ABSTRACT Self-efficacy is the assessment of one’s capacity to perform tasks. Previous research has demonstrated that self-efficacy impacts ethical behavior and attitudes but its effect on ethical cognition and perceptions has not been studied. For the present study, participants analyzed an ethical dilemma after either high or low self-efficacy was induced. Participants analyzed the dilemma using one of two cognitive problem-solving techniques versus a third, control group, and what participants wrote about the problem was content-analyzed to determine (...) how ethical cognition is impacted by self-efficacy. Additionally, perceptions of the ethical problem were examined. Results revealed that differences in self-efficacy did not lead to changes in ethical cognition, but they did lead to changes in perceptions of ethical problems. Implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

The causal impacts of genes and environment on any one biological trait are inextricably entangled, and consequently it is widely accepted that it makes no sense in singleton cases to privilege either factor for particular credit. On the other hand, at a population level it may well be the case that one of the factors is responsible for more variation than the other. Standard methodological practice in biology uses the statistical technique of analysis of variance to measure this latter kind (...) of causal efficacy. In this paper, I argue that: 1) analysis of variance is in fact badly suited to this role; and. (shrink)

Anger is often an appropriate reaction to harms and injustices, but is it a politically beneficial one? Martha Nussbaum (Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (1), 41–56, 2015, Anger and Forgiveness. Oxford University Press, 2016) has argued that, although anger is useful in initially recruiting agents for action, anger is typically counterproductive to securing the political aims of those harmed. After the initial shockwave of outrage, Nussbaum argues that to be effective at enacting positive social change, groups and individuals (...) alike, must move quickly out of the state of anger. Feminist theorists (Frye, The Politics of Reality. Crossing Press, 1983; Lorde, 1997; Narayan, Hypatia 3 (2): 31–48, 1988) on the other hand have for long highlighted the efficacy of anger, as well as its moral and epistemic value, in fighting against the oppressive status quo. It might be thought therefore that for political action to be effective, a continued state of anger is preferable. Protestors must after all create and sustain a sense of moral obligation and justice. A main way of doing so is to promote successive moral shocks that trigger outrage (Jasper, Emotion Review 6 (3): 208–213, 2014). I present a novel, empirically informed defense of anger’s efficacy in political action. Nussbaum holds a traditional view on the nature of anger, inherited from Aristotle and the Stoics, which holds that anger constitutively involves a desire for retribution. The view that anger is counterproductive falls out of this and is dominant in academic work as well as in our personal and political lives. Based on work in social psychology, I argue that we need to reconsider this. In doing so, I highlight anger’s aim for recognition, rather than retribution, as key. Furthermore, I uncover conditions for anger’s political efficacy, as well as reasons for why the traditional view of anger has been so pervasive. (shrink)

Examining intrapersonal factors theorized to influence ethics reporting decisions, the relation of self-efficacy as a predictor of propensity for internal whistleblowing is investigated within a US and Canadian multi-regional context. Over 900 professionals from a total of nine regions in Canada and the US participated. Self-efficacy was found to influence participant reported propensity for internal whistleblowing consistently in both the US and Canada. Seasoned participants with greater management and work experience demonstrated higher levels of self-efficacy while gender (...) was also found to be influential to self-efficacy. These individual traits, although related to self-efficacy, did not directly relate to propensities for internal whistleblowing. The findings demonstrate that self-efficacy could represent an important individual trait for examining whistleblowing issues. Internal whistleblowing is becoming an important organizational consideration in many areas of North America, yet there is relatively little research on the topic. Organizations seeking effective internal reporting systems should consider the influence of self-efficacy along with its potential reporting influence. By empirically testing an under-examined component of theory related to internal whistleblowing, this effort contributes to management literature, extending the knowledge beyond a US context, and provides recommendation for managing individual bias with internal reporting systems. (shrink)

Based on social cognitive theory, we theorize that collective efficacy plays a mediating role in the relationship between paternalistic leadership and organizational commitment and that this mediating role depends on team cohesion. The empirical results from a study of 238 employees from 52 teams at manufacturing companies show that benevolent leadership and moral leadership, both components of paternalistic leadership, are positively related to organizational commitment and further that collective efficacy mediates the moral leadership–organizational commitment relationship. We did not (...) find a relationship between authoritarian leadership and organizational commitment. Besides, it was found that team cohesion negatively moderates the relationship between moral leadership and collective efficacy and positively moderates the relationship between collective efficacy and organizational commitment. Explanations and directions for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Background Caring practice begins with awareness of the suffering of patients in a given context. Understanding the interrelationship between the perceived ethical climate of the clinical environment and the ethical sensitivity and caring efficacy of nurses is crucial for strengthening the caring competency of nurses. Research aim This study aimed to examine the associations between the ethical climate of the clinical environment and the ethical sensitivity and caring efficacy of nurses and to investigate the mediating effect of ethical (...) sensitivity on the association between ethical climate and caring efficacy. Research design This was a quantitative study with a cross-sectional descriptive correlational design. The participants completed an online survey that measured the ethical climate, ethical sensitivity and caring efficacy using the Hospital Ethical Climate Survey, Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire-Revised and Caring Efficacy Scale, respectively. Participants and research context The study recruited 293 nurses from two general hospitals that provided acute in-patient and extended care in Hong Kong. Ethical considerations Ethical approval was obtained from the ethics committee of the university and the hospitals involved. Written consent was obtained from the participants. Results Ethical climate was associated with caring efficacy ( β = 0.340, p <.001) and ethical sensitivity ( β = 0.197, p <.001). After adjusting for ethical climate, ethical sensitivity was associated with caring efficacy ( β = 0.860, p <.001). Ethical sensitivity showed a significant mediating effect on the association between ethical climate and caring efficacy (indirect effect = 0.169, 95% confidence interval: 0.097 to 0.261), which accounted for 50% of the total effect. Conclusions The study reveals the complex and interwoven relationship between contextual and personal factors that affect nurses’ caring efficacy from an ethical perspective. It provides insights into the significant roles of ethical climate and ethical sensitivity in strengthening caring efficacy. The results suggest theoretical and clinical implications for professionalisation. (shrink)

The aim if this study is to examine the self-efficiency and intention differences of entrepreneurial personality in students before and after entrepreneurial class. This research is important to be conduct because of the entrepreneur interest of the undergraduate student is considered at the low level. Otherwise, Indonesia has increasing jobless persons. This research was conducted at fifth until seventh semester student of department of electric engineering. From 116 participants, concluded that there is no significant self-efficacy and intention difference to (...) be entrepreneurial at students before and after entrepreneurial class. There are some causes of the insignificant result. For example are maturation effect, no role model for student, and the subject of this lecture is more theoretical than experiential learning to be an entrepreneurial one. The result of this study gives positive contribution for developing entrepreneurial spirit for students.  . (shrink)

