Something In Return Research Articles

No thanks: How an ideology of sharing, not reciprocating, ensures abundance in the forests of south‐eastern Cameroon

Abstract Reciprocity and relationality are themes which frequently emerge with respect to human–nature associations in Indigenous groups around the world. But many hunter‐gatherers have been shown to reject systems of reciprocity, instead favouring unconditional sharing both between each other and their environment through egalitarian social structures. Investigations of human–nature reciprocity in Central African hunter‐gatherers has been neglected. In this article, we investigate how Baka‐forest relationships intersect with concepts of reciprocity and what the implications are for forest managers. The work is the result of a collaboration between local knowledge holders and an anthropologist who carried out extensive ethnographic fieldwork in a Baka village in south‐eastern Cameroon. Through the examples of three phenomena—origin stories, human–animal shapeshifting, and forest and ancestral spirits—we show that the Baka hold a complex and deeply rooted relational connection with the forest, whereby the two are closely tied. The common notion of direct human–nature reciprocity whereby ‘giving back’ or ‘giving thanks’ that appears in such a diversity of contexts is not present in the case of the Baka. Rather, the focus is on celebrating the abundance of the forest experienced, expressed through sharing properly with others. There is no expectation that this will lead to getting something in return, but instead is known as the ultimate way to achieve joy. As the Baka consider themselves as part of the forest, ensuring their own well‐being is ensuring the well‐being of the forest, an ideology dependent on close relational ties. Extractive industries and mainstream conservation practices in south‐eastern Cameroon are often based on inappropriate approaches which may cause harm to forest communities and jeopardise the state of the forest in the long term. The social‐ecological philosophy we describe, which insists on caring for forest people as the primary means for caring for the forest, provides guidance for forest managers in the tropics and more widely in how to secure a sustainable future for both forests and people. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

An Analysis of Parenting Style which are Reflected in Movie “Run” by Aneesh Chaganty

The aim of this study is to understand deeper about how psychology affects directly to parenting styles especially in a mother figure, thus eventually affect children's behaviors in their social stand towards themselves and people around them, as well as the kind of manners and actions they take when they are faced with problems. The researcher used qualitative method to collect data based on the research problem. Journals, websites, previous researches and other articles were used as data sources to analyze this film. In conclusion, Diane teaches us that loving means trusting and supporting each other with care, giving without expecting something in return, and that loving to family is always on greatest importance. She states how she always believes in Chloe’s capabilities regardless how fragile Chloe seems to be with her countless diseases. She proves how care she does and how supportive she is to her daughter. But in the end of the day, all those sacrifices and considerably amount of love and care she gives to Chloe, her impulsive lies ruin everything she built for 17 years and gone in an instant. Ultimately, giving the loved ones freedom for their life choice and keeping honesty lives in between are the best thing someone could do to support them. The purpose of this study is to focus on the parenting styles of single mothers towards her daughter with disabilities. The researcher applies the theory from Diana Baumrind (1971) about parenting styles.

Positive Emotions Remediate the Communal and Exchange Relationships at the Workplace: An Empirical Investigation

Positive emotions are contagious in nature and hence, play an important role at the workplace. Two emotions, i.e., Companionate love, a mixed emotion and Joy, a positive emotion, have been taken for this research study as they significantly affect the relationships amongst the employees in the organization. An organization-public relationship consists of two types of relationships i.e.: communal and exchange. A communal relationship is a relationship in which employees help each other without expecting something in return, but in the exchange relationship, they expect a return on their favours. This research study is based on the primary data employing a sample size of 108 employees from Delhi-NCR organisations. It was hypothesized that companionate love and joy have a significant positive association with communal relationships and exchange relationships. Structural equation modelling has been performed to analyze the data. Results depict that companionate love has a significant negative association with both communal and exchange relationships. On the contrary, joy revealed a significant positive association with communal and exchange relationships. The reason is love is comparatively an ‘others-driven emotion’, in which one person's emotions are dependent on others; love is a mixed emotion which can bring jealousy, possessiveness, dominance, and love. On the other side, joy is a ‘self-driven emotion’ in which a happy person is happy on his own, too. Joy is a positive emotion which brings happiness, pleasure and joviality. This research study contributes insights into Emotions at the workplace for human Resource Managers, Top Level Managers and Policymakers regarding the employee welfare schemes and mental well-being of the employees at the workplace.

