Sentiment Attitude Research Articles

Research on emergency decision quality evaluation and optimization basing on public sentiment big data analysis

The increasingly frequent occurrence of emergencies has led to significant losses, both human and economic. It is of the utmost importance to scientifically and effectively formulate emergency decision to prevent and reduce these losses. In this study, an evaluation model is developed for evaluating emergency decision quality based on fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method. The proposed model takes into consideration of the impact of public sentiment appeals on emergency decision in emergencies with the purpose of improving emergency decision quality. The “3·21” major explosion accident in Xiangshui County, Jiangsu Province, China, in March of 2019, is selected as a typical case, and the public sentiment big data is obtained from Weibo. The Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model and the TF-IDF algorithm are utilized to develop an emergency decision quality evaluation index system, from which public sentiment appeals are extracted and quantified. Furthermore, this study explores the changes of public sentiment attitude towards emergency decision through static and dynamic public sentiment analysis. Based on this, the emergency decision quality for the case event is evaluated by the proposed model. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated with in-depth discussion and validation through this real case. The results indicate that the emergency decision quality of the Chinese government in this case is fairly good, yet exhibit room for further improvement. Optimization advice for emergency decision in emergencies is proposed accordingly. Empirical evidence suggests that the model proposed in this study can provide theoretical and methodological support for emergency response and government decision-making in the era of big data.

Whether to share personal financial information through blockchain? – an intermediary perspective

ABSTRACT Information sharing is of great importance in the financial market. Most current electronic transaction systems do not encourage investors to freely share information such as risk assessment records. Blockchain, a decentralised technology with high security features, is expected to improve the current systems. However, little is known about whether blockchain-based electronic transaction systems contribute to investors’ willingness to share personal financial information. This study adopts a vignette-based experiment to enrich previous studies by explaining the relationship between blockchain and investors’ behaviour. This study introduced investor empowerment, trust belief, risk belief, and perceived uncertainty as mediating variables and considered how these mediating variables interact with each other. Independent sample t-test and structural equation modelling were used to examine the causal relationship between independent and dependent variables, and the role of mediating effect. For text analysis of interview dialogues, keyword extraction and sentiment analysis were used to understand the participants’ focus and sentiment attitude toward electronic transaction systems based on blockchain and non-blockchain. The results show that blockchain can build trust, reduce risk belief and perceived uncertainty by empowering investors, thus increasing investors’ information sharing intention and investment intention. Furthermore, investors have significantly more positive emotional attitudes toward blockchain-based systems.

MIECF: Multi-faceted information extraction and cross-mixture fusion for multimodal aspect-based sentiment analysis

Aspect-level sentiment analysis within multimodal contexts, focusing on the precise identification and interpretation of sentiment attitudes linked to the target aspect across diverse data modalities, remains a focal research area that perpetuates the advancement of discourse and innovation in artificial intelligence. However, most existing methods tend to focus on extracting visual features from only one facet, such as face expression, which ignores the value of information from other key facets, such as the textual information presented by the image modality, resulting in information loss. To overcome the aforementioned constraint, we put forth a novel approach designated as Multi-faceted Information Extraction and Cross-mixture Fusion (MIECF) for Multimodal Aspect-based Sentiment Analysis. Our approach captures more comprehensive visual information in the image and integrates these local and global key features from multiple facets. Local features, such as facial expressions and textual features, provide direct and rich emotional cues. By contrast, the global feature often reflects the overall emotional atmosphere and context. To enhance the visual representation, we designed a Cross-mixture Fusion method to integrate this local and global multimodal information. In particular, the method establishes semantic relationships between local and global features to eliminate ambiguity brought by single-facet information and achieve more accurate contextual understanding, providing a richer and more precise manner for sentiment analysis. The experimental findings indicate that our proposed approach achieves a leading level of performance, resulting in an Accuracy of 79.65 % on the Twitter-2015 dataset, and Macro-F1 scores of 75.90 % and 73.11 % for the Twitter-2015 and Twitter-2017 datasets, respectively.