The great numbers of service industrial is moving in insurance field have made insurance salespeople’s job more difficult and full challenge. This condition makes that insurance salespeople ought to have self efficacy. Self efficacy is a confidance about self capability to run his job with success, also to control the conditions around for attaining the success. Self efficacy can be influenced by perception of transformational leadership style from direct superior. The subject of this research is 102 insurance (...) salespeople in a private life insurance company. Data gathering by questionnaires and analized by product moment correlation, and regression analysis to analized the dimensions. The result have proven that the hypothesis in this research is accepted, that there is a very significant positive relationship between perception of transformational leadership style from direct superior to insurance salespeople’s self efficacy (r = 0,473; p (two tailed) = 0,000 and p (one tailed) = 0,000). The relationship between each dimension in perception of transformational leadership style from direct superior to self efficacy is discussed in this research.  . (shrink)

Competitive pressures, resource constraints, high shareholder/stakeholder expectations, and other dynamics may lead to organizations putting pressure on employees to act unethically to meet goals. Yet, the effects of this pressure on employee health and factors that can abate it are unclear. Based on the job demands-resources model, this study examines whether, how, and when organizational ethical pressure harms employees' psychological and physical health and what factors can buffer its negative effects. According to the findings of a two-wave lagged data study (...) involving 212 healthcare employees, results show that organizational ethical pressure causes ethical strain in employees, resulting in both psychological and physical health problems, with these effects less pronounced when employees have higher levels of ethical efficacy. An integrated effect was also discovered, in which employees' ethical efficacy increases when led by a more ethical leader, thereby buffering the effect of ethical pressure on ethical strain and health problems. Overall, our research identifies organizational ethical pressure as a significant threat to employee health and provides preliminary approaches to mitigate its effects. (shrink)

Plagiarism is a problematic issue in universities across the globe (Curtis & Vardanega, 2016 ). This study explored the relationship between negative emotionality and positive attitudes toward plagiarism through the mediation of academic self-efficacy and self-control. Negative emotionality was examined as three components: stress, anxiety, and depression. Self-report surveys were completed by 454 university students to investigate the relationship between negative emotionality and positive attitudes toward plagiarism, as well as the mediating role of academic self-efficacy and self-control in (...) this relationship. The hierarchical multiple regression found that negative emotionality significantly predicted positive attitudes toward plagiarism over and above age and gender (i.e., where male students and younger students were more likely to plagiarise). Furthermore, three mediation analyses showed that academic self-efficacy and self-control mediate the relationship between positive attitudes toward plagiarism and each component of negative emotionality. Considering these results, subsequent research should investigate whether implementing strategies that alleviate stress, anxiety, and depression could increase academic self-efficacy and self-control, which in turn, could then reduce positive attitudes toward plagiarism. (shrink)

PurposeSelf-efficacy has been argued theoretically and shown empirically to be an essential construct for students’ improved learning outcomes. However, there is a dearth of studies on its causal effects on performance in mathematics among university students. Meanwhile, it will be erroneous to assume that results from other fields of studies generalize to mathematics learning due to the task-specificity of the construct. As such, attempts are made in the present study to provide evidence for a causal relationship between self-efficacy (...) and performance with a focus on engineering students following a mathematics course at a Norwegian university.MethodThe adopted research design in the present study is a survey type in which collected data from first-year university students are analyzed using structural equation modeling with weighted least square mean and variance adjusted estimator. Data were generated using mainly questionnaires, a test of prior mathematics knowledge, and the students’ final examination scores in the course. The causal effect of self-efficacy was discerned from disturbance effects on performance by using an innovative instrumental variable approach to structural equation modeling.ResultsThe findings confirmed a significant direct effect of the prior mathematics knowledge test on self-efficacy, a significant direct effect of self-efficacy on performance, and a substantial mediating effect of self-efficacy between a prior mathematics knowledge test and performance. Prior mathematics knowledge and self-efficacy explained 30% variance of the performance. These findings are interpreted to be substantial evidence for the causal effect of self-efficacy on students’ performance in an introductory mathematics course.ConclusionThe findings of the present study provide empirically supports for designing self-efficacy interventions as proxies to improve students’ performance in university mathematics. Further, the findings of the present study confirm some postulates of Bandura’s agentic social cognitive theory. (shrink)

Some dispositions are causally relevant to or causally efficacious for their manifestations. But according to the Inert Dispositions Thesis, dispositions are causally inert. Some philosophers claim that grounded dispositions are causally impotent. According to Analyticity Arguments, the analytic connection between a disposition term and a manifestation term indicates that there is no causal connection between their referents. According to Independence Arguments, cause and effect must be independent in a way that dispositions and manifestation are not. According to Exclusion Arguments, a (...) disposition’s causal basis causally explains its manifestation, leaving no causal work for the disposition to do. These arguments for the Inert Dispositions Thesis do not succeed. Higher-level, grounded dispositions can be causally efficacious with respect to their manifestations. (shrink)

Research productivity is an important criterion for the university to assess teachers. Studies about factors that affect teachers’ research productivity are increasing nowadays. It is generally agreed that academics’ research productivity depends on how much mentorship is provided to them and how the current working environment is mediated by their research motivation and self-efficacy. Despite the increasing amount of the literature along this line, we know little about what kinds of situations that Chinese university English as a foreign language (...) (EFL) teachers are in and how they regard the importance of mentorship and what roles their working environments would play in affecting their research productivity. To fill the research gap, we utilized the snowball method to collect the survey data from 546 Chinese EFL tertiary teachers. The results show that mentorship is not correlated with research productivity while the working environment has a positive direct correlation with it. Both motivation and self-efficacy mediate the working environment and research productivity significantly. Specifically, only extrinsic motivation has a negative mediation influence on teachers’ research productivity; teachers’ intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy play a positive mediation role in affecting their research productivity. (shrink)

Entrepreneurial agency—the individual power to change environments—is central to entrepreneurship research. Yet, from a social inequality perspective, beliefs in an entrepreneurial agency might differ based on the social class environments individuals are born into. Drawing on social cognitive theories, our findings across three data sets among students from Germany and entrepreneurs from the United States indicate that social class origins are associated with entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) beliefs in adulthood. Exploring the underlying mechanisms, we find that students’ early entrepreneurial experiences (...) in education and practice are indicative of reproducing the class gap in ESE. When individuals collect mastery experiences such as social mobility or entrepreneurial success, their lower social class origins turn out to be associated with enhanced entrepreneurial agency beliefs. We discuss the implications for further research on social class, inequality, and entrepreneurship. (shrink)

