Constructing and validating a scale of inquisitive curiosity

We advance the understanding of the philosophy and psychology of curiosity by operationalizing and constructing an empirical measure of Nietzsche’s conception of inquisitive curiosity, expressed by the German term Wissbegier, (“thirst for knowledge” or “need/impetus to know”) and Neugier (“curiosity” or “inquisitiveness”). First, we show that existing empirical measures of curiosity do not tap the construct of inquisitive curiosity, though they may tap related constructs such as idle curiosity and phenomenological curiosity. Next, we map the concept of inquisitive curiosity and connect it to related concepts, such as open-mindedness and intellectual humility. The bulk of the paper reports four studies: an Anglophone exploratory factor analysis, an Anglophone confirmatory factor analysis, an informant study, and a Germanophone exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis

Development and validation of a multi-dimensional measure of intellectual humility

This paper presents five studies on the development and validation of a scale of intellectual humility. This scale captures cognitive, affective, behavioral, and motivational components of the construct that have been identified by various philosophers in their conceptual analyses of intellectual humility. We find that intellectual humility has four core dimensions: Open-mindedness (versus Arrogance), Intellectual Modesty (versus Vanity), Corrigibility (versus Fragility), and Engagement (versus Boredom). These dimensions display adequate self-informant agreement, and adequate convergent, divergent, and discriminant validity. In particular, Open-mindedness adds predictive power beyond the Big Six for an objective behavioral measure of intellectual humility, and Intellectual Modesty is uniquely related to Narcissism. We find that a similar factor structure emerges in Germanophone participants, giving initial evidence for the model’s cross-cultural generalizability

Virtue and Vice Attributions in the Business Context: An Experimental Investigation

Recent findings in experimental philosophy have revealed that people attribute intentionality, belief, desire, knowledge, and blame asymmetrically to side- effects depending on whether the agent who produces the side-effect violates or adheres to a norm. Although the original (and still common) test for this effect involved a chairman helping or harming the environment, hardly any of these findings have been applied to business ethics. We review what little exploration of the implications for business ethics has been done. Then, we present new experimental results that expand the attribution asymmetry to virtue and vice. We also examine whether it matters to people that an effect was produced as a primary or side- effect, as well as how consumer habits might be affected by this phenomenon. These results lead to the conclusion that it appears to be in a businessperson’s self-interest to be virtuous

Ca2+-induced fusion of Golgi-derived secretory vesicles isolated from rat liver

During the transport of plasma proteins from the cytoplasma of hepatocytes to the extracellular fluid srnall vesicles may act as shuttles between the Golgi complex and the plasma membrane. This type of intracellular transfer is weil established for various secretory cells and may be adopted also for the hepatocyte. Recent investigations have shown that secretory vesicles fuse with each other during secretion in mast cells [4] exocrine [5,6] and endocrine pancreatic tissue [7]. The intervesicular fusion provides a tool for studies on membrane fusion, since Golgi-derived vesicles can be isolated from the hepatocyte and their interaction with various agents, suggested to trigger membrane fusion, can be monitored by freeze-cleaving

The limits of the rotating wave approximation in the electromagnetic field propagation in a cavity

We consider three two-level atoms inside a one-dimensional cavity, interacting with the electromagnetic field in the rotating wave approximation (RWA), commonly used in the atom-radiation interaction. One of the three atoms is initially excited, and the other two are in their ground state. We numerically calculate the propagation of the field spontaneously emitted by the excited atom and scattered by the second atom, as well as the excitation probability of the second and third atom. The results obtained are analyzed from the point of view of relativistic causality in the atom-field interaction. We show that, when the RWA is used, relativistic causality is obtained only if the integrations over the field frequencies are extended to $-\infty$; on the contrary, noncausal tails remain even if the number of field modes is increased. This clearly shows the limit of the RWA in dealing with subtle problems such as relativistic causality in the atom-field interaction.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Oral purified bacterial extracts in acute respiratory tract infections in childhood: a systematic quantitative review

Background: Recurrent acute respiratory tract infections (ARTI) are a common problem in childhood. Some evidence suggests a benefit regarding the prevention of ARTI in children treated with the immunomodulator OM-85 BV (Bronchovaxom). Methods: We summarised the evidence on the effectiveness of the immunomodulator OM-85 BV in the prevention of ARTI in children. We searched randomised comparisons of oral purified bacterial extracts against inactive controls in children with respiratory tract diseases in nine electronic databases and reference lists of included studies. We extracted salient features of each study, calculated relative risks (RR) or weighted mean differences (WMD) and performed meta-analyses using random-effects models. Results: Thirteen studies (2,721 patients) of low to moderate quality tested OM-85 BV. Patients and outcomes differed substantially, which impeded pooling results of more than two trials. Two studies (240 patients) reporting on the number of patients with less than three infections over 6 month of follow-up in children not in day care showed a trend for benefit RR 0.82 (95% CI, 0.65-1.02). One out of two studies examining the number of children not in day care without infections over 4-6 month reported a significant RR of 0.42 (95% CI, 0.21-0.82) whereas the smaller, second study did not [RR 0.92 (95% CI, 0.58-1.46)]. Two studies reporting the number of antibiotic courses indicated a benefit for the intervention arm [WMD 2.0 (95% CI, 1.7-2.3)]. Two out of the three studies showed a reduction of length of episodes of 4-6 days whereas a third study showed no difference between the two groups. Conclusion: Evidence in favour of OM-85 BV in the prevention of ARTI in children is weak. There is a trend for fewer and shorter infections and a reduction of antibiotic us

Assessment of Chronic Illness Care with the German version of the ACIC in different primary care settings in Switzerland

BACKGROUND: In Switzerland the extent to which patients with chronic illnesses receive care congruent with the Chronic Care Model (CCM) is unknown. METHODS: According to guidelines we translated the Assessment of Chronic Illness Care (ACIC) into German (G-ACIC). We tested the instrument in different primary care settings and compared subscales with the original testing. RESULTS: Difficulties encountered during the translation process consisted in the difference of health care settings in Switzerland and USA. However initial testing showed the G-ACIC to be a suitable instrument. The average ACIC subscale scores in Swiss managed care (MC)-, group (GP)- and single handed practices (SP) were higher for MC practices than for group- and single handed practices: Organization of the healthcare delivery system: MC mean (m) = 6.80 (SD 1.55), GP m = 5.42 (SD 0.99), SP m = 4.60 (SD 2.07); community linkages: MC m = 4.19 (SD 1.47), GP m = 4.83 (SD 1.81), SP m = 3.10 (SD 2.12); self-management support: MC m = 4.96 (SD 1.13), GP m = 4.73 (SD 1.40), SP m = 4.43 (SD 1.34); decision support: MC m = 4.75 (SD 1.06); GP m = 4.20 (SD 0.87), SP m = 3.25 (SD 1.59); delivery system design: MC m = 5.98 (SD 1.61), GP m = 5.05 (SD 2.05), SP m = 3.86 (SD 1.51) and clinical information systems: MC m = 4.34 (SD = 2.49), GP m = 2.06 (SD 1.35), SP m = 3.20 (SD 1.57). CONCLUSIONS: The G-ACIC is applicable and useful for comparing different health care settings in German speaking countries. Managed care organizations seem to implement the different components of the CCM in a greater extend than group and single handed practices. However, much room exists for further improvement