Human Tendency Research Articles

Navigating Anxiety through Defense Mechanisms: A Truthist Perspective on Human Ignorance and Awareness.

In a world where the pursuit of truth is paramount, this article explores the intricate relationship between human ignorance, anxiety, and the defense mechanisms employed to cope with these existential challenges. Methods. Through a comprehensive analysis, the study delves into the origins of these defense mechanisms, illustrating how they serve as barriers to self-awareness and personal growth. Results. The findings suggest that the innate human tendency to evade uncomfortable realities fosters a cycle of ignorance and anxiety, ultimately hindering individual development. By recognizing and confronting these defense mechanisms, individuals can cultivate a deeper understanding of their true selves and navigate the complexities of life with greater resilience and authenticity. Discussion. This article contributes to the discourse on psychological resilience, offering insights for mental health professionals, educators, and individuals seeking to embrace truth as a pathway to personal liberation and growth.

Virtuous AI?

This paper offers an Aristotelian-Thomistic response to the question whether AI is capable of developing virtue. On the one hand, it could be argued that this is possible on the assumption of the minimalist (thin) definition of virtue as a stable (permanent) and reliable disposition toward an actualization of a given power in the agent (in various circumstances), which effects that agent’s growth in perfection. On the other hand, a closer inquiry into Aquinas’s understanding of both moral and intellectual virtues, and a more detailed analysis of the ontological status of AI, show that it is highly unlikely to envision the design of specifically human-like reason-based and/or behavioral-based (“strong”) AI that would possess properly human virtues. Still, virtuous “weak AI” might be possible, although a question ought to be asked whether we should classify artifacts’ virtues using categories developed in reference to specifically human dispositions and actions.

Self‐Deception in Human–AI Emotional Relations

ABSTRACTImagine a man chatting with his AI girlfriend app. He looks at his smartphone and says, ‘Finally, I'm being understood’. Is he deceiving himself? Is there anything morally wrong with it? The human tendency to anthropomorphize AI is well established, and the popularity of AI companions is growing. This article answers three questions: (1) How can being charmed by AI's simulated emotions be considered self‐deception? (2) Why might we have an obligation to avoid harmless self‐deception? (3) When is self‐deception in emotional relationships with AI morally questionable, and can it be blameworthy? Regarding question 1, I describe being seduced by AI's simulated emotions as self‐deception, where desires bias beliefs. In response to question 2, I outline two ways to justify a prima facie obligation to avoid harmless self‐deception – instrumental and autotelic. For question 3, I highlight crucial factors to consider in assessing the blameworthiness of harmless self‐deception, such as the emotional and cognitive competences of the self‐deceiver, reasons for self‐deception, and its consequences for one's predispositions, self‐image, and other people. Moreover, I argue that the ethical requirement to avoid self‐deception does not easily translate into attributing blame to others for being self‐deceived.

Dancing in the streets: Rousseau, the genealogy of vice, and the practice of freedom

Only recently has Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality begun to be read as a genealogy rather than a variation on the social contract tradition. This article argues that reading Rousseau as a genealogist not only clarifies his analysis of amour-propre’s inflammation, but also illuminates a conception of freedom achieved through the continuous political practice of shaping of amour-propre. In the first section of this article, I situate this conception of freedom against two separate but relevant bodies of Rousseau scholarship: those who read him as a genealogist, and those who emphasize the ambiguities of amour-propre. Next, I look to The Social Contract’s passages on censorship and court of honor in order to evaluate their roles as institutions that forestall the inflammation of amour-propre. Finally, I examine the social institutions that citizens actively participate in as they practice their freedom: the festivals, dances, balls and games described in The Letter to D’Alembert and Considerations on the Government of Poland. It is in these institutions that we see the political implications of Rousseau’s genealogical system manifest: because his genealogy illuminates the human tendency toward vice, the cultivation of virtuous citizenship appears as a constant struggle rather than an idealist achievement.

