensory information. Here we challenge this reductionist view and propose that perception is rather a holistic inference process that operates not only at the feature but jointly across all levels of the representational hierarchy. We test this hypothesis in the context of a commonly used psychophysical matching task in which subjects are asked to report their perceived orientation of a test stimulus by adjusting a probe stimulus (method-of-adjustment). We introduce a holistic matching model that assumes that subjects' reports reflect an optimal match between the test and probe stimulus, both in terms of their inferred feature (orientation) and also their higher level representation (orientation category). Validation against several existing data sets demonstrates that the model accurately and comprehensively predicts subjects' response behavior and outperforms previous models both qualitatively and quantitatively. Moreover, the model generalizes to other feature domains and offers an alternative account for categorical color perception. Our results suggest that categorical effects in sensory perception are ubiquitous and can be parsimoniously explained as optimal behavior based on holistic sensory representations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Embracing non‐Western Contexts in Management Scholarship

AbstractManagement is a global phenomenon. Yet, the vast majority of empirical investigations and theoretical explanations of management, managers and those being managed that are published in leading management journals are based on research that predominantly originates from Western contexts, particularly the USA and the larger European countries. Non‐Western contexts, in turn, reside at the periphery of mainstream management scholarship. This is problematic for multiple reasons. It provides an inherently limited view on the contextual factors that may explain variation in management practices across the globe, and it leads to a reductionist view of non‐Western contexts to offer little more than a means for teasing out the boundary conditions of mainstream ‘Western’ theories. This exclusion of non‐Western contexts has resulted in a marginalization of non‐Western scholarly voices, who are often hesitant to submit their research to leading scholarly journals. To address these interrelated problems, we use this introduction to the Thematic Collection on ‘Embracing non‐Western contexts’ in the Journal of Management Studies to call on scholars to more fully embrace non‐Western contexts in their research, and in doing so, to unleash the explanatory potential of these contexts for our understanding of management.

Healthy and Happy? An Ethical Investigation of Emotion Recognition and Regulation Technologies (ERR) within Ambient Assisted Living (AAL)

Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) refers to technologies that track daily activities of persons in need of care to enhance their autonomy and minimise their need for assistance. New technological developments show an increasing effort to integrate automated emotion recognition and regulation (ERR) into AAL systems. These technologies aim to recognise emotions via different sensors and, eventually, to regulate emotions defined as “negative” via different forms of intervention. Although these technologies are already implemented in other areas, AAL stands out by its tendency to enable an inconspicuous 24-hour surveillance in the private living space of users who rely on the technology to maintain a certain degree of independence in their daily activities. The combination of both technologies represents a new dimension of emotion recognition in a potentially vulnerable group of users. Our paper aims to provide an ethical contextualisation of the novel combination of both technologies. We discuss different concepts of emotions, namely Basic Emotion Theory (BET) and the Circumplex Model of Affect (CMA), that form the basis of ERR and provide an overview over the current technological developments in AAL. We highlight four ethical issues that specifically arise in the context of ERR in AAL systems, namely concerns regarding (1) the reductionist view of emotions, (2) solutionism as an underlying assumption of these technologies, (3) the privacy and autonomy of users and their emotions, (4) the tendency of machine learning techniques to normalise and generalise human behaviour and emotional reactions.

Representations of cultural diversity in music education textbooks: a critical and comparative analysis

ABSTRACT Spain is one of the European countries that attracts the most immigration, and the Valencian and Murcian regions have a large immigrant population. To our knowledge, no studies have analysed the representation of cultural diversity in visual representations of the body and musical practices in their music textbooks. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to describe the representation of cultural diversity in Spanish music textbooks from a critical and comparative perspective that analyses visual representations of the body and its interactions with the main musical processes. The results show a greater presence of students with white European features, as well as certain cultural stereotypes perpetuated by visual representation with musical instruments. Thus, although a greater variety of human types can be observed in the graphic representations of music textbooks, these take a reductionist and simplistic view of cultural diversity.

Il movimento dell’immagine, da Hans-Georg Gadamer a Paul Klee

H.-G. Gadamer states, in Truth and Method, that the image is “an ontological fact”. This ontology is defined in a dynamic and relational sense, in particular in connection with the no-tion of Event (Ereignis), under Heidegger’s legacy. Our con-tribution is aimed at deepening this junction, dealing with the question of the image in the work of the German phi-losopher, and paying particular attention to the dimension of the symbolic and to the complex relationship between the notions of ‘mediation’ and ‘immediacy’. The image thus appears in the hermeneutical context as a form of move-ment, i.e. a symbol of the perennial ‘excess’ of meaning in the subject-object relation. This perspective, beyond any mimetic and reductionist view, will be verified in the work of Paul Klee. In fact, the painter offers various iconographic hints that enhance the metamorphic dimension of the figu-ration. Klee’s bildnerische Denken, in which an original ‘an-gel-iconology’ emerges, founds a cosmos of images which operate as forces in movement.

