Theoretical Account Research Articles

Learning different task spaces: how explored density aligns the Quiet Eye

In the current study, predictions of a theoretical account to the explanation of the Quiet Eye (QE) were investigated. To this end, by manipulating the learning environment, participants (n = 52) learned an underhand throwing task which required to explore task-solution spaces of low vs. high density over a 4-week training phase (640 training trials). Although throwing performance was improved, surprisingly, in posttest and retention test shorter QE durations were found. It is speculated that on a short-time learning scale this effect might be explained by more efficient information processing. Moreover, a trend was observed which suggests that—in line with the inhibition hypothesis—when exploring high-density task-solution spaces longer QE durations are required. However, the rather small effect sizes necessitate further research, which will allow to manipulate the response–effect mappings more directly as, for example, in virtual environments.

“Black CNN”: Cultural Transmission of Moral Norms through Narrative Art

Abstract In recent debates in moral psychology and literary Darwinism, several authors suggested that narrative art plays a significant role in the process of the social learning of moral norms, functioning as storage of locally salient moral information. However, an integrative view, which would help explain the inner workings of this morally educative function of narrative art, is still lacking. This paper provides such a unifying theoretical account by bringing together insights from moral psychology (concerning the non-reflective nature of moral cognition), educational sciences (concerning different types of settings and methods of moral learning), cognitive/evolutionary narratology (concerning how easy narrative art lends itself to the transmission of moral information), and cultural evolution (concerning different types of learning strategies/biases in relation to narrative art). A study of contemporary American rap music is included to showcase the benefits of this integrative approach in the context of one particular type of narrative art.

Digital heritage politics from the perspective of relational sociology: the case of Nüshu culture in China

ABSTRACT In proposing a new conceptual framework that systematises and comprehends the complex dynamics of cultural heritage politics in China, the study takes its inspiration from Chinese scholars who have explored the relevance of Guanxi beyond its immediate business context. While current discourse theory acknowledges that heritage-making entails complex relationships that structure this making, there is as yet no systematic theoretical account of how these relationships co-exist, mediate and transform heritage-making. In developing a relational sociological framework based on the work of John Dewey, the analysis of digital heritage-making includes a case study of Nüshu, the dominant language and culture in villages on the southwestern frontier of China’s Hunan Province. Using netnography, the study analyses a range of online accounts and websites that form part of the heritage-making process. Drawing on rich digital material that includes online competitions, virtual conversations or comments and digital certificates, the findings highlight the need for a more dynamic relational perspective that acknowledges the mutuality of heritage producers and the process of heritage-making. The findings contribute to a sociological account of heritage-making in China and to a more generalist theory of relational sociology.

On Some Aspects of Translating Children’s Literature in Contemporary India

For the last two and a half decades, translation research has witnessed a boom. Beginning with the ‘cultural turn’ in the 1990s, translation research is now characterized by an informed cultural and political awareness supplemented by a host of deconstructionist methodologies. As a result, quite a sizeable quantity of insightful and controversial studies on translation is being published regularly. Riding on the back of conceptual advancements in the structure and function of language; aided by theoretical insights such as poststructuralist, feminist, and system theory approaches and so on, translation research today has created a niche for itself in (re)interpreting and (re)directing the prevailing value systems across disciplines. Following this trail, again from the early 1990s onwards, a few scholars began to create a specialized field of inquiry within translation research called translating children’s literature. This article focuses on this evolving field. However, most of the research on translating children’s literature is being undertaken in the west. Translation scholars in South Asia and more particularly in India have not paid the required attention to this growing field. The neglect is startling for the region continues to produce a significantly high quantity of children’s books across different languages. Therefore, the primary aim of this article is to encourage research on translating children’s literature in the Indian context. The article exemplifies and substantiates its call by providing a theoretical account of translating Marathi children’s literature into Hindi. For its material and discussion, the article draws from Kisson Ki Duniya: Marathi Baal Kahaniyon Ka Pratinidhi Sankalan (2019) (The Landscape of Tales: Selections from Marathi Children's Stories), which this author has co-translated and edited.