Let’s consider the following paradox (Fodor [1989], Jackson and Petit [1988] [1992], Drestke [1988], Block [1991], Lepore and Loewer [1987], Lewis [1986], Segal and Sober [1991]): i) The intentional content of a thought (or any other intentional state) is causally relevant to its behavioural (and other) effects. ii) Intentional content is nothing but the meaning of internal representations. But, iii) Internal processors are only sensitive to the syntactic structures of internal representations, not their meanings. Therefore it seems that if we (...) want to defend the idea -absolutely plausible from an intuitive point of view- that mental / intentional states are causally responsible for behavioural outputs and we want to do it on the physicalist basis of any scientific methodology, we will have to give up the conviction that such intentional states qua intentional, i. e. as having a particular meaning, are the ones causally responsible for our behaviour. The path that takes us to mental epiphenomenalism is clear: 1) the causal powers of any event are completely determined by its physical properties; 2) although intentional properties supervene on physical properties, they can’t be identified with them; 3) intentional properties, as intentional, are not causally responsible for behaviour, because they don’t take part in the causal powers of the states to which they belong, i. e., intentional properties are epiphenomenal. Let’s consider now a different yet parallel position to the one just described. There is an important debate in cognitive science about whether the class of mechanisms to which we belong and which the computational modelling project of cognitive processes refers to is best represented by classical or connectionist approaches (McClelland, Rumelhart et. al [1986], Smolensky [1987] [1988], Fodor and Pylyshyn [1988], Pinker and Prince [1988], Clark [1989], Ramsey, Stich and Rumelhart [1991], Clark and Karmiloff-Smith [forthcoming]).In classical, serial processing models, information is encoded in terms of rules that have a linguistic character. In connectionist or parallel distributed processing (PDP) models, the causal relationships among the units that constitute the system determine how the information is processes by the network, although these units don’t have a direct semantic interpretation. But, for both, classical and connectionist models, all the computations can be explained without any reference to the content of the processed information, i.e., in both cases the properties that seem to be responsible for the system’s behaviour are ultimately physical properties nor intentional ones. This situation mirrors thus, within cognitive science, the philosophical discussion concerning the causal efficacy of semantic properties. Now, if in this debate we opt for the classical paradigm, there is a way of finding a solution to the computational version of the epiphenomenalism paradox. This solution is based mainly on the notion of supervenience or, more precisely, on the notion of mereological supervenience (Kim [1984] [1988])1 . The idea of intentional properties supervening on physical properties makes sense within the classical context because there exists an easily isolable supervenience base comprising the syntactic items in the socalled language of thought. But, what happens if we opt for the connectionist paradigm?. The situation here doesn’t seem to favour the use of the same supervenience strategy. For it has been argued (Ramsey, Stich and Garon [1991]) that beliefs, desires, and other mental states are nor, in the connectionist paradigm, individuable as weight or activation states of the system. This is because information is encoded by the network in distributed and superpositional representations, i.e., there are no straightforwardly isolable vehicles at the physical level that can be identified as the articulated supervenience base on which the semantic properties supervene2 . If this is true, then the connectionist not only loses the battle against epiphenomenalism but more drastically, seems to offer a standing invitation to eliminativism, since talk of beliefs and desires, etc. now seems to be floating free of any acceptable scientific underpinning, i.e., she has lost the necessary theoretical apparatus for supporting the intuitive idea that propositional attitudes -beliefs, desires and any mental states with semantic content- are physically realized. This second line of argumentation doesn’t take us to a paradox but to a dilemma: either we accept eliminativism, if connectionist hypothesis are correct or we defend the causal efficacy of mental states with semantic content by showing that, after all, connectionist networks are not plausible cognitive models (Davies [1991]). From my point of view, however, both lines of argumentation need to be revised. The aim of this paper is to find an account of the causal efficacy of content that avoids the aforementioned epiphenomenalist objections and that doesn’t require the discovery of inner symbols in the computational modelling of such contentful mental states. In short, the aim is to find a meeting point where a philosophical story about content and cause and the connectionist computational model can be brought together (Cfr. Clark [1989]). (shrink)

BackgroundDementia care is essential to promote the well-being of patients but remains a difficult task prone to ethical issues. These issues include questions like whether manipulating a person with dementia is ethically permissible if it promotes her best interest or how to engage with a person who is unwilling to recognize that she has dementia. To help people living with dementia and their carers manage ethical issues in dementia care, we developed the CARE intervention. This is an intervention focused on (...) promoting the ethical self-efficacy of people living with dementia and carers, i.e., their confidence that they can manage ethical issues when they occur. The purpose of this paper is to explain and discuss how we have developed the CARE intervention to promote the ethical self-efficacy of people living with dementia, their family, and professional carers through a specific and, we believe, new use of literary texts.MethodsThe CARE intervention has been developed in two phases: First, we conducted a needs assessment of the occurrence of ethical issues in dementia care and the need for an intervention to support people living with dementia and their carers in managing such issues. Second, in a design phase, we developed the CARE intervention to meet identified needs.ResultsTo address identified ethical issues in dementia care we designed the CARE intervention as a workshop format where people living with dementia and carers can meet, discuss literary texts, and deliberate on how to solve such issues. The workshop is structured by the following elements: An agenda of ethical issues, a collection of literary cases exemplifying ethical issues, a moderator with an understanding of dementia care, and an overview of the ethical principles relevant to the discussion of ethical issues. >This workshop concept is operationalized in three applications tailored to meet the specific ethical issues of each of the study´s three target groups: people living with dementia and family carers, professional and family carers, and professional carers.ConclusionWe conclude the paper by stating that it is possible to develop an intervention that promotes the ethical self-efficacy of people living with dementia and family and professional carers. (shrink)

Several philosophers have argued recently that semantic properties do play a causal role. 1 It is our view that none of these arguments are satisfactory. Our aim is to reveal some of the deficiencies of these arguments, and to reassess the question in our own way. In section 1, we shall explain in more detail what is involved in the pretheoretical idea of a causally efficacious property and so provide a fuller sense of the issue. In section 2 we shall (...) discuss Fodor's and Kim's arguments that the semantic properties of mental events are causally efficacious. Their tactic is to articulate sufficient conditions for the causal efficacy of a property, and then apply these conditions to the psychological properties under consideration. We shall show that both formulations are inadequate. However, each account can remedy some of the defects of the other. We shall argue that by putting the two together, and modifying this combined account in certain ways, we can arrive at something that might just pass as a general sufficient condition for causal efficacy. We believe that the question of causal efficacy of content is best approached as a question in the philosophy of science. If one wants to know whether a given species of property is efficacious, the most productive strategy is to find a science that investigates the properties and examine the role they are assigned. In keeping with this attitude we shall restrict our discussion to the notion of content deployed within cognitive science. In section 3 we examine the role of content in cognitive science and discuss whether this role suits content to the conditions on efficacy articulated in section two. Our conclusion will be conditional and hedged: on certain views of cognitive science, content will meet the sufficient condition for efficacy. If other views are correct, the question remains open. (shrink)

Physical activities are generally accepted as promoting important psychological benefits. However, studies examining martial arts as a form of physical activity and mental health have exhibited many methodological limitations in the past. Additionally, recent philosophical discussion has debated whether martial arts training promotes psychological wellbeing or illness. Self-efficacy has an important relationship with mental health and may be an important mechanism underpinning the potential of martial arts training to promote mental health. This study examined the effect of martial arts (...) training on the psychological construct of self-efficacy. A total of 283 secondary school students with a mean age of 12.76 (SD = 0.68) years were recruited to complete a time-limited (10-session) martial arts intervention, which was examined using a randomised controlled trial. Univariate ANOVAs found that the intervention improved the experimental group’s self-efficacy compared to the control group, which was sustained at follow-up. Regression analysis indicated that socio-educational status moderated this outcome. These findings support the martial arts-based intervention’s potential to improve self-efficacy and promote wellbeing through physical activity. Martial arts training may be an efficacious psychosocial treatment that can be used as a complementary approach to promote mental health. (shrink)