Employing the BERT model for sentiment analysis of online commentary

The objective of this research is to carry out a tone and semantic sentiment analysis of network comments on new media platforms by leveraging the BERT model. With the burgeoning popularity of social media, network comments, rich in emotional and tonal features, have emerged as a significant part of the online culture. Accurate interpretation and analysis of these comments' sentiment and semantic meanings are paramount to grasping online public opinion and user psychology. In this study, the BERT model, lauded for its bidirectional encoding and contextual understanding capabilities, is selected to scrutinize the sentiment and tone of network comments on new media platforms. Through a process of pre-training and fine-tuning, the sentiment attitudes and polarity of comments are accurately identified along with their conveyed tonal features, such as joy, anger, and sarcasm. Conducting an accurate tone and semantic sentiment analysis of network comments on new media platforms facilitates a profound understanding of user preferences and trends in public opinion. This can assist in optimizing content recommendations, enhancing user experiences, and increasing the operational effectiveness of new media platforms. The outcomes of this research will bear significant implications for studies and applications in online culture, offering invaluable references and guidance in related domains.

Особенности временной перспективы у слабослышащих детей старшего подросткового возраста

The research interest of modern scientists is focused on the issues of interpersonal interaction of hearing-impaired children, peculiarities of their self-perception and the surrounding reality, developing higher mental functions in ontogenesis against the background of sensory deficiency. However, it is revealed that the number of scientific works disclosing the peculiarities of temporal orientations of adolescents with hearing impairment is insignificant, while the need for them is obvious. The aim of this study is to investigate the specific features of temporal perspective in hearing-impaired adolescents and to identify correlations between its indicators and executive functions in order to further develop a correctional and developmental program aimed at optimizing the latter and changing the temporal perspective towards balance. According to the study, conventionally healthy adolescents are more focused on enjoying events in the present, while their hearing-impaired peers reflect on the implications of their behavior in the future, but differ in a less sentimental attitude to past experi-ences and do not regard it as meaningful for the present.

Exploring perception of retraction based on mentioned status in post-retraction citations

The way retracted papers have been mentioned in post-retraction citations reflects the perception of the citing authors. The characteristics of post-retraction citations are therefore worth studying to provide insights into the prevention of the citation chain of retracted papers. In this study, full-text analysis is used to compare the distinctions of citation location and citation sentiment—attitudes and dispositions toward the cited work—between the conditions of correctly mentioning the retracted status (called CM) and not mentioning the retracted status (called NM). Statistical test is carried out to explore the effect of CM on post-retraction citations in the field of psychology. It is shown that the citation sentiment of CM is equally distributed as negative, neutral, and positive, while for NM, it is mainly distributed as the latter two. CM papers tend to cite retracted papers in Methodology , whereas NM papers cite more in Theoretical Background and Conclusion . The perception efficiency of retractions in psychology is low, where the average unaware duration (UD, the period between when the retraction note has been published and when the first citation directly pointed out its retracted status) lasts for 2.88 years. Also, UD is negatively correlated with the quantity of CM and the growth rate of NM, the proportionate change of NM before and after the first CM paper appears (P <0.01). After being aware of retractions, the average rate of change (ARC, the total change divided by its taken time) of NM declines significantly (Z=-2.823, P <0.01) whereas CM sees a raise in most disciplines, which contributes to the reduction of possible interdisciplinary impact.

