Supra-individual Level Research Articles

The suffering of students in physical education. Unsettling experiences and situational conditions

ABSTRACT Background The state of research on unsettling experiences of students in physical education can be characterized as fragmented. The available studies focus on select emotions (e.g. fear), specific forms of discrimination (e.g. ableism), or different types of social interactions (e.g. bullying). In this way, the state of research reveals different aspects of students’ suffering in physical education (PE) in a puzzle-like manner, while systematic investigations of the overall picture of PE as a complex meaningfully structured phenomenon remain open. Purpose The study presented in this paper aims to systematically capture the breadth of unsettling PE experiences by taking different perspectives of students into account, while also doing justice to PE in its situational logic. Based on a social constructivist approach, the following research questions will be addressed: (1) What kind of experiences are interpreted as unsettling by students in PE? (2) Which situational conditions are associated with students’ unsettling PE experiences? Methods A qualitative research approach based on written short narratives was employed to answer the research questions. Current and former secondary school students (N = 677) from Germany participated. Grounded theory coding methods and sequential analysis were used for the data analysis. Results Our data indicates a wide range of students’ unsettling PE experiences (e.g. public humiliation, social exclusion, and forms of violence). On a supra-individual level, two major categories of unsettling PE experiences were identified: (1) The vulnerability of the students perceived through revealed inadequacies and (2) the social oppression of the supposedly ‘lazy, weak and unfit’. Students’ experience of vulnerability can be traced back to situations of physical exposure and performance failure while their experience of social oppression draws back to suppressive actions by teachers and fellow students. For each of these categories, we identify typical ways in which students deal with their unsettling experience. On a structural level, a hierarchizing culture of PE that fosters unsettling experiences is revealed. Discussion As a central strength, our study can provide condensed explanations for the emergence and consequences of unsettling PE experiences from the students’ perspective. Our findings relate to and enrich existing discourses regarding the situational emergence of vulnerability, overarching mechanisms of marginalization, and the hierarchizing culture of PE as a basis for social oppression. It is particularly tragic that affected students feel left alone and can hardly escape harmful situations, which perpetuates their suffering. Thus, pedagogical concepts that emphasize students’ diversity and the dismantling of hierarchies are needed and should be advanced further.

Metaphysical Aspects of Russian Social Consciousness in Russian Philosophy and Publicity of the beginning of the 20th Century

The article notes that for an in-depth analysis of the worldview and socio-political exhortations of the "Russian world" ideology carriers, it is insufficient to identify only the natural and historical prerequisites for the formation of these exhortations. It is necessary to reveal the deep metaphysical foundations of the Russian ethnic group spirituality. The fact these foundations have transformed into one of the essential elements of the "Russian world" aggressive spiritual substance, increase the relevance of this problem in modern conditions. The author of the article offers an overview of understanding of this problem by the representatives of Russian journalism and philosophy of the beginning of the 20th century, Maxim Gorkiy and Nikolai Berdyaev. The article notes that M. Gorky in his essay "On the Russian Peasantry" criticizes the illusory views of Russian writers of the middle and the second half of the 19th century on the nature of the Russian peasantry (and at the same time the Russian ethnic group in general, because Russian society was mostly peasant) as a wise seeker of truth and justice, a person with a broad and generous soul, a carrier of world humanistic values. The specificity of the development of Russian history, the geographical living conditions formed, in Gorky's opinion, the traits of cruelty, aggressiveness, and contempt for the human personality that define the behavior of the Russian peasant. These features, imprinted on the deep supra-individual level of the Russian peasant, are invariant with respect to the class and political affiliation of their bearers. They can be eradicated only through radical social transformations and long educational processes. The article pays special attention to N. Berdyaev's views on the metaphysical roots of historical and spiritual manifestations of the Russian soul. Under this review, he analyzes the existential ideas of Russians about the value of human life, about their attitude to God, to the ideas about good and evil, as well as their attitude to the state and other peoples. Berdyaev considered the main source of aggressiveness, irrationality and unpredictability of Russian deeds to be the underdevelopment of the personal principle in the spiritual and social life of Russian society. He considers the consequences of such underdevelopment in the history of the social structure of Russian society, in the religious practices of Russians. The conviction of Russians in the divine origin and universality of their values gives them confidence that Russia must become the liberator of the nations.The author of the article expresses the opinion that the value orientations of Russians rooted at the metaphysical level regarding the messianic character of their actions in relation to other peoples, confidence in their chosenness do not provide grounds to hope for changes in these orientations as a result of a change in political, spiritual leaders or political power.