There are several interpretations of the argument structure of Darwin's Origin of Species, representing Covering-Law, Inference-to-the-Best-Explanation, and (more recently) Semantic models. I argue that while all three types of interpretation enjoy some textual support, none succeeds in capturing the overall strategy of the Origin, consistent with Darwin's claim that it is 'one long argument'. I provide detailed criticisms of all three current models, and then offer an alternative interpretation based on the view that there are three main argument strategies in (...) the Origin, all supporting the 'causal efficacy' of Darwin's theory. This interpretation provides both a more unified treatment of the text, and some important implications concerning the relation between general philosophical models of scientific theory support and specific historical cases. (shrink)

Empirical evidence, it has often been argued, undermines our commonsense assumptions concerning the efficacy of conscious intentions. One of the most influential advocates of this challenge has been Daniel Wegner, who has presented an impressive amount of evidence in support of a model of "apparent mental causation". According to Wegner, this model provides the best explanation of numerous curious and pathological cases of behavior. Further, it seems that Benjamin Libet's classic experiment on the initiation of action and the empirical (...) evidence concerning the confabulation of reason explanations provide further support for this view. In response, I will propose an alternative model of "real mental causation" that can accommodate the empirical evidence just as well as Wegner's. Further, we will see that there is plenty of evidence in support of the assumption that intentions are causally efficacious. This will provide us with ample reason to endorse the model of real mental causation. (shrink)

I argue that agents can have duties to cooperate with one another if this increases their combined efficiency and/or efficacy in addressing ongoing collective moral problems. I call these duties cooperative duties of efficiency and efficacy. I focus particularly on collective agents and how agents ought to reason and act in the face of global moral problems. After setting out my account, I argue that a subset of cooperative duties of efficiency and efficacy of collective agents are (...) duties of justice in virtue of the roles these agents have taken up. (shrink)

This study analyzes neural and behavioral events occurring before, during, and after the emergence of a pain quale and the consciousness of that pain to examine the causal efficacy of the quale and consciousness. It finds that events occurring before or concurrently with the emergence of the quale are neither caused nor influenced by the quale or consciousness. Events occurring afterward may also be unaffected by the quale or consciousness if they do not overtly involve phenomenal content. By contrast, (...) activities that explicitly incorporate phenomenal characteristics—such as experiencing, remembering, or reporting the pain quale—are influenced by the occurrence and phenomenal character of the quale or consciousness. Accordingly, qualia and consciousness are not inert. However, their influence does not operate through mechanistic particle–force interactions. Instead, they function as higher-level factors that stand in stable, constitutive counterfactual relations to downstream neural and behavioral effects. Physically, they perform this role by providing the involved neural causal chain with their phenomenal information, which is necessary in initiating and structuring that causal chain and determining the content of the outputs. Nevertheless, qualia and consciousness cannot generate these outputs by themselves; the relevant neural circuits must be present to implement the mechanistic processing required for producing physical effects. Only when both components function together is the causal chain complete and can yield results. Thus, the study concludes that qualia and consciousness influence the neural system and, although they are not mechanistic, independent, or complete causes of physical events, they can be considered causally efficacious in a restricted, information-based sense. (shrink)

In her article, Pascale Hess raises the issue of whether her proposed model may be extrapolated and applied to clinical research fields other than stem cell-based interventions in the brain (SCBI-B) (Hess 2012). Broadly summarized, Hess’s model suggests prioritizing efficacy over safety in phase 1 trials involving irreversible interventions in the brain, when clinical criteria meet the appropriate population suffering from “degenerative brain diseases” (Hess 2012). Although there is a need to reconsider the traditional phase 1 model, especially with (...) respect to first-in-human clinical trials involving novel technologies, the question arises as to whether it is appropriate to advocate for a new model that prioritizes efficacy over safety across all phase 1 clinical research trials involving irreversible interventions in the brain. -/- . (shrink)

The study explores the use of Graphic Novels as an innovative form of training that may improve an individual’s ethical efficacy. A quantitative comparison of the graphic novel method and the traditional written case study is analyzed. The literature on ethics, graphic novels, and training are brought together from theories of narrative and literature perspective to formulate a study. The study uses a 2 × 2 repeated-measure MANOVA to analyze the participant’s reaction to bribery situations based on varying levels (...) of ‘grayness.’ The overall study finds that ethical efficacy increases with the use of the graphic novel method. The greatest improvements are in the individual’s level of self-efficacy and understanding of principle-based ethical issues. In addition, the participant’s level of industry experience may play a factor in applying the graphic novel technique. Finally, guidelines on how to effectively utilize the graphic novel method are stated. Improving ethical efficacy through business ethics training may help improve an individual’s self-efficacy, involvement and principle-based understanding. The study explores the use of Graphic Novels as an innovative form of training that may improve an individual’s ethical efficacy. A quantitative comparison of the graphic novel method and the traditional written case study are analyzed. Literature on ethics, graphic novels, and training are brought together with theories of narrative and literature perspective to formulate a study. The study uses a 2 × 2 repeated-measure MANOVA to analyze the participant’s reaction to bribery ethical situations based on varying levels of ‘grayness.’ The overall study finds that ethical efficacy increases with the use of the graphic novel method. The greatest improvements are in the individual’s level of self-efficacy and understanding of principle-based ethical issues. In addition, the participant’s level of industry experience may play a factor in applying the graphic novel technique. Finally, guidelines on how to effectively utilize the graphic novel method is set forth. (shrink)

Statistics and probability enabled students to better understand, process, and evaluate massive amounts of quantitative data that existed and had a probabilistic sense in uncertain situations. The research article aimed to elucidate the performance and self-efficacy as predictors of students' achievement in the statistics and probability courses. The study utilized a descriptive-predictive research method and was conducted at Sto. Tomas National High School, involving a sample of 263 grade 11 senior high school students. The gathered data were analyzed using (...) descriptive measures and multiple regression analysis. The study's results revealed that the performance in General Mathematics was very satisfactory, while self-efficacy was high. Moreover, the level of achievement in Statistics and Probability was very satisfactory. It was also revealed that both General Mathematics performance and self-efficacy had a positive and significant relationship with Statistics and Probability achievement. Through regression analysis, it was discovered that General Mathematics performance was the strongest predictor that influenced achievement in Statistics and Probability. The study identified a significant predictive model for Statistics and Probability achievement. These findings could provide valuable guidance to teachers in enhancing the achievement of senior high school students in Statistics and Probability. (shrink)

Debates about ritual efficacy in philosophy of religion often oscillate between two pictures: liturgical utterances as expressions or coordinative moves, and liturgical utterances as purporting to effect a change that outstrips what is publicly trackable. I argue that recognition-centered speech-act models—explaining status change in terms of uptake, collective acceptance, or institutional facts—misclassify a recurrent profile: practices that treat an utterance as capable of succeeding or failing in non-recognitional terms while still subjecting performance to public governance. I call this profile (...) an invisible-order performative (IOP): a performative whose token-level constitutive success conditions are not set by uptake or collective acceptance as such, even when the act is institutionally tracked and regulated. The profile is developed first in vows and oaths, where self-binding is treated as success-apt without an audience, and then in Catholic absolution as a stress test, where validity, liceity, and fruitfulness come apart as layered predicates for one utterance. I also argue that IOPs can compose, with upstream conferrals (such as ordination) supplying standing conditions for downstream acts. The upshot is a modest refinement of speech-act taxonomy that preserves a practice’s internal discriminations without reducing ritual efficacy to public recognition or endorsing the underlying metaphysics. (shrink)