Analysis of Public Big Data Management under Text Analysis

Based on text analysis, public big data management is studied. The public data management of Mount Wutai tourism network travel notes is discussed. The positive, neutral, and negative effects of the naive Bayesian classification model and decision tree classification model on the tourism sentiment attitude of Mount Wutai are compared. The relationship between tourism resources, tourism facilities, tourism services, tourism environment, and tourism sentiment and attitude of Wutai Mountain is analyzed. The results show that the true positive rate, true negative rate, and F-measure of the Bayesian decision tree classifier to classify positive text are 86.64%, 81.27%, and 84.62%, respectively. The true positive rate for neutral text is 82.05%, the true negative rate is 78.89%, and the F-measure is 77.11%. The true positive rate for negative text is 83.67%, the true negative rate is 98.29%, and the F-measure is 82.83%. The Bayesian decision tree classifier can evaluate positive and negative texts better than neutral texts. The true positive rate of the C4.5 decision tree classifier for positive text is 91.44%, the true negative rate is 86.57%, and the F-measure is 89.45%. The true positive rate for neutral text is 90.17%, the true negative rate is 83.28%, and the F-measure is 84.06%. The true positive rate for negative text is 91.84%, the true negative rate is 99.05%, and the F-measure is 90.91%. The decision tree classifier has a better evaluation effect on positive and negative texts than on neutral texts. The ROC curve of the evaluation effect of the two classifiers shows that the evaluation effect of the two classifiers has a better evaluation effect on positive text than that of the neutral and negative texts, and the evaluation effect of the C4.5 decision tree classifier is better than that of the Bayesian classifier. The promotion degree of tourism resources and facilities in forwarding online travel notes is obviously higher, and there is a high correlation between tourism resources and facilities and forward online travel notes. In negative online travel notes, the promotion degree of tourism service and tourism environment is high, and the correlation between tourism service and tourism environment and negative online travel notes is high. In summary, improving the quality of tourism services and the tourism environment of Mount Wutai scenic spots can better enhance the recognition and satisfaction of tourists with Mount Wutai tourism.

Developing and Implementing Mother-tongue Education Policy in Minority Speech Communities in Nepal: Issues and Challenges

This paper examines some major issues and challenges in developing and implementing mother-tongue education policy in minority speech communities in Nepal. It also suggests some strategies based on field studies for meeting those challenges. In minority speech communities, constituting more than 55% of total population and speaking around 70 languages, despite attempts made by governmental and non-governmental agencies, multilingual education has not yet become accessible it is mainly due to the lack of operational mechanism in education policy. Till today, thousands of children of non-Nepali speaking communities are compelled to be instructed in Nepali and use the textbooks written in Nepali. This has resulted in class repetition, high dropout and very low quality at primary levels.&#x0D; The case studies made in Western Tamang and Rajbansi have explored a number of challenges as well as some way-outs for effective implementation of mother-tongue education policy in such communities. First and foremost, the roles of mother tongue, Nepali and English have not yet been fully justified. In most of the minority speech communities, there is only sentimental attitude towards their mother tongue. Most of the MLE programmes have been commenced without conducting need assessment (Regmi, 2019). There is a lack of appropriate textbooks and reading materials incorporating local cultures and life crucial knowledge embodied in language. Due to the lack of trained and motivated teachers, programmes so far implemented are also facing the problem of quality maintenance. Thus, a promising and inclusive multilingual education policy should be developed and implemented for maintaining the sustainability of MLE programmes in minority speech communities in Nepal.

Violence Detection over Online Social Networks: An Arabic Sentiment Analysis Approach

&lt;p class="0abstract"&gt;Today, the influence of the social media on different aspects of our lives is increasing, many scholars from various disciplines and majors looking at the social media networks as the ongoing revolution. In Social media networks, many bonds and connections can be established whether being direct or indirect ties. In fact, Social networks are used not only by people but also by companies. People usually create their own profiles and join communities to discuss different common issues that they have interest in. On the other hand, companies also can create their virtual presence on the social media networks to benefit from this media to understand the customers and gather richer information about them. With all of the benefits and advantages of social media networks, they should not always be seen as a safe place for communicating, sharing information and ideas, and establishing virtual communities. These information and ideas could carry with them hatred speeches that must be detected to avoid raising violence. Therefore, web content mining can be used to handle this issue. Web content mining is gaining more concern because of its importance for many businesses and institutions. Sentiment Analysis (SA) is an important sub-area of web content mining. The purpose of SA is to determine the overall sentiment attitude of writer towards a specific entity and classify these opinions automatically. There are two main approaches to build systems of sentiment analysis: the machine learning approach and the lexicon-based approach. This research presents the design and implementation for violence detection over social media using machine learning approach. Our system works on Jordanian Arabic dialect instead of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). The data was collected from two popular social media websites (Facebook, Twitter) and has used native speakers to annotate the data. Moreover, different preprocessing techniques have been used to show their effect on our model accuracy. The Arabic lexicon was used for generating feature vectors and separate them to features set. Here, we have three well known machine learning algorithms: Support Vector Machine (SVM), Naive Bayes (NB) and k-Nearest Neighbors (KNN). Building on this view, Information Science Research Institute’s (ISRI) stemming and stop word file as a result of preprocessing were used to extract the features. Indeed, several features have been extracted; however, using the SVM classifier reveals that unigram and features extracted from lexicon are characterized by the highest accuracy to detect violence.&lt;/p&gt;

