Understanding intentional actions from observers' viewpoints: A social neuroscience perspective.

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Isoda, Masaki

2016-11-01

When we see others, we also try to 'see' their unobservable states of minds, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. We carefully monitor others' actions, as we assume that those actions are outward manifestations of their internal states. Actors and observers can have divergent views on the cause of the same actions. Critically, it is often the observers' view that affects important decisions in social life, from deciding the optimal level of cooperation to judging moral responsibility and court's decisions. Thus, the judgment about intentionality and agency in others' actions determines the way in which the observer deals with the actor. The primate brain has two separate neural systems that function in understanding others' actions and intentions. The mirror system is activated by others' visible actions and predicts their physical consequences in goal terms, whereas the mentalizing system is primarily involved in the prediction of others' intentions and upcoming actions regardless of whether others' actions are directly observable or not. The functional roles of the two systems have sometimes been described as mutually independent or even oppositional. I propose a hypothesis that the two systems may collaborate closely for judging the sense of other-agency. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd and Japan Neuroscience Society. All rights reserved.

Understanding human papillomavirus vaccination intentions: comparative utility of the theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behavior in vaccine target age women and men.

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Fisher, William A; Kohut, Taylor; Salisbury, Claire M A; Salvadori, Marina I

2013-10-01

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is an exceedingly prevalent sexually transmitted infection with serious medical, sexual, and relationship consequences. HPV vaccine protection is available but vaccine uptake is very inconsistent. This research applies two major theories of health behavior uptake, the Theory of Reasoned Action and the Theory of Planned Behavior, in an effort to understand intentions to receive HPV vaccine among vaccine target age women and men. The Theory of Reasoned Action asserts that attitudes toward HPV vaccination and perceptions of social support for HPV vaccination are the determinants of intentions to be vaccinated, whereas the Theory of Planned Behavior holds that attitudes toward vaccination, perceptions of social support for vaccination, and perceived ability to get vaccinated are the determinants of intentions to be vaccinated. Canadian university men (N=118) and women (N=146) in the HPV vaccine target age range took part in this correlational study online. Participants completed standard measures of attitudes toward HPV vaccination, perceptions of social support for vaccination, perceived ability to get vaccinated, beliefs about vaccination, and intentions to be vaccinated in the coming semester. Findings confirmed the propositions of the Theory of Reasoned Action and indicated that attitudes toward undergoing HPV vaccination and perceptions of social support for undergoing HPV vaccination contributed uniquely to the prediction of women's (R2=0.53) and men's (R2=0.44) intentions to be vaccinated in the coming semester. Clinical and public health education should focus on strengthening attitudes and perceptions of social support for HPV vaccination, and on the basic beliefs that appear to underlie attitudes and perceptions of social support for HPV vaccination, in efforts to promote HPV vaccine uptake. © 2013 International Society for Sexual Medicine.

Children's Understanding of Communicative Intentions in the Middle of the Second Year of Life

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Aureli, Tiziana; Perucchini, Paola; Genco, Maria

2009-01-01

Two tasks were administered to 40 children aged from 16 to 20 months (mean age = 18;1), to evaluate children's understanding of declarative and informative intention [Behne, T., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2005). One-year-olds comprehend the communicative intentions behind gestures in a hiding game. "Developmental Science", 8, 492-499;…

Relationship between perceived organizational politics, organizational trust, human resource management practices and turnover intention among Nigerian nurses

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Ramatu Abdulkareem Abubakar

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Prior research has indicated that employee turnover is detrimental to both individuals and organisations. Because a turnover intention in the workplace is detrimental, several factors have been suggested to better understand the reasons why employees may decide to leave their organisations. Some of the organizational-related factors that have been considered by previous research include perceived organizational justice, job satisfaction, perceived psychological contract breach, and perceived organizational support, among others. Despite these empirical studies, literatures indicate that less attention has been paid to the influence of perceived organisational politics, organizational trust, and perceived human resource practices management (HRM practices on employee turnover. Hence, the present study fills in the gap by examining the relationship between perceived organisational politics, organizational trust, perceived human resource management practices and employee turnover among Registered Nurses in Nigerian public hospitals using multiple regression analysis technique. One hundred and seventy five Registered Nurses participated in the study. Result indicated that perceived organisational politics was significantly and positively related to turnover intentions. The result also showed that both organizational trust and perceived human resource practices were significantly and negatively related to turnover intentions. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Cyborg intentionality : rethinking the phenomenology of human- technology relations

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Verbeek, Peter P.C.C.