‘We Reach out but we Also Expect Something in Return’: Social Work Engaging with Roma People in Temporary Container Homes at the Edge of the City

Abstract In this article, we critically explore the research findings of a qualitative study of local social policy and work interventions, called ‘the post-mobile project’ in Ghent, Belgium. The project provided temporary housing for families in container units, accompanied by mandatory integration assistance, and was implemented as a potential solution for Romanian Roma families after the dismantlement of two informal settlements in 2020. Our qualitative study explores the underlying ontological assumptions of the social work interventions in this project, and aims to gain insights into the role of contemporary social work practice in Belgium and its impact on advancing or hindering the pursuit of social justice within this Roma community. The study is based on an ethnography as a multi-method approach. Participant observations are complemented by document analysis, semi-structured interviews and focus groups to gain an in-depth understanding of the divergent experiences and opinions of different stakeholders involved in the interventions. The findings reveal different ontological frameworks regarding the way the social problem is defined, the project’s goals and the principles guiding practice, thus exposing tensions between the local policy-makers and the social justice orientation of social work practitioners.

Into the Light

Into the Light Mark Oshiro and Natalie Berglind Oshiro, Mark Into the Light. Tor Teen, 2023 [448p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781250812254 $19.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781250812261 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 9-12 It's a sad reality that too many children fall through the cracks of an inept U.S. foster care system, and statistic after statistic show this is especially true for queer teens of color. Recent political winds have pushed LGBTQIA+ issues to the forefront of cultural discussions, but rarely does the discussion include the perspectives of queer young people living in a society that seems all too ready to pretend they don't exist, or worse, attempts to reshape their identities to appease people who have never had their best interests at heart. Informed by their own experiences as a homeless queer Latinx youth, Oshiro blazes through the demeaning rhetoric with a searingly honest portrayal of seventeen-year-old Manny, who's had to make his own rules negotiating a world that has left him unsupported and alone. Manny is a seasoned hitchhiker with strict rules—he never tells the people he rides with the truth about himself or his circumstances, he doesn't get attached to anybody, and he always follows his instincts when it's time to move on. Encounters with creepy truck drivers and too many prying questions have made Manny smart enough to know that anyone who helps him usually wants something in return. He's understandably taken aback, then, when the Varela family, consisting of a mother, a father, and their son Carlos, offer him an unusual kindness coming from a true place of empathy. Unfortunately, Manny's complicated and tragic past comes back to haunt him when he sees a news segment about a body found at Idyllwild—near a hidden base for Christ's Dominion, the Christian group that Manny was once a part of and that is run by a white Deacon that only takes in queer-leaning kids of color. More than anything, he wants to reunite with the sister who chose Christ's Dominion over him, but will Elena want Manny in her life if he tries to come to her rescue? Manny's voice is blunt and concise, switching quickly from scene to scene in a kaleidoscope of memories and experiences through short, punchy sentence fragments that are beautifully strung together. The achronological nature of the narrative is particularly compelling as readers learn about Manny's past in the foster care system, the events that led him to join Christ's Dominion, and the development of a friendship-turned-romantic-relationship with Carlos. An element of mystery is introduced in the occasional perspective of a boy in Idyllwild named Eli who seemingly has much in common with Manny, including his sister—and even savvy readers could never guess the reason for Eli's inclusion until Oshiro chooses to reveal it. Each of these elements contributes to a controlled tension that winds through each scene, culminating in the book's final showdown with the people who took Manny's sister from him. [End Page 245] The dynamics in Christ's Dominion are truly haunting, with the realistic and terrifying cult-like behavior of white parents adopting Black and brown kids to indoctrinate them into their colorblind, white Christian virtues in the name of God. Manny's experience there makes his philosophy of not letting people see his vulnerability heartbreakingly correct. Thus, when he realizes he can get assistance from the right people in the Varelas—not white adults with a Christian nationalist agenda who claim to want to help—it is groundbreaking to Manny, who is shocked (and admittedly suspicious) by their willingness to go to bat for him, taking on government officials and breaking the rules where needed to support him. While much of the terror and heartbreak of Manny's story comes from his poignant narration, there is the underlying fact that the circumstances that trapped Manny at the whims of a religious cult are not fictional—queer teens of color live this experience currently, and many are just a few steps away from homelessness due to...

