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Scholars, especially those in the West, often attribute the construction of alternative spirituality to a culture of individualism. Here, we explore how non-religious scientists construct spirituality in different national contexts, focusing on academic physicists and biologists. Two research questions guide our analyses: How do scientists construct an alternative spirituality and to what extent are their constructions conditioned by the contexts in which they live and work? We rely on surveys of 6,470 scientists in four national/regional contexts and on interviews with 65 self-identified spiritual but not-religious scientists. Our findings reveal that alternative spirituality is more prevalent among scientists in Taiwan and France than in the UK and the US. Second, we find that the construction of spirituality redefines the cultural meanings bundled with religion in these respective contexts. Our research helps to explain how the construction of spirituality is changing the face of religion in different societal contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the logic of civilian targeting in the Turkish-Kurdish civil war. It analyzes two instances of PKK violence: against pro-state Village Guards' families in the 1980s and school-teachers in the 1990s. Against original data, we evaluate the extent to which the dominant conceptual tools available in civil war literature help us make sense of these instances and argue that there is a need to go beyond the established selective/indiscriminate distinction if we want to capture the logic of PKK's targeting. Consequently, we build on and specify further recent conceptual developments in the field and show that both cases are better understood as instances of collective targeting. We further show, however, that the collective nature of each differs in relevant ways: while the killing of the families of Village Guards constitutes an instance of collective targeting in the sense of "extended group association," in the case of school teachers there are indications of a secondary spatially differentiated selection criteria accompanying the collective logic. Our analysis emphasizes the field's need for stronger conceptual foundations underpinning our theories of violence against civilians, as well as the limitations of understandings rooted in an "ontological individualism" when applied without careful consideration to non-Western societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This activity elucidates a critical and pragmatic means by which students and instructors can examine the practice of labor exploitation by neoliberal corporations. By employing critical communication pedagogy (CCP), instructors and students can learn about the ways that corporations actively steal wages from their employees and communicatively justify this theft through the ethic of individualism. In so doing, corporations break the social contract and inculcate employees to believe not in collectivism and social responsibility, but instead only in the logic of the free market. Thus, employees internalize the idea that earning at a level below what is desired is the fault of the individual and not the fault of the corporation. Employees learn to absolve corporations of any wrongdoing. Students and instructors will challenge this ideology and practice by employing the tenets of CCP to recognize and respond to labor exploitation. Courses: Business and Professional Communication, Professional Speaking, Instructional Communication, Critical Studies/Critical Theory in Communication Objectives: In this two-day activity, first, students will learn about critical communication pedagogy (CCP) and how they can apply it to respond to hegemony. Second, students will learn about the concept of labor exploitation that they may face in their future careers. Third, students will apply CCP to analyze and respond to the ways in which corporations justify labor exploitation through their communicative practices, equipping students to push back against labor exploitation in their future careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights intersections among queerness and disability. Topics include the historical and contemporary realities of power relations such as racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and classism and the logic of postidentity; author's criticism for socially accepted ideas and normative sets of social relations; and case of gay male athletes and the logic of American individualism and freedom.

In our modern world, cities are growing and consequently, the complexities of the buildings are increasing day by day. The main problem in our cities is the lack of communication between the citizens and therefore rising "individualism". Especially foreigners coming from small regions, speaking different languages, cannot easily adapt to the social life of the city and they cannot develop their life skills for urban areas. It is not easy for foreign people to walk around in the city streets and building complexes. They need effective guidance. There is a need for effective and useful building information systems. The main topic of this paper is the new subject "Environmental Graphic Design". By using graphic design elements; typography, pictograms, photographs, and illustrations the storytelling places can be designed. In this paper, firstly environmental graphic design will be described by searching the awarded projects from all over the world and then the practices in Cyprus will be analyzed by comparing their past and present. Lastly the case study with the students of Architecture Faculty of one private university in Cyprus will be reported and in this manner, the importance of graphic design in architectural environments will be emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses trend of rising economic inequality in the United States with major economic, social, and cultural implications. Topics include rise in the neoliberal ideology that advances individualism, austerity policies and deregulation; realization of difficulty in making the American dream possible by neoliberalism; and discussion of necessity of social scripts for cultural membership due to worsened economic inequality by neoliberalism.