Rationality Now!

Rationality Now!

Excavating the social representations and perceived barriers of organ donation in China over the past decade: A hybrid text analysis approach.

BackgroundOrgan donation has been claimed as a prosocial behavior to prolong the recipient's life and deliver great love. However, the supply-demand ratio of organs in China is highly unbalanced. Being entangled with multiple factors derived from individual and supra-individual levels, organ donation in China is important but sensitive. Previous scholars usually depended on obtrusive approaches to explore the facilitators and hindrances of organ donation, which is hard to discover genuine perceptions toward organ donation. Besides, relatively limited scholarly attention has been paid to what hampers organ donation in China.ObjectiveWe intended to excavate the diversified social representations and perceived barriers to organ donation in China over the past decade.MethodTwo kinds of text analysis methods—semantic network analysis and conventional content analysis, were applied to 120,172 posts from ordinary users on the Sina Weibo platform to address the research questions.ResultsRegarding social representations, the “hope, understanding, and acceptance” of organ donation was the most pronounced one (34% of the whole semantic network), followed by “family story” (26%), “the procedure of organ donation in NGOs” (15%), “the practical value of organ donation” (14%), and “organ donation in the medical context” (11%). Regarding perceived barriers, a four-layer framework was constructed, including (1) the individual level, mainly about the fear of death and postmortem autopsy; (2) the familial level, which refers to the opposition from family members; (3) the societal level, which alludes to distrust toward medical institutions and the general society; (4) the cultural level, which covers religious-cultural concerns about fatalism.ConclusionIn concordance with prior works on social representations regarding organ donation, the current study also uncovered the coexistence of antithetical representations about organ donation—the longing for survival and the fear of death. This representation pair serves as the foundation of Chinese people's ambivalence. Besides, family-related narratives were dispersed over various representations, demonstrating the critical position of family support in organ donation. Moreover, the four-layer framework concerning donation barriers affords a reference for future empirical studies. The practical implications of this work are further discussed.

Beyond the individual: A systematic review of the effects of unit-level demands and resources on employee productivity, health, and well-being.

Creating sustainable employment-that is, a condition in which employees remain productive but also enjoy good health and well-being-is a challenge for many organizations. Work environment factors are major contributors to these employee outcomes. The job demands-resources model categorizes work environment factors into demands versus resources, which are, respectively, detrimental versus beneficial to employee outcomes. Although conceptualized as workplace factors, these job characteristics have been studied mostly at an individual level. Therefore, their roles at the supraindividual level (i.e., any work-unit level above an individual, such as group or organization) for employee productivity, health, and well-being remains unclear. The aim of this systematic review is to synthesize evidence concerning job resources and job demands at the supraindividual level and their relationships to productivity, health, and work-related well-being. The review covers articles published through December 2018. In total, 202 papers met the inclusion criteria. We found stronger support for the beneficial roles of supraindividual job resources than for the detrimental roles of job demands for productivity and work-related well-being. Regarding health, most of the relationships were found to be nonsignificant. To conclude, this review demonstrates that, at the supraindividual level, the motivational path has received more support than the health impairment path. Based on these findings, we provide recommendations for further research and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

THE ROLE OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN CONCEPT PROFILING