Coronavirus in the Arab Media: A Transitivity Analysis of Aljazeera Arabic Website

The present paper approaches the topic of the current study eclectically by adopting critical discourse analysis(CDA), systemic functional linguistics(SFL) and corpus linguistics to show how the present crisis of coronavirus(covid19) is presented in the Arab media, a report in Al-Jazeera as a case study. Through the application of CDA and SFL, the researcher would be able to figure out the ideology and attitudes adopted by this TV channel . Mainly, the concern of the study is to illustrate what types of verb processes are utilized in the report in order to give an account of the way the novel corona pandemic as a participant is introduced and described and what roles are assigned to it. After carrying out an analysis , it is concluded that to reflect the influential and powerful effect that the disease brought about, the writer of the report opted for investing the frequent use of the type of material process verbs to demonstrate actions and events in which Coronavirus is the major actor or agent. Besides, the report`s discourse structures are intentionally selected not to convey the writer`s sentimental attitudes but to inform and emotionally involve the reader in the text interactions .

Применение языковых моделей в задаче извлечения оценочных отношений

Large text can convey various forms of sentiment information including the author’s position, positive or negative effects of some events, attitudes of mentioned entities towards to each other. In this paper, we experiment with BERT based language models for extracting sentiment attitudes between named entities. Given a mass media article and list of mentioned named entities, the task is to ex tract positive or negative attitudes between them. Efficiency of language model methods depends on the amount of training data. To enrich training data, we adopt distant supervision method, which provide automatic annotation of unlabeled texts using an additional lexical resource. The proposed approach is subdivided into two stages FRAME-BASED: (1) sentiment pairs list completion (PAIR-BASED), (2) document annotations using PAIR-BASED and FRAME-BASED factors. Being applied towards a large news collection, the method generates RuAttitudes2017 automatically annotated collection. We evaluate the approach on RuSentRel-1.0, consisted of mass media articles written in Russian. Adopting RuAttitudes2017 in the training process results in 10-13% quality improvement by F1-measure over supervised learning and by 25% over the top neural network based model results.

HPV vaccine, Twitter, and gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men.

This study aimed to quantify human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Twitter messaging addressing gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (GB+MSM) and describes messaging by vaccine sentiment (attitudes towards vaccine) and characteristics (topic of messaging). Between August 2014 and July 2015, we collected 193 379 HPV-related tweets and classified them by vaccine sentiment and characteristics. We analysed a subsample of tweets containing the terms 'gay', 'bisexual' and 'MSM' (N = 2306), and analysed distributions of sentiment and characteristics using chi-square. HPV-related tweets containing GB+MSM terms occupied 1% of our sample. The subsample had a largely positive vaccine sentiment. However, a proportion of 'gay' and 'bisexual' tweets did not mention the vaccine, and a proportion of 'gay' and 'MSM' tweets had a negative sentiment. Topics varied by GB+MSM term-HPV risk messaging was prevalent in 'bisexual' (25%) tweets, and HPV transmission through sex/promiscuity messaging was prevalent in 'gay' (18%) tweets. Prevention/protection messaging was prevalent only in 'MSM' tweets (49%). Although HPV vaccine sentiment was positive in GB+MSM messaging, we identified deficits in the volume of GB+MSM messaging, a lack of focus on vaccination, and a proportion of negative tweets. While HPV vaccine promotion has historically focused on heterosexual HPV transmission, there are opportunities to shape vaccine uptake in GB+MSM through public health agenda setting using social media messaging that increases knowledge and minimizes HPV vaccine stigma. Social media-based HPV vaccine promotion should also address the identities of those at risk to bolster vaccine uptake and reduce the risk of HPV-attributable cancers.

