384 research outputs found

    Why Women Are Blamed for Being Sexually Harassed:The Effects of Empathy for Female Victims and Male Perpetrators

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    The #MeToo movement has highlighted the widespread problem of men’s sexual harassment of women. Women are typically reluctant to make a sexual-harassment complaint and often encounter victim-blaming attitudes when they do, especially from men. Informed by the social identity perspective, two experiments examined the influence of empathy—both for women who are sexually harassed and for male harassers—on men’s and women’s propensity to blame victims. In Study 1, university students (N = 97) responded to a vignette describing a male student’s harassment of a female student. Men blamed the victim more than women, which was explained by their greater empathy for the male perpetrator but not lesser empathy for the female victim. Using the same vignette, Study 2 asked university students (N = 135) to take either the male perpetrator’s or the female victim’s perspective. Regardless of participant gender, participants who took the male-perpetrator’s perspective versus the female-victim’s perspective reported greater victim blame, and this was explained by their greater empathy for the male perpetrator and lesser empathy for the female victim. Together, the findings provide evidence to suggest that male-perpetrator empathy may be equally or more important than female-victim empathy for explaining victim blame for sexual harassment. Implications for social change, including policies to limit the effects of male-perpetrator empathy when responding to sexual-harassment complaints are discussed. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ’s website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/0361684319868730.</p

    Moral expansiveness:Examining variability in the extension of the moral world

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    The nature of our moral judgments—and the extent to which we treat others with care—depend in part on the distinctions we make between entities deemed worthy or unworthy of moral consideration—our moral boundaries. Philosophers, historians, and social scientists have noted that people’s moral boundaries have expanded over the last few centuries, but the notion of moral expansiveness has received limited empirical attention in psychology. This research explores variations in the size of individuals’ moral boundaries using the psychological construct of moral expansiveness and introduces the Moral Expansiveness Scale (MES), designed to capture this variation. Across 6 studies, we established the reliability, convergent validity, and predictive validity of the MES. Moral expansiveness was related (but not reducible) to existing moral constructs (moral foundations, moral identity, “moral” universalism values), predictors of moral standing (moral patiency and warmth), and other constructs associated with concern for others (empathy, identification with humanity, connectedness to nature, and social responsibility). Importantly, the MES uniquely predicted willingness to engage in prosocial intentions and behaviors at personal cost independently of these established constructs. Specifically, the MES uniquely predicted willingness to prioritize humanitarian and environmental concerns over personal and national self-interest, willingness to sacrifice one’s life to save others (ranging from human out-groups to animals and plants), and volunteering behavior. Results demonstrate that moral expansiveness is a distinct and important factor in understanding moral judgments and their consequences

    Toward a Psychology of Moral Expansiveness

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    Theorists have long noted that people's moral circles have expanded over the course of history, with modern people extending moral concern to entities-both human and nonhuman-that our ancestors would never have considered including within their moral boundaries. In recent decades, researchers have sought a comprehensive understanding of the psychology of moral expansiveness. We first review the history of conceptual and methodological approaches in understanding our moral boundaries, with a particular focus on the recently developed Moral Expansiveness Scale. We then explore individual differences in moral expansiveness, attributes of entities that predict their inclusion in moral circles, and cognitive and motivational factors that help explain what we include within our moral boundaries and why they may shrink or expand. Throughout, we highlight the consequences of these psychological effects for real-world ethical decision making

    Strings on type IIB pp-wave backgrounds with interacting massive theories on the worldsheet

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    We consider superstring theories on pp-wave backgrounds which result in an integrable N=(2,2){\cal N}=(2,2) supersymmetric Landau-Ginzburg theory on the worldsheet. We obtain exact eigenvalues of the light-cone gauge superstring hamiltonian in the massive and interacting world-sheet theory with superpotential Z3−ZZ^3-Z. We find the modes of the supergravity part of the string spectrum, and their space-time interpretation. Because the system is effectively at strong coupling on the worldsheet, these modes are not in one-to-one correspondence with the usual type IIB supergravity modes in the p−→0p_{-} \to 0 limit. However, the above correspondence holds in the αâ€Č→0\alpha'\to 0 limit.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure; minor changes, comments adde

    Interpersonal communication about climate change:how messages change when communicated through simulated online social networks

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    Climate change communication research has mainly focused on how to communicate climate change effectively to the public. By contrast, how such information is then spread through interpersonal social networks has been neglected, despite being an essential component of cultural change. Using a Facebook-like format, we examined what types of climate change messages ‘survive’ when passed between individuals via communication network chains. We found that statements centred on conventional climate change topics (e.g., its impact on the natural world and human health) survived longer in communication chains than those with less conventional topics (e.g., its impact on societal competence, development, or communality). Moreover, statements about gains from mitigation (gain-frames) survived more than those about costs of non-mitigation (loss-frames) in initial communications, but loss-framed information survived more later in communication chains. In light of research showing that climate change messages focused on society and/or gain frames can motivate action, this research highlights a challenge by showing that these messages are less likely to be spread throughout society