The article systematizes the main methodological aspects of the study of conceptual metaphor. Attention is focused on solving the following tasks: to reveal the essence of ‘conceptual metaphor’, to determine the types of conceptual metaphor, to systematize the methodological aspects of the study of conceptual metaphor. It is argued that metaphor is a cognitive tool that allows to present an abstract concept difficult for comprehensionthrough another more empirically studied concept. The cognitive-linguistic view of metaphor is considered, according to which metaphor works atthree levels: supra-individual, individual and sub-individual. The supra-individual level corresponds to how a given language and culture reflect decontextualized metaphorical patterns,itcorrelates with the level of domains and frames. The individual level corresponds to the metaphorical cognitive system used by individual speakers, correlates with the use of mental processes in mental space, when universal aspects of the meaning of metaphorical expression in a particular communicative situation contains the most specific information acquiredwith experience. The sub-individual level corresponds to the universal aspects of various kinds of embodiment, corresponds to the level of image-schemes, generalizing models of which help to explain the meaning of abstract concepts. Conceptual metaphors connect abstract concepts with physical ones (based on perception), as a result of which the conceptual system becomes embodied, thoroughly based on perception. It is concluded that concepts consist of metaphorical structures that we have in our long-term memory and that provide a conceptual substrate of meaning in general and meaning ofa particular language in particular. Image-schemes, domains and frames, taken together, constitute the content of concepts, which gets an emotional color in the mental space of each individual speaker

The Post-Academic Trend in the Evolution of Methodological Consciousness

The development of science at all stages of its penetration into a technogenic society is accompanied by changes in methodological consciousness in its various incarnations. However, preferring to analyze the metamorphoses of science as special knowledge about the world, to examine the evolution of its methodological tools, forms of structural and functional organization of scientific and cognitive activity, at the same time, modern research practices leave aside the evolution of methodological consciousness as such. Although, according to the author, analysis of this phenomenon makes possible to define, if not a paradigmatic, then at least a syntagmatic approach to the study of modern post-academic science. The representation of methodological consciousness can be carried out in different versions. The article considers its evolution at various levels of functioning – individual and supra-individual, embodied in the methodological innovations of science itself as well as in the philosophical and methodological discourse interconnected with it. The assertion of unique forms of methodological consciousness at the supraindividual level, in particular, characterizes the development of modern social physics, which combines syntagmatics, inter- and transdisciplinarity as strategies of scientific search. The evolution of methodological consciousness at the individual level is inextricably linked with the renewal of the scientific habitus of individual scientists. In the context of the commercialization of post-academic science, destructive changes in the qualities of scientific creativity and scientific ethos undoubtedly affect the mental and cognitive components of the scientific habits of researchers. For the majority of the scientific community, the transformation of the scientific habitus proceeds spontaneously. Awareness of the uniqueness of post-academic science today occurs mainly within the framework of philosophical and methodological discourse. The result of this process is problematized by the author as a phenomenon of “post-academic philosophy of science,” characterized by a number of features of a substantive, methodological, and institutional nature. The question of its correlation with the traditional philosophy of science, on the one hand, and with disciplinary strategies in the study of science, on the other, opens up prospects for the emergence of new paradigms of modern philosophical and methodological discourse.

THE PROBLEM OF INSTITUTIONAL TRUST IN UKRAINE AND EUROPE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

The article presents the results of studying the formation of institutional trust, which will help to clarify and, at the same time, raise questions regarding the determination of the level of trust in state and political institutions in Ukraine and in modern European countries. In the context of the study, the tasks were considered to identify the factors that influence the formation of citizens’ trust in political institutions, namely: the effectiveness of the activities of political institutions; personal experience of interaction of citizens with representatives of authorities; the level of trust in the state as a whole, which can be transferred to individual state institutions. Analyzing the data from the Rounds (waves) 1-9 of the European Social Survey (ESS) in 2002-2018, the level of confidence in Ukraine’s political and public institutions and in the other European countries is compared. The analysis makes it possible to determine the factors that are present at the supra-individual level (at the country level) and which can influence the public policy of the state. The results of the study can be used to suggest possible measures to increase public confidence in major public institutions.