How and When Perceptions of Top Management Bottom-Line Mentality Inhibit Supervisors’ Servant Leadership Behavior

Extending existing bottom-line mentality (BLM) perspectives, we provide a new theoretical account of how supervisors’ perceptions of top management BLM influence supervisors’ servant leadership (SL) behavior. Using role theory, we propose that these perceptions inhibit supervisors’ SL behavior by reducing their SL role conceptualization or the extent to which supervisors consider SL part of their work responsibility. Further, given that the process underlying the relationship between perceived top management BLM and supervisor SL behavior may be explained by social learning theory and human adaptive capacity perspectives, we examine the incremental validity of supervisor SL role conceptualization versus supervisor BLM and empathy as mediating mechanisms. We also propose low perspective-taking among supervisors as a boundary condition that exacerbates the negative effect of perceived top management BLM on SL role conceptualization, which then results in less servant leader behavior. Data from two multiwave field studies in China and the United Kingdom provided some support for our hypotheses. Across unique cultural contexts, our findings highlight the value of a role theory perspective in understanding perceptions of top management BLM. We discuss critical theoretical and practical implications of these findings and avenues for subsequent research.

Phenomenological Origins of Psychological Ownership

Motivated by a set of converging empirical findings and theoretical suggestions pertaining to the construct of ownership, we survey literature from multiple disciplines and present an extensive theoretical account linking the inception of a foundational naïve theory of ownership to principles governing the sense of (body) ownership. The first part of the account examines the emergence of the non-conceptual sense of ownership in terms of the minimal self and the body schema—a dynamic mental model of the body that functions as an instrument of directed action. A remarkable feature of the body schema is that it expands to incorporate objects that are objectively controlled by the person. Moreover, this embodiment of extracorporeal objects is accompanied by the phenomenological feeling of ownership towards the embodied objects. In fact, we argue that the sense of agency and ownership are inextricably linked, and that predictable control over an object can engender the sense of ownership. This relation between objective agency and the sense of ownership is moderated by gestalt-like principles. In the second part, we posit that these early emerging principles and experiences lead to the formation of a naïve theory of ownership rooted in notions of agential involvement.

Politics of Disavowal: Megaprojects, Infrastructural Biopolitics, Disavowed Subjects

Focusing on the construction of Lamu Port as a focal point of the Lamu Port–South Sudan–Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor in Kenya, this article explores how megainfrastructures are entangled with processes of life-making and -unmaking, thus producing specific subject dispositions within a state’s infrastructural biopolitics as infrastructure-based capacitation and control of national populations. Analyzing sociopolitical effects of state-led megaprojects, civil society mobilization, and livelihoods of artisanal fishermen, the article develops a theoretical account of a politics of disavowal—a tacit denial of a state-admitted responsibility and support to vulnerable populations that, despite formal inclusion into the state’s development visions, are rendered constitutively absent within biopolitical spatialities of life advanced by the state. Thereby, the article triangulates the binary of bio- and necropolitics standardly deployed in multiple theorizations of (re)production of liberal capitalist life in geographical and interdisciplinary literatures on biopolitics, necropolitics, or politics of infrastructure. It specifically foregrounds how governance of vulnerable, expendable populations does not oscillate between intentional life- and death-making, flourishing and effacement, bio and necro but unfolds as a politics of disavowal—a confluence of formal recognition and material neglect by the state, expressed as a dialectic of presence and absence, inclusion and neglect.

Advancing the Study of "Goals of Best Practice": Toward Achieving Optimal Best - Educational Implications to Developments in Flow Research and Positive Optimal Psychology.