Subject to the ruthless accountancy of the neoliberal university, the humanities are under increasing pressure to make a case for why they count. This article focuses on how the field of literary criticism can advance a form of reading that destabilises neoliberalism's bedrock: the autonomous subject. This form of reading requires closely scrutinising modes of literary interpretation that implicitly privilege the neoliberal account of ethics, which reduces responsibility to a matter of autonomous individuals calculating their culpability. In turn, this form of reading carefully attends to texts that invoke a model of Levinasian ethical responsibility which is constituted through our relations with others. Using W.G. Sebald's work The Emigrants as a case study, I show how encounters with the deaths of others can invoke the relational indebtedness that is both inherent to the subject's constitution and the basis of its responsibility for others. Through affirming a model of ethics founded on relationality and offering a mode of reading that can attend to such an ethics, literary criticism provides us with the opportunity to engage with our world anew. In the place of autonomous subjects, we discover creatures of relationality who emerge as indebted to, attuned to, and responsible for the living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains perceived loneliness among people in Europe by accounting for cultural factors as well as social isolation. Culturally, it measures the impact of both personal and societal individualism-collectivism on loneliness. It accounts for social isolation by looking at the separate effects of living alone, emotional isolation, and relational isolation. Using a 2014 European Social Survey sample comprising 36,760 individuals in 21 countries, the study predicts loneliness using multilevel logistic regression modeling using both maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimation procedures. Results indicate that societal individualism may strongly reduce loneliness, even after taking into account that social isolation partially mediates this relationship. Further, the effects of living alone and relational isolation depend upon whether one is personally an individualist or collectivist. Living alone and relational isolation greatly increase loneliness, and such negative effects are somewhat reduced for individualists. However, individualists are not protected from the negative impacts of emotional isolation at all, and the above moderation effects do not hold for the most severe forms of loneliness. Based on this analysis, the best case for reduced loneliness for individualists and collectivists alike is that they maintain a strong degree of multiple forms of social integration and live in an individualist society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile Individualism: The Subjectivity of EU Citizenship The central aim of this article is to analyse the manner in which the legal structure of EU citizenship subjectifies Union citizens. I begin by explicating Alexander Somek's account of individualism as a concept which captures EU citizenship and propose to update his analysis by coining the notion of mobile individualism. By looking at a range of CJEU's case law on EU citizenship through the lens of the purely internal rule and the transnational character of EU citizenship, I suggest that movement sits at the core of EU citizenship. In order to adequately capture this unique structure of citizenship, we need a concept of individualism which takes movement rather than depoliticisation as its central object of analysis. I propose that the notion of mobile individualism can best capture the subjectivity of a model EU citizen, a citizen who is a-political due to being mobile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rise of individualism and post-materialist values comes the fall in the importance of marriage. However, it is still not clear how these two processes affect each other in terms of individuals’ wellbeing and happiness. Thus, the aim of this paper is to gain a better understanding of how happiness may be moderated by post-materialist values among different groups of marital status: never married, divorced/separated, widowed, married, and cohabiting individuals. Through executing a multilevel analysis on data from the European Social Survey between 2002 and 2014, this paper demonstrates a clear relationship between post-materialist values and levels of happiness. Moreover, it is shown that holding post-materialist views provides greater levels of happiness for singles than it does for cohabiters and married individuals, raising questions about the relationship between marriage and happiness in a post-materialist era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experimental investigation was made of the effect of Riesman's construct of social character on consumers' use and preference for social compared with objective information in evaluating products displayed in advertisements. The results suggest that other-directed individuals tend to be more persuasible by advertising, have a preference for additional social information about the product, but do not have the differential preference for advertising appeals suggested by previous research. Attempts to reconcile these findings lead to a model proposing that an individual's social character has little to do with response to advertising, but does exert a significant effect on information preference between ad exposure and possible purchase of a product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Phainomena is the property of Phenomenological Society of Ljubljana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of this study is to explore the mechanism behind how the spread of individualism, the prevalence of love matches, and the increase in search costs affect late marriages in Japan. To this end, I construct a search-theoretic model, which is a combination of the Markov decision process and the evolution of preferences. I present three results. 1) The spread of individualism is driven by those who moderately consider the social status of their family. 2) The spread of individualism and the prevalence of love matches delay the average marriage timing, but its effect is limited. 3) The diversity of individualism prevents people from switching from love matches to arranged marriages, while the search costs are rising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Conjuntura Internacional is the property of Conjuntura Internacional and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Designated an early pragmatist, Jane Addams has significantly inspired contemporary pragmatist research. However, Addams also consistently articulated ideas harking to primordial Christianity and sought inspiration in the social gospel of her time. This article explores how Addams’ writing resonated with key tenets of social gospel theology, which imbued her texts with an overarching vision of humanity’s progressive history. It is suggested that Addams’ vision of a major transition in industrial society, one involving a “Christian renaissance” and individuals’ transformation into “socialized selves”, constitutes a political eschatology. Of particular interest is how Addams conceived the relationship between the individual and society, inventing the term “new social ethics” to reconcile the difficult balance between individual autonomy and social solidarity. The article suggests some ways in which Addams’ writings relate to contemporary issues such as individualism, neo-conservatism, and militarism. Her social thought constitutes a thus far under-examined source of sociological critique in regard to such issues of public concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the meaning of contrarians in the U.S. which includes groups of iconoclasts, radical environmental groups and libertarian seasteaders. Topics include reactions of outsiders within the country related to President Donald Trump's immigration policy, individualism in the country, and standing against the crowd by contrarians.