The Nursery as Circus: Dancing the Childlike to Fauré's Dolly Suite, 1913

ABSTRACTIn 1913, at the Théâtre des Arts in Paris, a controversial but highly successful ballet choreographed a circus-style pantomime to the music of Fauré's Dolly Suite. With its apparently incongruent relation of dance to music, the ballet displayed, as one reviewer put it, ‘criticisms in action’. This article investigates how we might conceive the production as an act of musical and cultural criticism, by examining its close relation with contexts such as early comic film, music-hall entertainment, the children's literature market, medical and anthropological theories, and surrealist thought. The ballet implicitly challenged conventional interpretations of Fauré's music as reflecting a particular perception of childhood – one which was rather too close to the sentimental attitudes vehemently dismissed in contemporaneous literature. The production was an important manifestation of an emergent understanding of the ‘childlike’ in early twentieth-century French culture – as a condition enlightened by irrationality, with important physiological traits.

Persuasion's Flows: Contagion, Affect, and the Power of Critical Judgment Or: 'The Slippery Realm of Experience': Miriam Hansen’s Critique of the Reification Thesis

In this essay, I chart some of Miriam Hansen’s dislocations of the reification thesis in her readings of Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer in Cinema and Experience. In the first part of the essay, I provide snapshot of the cultural milieu of the reification thesis, at the time immediately preceding Georg Lukacs’s penning of History and Class Consciousness. Late nineteenth and early twentieth century theories of spectatorship drew from a larger realm of cultural expression known between 1870 and 1910 as hysteria, epilepsy, double consciousness, and, especially in the last decade of the period, neurasthenia. All of these nervous disorders fell under the rubric of psychological automatisms, and all evoked the fear of unconscious imitation. My concern is to view reification as sentimental attitude that emerges out of early twentieth century psychologies of medial spectatorship. In the second part of the essay, I engage Hansen’s Cinema and Experience directly and show how her emphasis on cinematic play and innervation allows her to think mediatic objects as sympathy of parts that constitute an intermdial res publica; that is, her development of the idea of intermedial relations involves thinking interrelationality as techno/human assembly of actions. In short, Hansen offers way to think of the complicity of mediatic objects with the moral sentiments as crucial to the transformational experiences of modernity.

BRITISH AND RUSSIAN ATTITUDE TO NATURE REFLECTED IN FICTION: COGNITIVE AND LINGUOCULTURAL ANALYSIS

While there is a lot of literature describing national characters this article searched to find some new aspects to this issue. Previously, the survey of national cultures was limited by the attitude of the people to social, political, and economic questions. This research offers to study the ways people treat nature, the goal is to better understand two nations, the English and the Russians and define common and different traits in their characters. The article discusses the attitude of the English and the Russians to nature as part of their cultures. The methods employed in the research are cognitive, literary, and linguo-stylistic. The cognitive approach to the material investigated makes it possible to avoid stereotyping in order to come to an understanding in communication. Extracts from XIX-XX century English and Russian fiction were selected for literary and linguo-stylistic analysis. The analysis exposes a warm and sentimental attitude of the English to nature that is like mother to them. As for the Russian person nature induces him to think about the purport of life, about god and human destiny. The reason for the differences is explained by strong traditions in the English character and severe conditions of life in Russia.

