Sexuelle Gewalt in einem neuen Krieg

Diese Arbeit untersucht die Gründe für die weit verbreitete sexuelle Gewalt an Frauen im Rahmen des Konfliktes in der Demokratischen Republik Kongo. Im ersten Teil der Arbeit wird anhand der Kriterien von Mary Kaldor, Herfried Münkler und Klaus Schlichte gezeigt, dass der Konflikt als so genannter neuer Krieg gesehen werden kann. Die Gegebenheiten dieser Art des Krieges verändern das Verhältnis von Kämpfern und Zivilisten und erklären den (psychologischen wie taktischen) Zweck der Gewaltanwendung. Diese breitet sich in einem Klima der Straffreiheit weiter aus. Durch Vergleich verschiedener Forschungsansätze mit der konkreten Situation dieses Krieges wird deutlich, dass diese Gewalt kein Nebeneffekt des Konfliktes, sondern eine Konsequenz aus der Form des Krieges ist

To kill or not to kill

In der experimentellen Psychologie verwendete moralische Dilemmata verlangen oft eine Entscheidung, ob eine fiktive Person ‚getötet’ werden soll, um das Leben mehrerer anderer Personen zu retten. Nach der Theorie des Utilitarismus sollte die Mehrheit sich für den größtmöglichen Nutzen für die größte Anzahl von Menschen entscheiden. In der Praxis zeigt sich jedoch, dass in einigen Dilemmata die Einzelperson meist ‚gerettet‘ wird. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass diese Abweichung wahrscheinlich aus dem erhöhten Ausmaß resultiert, in dem diese Person als Mensch wahrgenommen wird. Eine solche Humanisierung kann durch Beschreibung und Reflexion über den Geisteszustand der fiktiven Person herbeigeführt werden. In der vorliegenden Verhaltensstudie wurde der Effekt dieser Humanisierung auf emotionale Aspekte von moralischem Entscheidungsverhalten untersucht. Die Haupthypothese besagte, dass die Tendenz, die Einzelperson zu verschonen, mit verstärkten Empathie- oder aber selbstbezogen-aversiven Gefühlen während der Entscheidungsfindung zusammenhängt. Der Anteil dieser zwei Emotionskomplexe war jedoch unbekannt. Als Methode wurden Fragebogenmaße verwendet, die in früheren Experimenten etabliert und hier weiterentwickelt wurden. Moralische Entscheidungen bei humanisierten Personen scheinen eine Verstärkung von selbstbezogen-aversiven, jedoch keinen stärkeren Anteil von empathischen Gefühlen zu involvieren. In weiterführenden Studien sollte jedoch jedenfalls die Validität der emotionsbezogenen Fragebögen durch zusätzliche Methoden wie Messung der elektrodermalen Aktivität und der Herzfrequenzvariabilität überprüft werden.Experimental moral dilemmas often involve a decision whether to ‘kill’ one potential victim in order to save several others from certain death. The theory of utilitarianism proposes that most people will aim for maximum benefit for the greatest number of people. However, previous experiments show that in some dilemmas the potential victim is consistently saved, whereas in others the lone person is predominantly sacrificed. This disparity in utilitarian response patterns is suggested to result from differences in how strongly the potential victim is seen as a human being. Such ‘humanisation’ can be experimentally induced by referring to or reflecting about the hypothetical potential victim’s state of mind. Humanised potential victims have indeed been previously shown to be sacrificed less often in moral dilemmas. In the current behavioural study, we examined the effect of humanisation on emotional aspects of moral decision making. It was hypothesised that the tendency to spare the potential victim is related to increased feelings of empathic concern and / or self-related feelings of distress that participants experience while deciding on a dilemma. The extent of involvement of these emotional complexes, however, remained to be determined. To this end, self-reported emotion rating scales were used to record ratings of empathic concern, personal distress, and successful humanisation. Moral judgements involving humanised as compared to neutral persons seemed to elicit higher levels of personal distress, rather than empathic concern. However, self-report scales should be complemented by psychophysiological measures in future studies, providing more objective measures of emotional responses

CUBES: A practical toolkit to measure enablers and barriers to behavior for effective intervention design [version 1; peer review: 2 approved, 1 approved with reservations]