Copyright of Larq Journal for Philosophy, Linguistics & Social Sciences is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

How did Rational Choice Theory (RCT), traditionally rejected by sociologists for its economic individualism, rise rapidly in the 1980s and the 1990s to theoretical and institutional prominence within sociology? Drawing on Frickel and Gross’ (American Sociological Association, 70(2):204–232 2005) framework for the emergence of scientific/intellectual movements (SIMs), we argue that RCT rose to prominence in sociology in conjunction with: 1) high status actors’ criticism of the previously dominant paradigm, structural functionalism; 2) favorable structural conditions that provided entrepreneurial access to key resources; 3) proliferation through micromobilization contexts; and 4) the ability of those espousing RCT for sociology to draw on dominant cultural motifs outside of academia. The rise of RCT in American sociology provides a case study for how scientific/intellectual movements can find an audience in academic contexts that are predisposed to oppose them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I first discuss where the article “Doing Things the ‘Right’ Way” that was published in this journal in 2005 fits into my corpus of work. In many ways, it represents a coming together of the various influences that have continued to form me over the nearly five decades I have been engaged in critically examining the relationship between educational theories, policies and practices, and differential power. Like many others, my work has been guided by two major goals: understanding and interrupting dominance. This has required that we become more nuanced in our critical analyses of the dynamics of power and the agents who wield it and that we not be satisfied with simplistic slogans that may be effective for rallying opposition but are much less effective at determining tactics and spaces of possibility. Thus, my aim is not only to both grasp and counter dominant policies and practices, but also to engage in fraternal criticism of what I take to be overly simplistic work by some parts of the Left as well. Given the increasing power of neoliberal, neoconservative, authoritarian populist and new managerial policies in education and the larger society, I next critically examine how and why the Right is ascendant. Finally, I detail a range of crucial tasks in which the critical scholar/activist in education should engage if we are to respond to these conditions in politically and ethically robust ways. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

China has experienced rapid social and economic transformation since the early 1990s. While state control has attempted to maintain a collectivist spirit that emphasizes communal goals and obligations over unrestricted capitalism, rapid economic growth has weakened socialist ideals and individualism has thrived. The present paper draws attention to potential associations between the rise of capitalism, individualism in mainland China, the one-child policy and changes in domestic violence laws with the increased perpetration of cold violence by some men towards their female partners. Cold violence refers to an emotional form of domestic violence characterized by a complete withdrawal of all verbal and physical communication by one member of an intimate relationship towards the other. Identified from discussion with key informants and preliminary analysis of English and Chinese literature, the phenomenon of cold violence is suggested to be increasingly used by urban living, educated, wealthy men. While the competing interests of traditional patriarchy and policy supporting women's gender equity is discussed, it is proposed that post-socialist transformations in urban China that are characterized by rapid socio-economic change and individualism may have provided fertile ground for the rise of cold violence by some men towards their female partners. Keywords: China, cold violence, violence against women, economic change, individualism, Introduction Western conceptualizations of individualism are represented by freedom, democracy and equality. When translating the notion of 'individualism' into Chinese understanding, it is best conceived as 'me-first-ism' and it implies [...]