The paradigm of positive psychology is significant in introducing positive psychological concepts such as “flourishing,” “optimal best,” and “a state of flow.” In terms of research development of positive psychology, the researchers of this article have made extensive theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions by advancing the study of optimal best. One aspect of this research, notably, consists of advancement of the psychological process of optimization. Optimization, in brief, provides a theoretical account into the “optimization” of a person’s state of functioning. Non-academically, a Buddhist nun’s seeking to successfully achieve an optimal state of enlightenment or, academically, a first-year student’s seeking to achieve an A grade in Psych 101 would require some form of optimization. Recent research development has, interestingly, considered a related concept known as “goals of best practice” (GsBP), which may co-exist with the process of optimization and/or assist to account for the optimization of learning experiences. This conceptual analysis article, by utilizing the paradigm of philosophical psychology, advances the study of optimal best practice by focusing on three major aspects: (i) to consider conceptually and philosophically how and/or the extent to which GsBP could, in fact, relate to the nature of flow, flourishing, and optimal best; (ii) to consider a methodological account, which could help to measure and assess the concept GsBP; and (iii) to consider the potential practicality of GsBP in educational contexts, which may assist to facilitate and motivate the achievement of optimal best. These three aspects, we firmly believe, are of significance as they provide grounding for implementation and continuing research development into the area of best practice.

A transdiagnostic review of neuroimaging studies of apathy and disinhibition in dementia.

Apathy and disinhibition are common and highly distressing neuropsychiatric symptoms associated with negative outcomes in persons with dementia. This paper is a critical review of functional and structural neuroimaging studies of these symptoms transdiagnostically in dementia of the Alzheimer type, which is characterized by prominent amnesia early in the disease course, and behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, characterized by early social-comportmental deficits. We describe the prevalence and clinical correlates of these symptoms and describe methodological issues, including difficulties with symptom definition and different measurement instruments. We highlight the heterogeneity of findings, noting however, a striking similarity of the set of brain regions implicated across clinical diagnoses and symptoms. These regions involve several key nodes of the salience network, and we describe the functions and anatomical connectivity of these brain areas, as well as present a new theoretical account of disinhibition in dementia. Future avenues for research are discussed, including the importance of transdiagnostic studies, measuring subdomains of apathy and disinhibition, and examining different units of analysis for deepening our understanding of the networks and mechanisms underlying these extremely distressing symptoms.

Feeling Safe and Nostalgia in Healthy Aging.

The population of older adults worldwide is growing, with an urgent need for approaches that develop and maintain intrinsic capacity consistent with healthy aging. Theory and empirical research converge on feeling safe as central to healthy aging. However, there has been limited attention to resources that cultivate feeling safe to support healthy aging. Nostalgia, “a sentimental longing for one’s past,” is established as a source of comfort in response to social threat, existential threat, and self-threat. Drawing from extant theory and research, we build on these findings to position nostalgia as a regulatory resource that cultivates feeling safe and contributes to intrinsic capacity to support healthy aging. Using a narrative review method, we: (a) characterize feeling safe as a distinct affective dimension, (b) summarize the character of nostalgia in alignment with feeling safe, (c) propose a theoretical account of the mechanisms through which nostalgia cultivates feeling safe, (d) highlight the contribution of nostalgia to feeling safe and emotional, physiological, and behavioral regulatory capabilities in healthy aging, and (e) offer conclusions and direction for research.

Work-leisure blending: An integrative conceptual review and framework to guide future research.

Since the industrial revolution, work and leisure have largely been considered opposing domains. A growing number of organizations, however, enable and/or promote blending leisure activities into the workplace. Similarly, several conceptualizations across different disciplines examine how work and leisure can coexist. These different conceptualizations have yielded a rich but fragmented theoretical account of work-leisure blending. To address this problem, we provide a comprehensive theoretical integration of multiple literature streams where research has explored work-leisure blending. Further, we develop a tripartite dimensional framework designed to elucidate the central dimensions of work-leisure blending (i.e., segmentation-integration, unstructured-structured, and independent-interactive) undergirding this phenomenon. Using this framework as a theoretical foundation, we then discuss important contextual considerations and future research directions related to work-leisure blending. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

AI-enabled technologies to assist Muslim tourists in Halal-friendly tourism

PurposeThis paper aims to present a theoretical account of the connection between artificial intelligence (AI) enabled technologies and Muslim-friendly tourism experiences (MFTX) using the customer experience (CX) theory, reference group theory and theory of tourism consumption systems.Design/methodology/approachA model research design is adopted to build a theoretical framework that predicts relationships between constructs. Critical assessment in tourism and AI literature is used to explore AI-enabled technologies in Halal-friendly tourism.FindingsThe findings of this paper have conceptualised the CX theory for Muslim travellers satisfying their religious needs in Halal-friendly tourism by suggesting a new construct called the MFTX. It also offered a theoretical model for using AI-enabled technologies to improve the MFTX.Originality/valueThis study provides a new theoretical model for using AI-enabled technologies to improve the MFTX. This paper is also expected to provide suggestions for tourism operators and service providers to cater to Muslim tourists’ needs using AI technologies.