A pressing goal in global development and other sectors is often to understand what drives people’s behaviors, and how to influence them. Yet designing behavior change interventions is often an unsystematic process, hobbled by insufficient understanding of contextual and perceptual behavioral drivers and a narrow focus on limited research methods to assess them. We propose a toolkit (CUBES) of two solutions to help programs arrive at more effective interventions. First, we introduce a novel framework of behavior, which is a practical tool for programs to structure potential drivers and match corresponding interventions. This evidence-based framework was developed through extensive cross-sectoral literature research and refined through application in large-scale global development programs. Second, we propose a set of descriptive, experimental, and simulation approaches that can enhance and expand the methods commonly used in global development. Since not all methods are equally suited to capture the different types of drivers of behavior, we present a decision aid for method selection. We recommend that existing commonly used methods, such as observations and surveys, use CUBES as a scaffold and incorporate validated measures of specific types of drivers in order to comprehensively test all the potential components of a target behavior. We also recommend under-used methods from sectors such as market research, experimental psychology, and decision science, which programs can use to extend their toolkit and test the importance and impact of key enablers and barriers. The CUBES toolkit enables programs across sectors to streamline the process of conceptualizing, designing, and optimizing interventions, and ultimately to change behaviors and achieve targeted outcomes

Non-signalling energy use in the developing rat brain

Energy use in the brain constrains its information processing power, but only about half the brain's energy consumption is directly related to information processing. Evidence for which non-signalling processes consume the rest of the brain's energy has been scarce. For the first time, we investigated the energy use of the brain's main non-signalling tasks with a single method. After blocking each non-signalling process, we measured oxygen level changes in juvenile rat brain slices with an oxygen-sensing microelectrode and calculated changes in oxygen consumption throughout the slice using a modified diffusion equation. We found that the turnover of the actin and microtubule cytoskeleton, followed by lipid synthesis, are significant energy drains, contributing 25%, 22% and 18%, respectively, to the rate of oxygen consumption. In contrast, protein synthesis is energetically inexpensive. We assess how these estimates of energy expenditure relate to brain energy use in vivo, and how they might differ in the mature brain

Bibliology in Germany — origins, developments and current state

From its origins in the early modern period up until today, German bibliology has undergone a huge transformation both in terms of its relationship to other subjects and its research areas. The article describes the development of bibliology in Germany from its beginnings in bibliographic and librarian contexts, over its evolvement as a field of study in its own rights in the late 18th century, until its current situation as a university subject. Today, German book science is a relatively small discipline which might profit from integration in broader media studies already proposed a decade ago. It has links to many other humanities subjects, especially librarian, literary, linguistic and cultural studies, and sees its task in integrating interdisciplinary research on the book instead of monopolising it. Due to the lack of an overall book theory or model, this also means making use of the research approaches of these adjoining disciplines whenever they seem promising. The bibliological studies on all aspects of books, implicitly oriented on the steps of production, distribution and reception of books and conducted by the few professorial chairs of book science, are complemented by several non-university institutions and research groups. From its origins in the early modern period up until today, German bibliology has undergone a huge transformation both in terms of its relationship to other subjects and its research areas. The article describes the development of bibliology in Germany from its beginnings in bibliographic and librarian contexts, over its evolvement as a field of study in its own rights in the late 18th century, until its current situation as a university subject. Today, German book science is a relatively small discipline which might profit from integration in broader media studies already proposed a decade ago. It has links to many other humanities subjects, especially librarian, literary, linguistic and cultural studies, and sees its task in integrating interdisciplinary research on the book instead of monopolising it. Due to the lack of an overall book theory or model, this also means making use of the research approaches of these adjoining disciplines whenever they seem promising. The bibliological studies on all aspects of books, implicitly oriented on the steps of production, distribution and reception of books and conducted by the few professorial chairs of book science, are complemented by several non-university institutions and research groups.&nbsp

›China Bilder‹ - Eine quantitative und qualitative Studie zu deutschsprachigen Publikationen mit China-Bezug und Übersetzungen chinesischsprachiger Originalwerke auf dem deutschen Buchmarkt 2006–2014

Die Studie untersucht China-Bilder, wie sie in deutschsprachigen Originalausgaben (u.a. Romane, Sachbücher etc.), die zwischen 2006 und 2014 publiziert wurden, einem breiten Publikum vermittelt werden. Weiter werden Übersetzungen chinesischsprachiger Originalwerke untersucht. Die Ergebnisse basieren auf einer quantitativen Erhebung. Außerdem werden politische, wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Rahmenbedingungen analysiert, die Einfluss auf die kulturvermittelnde Funktion des Buchhandels ausüben.The study aims at analysing images of China, as they are reflected in publications for the broad public on the German book market. It examines new German titles published between 2006 and 2014, which bear reference to China. On the basis of German translations of Chinese works and German originals about China, a thematic overview of the titles existing on the German book market is compiled. The concluding part examines the political, economic and cultural framework conditions, which affect the publications