The Action Project Method Applied in Nursing Home Settings

The action-project method (APM), developed in counselling psychology and used in various disciplines, has been shown to be useful for understanding major life transitions in different contexts. We argue that the APM is beneficial for studying the impact of nursing home (NH) home admission and daily life of residents and their families/friends. The APM enables researchers to explore how residents and their families/friends experience NH-life at individual and supraindividual levels of analysis. We applied the APM to solicit the views of residents and individuals close to them to understand their priorities for quality care. The APM data collection consisted of three stages. First, a resident and family member or other caregiver met with the interviewer who initiated a conversation about their experience in the NH. The interviewer then left the room but video-recorded the conversation. Second, the interviewer met with each participant to review the video with each participant offering reflection on the original conversation. These sessions were also recorded. Following transcription and analysis of the conversations, 3 lay-language narratives were created: 1 for each individual and 1 for the pair. Third, participants reviewed their own and the pair’s narrative for additional comments. The APM offers a means to give a voice to NH residents and allows for people to talk about their experiences without the presence of a researcher. By using the APM, researchers can break down individual actions of participants and how these actions come together to form the project of navigating care in NHs.

Core design principles for nurturing organization-level selection

Dynamic relationships between individuals and groups have been a focus for evolutionary theorists and modelers for decades. Among evolutionists, selfish gene theory promotes reductionist approaches while multilevel selection theory encourages a context-sensitive approach that appreciates that individuals and groups can both matter. Among economists, a comparable contrast is found wherein the reductionist shareholder primacy theory most associated with Nobel laureate Milton Friedman is very different from the context-sensitive focus on managing common resources that Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom pioneered. In this article, we examine whether the core design principles that Ostrom advanced can cultivate selection at supra-individual levels across different domains. We show that Ostrom’s design principles that were forged in the context of managing natural resources are associated with positive outcomes for human social groups across a variety of functional domains.

Linking sub-individual and supra-individual effects in Daphnia magna exposed to sub-lethal concentration of chlorpyrifos.

The main objective of the present study was to investigate possible links between sub-individual and supra-individual levels (i.e. population level) biomarkers in D.magna exposed to sublethal concentrations of the insecticide chlorpyrifos (CPF). To achieve the aim, 8-day old individuals were exposed for 96 h to two environmentally relevant concentrations of CPF (50 and 250 ng/L). Sub-individual level effects were investigated by measuring the activity of antioxidant (SOD, CAT, and GPx) and detoxifying (GST) enzymes, as well as by measuring the acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibition. In addition, the effects at supra-individual level were assessed by using a video-tracking system and analyzing changes in swimming capabilities (i.e. percentage of activity time, distance moved, and velocity). Our data have shown that daphnids exposed to both CPF concentrations were in a condition of stress which was highlighted by changes in both sub- and supra-individual biomarkers. Moreover, our results highlighted that the lowest tested CPF concentration did not modulate the antioxidant and detoxifying enzymes, whereas, an inhibition of AChE and a decrease of some parameters related to swimming behaviour (distance moved and velocity) were noted. On the contrary, significant changes in all the sub-individual biomarkers were measured at the highest tested concentration. In addition, organisms recovered the movement capability (distance moved) and also activate a mechanism of avoidance (increased swimming velocity). On the other hand, a reduction in the percent of active time was measured and this was attributed to the energy spent by organisms to activate antioxidant and detoxifying enzymes and the mechanism of avoidance. Based on these results, our study suggests the existence of a link between sub- and supra-individual levels, as the activation or non-activation in the antioxidant and detoxifying enzymes activities can led to different modifications of the swimming behaviour in D.magna.

Групповые адаптации не нуждаются в групповом отборе

The article provides an overview of the works on different species of birds and mammals (and other vertebrates to a lesser extent), which show the origin of group adaptations that benefit society as a whole or the entire population developing a new landscape, but costly and / or risky for each of the individuals. Their formation and development are recorded in three cases: urbanization of “wild” birds and mammal species culminating in the emergence of specialized urban populations; animal communication, when individuals in communities interact not directly, but the action of one and the counter-action of the other is mediated by a specific set of demonstrations, visual and acoustic, with a characteristic shape and signal function; in the formation of a family-group lifestyle of rodents. The objective of the research was to investigate whether the formation of group adaptations (at least in these three cases) really requires “multiplication of entities” – the use of the concept of group selection or, like the others, these adaptations can be explained by the action of individual selection. In all three cases, it turns out that the formation of the corresponding group adaptations is an action of individual selection, but influencing individuals not independent, but connected by a certain structure – social or population (spatial-ethological) to the corresponding system of supra-individual level. In all cases it turns out that first of all the structure of the system is transformed, and only then there is the process of selection of individuals who are the most adapted to the changed relationships, i.e. the selection is stabilizing rather than moving. So we pass between Scylla of socio-biological explanations and Charybdis of group selection. This is necessary because both of them are useless as a general explanation of the origin of group adaptations.