External resilience in the context of drug use and socio-structural vulnerabilities: a qualitative exploration among women who use drugs and sell sex in Baltimore, Maryland

BackgroundResilience is a commonly used construct in substance use and mental health research. Yet it is often narrowly defined by only its internal qualities (e.g., adaptability, hardiness) and overlooks its external qualities (e.g., supportive relationships, navigating one’s environment). Further, substance use is often viewed as antithetical to resilience despite populations like women who use drugs and sell sex (WWUD-SS) surviving significant hardships. This study aims to fill a gap in the literature by characterizing external resilience among WWUD-SS and understanding the ways that socio-structural vulnerabilities (e.g., poverty, stigma) and substance use shape external resilience.MethodsWWUD-SS (N = 18) enrolled in an ongoing cohort study were purposively sampled for age, race, and recruitment location and participated in semi-structured, in-depth interviews aimed to elucidate external resilience (i.e., social support and resource utilization). WWUD-SS were queried about recent difficult experiences with a focus on how they did or did not use social support or formal resources (e.g., clinic, crisis hotline) in response.ResultsParticipants were a median age of 37 years, 50% identified as Black, and 50% reported currently injecting drugs. Participants described reluctance to ask for support and often felt resigned to address problems alone. Participants also distinguished between transactional relationships (help is contingent upon receiving something in return) versus genuine (non-transactional or altruistic) support, including the role of family members who do and do not use drugs. Resource utilization was rare, and “self-medication” through substance use was common absent other perceived options for help.ConclusionsExternal resilience appears limited among WWUD-SS and shaped by the social and economic contexts of a street-involved life. WWUD-SS’ ability to exercise external resilience may be undercut by experiencing structural vulnerabilities and competition for material resources that create transactional relationships and diminish the perceived value of social support. Internalized stigma, reflecting the larger society’s stigmatized views of drug use, sex work, and poverty, left WWUD-SS eschewing help from outside sources. Focus on internal resilience alone offers an incomplete picture of the construct in drug-using populations. Improving connections to community resources may be a targeted way to strengthen external resilience, as are policies addressing structural vulnerabilities for marginalized communities.

Nietzsche and Friendship

Nietzsche and Friendship

Balancing the Tradeoffs Between Office and Video Doctor Visits

Balancing the Tradeoffs Between Office and Video Doctor Visits

ANALISIS KEPERCAYAAN DIRI ANAK USIA DINI DALAM KAJIAN STUDI SOSIAL

Experts reveal that the socio-emotional development of children aims to find out how children are responsible for themselves and others in the social sphere. The environment around children has a role in influencing children's emotional development and can be a source of problems for children if they get inappropriate behavior, such as being selfish, not confident, and so on. Therefore, teachers or parents must create a peaceful environment so that there are no problems in children's emotions. This study aims to describe how children's self-confidence is seen from social studies studies. There are several solutions that parents can take in this case: (1) Spending quality time with their children; (2) Provide opportunities for children to mingle with the surrounding environment under constant supervision, (3) Enough in giving praise, flattery, gifts so that children are not accustomed to doing something in return, (4) Always teach and instill in children the meaning of the proverb "there is a sky above". Langit", (5) Not prioritizing physical punishment (pinch, hitting, etc.) when a child makes a mistake, but warns with words first, and (6) Provides opportunities for children to show or do things they like.

Respond to Any Requests without Expecting Something in Return to Build a Trust Relationship with Others

Respond to Any Requests without Expecting Something in Return to Build a Trust Relationship with Others

Helping While Competing? The Complex Effects of Competitive Climates on the Prosocial Identity and Performance Relationship

AbstractIntegrating notions of coopetition with social information processing theory, we build and test a theoretical model that explains the paradox that arises when prosocial identifying employees work in competitive climates. Sampling 406 subordinates nested within 91 supervisors over two time‐points, we show that the relationship between prosocial identity and interpersonal helping is stronger when competitive climate is low rather than high. We also find that competitive team climate positively relates to instrumental helping motives (i.e., helping others to gain something in return). In addition, instrumental helping motives significantly moderate the linkage between interpersonal helping and job performance as well as the indirect effect of prosocial identity on job performance via interpersonal helping such that the main and indirect effects became weaker as instrumental helping motives increased. Overall, our findings reveal new insights into how prosocial identifiers incorporate information from social cues to strike a balance between cooperation and competition.