Academic self-efficacy beliefs influence students’ academic and career choices, as well as motivational factors and learning strategies promoting effective academic success. Nevertheless, few studies have focused on the academic self-efficacy of university students in comparison to students at other levels. Furthermore, extant measures present several limitations. The first aim of this study was to develop a reliable and valid scale assessing university students’ self-efficacy beliefs in managing academic tasks. The second aim was to investigate differences in academic (...) self-efficacy due to gender, years of enrollment, and student status. The study involved 831 students enrolled in undergraduate programs. Indicators of academic experiences and performance were collected. A new scale measuring students’ academic self-efficacy beliefs was administered. Results from a preliminary Exploratory Factor Analysis were consistently supported by findings from a Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Multigroup CFA supported the presence of measurement invariance. Analyses revealed that the new scale has eight factors: “Planning Academic Activities,” “Learning Strategies,” “Information Retrieval,” “Working in Groups,” “Management of Relationships with Teachers,” “Managing Lessons,” “Stress Management,” and “Thesis Work.” Self-efficacy dimensions showed significant relations with academic experiences and students’ performance indicators, as well as differences due to gender, years of enrollment, and student status. Findings are discussed in terms of practical implications for the implementation of intervention programs aimed at fostering self-efficacy beliefs and academic success. (shrink)

Self-efficacy, according to Bandura (1977), is defined as “beliefs in ones capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments.” Applying Bandura’s essential theory, this captivating book provides a practitioner-friendly overview of the concepts, vocabulary, practices, and contexts related to teacher self-efficacy. The members of the Association of Teacher Educators’ Commission on Self-Efficacy share their knowledge and expertise written as case studies for readers to become more aware of teacher self-efficacy. Self- (...) class='Hi'>Efficacy in Actionengages readers in the meaningful discussions of practices and purposes of teacher self-efficacy to advance professionalism. The combination of vignettes, content, discussion questions, and resources guide and support educators and teacher candidates to appreciate the benefits of professional growth and development focused on enhancing self-efficacy for the benefit of student learning and achievement. (shrink)

The Efficacy of Three Interventions Modifying Stereotypes and Prejudice Towards People with Schizophrenia Little is known about the efficacy of various interventions aimed at fighting stereotypes and prejudice towards people with schizophrenia. This study evaluated the efficacy of three interventions: film, meeting a person with schizophrenia, and educational presentation, in reducing stereotypes and prejudice towards people with schizophrenia. Three groups of students were assessed by the Stereotypes and Prejudice Questionnaire before, directly after, and one month after the (...) intervention. A reduction in both stereotypes and prejudice was observed following the educational presentation, and a further decrease in the unfavorable attitudes was observed a month later. Watching the film was found effective in reducing prejudice, however it did not lower stereotypes. Meeting a person suffering from schizophrenia was found to minimize stereotypes but its effects on prejudice were relatively insignificant and temporary. The findings from this study showed that various types of intervention had diverse effects in reducing stereotypes and prejudice. (shrink)

Aversive autobiographical memories sometimes prompt maladaptive emotional responses and contribute to affective dysfunction in anxiety and depression. One way to regulate the impact of such memories is to create a downward counterfactual thought–a mental simulation of how the event could have been worse–to put what occurred in a more positive light. Despite its intuitive appeal, counterfactual thinking has not been systematically studied for its regulatory efficacy. In the current study, we compared the regulatory impact of downward counterfactual thinking, temporal (...) distancing, and memory rehearsal in 54 adult participants representing a spectrum of trait anxiety. Participants recalled regretful experiences and rated them on valence, arousal, regret, and episodic detail. Two to six days later, they created a downward counterfactual of the remembered event, thought of how they might feel about it 10 years from now, or simply rehearsed it. A day later, participants re-rated the phenomenological characteristics of the events. Across all participants, downward counterfactual thinking, temporal distancing, and memory rehearsal were equally effective at reducing negative affect associated with a memory. However, in individuals with higher trait anxiety, downward counterfactual thinking was more effective than rehearsal for reducing regret, and it was as effective as distancing in reducing arousal. We discuss these results in light of the functional theory of counterfactual thinking and suggest that they motivate further investigation into downward counterfactual thinking as a means to intentionally regulate emotional memories in affective disorders. (shrink)

Supervision of teachers is essential for ensuring effective educational practices, fostering professional development, and achieving student success. The study determined the relationship of program heads' supervisory practices to the teachers’ teaching efficacy. It was conducted in a community college in Tangub City, Misamis Occidental. The descriptive-correlational design was used in the study. There were 146 faculty and 361 students who served as the respondents selected through a stratified random sampling technique. The adapted Program Heads’ Supervisory Practices and researcher-made Teachers’ (...) Teaching Efficacy Questionnaires were used as research instruments. Mean, Standard Deviation, and Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient were used as statistical tools to analyze the data gathered. Results revealed that the program heads were good in their supervisory practices. The teachers’ teaching efficacy was very high. The program heads’ supervisory practices did not influence the teacher’s teaching efficacy. The strategies employed by program heads in their supervisory roles do not always translate into improved teaching efficiency. The study's findings indicate that program heads need to adopt more responsive and tailored supervisory practices that directly address the specific needs of teachers to enhance teaching efficacy. This may involve integrating targeted professional development focused on practical classroom strategies and fostering peer collaboration to share best practices. Program heads may prioritize open communication and continuous feedback mechanisms to better align their supervisory approaches with the realities of classroom instruction, ensuring that support translates into improved teaching efficiency. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Efficacious Grace and Free Will:Six Inadequate ArgumentsSteven J. JensenDuring the de auxiliis controversies, the idea of efficacious grace was used extensively as an attempt to explain the manner in which God infallibly achieves his will at the level of supernatural grace. One meaning of efficacious grace has often been considered inconsistent with the idea of free will. The inconsistency—if there is any—depends upon a particular meaning, according to which (...) efficacious grace has three important characteristics: it is an infallible physical pre-motion. (1) Efficacious grace is "physical" because it moves after the manner of an efficient cause rather than after the manner of a final cause (which would be called a "moral" motion).1 (2) The motion is prior (or a pre-motion) because it causally precedes the act of the will to which it gives rise. Finally, (3) the motion is infallible because that toward which it moves the will in every case must be achieved.Suppose, for instance, that God gives Jerry an efficacious grace to help Jane, who is in need. The grace is not merely the enticement of some good (a moral movement), but is the movement of an efficient cause, after the manner by which fire heats water. Furthermore, the grace is efficacious prior to Jerry's actual choice and does not depend upon his will for its efficacy. Finally, once Jerry is moved by this grace, he will of necessity (or infallibly) choose to help Jane.In what follows, references to efficacious grace will refer to this particular [End Page 115] understanding, with these three characteristics. Other conceptions of efficacious grace, such as that given by Jacques Maritain, are not relevant to this paper.2The combination of these three characteristics is sometimes thought to be inconsistent with a particular understanding of free will, according to which the will is the only created cause that determines itself to its final action. Since efficacious grace is a created cause (and not the divine will), since it is an efficient cause, since it is causally antecedent to the final act of the will, and since it determines the will to act, it is inconsistent with free will. Or so the argument goes, at any rate. Whatever the details of this argument, most people will concede that there is, at the very least, an intuitive inconsistency between free will and efficacious grace. To be moved infallibly by an efficient cause seems incompatible with the movement of the will, the agency of which is free, and which therefore is not moved determinately to some effect.3Those who wish to defend efficacious grace have advanced a contrary claim—that efficacious grace is consistent with human free will—which might be called the Consistency Thesis. Apparent inconsistencies are nothing more than apparent. In defense of the Consistency Thesis, a multiplicity of Thomistic arguments are offered by authors such as Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Steven Long, and Taylor O'Neill.This paper is concerned to show neither the truth nor the falsity of the Consistency Thesis. Rather, it considers six of the arguments defending the thesis and finds all of them wanting. Whatever their merits for other purposes (and often their merits are great), these arguments are inadequate to the task of defending the Consistency Thesis. They are often not bad arguments; they are simply insufficient. They are not enough to show a consistency between efficacious grace and free will. This goal, although modest, is significant, for when confronted with the six arguments readers can be left with the impression that the question is settled. [End Page 116]The Problem ClarifiedThe enemies of efficacious grace suggest the following implication: if the will is moved to act by an infallible physical pre-motion, then the will is determined. The Consistency Thesis may be defended by denying the implication. Even when moved by an infallible physical pre-motion such as efficacious grace (so the defense will argue), the will can remain undetermined. All the arguments discussed below (if they are indeed arguments in defense of the Consistency Thesis) take this approach, although the fourth argument does so only in a very indirect manner.The first argument claims... (shrink)