Digital skills training for older people: The importance of the ‘lifeworld’

When everyday life becomes ever more permeated by digital technologies, many older people join ICT trainings to improve their digital skills. Given that digital skills include more than the command of technology (for instance, changing social practices) teaching ICT to people who grew up long before internet and social media can be challenging. The purpose of this article is to propose a theoretical account of a key element for how teaching digital skills to older people can be made successful. Drawing on qualitative interview data with 26 ICT instructors as well as concepts from sociological theory (lifeworld, role-taking) and cognitive science (dual process model), we argue that ICT training needs to take into account the lifeworlds of older participants. In order to be successful, ICT trainings have to appeal to the current lifeworlds of older people while at the same time overcome mismatching lifeworlds. By connecting content and pedagogics to the older adults’ needs, values, and desires, instructors can successfully help integrate new skills into the lifeworld of the older participants.

La figura y el espejo. Mimesis, cuerpo, nación

This essay explicitly formulates the notion of “heterogeneous mimesis”, which Antonio Cornejo Polar implicitly outlined in his later works, but without enough time to complete a full theoretical development. In accordance with other notions, such as “contradictory totality”, “migrant subject”, and of course “heterogeneity”, this essay seeks to give a theoretical account of the relationship between a notion as complex and old as mimesis, and the use of the organicist metaphor of “body”, within the imaginary of the literary historiographies of the Latin American nations.

Intricate relations among particle collision, relative motion and clustering in turbulent clouds: computational observation and theory

Abstract. Considering turbulent clouds containing small inertial particles, we investigate the effect of particle collision, in particular collision–coagulation, on particle clustering and particle relative motion. We perform direct numerical simulation (DNS) of coagulating particles in isotropic turbulent flow in the regime of small Stokes number (St=0.001–0.54) and find that, due to collision–coagulation, the radial distribution functions (RDFs) fall off dramatically at scales r∼d (where d is the particle diameter) to small but finite values, while the mean radial component of the particle relative velocity (MRV) increases sharply in magnitude. Based on a previously proposed Fokker–Planck (drift-diffusion) framework, we derive a theoretical account of the relationship among particle collision–coagulation rate, RDF and MRV. The theory includes contributions from turbulent fluctuations absent in earlier mean-field theories. We show numerically that the theory accurately accounts for the DNS results (i.e., given an accurate RDF, the theory could produce an accurate MRV). Separately, we also propose a phenomenological model that could directly predict MRV and find that it is accurate when calibrated using fourth moments of the fluid velocities. We use the model to derive a general solution of RDF. We uncover a paradox: the past empirical success of the differential version of the theory is theoretically unjustified. We see a further shape-preserving reduction of the RDF (and MRV) when the gravitational settling parameter (Sg) is of order O(1). Our results demonstrate strong coupling between RDF and MRV and imply that earlier isolated studies on either RDF or MRV have limited relevance for predicting particle collision rate.

Diverse Discussion in Public Deliberation on Cancer Drug Funding

Structured deliberations among members of the public are increasingly viewed as useful inputs to health policy decisions that also rely on scientific evidence and expertise. Such deliberations typically aim for discussions that explore a diversity of ideas and perspectives. However, the concept of a diverse discussion has not been thoroughly examined and methods for measuring the extent to which a discussion actually was diverse are lacking. In this article, we develop a theoretical account of diverse discussion and propose a method for operationalizing it, which we illustrate by means of an analysis of transcripts from public deliberations on cancer drug funding in Canada.