The philosophical foundations of authority in Adam Smith: wealth, admiration, and systems

ABSTRACT This article explores the philosophical foundations of Adam Smith's concept of authority, focusing on its connections to ‘admiration' and the ‘love of systems'. Its primary objective is to analyse how Smith integrates moral, epistemological, and aesthetic principles into his political philosophy to explain the subordination conferred by wealth, which he identifies as the most effective form of authority. Drawing on the Wealth of Nations, Lectures on Jurisprudence, and Theory of Moral Sentiments, the article argues that Smith sees authority as rooted in human tendencies to admire systems that harmonize and explain phenomena while evoking beauty and coherence. Furthermore, this admiration includes social and political arrangements. As a result, political systems that ‘promote happiness’ are admired for their practical benefits and their ability to evoke a sense of beauty: like finely crafted machines, they inspire admiration through their elegance and order.

Assessing the Effectiveness of Prayer for Pre-operative Cardio-thoracic Patients

Introduction and background: Every human being on this earth needs the divine help from God, irrespective of religion, caste, creed, educational status, etc. especially during sickness, man becomes helpless and tries to seek the help of divine forces. The pastoral care giver’s role is very important both supportive and curative to participants. Prayer is an act of communication by humans with the supernatural power. Human tendency is to be afraid and anxious about the upcoming surgery, which has an effect on the blood pressure; the surgeons find it difficult to proceed. A merry heart is responsible for the major healing process. Methods: This study was aimed at assessing the effectiveness of prayer for pre-operative cardio-thoracic participants with the objective to reduce fear and anxiety from the participant through prayer. It was limited only to the cardio-thoracic participants admitted in the wards of a selected multi-specialty hospital in Vellore Dist. Tamilnadu. Participants between the age group 31 and 70 yrs, irrespective of any gender, single or married who can speak Tamil/English and is pre-operative for at least 3 days were included. A standardized tool consisting of 10 items was administered using Questionnaire method. Participants were expected to rate them according to how much they have been benefitted. The participant scored accordingly i.e., 1, 2, 3. 1=least effective, 2=moderately effective, 3=most effective. A sample size of 10 was conveniently recruited. The investigator conducted 3 sessions prior to the day of surgery. In the first session the investigator established good rapport, provided pastoral care and prayed. In the second session, the investigator enquired about the participant and prayed. In the final session an assessment was carried on, focusing on evaluating the spiritual coping starting with prayer. The interview with the participant took place at the bedside of the ward. Results: 60% of the participants had their fear absolutely reduced after the pastoral care giver prayed for them. It is significant that 10% of the participant’s fear was reduced by the pastoral care giver’s prayer. 70% of the participants had their anxiety absolutely reduced after the pastoral care giver prayed for them. It is significant that the pastoral care giver’s prayer was effective for all 10 participants with regard to reduction of anxiety. 60% of the participants were absolutely confident after the pastoral care giver prayed for them. 70% of the participants were able to feel close to God completely. 70% of the participants were mentally prepared to face the surgery. 70% of the participants were able to feel God’s presence completely. 80% of the participants absolutely gained faith upon God. 40% of the participants were able to completely cope emotionally. 50% of the participants were able to moderately cope emotionally. 10% of the participants were able to minimally cope emotionally. 70% of the participants were fully benefitted by the pastoral care giver’s prayer. Conclusion: Prayer made an impact in the wellbeing of the participants. The participants gained faith upon God and had the real experience of feeling the presence of God at the bedside. Prayer helped the participant to cope emotionally and to have a hope for the future. They believed that there would be a smooth recovery. This study revealed that the pastoral care giver’s prayer was effective by making a significant difference in their coping pattern.