Differentiated instruction is an approach that centers on the fact that every student is different and shapes the teaching process according to this reality. Students in the learning environment differ from each other in terms of characteristics such as prior knowledge, interest, needs, learning style, socio-cultural background, cognitive-affective-psychomotor readiness. In order for students with different characteristics to benefit from education in the best way, it is necessary to diversify education in terms of content, teaching-learning process and measurement-evaluation dimensions, taking these (...) differences into account. In this diversification, students' readiness, interest and learning profiles are taken into account as a whole. Although educational programs are prepared by taking the similarities between individuals into account in practice, teachers are expected to diversify the process by taking the individual differences of the students into account and design different learning paths for students with different characteristics. One of the areas that needs to be planned and implemented with a differentiated teaching approach within formal education is religious education. Differentiated religious teaching is to diversify religious teaching in terms of content, learning-teaching process and measurement and evaluation dimensions, taking the individual differences of students into account such as their prior religious knowledge, interest and attitudes towards religion, cultural affiliations and learning profiles. In this study, the self-efficacy perceptions of Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge (“Din Kültürü ve Ahlâk Bilgisi”, abb. DKAB in Turkish) teachers towards differentiated teaching were examined. Determining the self-efficacy perceptions of DKAB teachers regarding differentiated instruction is important in terms of providing information about their success in planning, implementing and evaluating according to differentiated instruction in the Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge course. The research sought answers to the following questions: 1. What are DKAB teachers' self-efficacy perceptions towards differentiated instruction? 2. Is there a significant relationship between DKAB teachers' self-efficacy perceptions towards differentiated instruction and teachers' gender, age, years of service, graduated higher education program and the type of school they work in? The research is a descriptive study and is of quantitative type and survey model. The population of the research consists of DKAB teachers working in primary and secondary education institutions in the 2nd semester of the 2021-2022 academic year. The sample of the research consists of 425 DKAB teachers selected from the population using the appropriate sampling method. Differentiated Instruction Self-Efficacy Scale developed by Mutlu, Öztürk and Aktekin was used to collect the data used in the research. The data collected in the study was analyzed using the SPSS 25.0 package program. According to the findings obtained in the study, DKAB teachers' self-efficacy perceptions regarding differentiated instruction are at a high level. The characteristics of DKAB teachers' age, years of service, and the type of school they work in do not have a significant effect on teachers' self-efficacy perceptions regarding differentiated instruction. There is a significant relationship between DKAB teachers' gender and the characteristics of the higher education program they graduated from and their self-efficacy perceptions. Male teachers consider themselves more competent in differentiated instruction. The self-efficacy perceptions of the teachers who graduated from the primary education DKAB Teaching program are at a higher level than the teachers who graduated from the theology (Ilahiyat) program, which is described as the faculty of theology. It is thought that the research will contribute to the field of differentiated religious teaching. (shrink)

ABSTRACT“A legal system exists,” Joseph Raz claims, “if and only if it is in force.” By this he means to suggest that the efficacy of law—that is, its capacity to control the population to which it applies—is necessary for its identity as such. Despite widespread recognition that efficacy is a condition of the existence of law, however, little time has been spent analyzing the notion. This article begins an attempt to make up the deficit. I make the case (...) for efficacy as necessary for law and go on to develop and defend an account of the concept that is broadly Kelsenian in spirit. In doing so I address questions concerning the relationship between obedience and enforcement in an account of the existence of a legal system as well as relating the discussion to that concerning the ontological status of international law. (shrink)

This study examines how individuals accept and navigate paradoxical tensions within a sustainability context, using a multiple case study of five Italian companies implementing circularity measurement tools. By exploring the interplay between self-efficacy and acceptance of paradoxical tensions, drawing upon the Goal Setting and Paradox theories, we found that self-efficacy and collective efficacy are significant drivers for accepting paradoxical tensions at the individual level. The study contributes to the literature on Corporate Sustainability by better understanding tension management (...) through two key findings. Firstly, based on our results, we propose a model that describes the motivational roles of self-efficacy and collective efficacy within “reactive-leader centric” and “proactive-team centric” organisations. Secondly, it reveals how training and information sharing reinforce self-efficacy and collective efficacy. This study also offers practical managerial insights, suggesting strategies for enhancing self-efficacy and collective efficacy in organisational settings, thereby facilitating the successful navigation of paradoxical tensions in pursuing circular economy goals. (shrink)

To reduce negative emotional responses and to stimulate prosociality, constructive journalism promotes the inclusion of positive emotions and solutions in news. This study experimentally tested whether including those elements indeed increased prosocial intentions and behavior among children, and whether negative emotions and self-efficacy are mediators in this regard. To this end, children (N = 468; 9 to 13 years old) were exposed to an emotion-based, solution-based, or non-constructive news video. Results showed that emotion-based and solution-based news reduced children’s negative (...) emotions compared to non-constructive news. No direct effects for prosocial intentions were found, but solution-based news led to less prosocial behavior (i. e., money donated) than emotion-based and non-constructive news. Moreover, negative emotions served as a mediator, self-efficacy did not. The more negative emotions were elicited by a news story, the higher the prosocial intentions and behavior. In conclusion, a constructive style of reporting helps to reduce children’s negative emotional responses but subsequently hinders prosociality. (shrink)