Innovative Property for Innovative Land Policy: Four Normative Principles

Innovative land policy does not yield to the pressure of short-term capital exploitation. Rather, innovative land policy establishes a fair balance between the interests of landowners and the public interest. As a keystone of land policy, property – particularly if open to innovation – plays a vital role in achieving this balance. This commentary explains four normative principles that help design innovative property. Since the four principles derive from long-standing ideas about property in land, the commentary uses a distinctly conservative approach. This approach, however, is quite innovative in the face of the reductionist view of property as a right that only serves the purposes of its owners. According to the first principle, innovative land policy must pay attention to the nexus between private and common property. Under the second principle, property in land must account for the government’s positive duty to provide for adequate land uses for all. The third principle distinguishes between property rights of natural and legal persons: personal property guarantees individual liberty, but corporate property is a social function, not a right at all. The fourth principle reminds of the inseparable bond between property in land and land ethics.

Major curricula as structures for disciplinary acculturation that contribute to student minoritization

Institutions of higher learning are characterized by multiple, often intersecting, social-educational structures aimed at regulating the conditions by which a degree is ultimately granted. The sequence of courses that students must take for a degree is one such structure. Building on the Sloan Equity and Inclusion in STEM Introductory Courses (SEISMIC) Collaboration’s prior work, we provide a comparative view of students’ pathways through selected curricula at two participating institutions. We apply process analytics to students’ course enrollments as a tool to reveal features of the curricula and the associated impacts on students’ progressions to degree. Given the high enrollment in biology-related degree programs at these institutions, we focus on those and ask two questions: (1) Is the intended progression through the curriculum the one most commonly experienced by the students? and (2) does the maintenance of coherence and socialization into the discipline act in a similar way on individuals of different socio, economic and demographic backgrounds? Curriculum analytics tends to be driven by a reductionist view of its structure. Instead, we view the curriculum as a tool for disciplinary acculturation, revealing aspects of students’ transitions through educational systems not captured by commonly applied course or retention analyses. Curricular structures and the constraints they impose impact the way individual students become members of a scholarly community by acting as a cultural and social homogenizing agent. Across the curricula and institutions in this study, we find that this process results in minoritization, hampering student progression through the curriculum and contributing to disciplinary exclusion in favor of traditionally advantaged socio-demographic groups. We call for curricular restructuring that (1) reduces or alters the depth of the hierarchical course sequences, changing the way progression is established; and (2) encourages adoption of pedagogical approaches in the courses that adapt to the learning community to which they cater; ultimately incorporating an asset-based approach to the acquisition of knowledge inclusive of students’ diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and ways of being.

Grandmothers - a cultural resource for women and children's health and well-being across the life cycle.

Grandmothers exist in all societies. Especially in the non-western Majority World, where Elders are both highly respected and responsible for transmitting their knowledge to younger generations, there is extensive anecdotal evidence of Grandmothers' role in health promotion and healing. However, due to Eurocentric and reductionist views of families and communities, in the extensive past research on maternal, child and adolescent health issues across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, and in Indigenous societies in North America, Australia and New Zealand, scant attention has been given to the role of Grandmothers. This paper addresses this oversight and supports the imperative to decolonize health promotion in the non-western world by building on non-western worldviews, roles and values. Based on an eclectic body of both published and gray literature, this review presents extensive evidence of Grandmothers' involvement across the life cycle of women and children and of the similar core roles that they play across cultures. While in some cases Grandmothers have a negative influence, in most cases their involvement and support to younger women and children is beneficial in terms of both their advisory and their caregiving roles. For future research and interventions addressing maternal, child and adolescent health, the conclusions of this review provide strong support for: adoption of a family systems framework to identify both gender-specific and generation-specific roles and influence; and the inclusion of Grandmothers in community health promotion programs dealing with different phases of the life cycle of women and children.

Labour-power production and the skills agenda in lifelong learning: A critical policy analysis of the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022

This article considers how neoliberalism has created a reductionist view of lifelong learning in the UK focused on upskilling workers for the labour market. This critical policy analysis uses Marx’s theory of labour-power, as conceptualised by Glenn Rikowski, to examine the Skills and Post-16 Education Act, 2022 and to identify its ideological roots, its distribution of power, resources and knowledge, and the potential effect it will have on inequality. Findings indicate that while the Act aims to make it easier for adults to study more flexibly, not all adults will have the labour-power attributes and financial resources to access the higher-level qualifications prioritised for funding. This article argues that the Act represents a general deepening of neoliberalism in lifelong learning that will further stratify adult education and increase inequalities. This article concludes that policy has shifted from widening participation in lifelong learning linked to social enrichment and the development of democratic citizenship, to widening participation in higher levels of education and training aimed at enhancing labour-power for the capitalist labour market .