Online Interactive through Branded Entertainment Games as Marketing Communication Activities in the Digital Era

One-way advertising messages no longer get the attention of the entire audience because of the presence of new technology. Human tendency to reject the message of advertising because his presence appears in the middle of the fun that is being done. Marketers need to think of new ways to keep advertising by getting into the excitement, creating interactions, and spreading messages in an integrated way. Online interactive with the concept of branded entertainment games becomes an effort by marketers to make targets become captive audiences. This research is a qualitative study with an analysis of literature study discourse on online interaction and branding studies. The need for the process of Analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation through the concept of ADDIE in interactive online activities through branded entertainment games. The integration of messages needs to be reflected in the product, namely the games themselves, the design of the integration of marketing communication messages and the integration of messages in online interactive. The integration of messages is necessary to make the audience will receive the same message so that it is easy to recognize the brand through marketing communication activities. Marketers need to evaluate each of their marketing activities because digital conditions are fast becoming obsolete with the presence of a newness that appears. Key Word: Branded Entertainment, Game, Digital Marketing, Marketing Communications, Online Interactive

“Spurned Growths”

The biologist Merlin Sheldrake has named the tendency for humans to privilege plants to the exclusion of fungi “plant-centrism.” Connecting Sheldrake’s claim to critiques of the Caribbean plantation system, this article argues that plant-centrism is inherent in plantation logic. While cash crops depend on fungal processes and networks, fungi are rarely acknowledged except where they lead to disease. They constitute a subterranean underside to plant production and, by extension, the plantation system. Working against plant-centrism, this article examines representations of fungi in Alejo Carpentier’s The Kingdom of This World. Rather than overdetermining fungi as signs of decline, disease, and corruption, the article argues that the novel’s decomposers materialize antiplantation sentiment even as they underlie plantation grounds. Ultimately it suggests using fungi to reassess the novel’s scenes of ruination, recognizing that decomposition is a condition of possibility for new growth.

Simple fuzzy classification of metal qualities of Ona River, Ibadan, Nigeria, and its implication for fish production and other uses

Elevated concentrations of metals in rivers can pose significant risks to human health. Consequently, it is essential to monitor metal levels in river water to minimize human exposure, particularly through consumption of harvested fish and other uses. This study examined the water quality of the Ona River in Ibadan, Nigeria. Seven potentially toxic elements (PTEs), namely Fe, Cu, Mn, Zn, Pb, Cd, Cr and four macronutrients: Mg, Na, K, Ca were investigated. Surface and pore water samples were collected from six sampling points during the peak of the dry and the rainy seasons. These were analyzed according to standard procedures and processed using the Simple Fuzzy Classification (SFC) model with four classes. The results revealed that the PTEs: Fe, Pb, Cd, Cr, and Mn were detected above guideline limits in several sampling points, indicating possible contamination from anthropogenic sources. Simple fuzzy classification puts the quality of water in the investigated portion of the river in the range of 67.4–88.5% in the C1 (pristine) category during the dry season and 61.9–88.6% in C1 (pristine) during rainy season. However, there were membership functions of up to 58.7 and 63.2; 61.2 and 75.4 as well as 44.3 and 43.5% in C2, C3, and C4 categories (contaminated, polluted and extremely polluted, respectively) during the first and second sampling, respectively. Due to the high concentrations of toxic and bioaccumulative metals in the river, efforts should be made to control the discharge of pollutants into the river. These will prevent human health exposure risks tendencies for various uses, including fish production.

Human behavior and decision-making in earthquake emergencies: insights from virtual reality and serious games

Earthquakes can severely impact public spaces with complex layouts and high crowd densities, resulting in devastating consequences and deaths. Gaining insights into the actions of individuals during an earthquake can provide valuable information about areas where their decision-making may be flawed. Addressing these areas can improve safety measures and better protect people during emergencies. Moreover, acquiring this knowledge can enhance evacuation strategies for future earthquakes. Immersive Virtual Reality and Serious Games (IVR SGs) present an effective method for examining and understanding how people behave in emergency scenarios, such as earthquakes. Using IVR SGs, we created several potential scenarios during an earthquake in a shopping mall to explore how people act in an emergency when the evacuees feel pressure, urgency, and stress. A total of 146 participants were involved in the study. We investigated the human tendency to follow authority figures’ instructions (rational and irrational), help injured people of different genders and ages, and social influence during an emergency. Moreover, we investigated how familiarity with the environment impacts human wayfinding performance when evacuating the building.