Traditional views on philosophical methodology characterize our primary philosophical goal as production of a successful conceptual analysis. The notion of conceptual analysis, however, faces several challenges—from experimental philosophy to more traditional worries such as the paradox of analysis. This paper explores an alternate approach, commonly called conceptual engineering, which aims at recommending conceptual revisions. An important question for the conceptual engineer is as follows: what counts as a case of successful conceptual engineering? What sorts of revisions are permitted, and what (...) sorts are too revisionary? In this paper I examine ‘functional’ approaches to conceptual engineering, ultimately arguing for a ‘radical’ functionalism according to which even revisions which ‘change the subject’ are permitted, and successful re-engineering is constrained only by the requirement that continuity in needed functions of a pre-engineering concept be maintained somewhere in the postengineering conceptual scheme. I further argue that this approach suggests a heightened role, in metaphilosophical discourse, for a neglected epistemic goal—conceptual efficacy. (shrink)

Kelsen’s analysis of efficacy [Wirksamkeit] of norms seems to lead to an overlap between the concept of efficacy [Wirksamkeit] and the concept of fulfilment, or conformity [Entsprechung]. Starting from a critical examination of Kelsen’s conception and drawing from the phenomenology of the relationship between norms and actions, the article focuses on the possibility of conceiving a form of efficacy without fulfilment. The article is divided into two parts: in the first part, I will illustrate the conception of (...) efficacy [Wirksamkeit] as fulfilment, or conformity [Entsprechung], a conception that I will call semantic conception of efficacy; in the second part, I will show some limitations and shortcomings of the semantic conception of efficacy, and I will give some examples of efficacy [Wirksamkeit] without fulfilment, or efficacy without conformity [Entsprechung]. (shrink)

Legal theorists agree widely on two necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for the existence of a legal system: a legal system exists if (i) legal officials adopt a critically reflective attitude toward the legal system’s foundational rule, and (ii) the substantive laws of the system are “by and large” efficacious. The latter “efficacy condition” plausibly applies to all posited law, paradigmatically including modern centralized legal systems and less paradigmatic instances like international law. And yet, philosophers have also frequently pointed (...) out the difficulty in determining precisely what this efficacy amounts to. In this article, I argue that the persisting difficulty of explaining the efficacy of law results from three tempting but inadequate assumptions about posited law and that our basic assumptions need to be revised accordingly. (shrink)

To maximize brain plasticity after stroke, several rehabilitation strategies have been explored, including the use of intensive motor training, motor imagery, and action observation. Growing evidence of the positive impact of virtual reality (VR) techniques on recovery following stroke has been shown. However, most VR tools are designed to exploit active movement, and hence patients with low level of motor control cannot fully benefit from them. Consequently, the idea of directly training the central nervous system has been promoted by utilizing (...) motor-imagery (MI) based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). To date, detailed information on which VR strategies lead to successful functional recovery is still largely missing, and very little is known about how to optimally integrate BCI and VR paradigms for stroke rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of a BCI-VR system using a MI paradigm for post-stroke upper limb rehabilitation on functional assessments, and related changes in MI ability and brain imaging. To achieve this, a 60 years old male chronic stroke patient was recruited. The patient underwent a 3-week intervention in a clinical environment, resulting in 10 BCI-VR training sessions. The patient was assessed before and after intervention, as well as on a one-month follow-up, in terms of clinical scales and brain imaging using functional MRI (fMRI). Consistent with prior research, we found important improvements in upper extremity scores (Fugl-Meyer) and identified increases in brain activation measured by fMRI that suggest neuroplastic changes in brain motor networks. This study expands on the current body of evidence as more data are needed on the effect of this type of interventions not only on functional improvement but also through brain imaging to study the effect of the intervention on plasticity. (shrink)

Aristotle grants perceptible qualities the power to generate sense perception in animals. But it is unclear whether, for him, these qualities can produce any effect other than perception. In this paper I address this issue through a novel approach. To show that they can produce non-perceptual effects, I explore contexts in his extant works where qualities appear to do causal work in nature without leading to perception in animals. This inquiry aims to demonstrate that Aristotle’s realism about qualities survives a (...) potential threat posed by views that dispute the qualities’ causal efficacy outside perception. (shrink)

This article examines the efficacy of an ethics discernment process in the organizational context, a practice referred to in the paper as "mission due diligence." This type of ethics discernment is a structured process intended to awaken the ethical concerns that a particular issue raises within moral agents and to give voice, directly and indirectly, to those who will be impacted by, and responsible for, strategic decision making. The efficacy of this particular ethics discernment practice is contingent upon (...) several realities, including, but not limited to 1) the timing in which it is undertaken, 2) the degree of importance and relevance attributed to it, and 3) the skills of the person leading it. This case report examines how this process was used to highlight and address the ethical issues related to a new hiring policy, namely, a mandatory nicotine screening test for prospective employees in the healthcare context. (shrink)

This book explores 'efficacious intimacy' as an embodied concept of worldmaking, and a framework for studying belief practices in religious and political domains. The study of how beliefs make and manifest power through their sociality and materiality can reveal who, or what, is considered effective in a particular socio-cultural context. The chapters feature case studies drawn from diverse religious and political contexts in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, and explore practices ranging from ingesting sacred water to resisting injustice. In doing (...) so, the authors analyze emotions and affects, and how they influence dynamics of proximity and distance. Taking an innovative approach to the topic of intimacy, the book offers a fascinating examination of how life-worlds are constructed by material practices. It will be of interest to scholars of anthropology, religion, and material culture. (shrink)

BackgroundAt present, tic disorder has attracted the attention of medical researchers in many countries. More clinicians choose non-drug therapy, especially cognitive-behavioral therapy because of the cognitive side effects of drug therapy. However, few studies had assessed its efficacy. It is necessary to have a more comprehensive understanding of the literature quality of CBT and its intervention effect.MethodsIn this study, MEDLINE, Embase, and Cochrane were searched from the beginning to June 15, 2021 to study the efficacy of -CBT on (...) tic disorder. Only studies using the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale and the control group were included.ResultsA total of 12 randomized controlled trials, including 536 patients with tic disorders, were identified. The results showed that the effect of CBT was better than that of the control group. The pooled standardized mean difference was −0.34. The effect size of CBT differs from different intervention conditions. In seven studies, the subjects’ motor tic scores were counted. The sample size of the experimental group was 224 and that of the control group was 218. The pooled SMD was −0.43. Seven studies counted the vocal tic scores of subjects, 224 in the experimental group and 218 in the control group. The pooled SMD was −0.22. Seven studies counted the tic impairment scores of subjects, 220 in the experimental group and 214 in the control group. The pooled SMD was −0.48.ConclusionThe literature shows that different CBTs can significantly reduce the total score of tic disorder and the score of motor tic, but cannot significantly reduce the score of vocal tic. In the future, more new interventions were needed to improve the symptoms of different patients, especially vocal tic. (shrink)