This article draws on surveys ( N = 406) and interviews ( n = 48) of graduates of a middle school in Dalian City, Liaoning Province, China, who were part of the first generation of children born under the one-child policy that began along with China's economic reforms in 1979 and were between ages 25 and 30 when they were interviewed in 2011-14. We compared how they said they had been raised by their parents with how they hope to raise their own children. We found that, while their parents raised them with the disciplined study habits and high expectations children needed to become successful in the newly competitive education system of the 1990s, our interviewees had developed a new understanding of what it would take for children to become successful, upwardly mobile Chinese citizens in the 2010s, and emphasized freedom and the development and pursuit of individual interests, pointing towards a hybrid form of 'soft' and 'hard' individualism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cracker scene was a home computer subculture of the 1980s and early 1990s rooted in Western Europe and the United States. Its protagonists removed the copy protection mechanisms from commercial software and spread the modified copies through their own communication channels. Instead of looking at this subculture through the lens of subversive digital activism, the article analyses entrepreneurial aspects and the mimetic relation to the formal software economy. It examines (1) the personal entanglements and ties of the scene with the entertainment software industry and (2) its subcultural discourses and practices, which had competition, efficiency and monopolisation at their centre. From this perspective the cracker scene emerges as a sounding board of the new discourses about economy, society, and the individual that started in the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research considered what leads perceivers to evaluate someone as a good or poor judge of people. In general, we found a substantial role for agreement: perceivers evaluated another person as a good judge when he or she agreed with their perception of someone's characteristics. Importantly, the effect of agreement depended on who this “someone” was. We found that perceivers' evaluation of another individual as a good judge was more heavily shaped by agreement about their own characteristics than by agreement about a third-party target's characteristics. This effect emerged across a range of samples and research designs, including multi-rater evaluations among developing business professionals, experimentally controlled settings, and a survey in which US adults reported on existing relationships. Moderation analyses suggested that the effect of agreement was particularly strong in situations where the agreement could more effectively satisfy perceivers' motives to (a) feel relational connectedness and (b) verify the accuracy of their perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enemyship is an important but understudied interpersonal phenomenon. Prior research on this topic has focused on enemyship's cognitive, control-maintenance function following a threat. The present studies advance theory and research by showing the role of emotion, particularly anger, in this process. Using appraisal theory as a framework, we draw on recent research into approach and avoidance motivational dynamics during threat. We propose an interaction between anxiety-inducing threat and enemy-directed anger on perceptions of control and certainty, and motivation. More specifically, we expect that when an anxiety-inducing threat is present, perceptions of control and certainty will be significantly higher when enemy-directed anger is also present than when it is not. Additionally, we sought to demonstrate the consequences of these processes for motivation. Perhaps counterintuitively, we propose that individuals who experience anger at an enemy following an anxiety-inducing control threat will experience a boost in motivation, an effect mediated by perceptions of control and certainty. We find support for our moderated mediation model across three studies with undergraduate and working adults (Total N = 673). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rivalry is prevalent across many competitive environments and differs in important ways from non-rival competition. Here, we draw upon research on relational schemas and automatic goals to explore whether mere exposure to or recall of a rival can be sufficient to increase individuals' Machiavellianism and unethical behavior, even in contexts where their rivals are not present. Across four experiments, we found that activation of the rivalry relational schema led to increased Machiavellianism (Experiments 1 and 2), false inflation of performance (Experiment 3), and deception of an online counterpart for self-gain (Experiment 4). In Experiment 4 we also observed an interaction between rivalry and moral identity such that when the rivalry relational schema was activated, moral identity no longer safeguarded against unethical behavior. This finding suggests that a rivalry mindset crowds out moral identity as a guide to behavior. Overall, the current research depicts rivalry as an important relationship that activates a unique mindset and has a more widespread influence on behavior than prior research has suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accompanying the fast development of China’s economy in the last three decades is the worsening of its spiritual and ethical conditions. This article aims to analyze and discuss the contexts in which such spiritual and ethical predicaments emerged so as to offer historical and conceptual backgrounds that are necessary for understanding this contemporary reality in China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A literary criticism of the book "Only in Australia: The History, Politics and Economics of Australian Exceptionalism," by William Coleman, is presented. Topics mentioned include the attitudes of Australians such as cheerful and quick-witted, the rationalism in the country, and the social aspects of individualism in the country.

Introduction Several studies suggest that Asian countries are particularly afflicted by problematic Internet use ( PIU). Methods The present study investigates whether individual differences in the acceptance of power distance can be linked to overuse of the Internet in Germany and in China. Power distance has been discussed as an essential dimension on which Asian and Western societies differ. In the present study, we investigate two large non-clinical samples from Germany (n = 297) and China (n = 556) to address this question. Results Both in Germany and in China, high acceptance of power distance was positively associated with PIU. These effects were more pronounced in China compared with Germany. Moreover, the observed effects were stronger in males compared with females. Discussion Clearly, these findings are just a starting point and need to be replicated in the future. Clinical populations and a further important difference variable - collectivism - also merit consideration in future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Never was the future in Germany so little foreseeable, nor the chaos so ubiquitous as in the spring of 1945.' So observes the noted German historian Eieinrich August Winkler. By [...]