The Nexus of Literature and the Environment: An Exploration of Wole Soyinka's Alapata Apata

This paper explores the nexus of literature and the environment in Wole Soyinka’s Alapata Apata. The study adopts ecocritical theory to bring out the playwright's concern for the environment. By employing close reading strategy technique, the study aims to elucidate the interplay of relationship between nature and humans. We intend to show the aggressive exploitative tendency of humans to pillage and desecrate the earth thereby thwarting the intended original harmony of the flora and fauna. The overall aim is to evince the playwright’s ecological leitmotifs.

Cognitive Bias Sunk Cost in Marketing

The sunk cost cognitive bias, or sunk cost fallacy, is a human tendency to continue with: an investment, make a decision, business, couple or project based on the resources that have been invested, instead of making a current evaluation of the results. future benefits and costs. The objective of the research was to analyze the impact of sunk cost cognitive bias on customer decisions and its application in neuromarketing strategies. The specific objectives were: (i) Evaluate how sunk cost influences the perception of the value of products or services. (ii) Identify marketing strategies that exploit the sunk cost bias. (iii) Propose strategies to apply the sunk cost bias in marketing. The results show that the sunk cost bias significantly influences the perception of the value of products and services, affecting purchasing decisions, depending on the educational level, gender, and income level that influence the continuity in the use of products and services. due to previous investment of time or money; When purchasing expensive items customers feel obligated to continue using paid more even if it is not useful and used in full. The continuity in prepaid subscriptions, the perception of discounts for large quantities as a way to make better use of money, the probability of participating in loyalty programs for the accumulated rewards, the preference for payments and flexible cancellation, create a valuable perception of products they have previously invested in, the preference for repairing expensive items, and the perception of loss from a previous investment. It is concluded that the sunk cost cognitive bias significantly influences the decisions and behavior of a vast majority of customers, and how companies can use this information to design effective marketing campaigns.

A Narrowing Place: Responsive Spirituality

Among the many distinct experiences of cancer is the experience of the parent who watches their child become pale and drained of energy in the weeks preceding diagnosis. The journey from there to the oncology ward is one that can be adequately described as increasingly claustrophobic. It is all one-way traffic from flourishing life to the abyss. Perhaps being a parent makes one even more prone to the universal human tendency to find fault with oneself where there is only the blind force of nature at work. Whatever dark alleyway that self-destructive sentiment emerges from to ambush the optimist, it is certainly an effective hiding place from which to cause them to stumble. The child slips inexorably out of the parent’s grasp. The notion of parental protection is no haven. Yet the blindness of nature unwittingly tips the scales. In the narrowest of narrow places, the human organism responds with homeostatic resilience. Whether death is near or far in this place is unknown. In the moment of constriction, however, the child and its parent respond with that most irreducible of passions, the will to live. The human spirit emerges.

Animal’s Gaze in Sinha’s Animal’s People

The article critically studies Indra Sinha's Animal’s People by critiquing Animal, a deformed young man born in the aftermath of the Bhopal disaster. Narrated by Animal himself via tapes transcribed by an Australian journalist, the novel explores themes of animality, identity, and representation. The article draws on a variety of scholarly perspectives, including ecocriticism, postcolonial criticism, posthumanism, and others to uncover the complexities of Animal's character. Drawing on the insights of Julietta Singh, Justin Omar Johnston and Andrew Mahlstedt, among many other scholars, the paper critiques common interpretations of Animal as the voice of the oppressed and offers a new perspective on his character. The paper argues that Animal's voyeuristic gaze is not compatible with typical animal behavior, but rather affirms Animal’s compromised morality as a deformed human being. Despite his efforts to establish his animality, Animal's actions betray macho human tendencies and challenge the idea that he is the appropriate figure to represent animals and ecology at large.