INVESTIGATION INTO MOTIVATION: SIGNIFICANCE, TYPES AND THEORIES

Motivation plays a vital role in execution of work. It refers to those vibes that pushes a person at work to use his potentialities to perform for the achievement of his personal or organisational goals. Every individual perform activities to get something in return. The level of motivation affects individuals performances if he is highly motivated he would try to achieve his objectives in most efficient and rapid ways. This paper tries to highlight the significance, Extrinsic and intrinsic types of motivation and theories of motivation. This Paper focuses on the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and give detailed information about different theories of motivation. In organisations managers try to motivate their employees so they can utilise their potentials in best possible ways.

A brief perspective of foot and ankle leadership over the decades

A brief perspective of foot and ankle leadership over the decades

Blockchain for public health care in smart society

Blockchain is a new technology that demands more efficient and scalable techniques to incorporate it with business models. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a blockchain-based smart healthcare business model, which keeps customers at the center of business. Our proposed smart healthcare business model can predict customer's status and is able to give rewards according to the business rules set by participating organizations. However, businesses also demand something in return, and in our scenario, we are concerned about data in the wild. Our model fetches “data in the wild” from the Internet of Medical Things. Nevertheless, this model can be applied to any business scenario where a customer reward system exists. Our proposed model focuses more on customers and business while utilizing technology to ease the customer and other parties involved in the business. This fusion makes business more effective as the organization can determine the path of business and make decisions accordingly. Incorporating technologies with existing business models such as the “consumer centric model” makes it easy for businesses to modernize.

Chemistry of Emotions - A Review

Human body coordinates through chemical signals released by the brain. Chemical signals play a major role in bio-regulatory reactions responsible for emotions. Emotions are complex chemical reactions in nervous systemcharacterized by neurophysiologic changes associated with thoughts and behavioral responses. On pinching, one can cry, skin becomes hot, heart beat increases and our brain desires to shout out loud or hit something in return. We experience a sudden influx of physical and mental stimuli underlying a basic emotion. A person experiences diverse emotions throughout the day that are helpful in learning, reasoning and creativity. Emotions are one the most central and pervasive aspects of human experience. Emotions motivate empathic and moral behavior and play a role in an individual’s sense of self. While emotions enrich human experience they can also cause dramatic disruptions of judgment and performance. Since ancient days psychiatrists have been cracking the brain process responsible for emotions. Greeks were the first to find the link between the physical body and human emotional responses. Human brain is a complex network that transmit information every second via neurons through chemicals called neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin etc. These chemicals essentially let the organs communicate with each other and express the emotions such as anger and happiness. Analysis of hormones and their effects on human behavior is a major contribution of biochemistry to the understanding of emotions and related behavior. In this article we are trying to provide an in-depth knowledge about chemistry of emotion which we experience every day.

The structural advancement of religious communities and the commercialisation of the Christian religion in Nigeria

This article examines the activities of Christian religious communities and the birth of a commercialised Christian religion. It begins by creating an atmosphere that the Nigerians find themselves in, and explaining as to why they rely more on religious vendors for solutions to their physical and spiritual problems. Thus, the real causalities are the people with no contentment. The commercialisation of religion in Nigeria has been characterised by increased poverty and social vices such as armed robbery, bad leadership and bad citizenship. Findings reveal that adherents of the various churches that have commercialised their blessings comprise both the poor and the rich of the society. The poor are seeking God for instant blessing, while the rich are seeking God for the sustainability of their wealth and protection. True religion is now lost in Nigeria. Some pastors treat the church as an investment, expecting to get something in return personally when the institution prospers financially. This is evident in the rise in sugar-coated preaching in most Nigerian churches. It was discovered that commercialisation of churches is mainly for financial gains, and it is an offshoot of the proliferation of churches in Nigeria.