Possible Interventions to Modify Aging.

The programmed aging paradigm interprets aging as a function favored by natural selection at a supra-individual level. This function is implemented, according to the telomere theory, through mechanisms that operate through the subtelomere-telomere-telomerase system. After reviewing some necessary technical and ethical reservations and providing a concise description of aging mechanisms, this work considers interventions that could lead to the control of some highly disabling characteristics of aging, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's syndromes and age-related macular degeneration, and afterwards to a full control of aging up to a condition equivalent to that of the species defined as "with negligible senescence". The various steps needed for the development of such interventions are described along general lines.

Impact of extreme metal contamination at the supra-individual level in a contaminated bay ecosystem

Anthropogenic stressors impact the global environment and adversely affect the health of organisms and humans. This study was designed as an attempt to evaluate the ecological consequences of severe metal contamination at the supra-individual level based on a field investigation in Jinzhou Bay (JZB), North China in 2010. The chemical results showed high concentrations of metals in the sediment of JZB that were ~129 times greater than the local geochemical background. Furthermore, the measured metals exhibited considerably high toxicity potential indicated by sediment quality guidelines (SQGs). The mean SQGs quotients suggested the overall toxicity incidence was >70% in locations neighboring the Wulihe River mouth. Biomonitoring revealed 116 individuals distributed among a mere 6 species, 4 of which were polychaetes, at 33% of the sampling sites. Thus, few benthic organisms were present in the damaged community structures across the region, which was consistent with the extreme metal contamination. Moreover, the sediment quality assessment, in a weight of evidence framework, demonstrated that the sediment throughout the entire JZB was moderately to severely impaired, especially in the vicinity of the Wulihe River mouth. By synthesizing the present and previous chemical-biological monitoring campaigns, a possible cause-effect relationship between chemical stressors and benthic receptors was established. We also found that the hydrodynamics, sediment sources, and geochemical characteristics of the metals (in addition to the sources of the metals) were responsible for the geochemical distribution of metals in JZB. The significance of the overall finding is that the deleterious responses observed at the community level may possibly be linked to the extreme chemical stress in the sediment of JZB.

Beyond consensual domains: Enactivism, social representations and third-order unities

Although Enactivism and cultural anthropology share many core principles, a satisfactory Enactivist approach to culture has not yet been articulated. While the Enactivist embraces the cultural anthropologist’s skepticism with respect to a pregiven world described through objective truths, one of its stumbling blocks has been its difficulty in accounting for the normative background of interpersonal interaction, or what Wolfgang Wagner has referred to as “Social Representations.” This article argues that in order for the Enactivist to provide the conceptual tools necessary for this analysis, she must make use of what Varela and others refer to as “third-order unities.” The same principles that the Enactivist uses to explain the emergent properties of cells and organisms—autopiesis and identity-production—must be applied at the level of a society in order to understand how cultural meanings emerge and how they influence individual behavior. By applying these concepts at the supra-individual level, we get a more lucid picture of the fundamental features of an Enactivist account of culture, and can better understand the fundamental principles that Enactivism claims underlie all living systems both simple and complex.

Pojęcie kultury emocjonalnej jako narzędzie analizy socjologicznej

In this article, the author presents cultural theories of emotion and the concept of emotional culture’ as a tool of sociological analysis. The cultural perspective, in her opinion, is worthy of sociologists’ particular attention; it brings factors of a strictly social nature to the analysis of emotion, for instance, the impact of changes in social organization on the presence of emotions in social life. The idea of emotional culture is essential for this perspective. In the proposed meaning, it refers to the ordering of the ‘emotionality’ of a given collective at the supra-individual level. It comprises scenes for the appearance of emotions, manners of expressing emotions, emotional norms, ideas about emotions, the values attached to emotions, and the language of describing emotional experiences. Analyses from the cultural perspective connect changes in expression and emotional norms with changes in social organization, as is shown through the examples of Norbert Elias’s and Cas Wouters’s work.