GAT-Based Bi-CARU with Adaptive Feature-Based Transformation for Video Summarisation

Nowadays, video is a common social media in our lives. Video summarisation has become an interesting task for information extraction, where the challenge of high redundancy of key scenes leads to difficulties in retrieving important messages. To address this challenge, this work presents a novel approach called the Graph Attention (GAT)-based bi-directional content-adaptive recurrent unit model for video summarisation. The model makes use of the graph attention approach to transform the visual features of interesting scene(s) from a video. This transformation is achieved by a mechanism called Adaptive Feature-based Transformation (AFT), which extracts the visual features and elevates them to a higher-level representation. We also introduce a new GAT-based attention model that extracts major features from weight features for information extraction, taking into account the tendency of humans to pay attention to transformations and moving objects. Additionally, we integrate the higher-level visual features obtained from the attention layer with the semantic features processed by Bi-CARU. By combining both visual and semantic information, the proposed work enhances the accuracy of key-scene determination. By addressing the issue of high redundancy among major information and using advanced techniques, our method provides a competitive and efficient way to summarise videos. Experimental results show that our approach outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods in video summarisation.

Agent Mental Models and Bayesian Rules as a Tool to Create Opinion Dynamics Models

Traditional models of opinion dynamics provide a simplified approach to understanding human behavior in basic social scenarios. However, when it comes to issues such as polarization and extremism, a more nuanced understanding of human biases and cognitive tendencies are required. This paper proposes an approach to modeling opinion dynamics by integrating mental models and assumptions of individuals agents using Bayesian-inspired methods. By exploring the relationship between human rationality and Bayesian theory, this paper demonstrates the usefulness of these methods in describing how opinions evolve. The analysis here builds upon the basic idea in the Continuous Opinions and Discrete Actions (CODA) model, by applying Bayesian-inspired rules to account for key human behaviors such as confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and human reluctance to change opinions. Through this, This paper updates rules that are compatible with known human biases. The current work sheds light on the role of human biases in shaping opinion dynamics. I hope that by making the model more realistic this might lead to more accurate predictions of real-world scenarios.

Performance Appraisal Practices and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Evidence from Jordan

Performance appraisal practices and organizational citizenship behavior are critical to leading employee recognition. This study examines the impact of performance appraisals on organizational citizenship behavior among employees at Jordanian private universities. A total of 170 administrative employees from Jordan's private universities participated in the study by distributing questionnaires using random sampling. The results of a regression analysis confirm the significance and positive impact of evaluating performance appraisal practices on organizational citizenship behavior. Finally, performance appraisal practices motivate the practice of organizational citizenship behaviors such as generosity, altruism, civilized behavior, general commitment, and sports spirit. Based on that, these results contribute to a better understanding of the impact of performance appraisal on organizational citizenship behavior. Also, this study reveals that private university employees exhibit this practice to a high degree, and they attribute this to a variety of factors, including performance appraisal, passion, human relationships, friendship, and human tendencies toward assisting.

El dibujo como arte de la memoria: breves notas sobre los fundamentos de la Representación