Altruistic and selfish communication on social media: the moderating effects of tie strength and interpersonal trust

ABSTRACT Individuals share a diversity of content on social media for a variety of reasons. Research has often described and explained disclosure via the application of a subjective cost–benefit analysis framed around reciprocity, suggesting that people communicate selfishly motivated by the expectation of receiving something in return. This paper investigates the moderating effects of tie strength and interpersonal trust on the relationship between expected reciprocity and intensity of communication between two social media connections. A Facebook application presented participants with a random set of their friends and asked them to rate their friendships in terms of these values. Overall, 90 participants rated 1728 friendships, while the application collected 11 activity variables depicting the actual communication that has taken place in each pair of connections. A principal component analysis was used to distinguish between text- and photograph-related communication, and two moderated multiple regressions were conducted to establish the moderating effects. The results show significant moderating effects of tie strength and trust on the communication around photographs, but not around text. This study contributes to communication research by explicating the ways that tie strength and trust affect patterns of communication on social media. Implications for social media researchers and designers are discussed.

Jewish–Gentile Relations in Hiding during the Holocaust in Sokołów County, Poland (1942–1944)

ABSTRACTThis article explores the experience of Jews in hiding with gentile Poles during the Holocaust through the geographical lens of one county in eastern Poland, Sokołów, which was situated a few kilometers south of the Treblinka death camp. Drawing on the written and oral testimonies of Jews from the region, the following pages illustrate the attempts of Sokołów Jews to survive after the liquidation of the ghettos in 1942 by finding shelter with Gentile neighbors, looking into their divergent experiences of hiding. This article shows that there were very few cases in which Jews received shelter from Polish Gentiles without providing something in return: For many Jews in hiding, financial exchanges were the lifeline connecting them with their aid-provider, and, at times, offers of shelter were rescinded gradually or immediately once financial resources ran dry. It further exposes that the roles of ‘rescuer’ and ‘perpetrator’ could be performed simultaneously, complicating the notion of the Gentile rescuer as a one-dimensional actor of moral good, which has dominated public spaces of memory in contemporary Poland and appears in pieces of academic writing. Finally, this article pays homage to the community of Sokołów Jews destroyed in the Holocaust by exploring the memory of Sokołów’s Jewish past in the region today.

The Ultimate Gift: The Transformative Indwelling of Christ and the Christian

The Ultimate Gift:The Transformative Indwelling of Christ and the Christian David Vincent Meconi S.J. All those ἵνα and ut clauses should have given it away. As a patrologist with a special interest in the soteriology of Christian deification, I had always seen that the Church Fathers depicted the descent of Christ in terms of a purpose and a plan. His kenosis demanded our theosis, for he did not intend to visit in vain. The more modern understanding of God's descent into humanity and the consequent gift of divinizing grace as an event that required absolutely nothing in return, therefore, never quite squared with how I was interacting with these ancient texts. Instead, what I was encountering on those pages insisted that "this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God."1 We see the same construction of purpose clauses in Clement and Origen and throughout the Cappadocians, as well as at the heart at the most legendary and lapidary formula, the Athanasian dictum that "God became human so that humans could become gods."2 Obviously this was no disinterested descent. Surely the Incarnation was effected in order to achieve some end, an exhortatory truth not limited to the ancient world, but seen throughout the best of Christian thought. Take St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, [End Page 197] whose lengthy meditations on the grace of the Incarnation led him to teach that "the only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."3 From Athanasius to Aquinas, the greatest Christian minds have understood that the gift of the Son's human nature was so that humans could come to partake of the divine nature. Yet, in many strands of modern Christianity, such an expectation would be piously disregarded as some merit- or work-based soteriology wherein God does something only in order to have something in return. There is (rightful) caution that the old pagan adage and the crux of their civil creed, do ut des, would erase the agapic covenant in favor of a commutative contract. But how does one speak of the utter gratuity of God without making his gift an undemanding frill or a favor so void of power that it refuses a return on its investment? Perhaps that is what every fallen soul, however, desires—a God who only gives but wants nothing really in return? In his inimitable way, C. S. Lewis realized this when he teasingly wrote that no one really wants a Father-God who makes demands on those brought into his household, but rather a cognitively diminished deity who simply provides us with what we need to have fun and then apparently turns in early: By the goodness of God we mean nowadays almost exclusively His lovingness; and in this we may be right. And by Love, in this context, most of us mean kindness—the desire to see others than the self happy; not happy in this way or in that, but just happy. What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, 'What does it matter so long as they are contented?' We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven—a senile benevolence who, as they say, liked to see young people enjoying themselves, and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, 'a good time was had by all.' … I should very much like to live in a universe which was governed on such lines. But since it is abundantly clear that I don't, and since I have reason to believe, nevertheless, that God is Love, I conclude that my conception of love needs correction.4 [End Page 198] Lewis rightly sees that the modern notion of love is in need of correction, especially as regards whether it is congruent with any language of...