Background: Chronic Pain (CP) has serious medical and social consequences, and leads to economic burden that threatens the sustainability of healthcare services. Thus, optimized management of pain tools to support CP patients in adjusting to their condition and improving quality of life is timely. Although Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is considered an evidence-based psychological approach for CP, evidence for the efficacy of online-delivered ACT for CP is still scarce. At the same time, studies suggest that self-compassion mediates the (...) change in disability and psychopathological symptoms in ACT interventions for CP, although self-compassion is not a specific target in ACT. Thus, an explicit focus on self-compassion might increase the efficacy of ACT interventions for CP, although this hypothesis has not been tested. This study aims to develop an eHealth ACT and compassion-based self-management intervention for CP, the iACTwithPain, and to compare its efficacy in improving health outcomes to a similar ACT-only intervention and a waiting list group. Methods: The eHealth platform that will host the interventions will be developed using a flat design identity and will be interactive. The iACTwithPain intervention will comprise 8 weekly self-management sessions, and will be developed taking into consideration the psychological flexibility model applied to CP, with the addition of explicit compassion-based components. To analyse whether the iACTwithPain intervention will present superiority in improving CP’s impact and related health markers over the two other conditions, this study will follow a RCT design with three arms. CP patients will be recruited through direct contact with patient associations and healthcare services and a national press release in Portugal. Outcome measurement will be conducted at baseline, post-intervention and at 3- and 6-months follow-ups. The interventions’ acceptability will also be assessed. Discussion: The iACTwithPain intervention is expected to improve CP patients’ psychosocial functioning, quality of life, and empowerment, by promoting adaptive disease management and regulation of pain-related internal experiences. Results will contribute to a better understanding on the pertinence of adding compassion elements to ACT for CP and to reach an optimized intervention for CP. (shrink)

On the basis of Bandura’s social cognitive theory, researchers often assume that a teachers’ self-efficacy (TSE) will have a positive effect on teaching quality. However, the available empirical evidence is mixed. Building on previous research into TSE, we examined whether assessing class-/task-specific TSE gives a more accurate indication of the associations between TSE assessments and student-rated teaching quality. The analyses were based on the English sample of the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) Video Study. Mathematics teachers (N= 86) (...) rated their self-efficacy beliefs using generalized task-specific TSE items and class-/task-specific TSE items. Their students (N= 1,930) rated the quality of teaching in their math class. Multilevel regression analyses revealed stronger associations between student-rated teaching quality and class-/task-specific TSE than generalized task-specific TSE. We discuss possible reasons for these results and outline the potential benefits of using class-specific assessments for future TSE research. (shrink)

This article investigates if and how negotiators' self-efficacy beliefs affect their use of deception in negotiation. Specifically, we propose that self-efficacy can be interpreted as a threat to self-concept, which encourages individuals to temporarily bypass self-regulatory obstacles by morally disengaging their cognitive moral filters, thereby enabling them to use deception in negotiation. We test our hypotheses in three independent experimental studies involving an interactive negotiation simulation, totalizing 460 participants. We find that negotiators with low self-efficacy regarding their (...) negotiation abilities are more likely to use deception than those with high self-efficacy beliefs. Furthermore, we find that moral disengagement mediates the effects of self-efficacy on deception. Our findings suggest that self-efficacy plays a key role in shaping negotiators' ethical behaviors and we identify the psychological mechanism underlying this relationship. (shrink)

Plato and Aristotle each present traditional forms of religious practice (e.g., sacrifice, choral performance, prayer, and temple cult) as activities that are worth performing. Because these philosophers advocated such unconventional theological views, their endorsement of conventional religious practice strikes some readers as surprising. This dissertation examines why Plato and Aristotle defended traditional religious practice. Specifically, it investigates their views on its efficacy (i.e., what benefits religious practice produces and how it is thought to produce them). Chapters 1-2 provide the (...) intellectual background necessary to appreciate Plato and Aristotle’s individual contributions. Chapter 1 outlines a view of efficacy that was common in the archaic period (the “Traditional View”). It shows that the literature from that period consistently promoted the idea that, through the performance of traditional religious practice, humans can influence the gods to effect change in all spheres of life: in the cosmos, the city, and the individual psyche. Chapter 2 shows that this view was destabilized in the dawn of the classical period, in the fifth century BCE. The pre-Socratic philosophers and Sophists of this period introduced several theological innovations that forced their proponents to reevaluate the traditional story about what traditional Greek religious practices accomplished and how they accomplished it. Plato both expands and narrows the understanding of efficacy that is set forth in the archaic age. He argues that, for a token religious practice to be successful, it must be performed according to certain ethical standards. Chapter 3 outlines Plato’s ethical criteria and argues that, while the philosopher, like proponents of the Traditional View, denies the efficacy of “illegitimate” performances that contravene these standards, he believes that religious practice can influence all realms of human life theogenically through the instrumentality of the gods. It also shows that Plato expands the modes of efficacy by introducing the possibility that religious practices produce benefits anthropogenically, without the assistance of the gods. Chapters 4-5 each detail a specific religious practice and articulate how Plato thought they could be executed according to his standards. Chapter 4 investigates Plato’s identification of choral performance and sacrifice as forms of play in the Laws, arguing that he imagined them to function as games do elsewhere in that work, when pursued in accordance with the laws and reason, and when performed for pleasure’s sake. Chapter 5 evaluates the role of petitionary prayer in Plato’s dialogues and shows that the philosopher valued the practice for its ability to facilitate intellectual achievement and integrated petitionary prayer into his psychology. Chapters 6-7 focus on Aristotle’s treatment of efficacy. Chapter 6 examines Aristotle’s Metaphysics Λ and argues that, in contrast to Plato, Aristotle discards the Traditional View entirely by denying the ability of religious practices to move the gods to action or to effect change in the cosmos. It reconciles passages from the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, which seem prima facie to endorse conventional attitudes towards the gods, with the philosopher’s metaphysical views, which appear to contradict them. Chapter 7 examines the social and psychological benefits of religious practice in Aristotle’s Politics, where the philosopher claims that the institution of religion forms a necessary part of the city. It demonstrates that, for Aristotle, religious practice provides residents with rest and leisure, obligates them to observe laws, and promotes the development of friendship between residents. (shrink)

Especially in the appendix to the opening part of his Ethics, Spinoza discusses teleology in a manner that has earned him the status of a staunch critic of final causes. Much of the recent lively discussion concerning this complex and difficult issue has revolved around the writings of Jonathan Bennett who maintains that Spinoza does, in fact, reject all teleology. Especially important has been the argument claiming that because of his basic ontology, Spinoza cannot but reject thoughtful teleology, that is, (...) teleology involved in the actions of conscious cognitive beings who have thoughts of future states of affairs. For Spinoza, a particular idea is a modification of the thinking substance the object of which is a certain modification of the extended substance, and Bennett’s central argumentative move is to claim that there is no room in Spinoza’s system for a key ingredient in thoughtful teleology, the tenet that representative content of ideas is causally efficacious. In what follows, I begin by presenting Bennett’s argument. As his position has received much criticism, I then take up the ways in which it has been discussed and found wanting. I think that Bennett’s position really is something that should not be endorsed; however, and despite the lively discussion, it also seems to me that there is more to be said about what is at stake here. Thus, I aim at offering an analysis of the nature of Bennett’s argument and the ensuing discussion with the aim of discerning the philosophical source from which Bennett’s interpretation draws its force. (shrink)