Primatology between feelings and science: a personal experience perspective

The aim of this article is to discuss some aspects of the relationship between feelings and primatological science, and how this relationship can influence this particular scientific practice. This point of view is based on the author's personal experience. A sentimental reason to study primatology in the first place will be discussed, and then the existence of a bond between the observer and the observed will be presented as a possible by-product of primatology. The following question is whether a sentimental attitude toward primates is detrimental for good science or is, alternatively, actually leading to better primatological science. As an example, the practice of naming individual monkeys is considered. It is argued that naming monkeys can help by characterizing individuality, and this is likely to improve planning of behavioural observations and welfare of captive individuals. The relationship between the researcher and study subject in biomedical studies is discussed in terms of hierarchy of moral status. Finally, primatology is not unique in the existence of bonds between the observer and the observed, at least from the point of view of the observer. However, primatology is unique because, more than in other cases, it gives greater opportunity for reasoning about different factors surrounding "doing science with animals." This is most probably owing to the phylogenetic closeness primatologists have with their study subjects. Among the different factors involved in making science using animals, the sentimental bond developing between the researcher and study animal can be very influential.

The Social Costs and Benefits of Smoking: Modeling and Policy Implications for South Korea

An economic rationale for anti-smoking regulation should lie in the costs of, as well as the benefits from, cigarette consumption. Yet social sentiment and government attitudes in dealing with this issue tend to emphasize the social costs of smoking, while underestimating or even ignoring the benefits from consuming tobacco. Using several specifications in modeling a cigarette demand curve and subsequent statistical analyses, this article estimates consumers’ surplus from cigarette consumption in South Korea. The analysis shows that the price elasticity of demand for cigarettes is low and that the net social benefits from smoking after subtracting social costs can vary from negative to positive, depending on the model specification. If a low price elasticity of demand is to be upheld and if positive net social benefits are the case, price control by the Korean government through higher cigarette taxes will yield only a limited impact on the reduction of the smoking population.

A Bounded Field: Situating Victorian Poetry in the Literary Landscape

thy province [is] not large, A bounded field, nor stretching far. --Tennyson, In Memoriam XLVI The greatest development in the field of Victorian poetry studies over the past fifteen years has been the renewal of interest in women poets, both those who were already familiar but not yet sufficiently acknowledged, like Christina Rossetti, and those who had been all but forgotten by twentieth-century readers. Among the latter perhaps the most intriguing newcomer is Field, the pen-name and poetic persona used by Katherine Bradley and her niece Edith Cooper. had already begun to draw the attention of queer criticism in the 1980s, (1) but her life and poetry were brought to the notice of most critics of Victorian poetry only with the publication in 1992 of Angela Leighton's crucial study Victorian Poets: Writing Against the Heart. (2) I wish to look briefly at the decade of criticism that has followed, which shows trends that are typical of the study both of Victorian women's poetry and of Victorian poetry as a whole, in order to suggest what direction these studies may take in the future. Leighton dedicates to one chapter out of the eight that comprise her book, each concerned with a different woman poet, from Felicia Hemans to Charlotte Mew. first broke into the pages of this in articles by Holly Laird and Yopie Prins which formed part of a 1995 special issue dedicated to Women Poets. (3) In both cases, then, the setting for the discussion of Field's poetry was the same. And yet as Leighton points out, Michael Field, in many ways, belongs altogether outside the tradition of Victorian women's verse. As poets, they lack both the sociopolitical commitment of Barrett Browning and Webster and the sentimental attitudes of desire and repression which characterise Hemans, L.E.L. and Rossetti (p. 204). For all their extensive reading, Bradley and Cooper seem to have paid relatively little attention to these precursors, as they very rarely mention other women poets in their journal (p. 211). Nevertheless, Leighton does frequently compare Field's poetry to that of the other authors she discusses in her study, if only to differentiate them. This makes perfect sense: Leighton is introducing this poet to her readers and wishes to explore Field's relation to her immediate context. An investigation of the wider contexts of Field's poetry--a lengthy discussion of Greek poetry, or of Renaissance painting--would clearly have been out of place in Leighton's book. And yet as much as any poet, demands to be read against a large and varied artistic background. The first two books of lyrics to be published under the name Michael Field (4) both parade their participation in age-old traditions. The first, Long Ago (1889), consists of translations and expansions of the fragments of Sappho, one of which (in Greek) heads each of the poems. The second volume, Sight and Song (1892), consists of a series of ekphrases: each lyric describes a single Old Master painting and is headed by the title of the painting, the name of the painter, and the museum that houses it. Both of these interests, in Sappho and in Renaissance painting, are typically late Victorian; but they also implicate the work of these Victorian women poets into artistic traditions that are not solely Victorian--nor solely female, nor solely poetic. The next step in the critical history of has therefore been to expand the contexts in which her poetry is discussed. Several writers have pursued the analysis of Field's poetry in the context of queer writing or of literary collaborations over the centuries. (5) In Victorian Sappho (1999), Yopie Prins situates Long Ago in an extensive tradition beginning with the Sapphic fragments themselves. (6) And in a recent article, Ana I. Parejo Vadillo has begun to perform the same service for Sight and Song, reminding us that this volume, as much as its predecessor, presents itself as a translation of antique artworks. …