The Magdalenian stage of the Upper Palaeolithic is renowned for its 'art', both in the form of portable objects and of motifs and depictions on cave walls. Many of these portray animals, with human imagery playing a relatively minor role. Systematic analysis of human images from three separate zones of south-western France demonstrates that different styles of image were chosen by different communities. The evocative power of the human form, and the conceptual importance of the human image as a depiction of the self, highlights the significance of these Magdalenian representations. Particular attention is drawn to the realistic styles of portrayal employed in some parts of the region. This, it is argued, betokens the arrival of the individual, and the regional styles illustrate the presence of separate Magdalenian territories, occupied by communities that were in contact with one another but that chose different approaches to the human form as expressions of group identity. Keywords: France, Upper Palaeolithic, Magdalenian, Palaeolithic art, human depiction, society, identity, territory, human individualism, prehistoric symbolism, Introduction The depiction of human figures in Palaeolithic art has been relatively neglected as a subject of analysis. It is less common than the depiction of animals, and must reflect [...]

The article focuses of the insights of philosopher Josiah Royce on the dysfunctional communities and lost individual issues. Topics mentioned include the question on the lost sense of community of America, the suggestion on how to rebuild the community and relationships, and the fault of economic system and media.

Trends in age at marriage have been well documented, but less is known about age at first union among recent cohorts of Canadians. Using the 2011 GSS, I document changes in the type and timing of first union formation among Canadians born over five decades, and examine how regional differences in partnering behaviours have changed over time. The trend away from entering marriage directly has continued among Canadians born in the 1970s, but Québec-Canada differences have narrowed. The trend towards later marriage has continued, but age at first union has not changed across the five cohorts under study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The aim of the research is to analyse pleasant (subjective well-being - SWB) and meaningful life (Citizenship dimensions) in the context of Horizontal and Vertical Individualism (HI, VI) or Collectivism (HC, VC) values (individual beliefs) among adolescents living in the culture "in between individualism and collectivism". PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE: Second-year high (111) and secondary (98) school students filled in the Horizontal and Vertical Individualism and Collectivism Questionnaire, the Citizenship Behaviour Questionnaire, and SWB (Subjective Happiness Scale, Satisfaction with the Life Scale, Mood Questionnaire, Ladder of Need Scales). Participants were recruited in schools. RESULTS: Subjective well-being positively correlated with all Citizenship dimensions except Political Activity. All values predicted SWB, but higher VI predicted lower SWB and was not linked to Citizenship. Citizenship dimensions oriented to general good were predicted by Collectivism values, and those including personal benefits were predicted by HI and Collectivism values. Subjective well-being mediated relations between HC and Social Activity, and between HC, HI and Personal Activity. VC moderated relations between SWB and Passive as well as Semi-active Citizenship. CONCLUSIONS: Among young Poles, pleasant life is linked with meaningful life. Individualism and Collectivism values are relatively independent, and their relations with SWB and Citizenship are complex. Higher Horizontal values facilitate the achievement of both pleasant and meaningful life, but higher VC can hinder the coherence between them. High SWB, engagement in Citizenship and links between them are required for attaining "authentic happiness" and living a truly full life; thus it is important to study variables that may influence them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How the cultural values of individualism and collectivism influence depression in Asian heritage college students was investigated using questionnaire methodology. Results replicated the existing finding of greater report of high parental control and depressive symptoms among Asian American students compared to European American. Higher reports of depressive symptoms were linked to failures of personal achievement in both groups, but family control and vertical collectivism were associated with depressive symptoms only for Asian Americans (especially males). Values related to vertical collectivism were endorsed by Asian Americans twice as frequently as they were by European Americans. Because vertical collectivism emphasizes duty and subordinating of one's own goals to those of authority figures, it may be a risk factor for depression for Asian Americans, as they often must integrate family expectations of goal subordination while living in a society which values individual expression and following one's own path. Questionnaires additionally included exploratory questions to assess students' own views about what experiences can cause depression. Both groups cited failures of personal achievement as likely causes of depression, while only Asian Americans cited family control as likely to cause depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the publication of prognostications about group research and psychotherapy in Western cultures. Information about the adaptation of individualism focusing on the social changes and business of multinational corporations worldwide and use of Internet to access formation, is given. Also cited are the advances in theory and research concerning internal, psychological determinants of behavior such as personality traits, genetic factors, and neurological processes.

This study explores how the global trend toward networked individualism has been amplified in the Korean context by investigating changes in core discussion networks over the last 15 years. Secondary data from two national surveys are compared in regard to network structure and demographic variation. Koreans were more socially connected in 2011 than in 1996: the proportion of socially isolated people has decreased from 12.0% to 3.5%; and the mean size of core networks has increased from 2.7 to 3.1. This change is evident among the younger generations. The expansion of networks is attributed to the increased number of non-kin alters rather than kin ones, such as family members and relatives. Network density has increased despite the decreased proportion of kin. The effects of gender, age, and education on network attributes are subtle, inconsistent, or diminished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]