Growth mindsets increase flexible work arrangement attractiveness: a policy-capturing study

PurposeAlthough flexible work arrangements (FWAs) are widely regarded as a desirable employee benefit, questions remain about which factors drive (or attenuate) applicant attraction to them. The authors offer a novel theoretical account by advancing the concept of lay theories (i.e. mindsets) around an individual's ability to juggle work and life responsibilities, defined as beliefs that the ability to juggle is either malleable (i.e. growth) or cannot be changed (i.e. fixed), which suggests greater efficacy increases attraction.Design/methodology/approachUtilizing an experimental policy-capturing design, 86 participants each rated a series of 64 job offers (N = 5,376) with several manipulated job attributes. Participants were randomly assigned into a growth or fixed mindset condition.FindingsMultilevel regressions revealed that a growth (vs fixed) mindset caused participants to place greater weight on flexible work scheduling policies by reporting greater attraction to jobs with flexible arrangements.Practical implicationsOrganizations may increase applicant attraction by taking steps to ensure that the value of work–life benefits is salient, such as offering concrete examples of how policies have been used.Originality/valueThis study questions the assumption that those who need flexibility are more attracted to FWAs and demonstrates that beliefs around one's ability to juggle work–life demands are a unique mechanism shaping applicant attraction.

Understanding and Working with Performance Anxiety in Education

Recently, so-called mental health issues were exposed at the Tokyo Olympics. Yet the term “performance anxiety” was not in vogue in the media as it had been in the past. The emphasis was now on mental health in clinical terms. Although I acknowledge the work in this area being done in clinical psychology, I am not including this approach but rather provide a complementary one rooted in philosophy. An interpretation of experiences working with anxiety rather than with mental health issues is also possible by considering psychological perspectives that are derived from phenomenology and existentialism. This interdisciplinary conceptualization contributes to the concept of performance anxiety by providing a more detailed theoretical account of individual subjective experience involving a relational perspective on the nature of both positive and negative anxiety and its metaphorical implications for creative performances, be they musical, athletic, or any kind of performance. Performance planning is ultimately an indeterminate activity associated with negative and positive anxiety over time, because such preparation cannot predict the exact nature of a performer’s emergent, indeterminate self during any performance. Yet this “unfixed” emergent self is also connected to the preparatory self in that it is the self that also prepares the performance and is (hopefully) successfully blended into an emergent and thus indeterminate self. It can emerge as an earned attribute of positive anxiety and receptivity to risk-taking creativity and new understandings of anxiety based on experience and self.

Rookies connected: Interpersonal relationships among newcomers, newcomer adjustment processes, and socialization outcomes.

How do relationships among newcomers in the same cohort impact how quickly they develop clear understandings of their new roles and, ultimately, key socialization outcomes? We study newcomers' relationships with cohort members in the same unit (i.e., intra-unit relationships) and those in different units (i.e., inter-unit relationships). While organizations invest substantial time and resources in promoting broad networking among newcomers, we offer a theoretical and empirical account of how too many connections among fellow newcomers early in the socialization process can slow their adjustment-namely, their growth in role clarity. In Study 1, we surveyed 189 newcomers in an international conglomerate from their orientations through their first 4 months and linked responses to 3 years of their job performance and turnover records. After controlling for the initial level of role clarity, we found an inverted U-shaped relationship between newcomers' intra-unit peer connections and growth in role clarity, whereas their inter-unit peer connections did not significantly relate to growth in role clarity. Growth in role clarity positively related to subsequent newcomers' job satisfaction and job performance, which were then negatively related to turnover. Study 2's results indicated that sensemaking with fellow newcomers operated as a key mechanism linking the nonlinear relationships between intra-unit newcomer-newcomer relationships and growth in role clarity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Algorithmic domination in the gig economy

Digital platforms and application software have changed how people work in a range of industries. Empirical studies of the gig economy have raised concerns about new systems of algorithmic management exercised over workers and how these alter the structural conditions of their work. Drawing on the republican literature, we offer a theoretical account of algorithmic domination and a framework for understanding how it can be applied to ride hail and food delivery services in the on-demand economy. We argue that certain algorithms can facilitate new relationships of domination by sustaining a socio-technical system in which the owners and managers of a company dominate workers. This analysis has implications for the growing use of algorithms throughout the gig economy and broader labor market.