댄스스포츠 참여 동기와 사회적 태도에 관한 연구

The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between motivation of dance sports participations and social attitude. For this purpose, variables of the relationship between motivation of dance sports participation and social unity attitude, the relationship between motivation of dance sports participation and social sentiment attitude, and the relationship between motivation of dance sports participation and social control attitude were set up and analyzed the relationship among these variables. The subjects of this study were 604 people sampled through stratified random sampling from residents in Seoul who were participating in dance sports. The measuring tool were questionnaires based on preceding studies. Collected data was analyzed through frequency analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis, and each hypothesis was tested at α=.05. From the results obtained from the method and procedure described above, this study drew the following conclusions. First, motivation of dance sports participation had an effect on social unity attitude. Second, motivation of dance sports participation had an effect on social sentiment attitude. Third, motivation of dance sports participation had an effect on social control attitude.

Attitudes, knowledge and wild animals as pets in Costa Rica

A nationwide survey in Costa Rica, using Kellert's conceptual framework (Kellert, S. R. 1996. The Value of Life. Washington D.C., Island Press), revealed at least five attitude dimensions toward animals. Overall, Costa Rican adults have a strong sentimental attitude toward animals, an expression of feelings of affection toward animals. In contrast, the materialistic attitude, which regards animals as resources and praises acts of control over them, is weak. This reflects a prevailing opposition to the act of hunting per se, rather than to its potentially detrimental effect on natural populations. There is a strong inquisitive attitude, corresponding to a widespread interest in learning about the biology of animals and their habitats. High scores on the ethical attitude indicate concern for the ethical treatment of animals and nature. The schematic attitude emphasizes the role of aesthetic appearance in the preferences for certain animals and acknowledges feelings of aversion, dislike or fear of some animals. Scores for this attitude were weakly positive. The attitude profile of Costa Ricans is probably incomplete, given the small battery of questions used in this study and differences between this and Kellert's study in the assignment of questions to particular attitudes resulting from the factor analysis. Aesthetic appeal of the animals, compassion, affection and a desire to please and stimulate the children are important motives for the acquisition of wild animals as pets. These positive feelings and a misguided empathy for animals backfire by condemning these pets to an alien environment and inadequate care. The current study also showed that adults who keep wildlife have better biological knowledge than those who never kept wildlife as pets. In addition, Costa Ricans ranked highest in the percentage of correct answers to five questions about animals, in comparison to Kellert's data for US and Japanese citizens (Kellert S.R. 1993. Journal of Social Issues 49: 53–69). Such knowledge of natural history and an animal protection profile, however, do not translate into more animal friendly practices, as seen by the keeping of wildlife as pets under conditions of concern. Rather than changing the attitudes of Costa Ricans toward animals, the challenge is to increase the awareness about the animals' needs and thereby trigger the ethical concern for their well-being.