Cultural change and traditional ecological knowledge. An empirical analysis from the Tsimane' in the Bolivian Amazon.

Among the different factors associated to change in traditional ecological knowledge, the study of the relations between cultural change and traditional ecological knowledge has received scan and inadequate scholarly attention. Using data from indigenous peoples of an Amazonian society facing increasing exposure to the mainstream Bolivian society, we analyzed the relation between traditional ecological knowledge, proxied with individual plant use knowledge (n=484), and cultural change, proxied with individual- and village-level (n=47) measures of attachment to traditional beliefs and values. We found that both the individual level of detachment to traditional values and the village level of agreement in detachment to traditional values were associated with individual levels of plant use knowledge, irrespective of other proxy measures for cultural change. Because both the individual- and the village-level variables bear statistically significant associations with plant use knowledge, our results suggest that both the individual- and the supra-individual level processes of cultural change are related to the erosion of plant use knowledge. Results from our work highlight the importance of analyzing processes that happen at intermediary social units -the village in our case study- to explain changes in traditional ecological knowledge.

The Communication of Expectations and Individual Understanding: Redundancy as Reduction of Uncertainty, and the Processing of Meaning

Purpose: This paper presents the case for an analysis of communication at the supra-individual level as a means of rendering the understanding of learning and acting tractable. We introduce a method of analysis of redundancy to achieve this.Approach: We argue for a supra-individual approach to acting, learning, and understanding against focusing on an individual or quasi-transcendental ‘observer.’ The argument is outlined in four steps: (1) articulation of the dynamics of the communication system; (2) consideration of the redundancies of expectations within communication; (3) the computation of anticipation which enables us to model meaning processing; (4) the feedback of meaning processing on information processing can be measured as redundancy. Anticipated future states can reflexively drive reconstructions in meaning-processing systems. Implications: The social system can be considered as a symbolic order of coordination mechanisms. Reflexive agency can access this order and partake in it. However, expectations and their structures do not “exist,” but remain uncertain with the status of hypotheses. Historical embodiment in intentional action is structurally coupled to the order of expectations. The historical instantiations condition and enable the further development of the expectations as a retention mechanism.Originality/value: The modeling and measurement of meaning processing in terms of inversion of the arrow of time and the generation of redundancy provide extensions to the mathematical theory of communication.

DIVERSITY, EUROPEAN IDENTITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE

The wide range of transformations subsequent to the enlargements of the European community reverberate in all important spheres of the way of life. The individual and social psychic experience the important influence of the enlargement processes and so do the interhuman, intergroup and cross-cultural relations. To a mutual intergroup tolerance and the lacking conflicts integration of foreign citizens, of immigrants and refugees in a certain country, lead the importance of a collective European identity and the formation of commonly shared values, norms and rules. This is found to be a controversial and uneasy process. Social knowledge and social psychology in particular could help elaborate new models of relations on a supra-individual level directed toward research on collective phenomena through interdisciplinary approach.

The communication of expectations and individual understanding

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to present the case for an analysis of communication at the supra-individual level as a means of rendering the understanding of learning and acting tractable. The paper introduces a method of analysis of redundancy to achieve this.Design/methodology/approach– The paper argues for a supra-individual approach to acting, learning, and understanding against focusing on an individual or quasi-transcendental “observer”. The argument is outlined in four steps: first, articulation of the dynamics of the communication system; second, consideration of the redundancies of expectations within communication; third, the computation of anticipation which enables the authors to model meaning processing; and fourth the feedback of meaning processing on information processing can be measured as redundancy. Anticipated future states can reflexively drive reconstructions in meaning-processing systems.Research limitations/implications– The social system can be considered as a symbolic order of coordination mechanisms. Reflexive agency can access this order and partake in it. However, expectations and their structures do not “exist”, but remain uncertain with the status of hypotheses. Historical embodiment in intentional action is structurally coupled to the order of expectations. The historical instantiations condition and enable the further development of the expectations as a retention mechanism.Originality/value– The modelling and measurement of meaning processing in terms of inversion of the arrow of time and the generation of redundancy provide extensions to the mathematical theory of communication.