    On point estimation of the abnormality of a Mahalanobis index

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    Mahalanobis distance may be used as a measure of the disparity between an individual’s profile of scores and the average profile of a population of controls. The degree to which the individual’s profile is unusual can then be equated to the proportion of the population who would have a larger Mahalanobis distance than the individual. Several estimators of this proportion are examined. These include plug-in maximum likelihood estimators, medians, the posterior mean from a Bayesian probability matching prior, an estimator derived from a Taylor expansion, and two forms of polynomial approximation, one based on Bernstein polynomial and one on a quadrature method. Simulations show that some estimators, including the commonly-used plug-in maximum likelihood estimators, can have substantial bias for small or moderate sample sizes. The polynomial approximations yield estimators that have low bias, with the quadrature method marginally to be preferred over Bernstein polynomials. However, the polynomial estimators sometimes yield infeasible estimates that are outside the 0–1 range. While none of the estimators are perfectly unbiased, the median estimators match their definition; in simulations their estimates of the proportion have a median error close to zero. The standard median estimator can give unrealistically small estimates (including 0) and an adjustment is proposed that ensures estimates are always credible. This latter estimator has much to recommend it when unbiasedness is not of paramount importance, while the quadrature method is recommended when bias is the dominant issue

    The role of the systematic inflammatory response in predicting outcomes in patients with advanced inoperable cancer: systematic review and meta analysis

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    Introduction: Cancer remains a leading cause of death worldwide. While a curative intent is the aim of any surgical treatment many patients either present with or go onto develop disseminated disease requiring systemic anti-cancer therapy with a palliative intent. Given their limited life expectancy appropriate allocation of treatment is vital. It is recognised that systemic chemoradiotherapy may shorten the quality/quantity of life in patients with advanced cancer. It is against this background that the present systematic review and meta-analysis of the prognostic value of markers of the systemic inflammatory response in patients with advanced cancer was conducted. Methods: An extensive literature review using targeted medical subject headings was carried out in the MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CDSR databases until the end of 2016. Titles were examined for relevance and studies relating to duplicate datasets, that were not published in English and that did not have full text availability were excluded. Full texts of relevant articles were obtained and were then examined to identify any further relevant articles. Results: The majority of studies were retrospective. The systemic inflammatory response, as evidenced by a number of markers at clinical thresholds, was reported to have independent prognostic value, across tumour types and geographical locations. In particular, C-reactive protein (CRP, 63 studies), albumin (33 studies) the Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS, 44 studies) and the Neutrophil Lymphocyte Ratio (NLR, 59 articles) were consistently validated across tumour types and geographical locations. There was considerable variation in the thresholds reported to have prognostic value when CRP and albumin were examined. There was less variation in the thresholds reported for NLR and still less for the GPS. Discussion: The systemic inflammatory response, especially as evidenced by the GPS and NLR, has reliable prognostic value in patients with advanced cancer. Further prospective studies of their clinical utility in randomised clinical trials and in treatment allocation are warranted

    Distribution of an Invasive Aquatic Pathogen (Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia Virus) in the Great Lakes and Its Relationship to Shipping

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    Viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV) is a rhabdovirus found in fish from oceans of the northern hemisphere and freshwaters of Europe. It has caused extensive losses of cultured and wild fish and has become established in the North American Great Lakes. Large die-offs of wild fish in the Great Lakes due to VHSV have alarmed the public and provoked government attention on the introduction and spread of aquatic animal pathogens in freshwaters. We investigated the relations between VHSV dispersion and shipping and boating activity in the Great Lakes by sampling fish and water at sites that were commercial shipping harbors, recreational boating centers, and open shorelines. Fish and water samples were individually analyzed for VHSV using quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and cell culture assays. Of 1,221 fish of 17 species, 55 were VHSV positive with highly varied qRT-PCR titers (1 to 5,950,000 N gene copies). The detections of VHSV in fish and water samples were closely associated and the virus was detected in 21 of 30 sites sampled. The occurrence of VHSV was not related to type of site or shipping related invasion hotspots. Our results indicate that VHSV is widely dispersed in the Great Lakes and is both an enzootic and epizootic pathogen. We demonstrate that pathogen distribution information could be developed quickly and is clearly needed for aquatic ecosystem conservation, management of affected populations, and informed regulation of the worldwide trade of aquatic organisms
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