The present essay concisely addresses the psychological roots or foundations of graphic rep- resentation. To do this, it presents some ideas from Karl Popper, Karl Bühler, Johan Huizinga, Samuel Coleridge, Ernst Kris, Julián Marías, C. S. Lewis, and especially, Ernst Gombrich, gath- ering valuable insights from all of them for the analysis of any drawing. First, some ideas are mentioned that were raised in a debate between Karl Popper and Konrad Lorenz regarding the emergence of language and the human capacity for deception and simulation. The psycholo- gist and linguist Karl Bühler, in his Theory of Language, refers to graphic representation as a non-linguistic representation system, spanning from the most illusory images to those with minimal iconicity. The cultural historian Johan Huizinga explains in his book Homo Ludens how the art of the graphic representation not only exhibits a series of playful characteristics but that it is precisely the innate playful tendency in humans that has given rise to all artistic manifestations. In this sense, the poet Samuel Coleridge describes how, in artistic enjoyment, there is always a willing suspension of disbelief. Ernst Kris, an art historian and psychiatrist, highlights in his book, The Legend of the Artist, the power of imagination in the creativity of artistic forms, thanks to the plasticity of the human mind that allows us to take one thing for another. These insights of Ernst Kris are enriched by the ideas of the philosopher Julián Marías, who addresses the issue from the beautifying nature of illusory deception. The medievalist and literary critic C.S. Lewis opens new perspectives on what we understand as the resemblance or likeness between reality and a drawing. Meanwhile, the cultural historian E.H. Gombrich summarizes and completes this entire set of ideas, emphasizing the viewer's effort in seeking meaning in any type of representation, which allows him to highlight the important role that memory and our recollections play in the interpretation of any drawing.

The Effect of Over-Confidence on Jiwasraya's 2017-2020 Payment Defaults

Overconfidence is a term that refers to the human tendency to estimate their abilities, knowledge, or results with more confidence than they should. PT. Jiwasraya Insurance (Persero), the oldest insurance company in Indonesia which is owned by BUMN, was declared to have failed to pay its customers' policies in 2020. This failure to pay was caused by errors in managing customer funds, namely by collecting funds for JS Products. Saving Plan and investing with customer funds in high risk stocks. The purpose of this research is to find out why Jiwasraya experienced payment failure. Therefore, the variable prices of high-risk shares purchased by companies from 2017 to 2020 is used as a secondary variable. Secondary data was obtained from the Indonesian Stock Exchange and the Financial Services Authority. This study uses. Vector Auto regressive (VAR) analysis technique with Stata/IC 15.0 software. The research results show that it is the Jiwasraya company's share price that influences Jiwasraya's shares in the short term. In the long term, it shows that the share price of Semen Baturaja does not have a significant effect on Jiwasraya's share price. Meanwhile, the share price of the West Java Development Bank has a significant negative effect on Jiwasraya's share price. Then, PP Properti's share price has a significant positive effect on Jiwasraya's share price. The results of this research can be used as consideration for companies and investors in making investment decisions so as not to take high-risk actions because of too high self-confidence.

From Monsters to Mazes: Sociotechnical Imaginaries of AI Between Frankenstein and Kafka

The emergence of ChatGPT and other Generative AI tools (GenAI) capable of producing human-like texts sparked debates concerning whether we are at the dawn of a new age of writing and meaning-making. Rather than weighing in on the potential impact of GenAI, this paper engages with the implicit sociotechnical imaginaries underpinning reactions to GenAI. One particularly evocative source for sociotechnical imaginaries are fictional texts, which can shape our shared imagination of possible and probable futures. Accordingly, I analyze two seminal works of fiction: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Planet eBooks, 1818) and Franz Kafka’s The Trial (Echo Library, 1925). Frankenstein is regarded as an enduring myth that has shaped perceptions of artificial life. This paper sets out to explore the limitations of the ‘Frankensteinian sociotechnical imaginary’ by unpacking AI’s assumed modes of meaning-making along three axes: (1) agency, (2) relations, and (3) control. Within the Frankensteinian sociotechnical imaginary, AI is approached in anthropomorphic terms, emphasizing the struggle over control of meaning-making without reshaping its overarching logic. The Trial, in contrast, offers a lens that challenges common dichotomies underpinning the Frankenstein model: (1) highlighting the entanglement between AI and human intentionality in processes of meaning-making, (2) exploring human-AI relations as recursively shaped through the complementary tendency of humans and GenAI to generate and infer meaning, and (3) shifting the notion of control from a struggle over domination to an emphasis on how GenAI concurrently expands the available choices while limiting humans’ influence over patterns of meaning-making.