An Anarchist Power Amidst Pessimism: The Overcoming of Optimism in José Saramago's Blindness and Seeing

An Anarchist Power Amidst PessimismThe Overcoming of Optimism in José Saramago's Blindness and Seeing James Martel introduction: can pessimists change the world? Thanks in great part to Lauren Berlant's book Cruel Optimism, optimism has come in for a lot of criticism and bad press of late. "Cruel" optimism in particular is seen as a force that holds political subjects to the vagaries of liberal capitalism, using a false form of hope to keep people yoked to the system that oppresses them. It is "cruel" because there never was any hope of the kinds of redemption that liberal capitalism promises (the promise of fulfillment, of happiness, of safety and riches). Optimism in this view is the affective dimension of liberal ideology. Thus, Berlant writes of the "cruel optimism and its mode of slow death," specifically speaking of the way that capitalism promises so much to the liberal subject and delivers so little, particularly in terms of commodification and exchange of goods in the market. Berlant writes (41–42). Under capitalism, money is power and if one has only surplus amounts of it, sovereignty is infinite and yet a weight that cannot be borne. Exchange value was supposed to leaven the subject through the handoff of value to another, who would return something in kind. The space of exchange would make breathing space and breathing space is what the capitalist subject, in all of her ambition, is trying to attain—the good life. … But what usually gets returned in the exchange of desire embedded in things is merely disappointingly, a brief episode, often with a thing as memento of the memory and not the actualization of desire. (42) Here, we see that optimism is not just cruel, it is also capitalist and statist. It is part of a web of intelligibility that determines and orders our political, economic and social lives. If this is the case, if optimism is so entangled with oppressive political and economic forms, what then of pessimism? Is pessimism any more "realistic" or preferable to optimism? Does the pessimist see something that the optimist does not? And if so, what is it that they see? In this paper I will argue that pessimism is not in [End Page 125] and of itself the proper response to optimism but that it is a critical part of a larger set of responses that enables some kind of radical break with existing norms and power structures. Pessimism alone is not enough because by itself it can readily be the mirror image of optimism, limiting options and viewpoints in the name of a defiance and resistance that doesn't expand past what it is resisting. The kind of response that I am interested in discussing is therefore neither a simple negation of cruel optimism, nor an entirely different phenomenon, but something that comes out of the affective dimensions of state and capitalist forms of ideology in a way that recognizes both the presence and determination of that ideology even as it offers a way to inhabit that space differently (more accurately, it shows how we have already been inhabiting that space differently in ways that are not always apparent to ourselves so long as we remain under the spell of optimism). To make these arguments, I will focus on two novels by the Portuguese author José Saramago, Blindness and Seeing. In these novels, which form a sequel, Saramago explores two catastrophic events which have vast consequences for the characters in the novels (there is some continuity of characters between the two). The first catastrophe is chronicled in Blindness, a plague of what Saramago calls "white blindness" wherein people are struck, one after another, with a form of blindness where all that they can see is white. Everyone but one woman, known only as the doctor's wife (Saramago almost never gives us any names at all), is afflicted and society completely collapses. The second catastrophe, described in Seeing, is completely different. In that novel, set in the same city as Blindness—the capital of the country (which he suggests might be Portugal)—but now four years later, 83% of the population turn in blank ballots in a national election...