2008-01-01

This article investigates the types of intentionality involved in human-technology relations. It aims to augment Don Ihde's analysis of the relations between human beings and technological artifacts, by analyzing a number of concrete examples at the limits of Ihde's analysis. The article

Action understanding as inverse planning.

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Baker, Chris L; Saxe, Rebecca; Tenenbaum, Joshua B

2009-12-01

Humans are adept at inferring the mental states underlying other agents' actions, such as goals, beliefs, desires, emotions and other thoughts. We propose a computational framework based on Bayesian inverse planning for modeling human action understanding. The framework represents an intuitive theory of intentional agents' behavior based on the principle of rationality: the expectation that agents will plan approximately rationally to achieve their goals, given their beliefs about the world. The mental states that caused an agent's behavior are inferred by inverting this model of rational planning using Bayesian inference, integrating the likelihood of the observed actions with the prior over mental states. This approach formalizes in precise probabilistic terms the essence of previous qualitative approaches to action understanding based on an "intentional stance" [Dennett, D. C. (1987). The intentional stance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press] or a "teleological stance" [Gergely, G., Nádasdy, Z., Csibra, G., & Biró, S. (1995). Taking the intentional stance at 12 months of age. Cognition, 56, 165-193]. In three psychophysical experiments using animated stimuli of agents moving in simple mazes, we assess how well different inverse planning models based on different goal priors can predict human goal inferences. The results provide quantitative evidence for an approximately rational inference mechanism in human goal inference within our simplified stimulus paradigm, and for the flexible nature of goal representations that human observers can adopt. We discuss the implications of our experimental results for human action understanding in real-world contexts, and suggest how our framework might be extended to capture other kinds of mental state inferences, such as inferences about beliefs, or inferring whether an entity is an intentional agent.

Impairment of actions chains in autism and its possible role in intention understanding

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Cattaneo, Luigi; Fabbri-Destro, Maddalena; Boria, Sonia; Pieraccini, Cinzia; Monti, Annalisa; Cossu, Giuseppe; Rizzolatti, Giacomo

2007-01-01

Experiments in monkeys demonstrated that many parietal and premotor neurons coding a specific motor act (e.g., grasping) show a markedly different activation when this act is part of actions that have different goals (e.g., grasping for eating vs. grasping for placing). Many of these “action-constrained” neurons have mirror properties firing selectively to the observation of the initial motor act of the actions to which they belong motorically. By activating a specific action chain from its very outset, this mechanism allows the observers to have an internal copy of the whole action before its execution, thus enabling them to understand directly the agent's intention. Using electromyographic recordings, we show that a similar chained organization exists in typically developing children, whereas it is impaired in children with autism. We propose that, as a consequence of this functional impairment, high-functioning autistic children may understand the intentions of others cognitively but lack the mechanism for understanding them experientially. PMID:17965234

Impairment of actions chains in autism and its possible role in intention understanding.

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Cattaneo, Luigi; Fabbri-Destro, Maddalena; Boria, Sonia; Pieraccini, Cinzia; Monti, Annalisa; Cossu, Giuseppe; Rizzolatti, Giacomo

2007-11-06

Experiments in monkeys demonstrated that many parietal and premotor neurons coding a specific motor act (e.g., grasping) show a markedly different activation when this act is part of actions that have different goals (e.g., grasping for eating vs. grasping for placing). Many of these "action-constrained" neurons have mirror properties firing selectively to the observation of the initial motor act of the actions to which they belong motorically. By activating a specific action chain from its very outset, this mechanism allows the observers to have an internal copy of the whole action before its execution, thus enabling them to understand directly the agent's intention. Using electromyographic recordings, we show that a similar chained organization exists in typically developing children, whereas it is impaired in children with autism. We propose that, as a consequence of this functional impairment, high-functioning autistic children may understand the intentions of others cognitively but lack the mechanism for understanding them experientially.

Understanding women's mammography intentions: a theory-based investigation.

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Naito, Mikako; O'Callaghan, Frances V; Morrissey, Shirley

2009-01-01

The present study compared the utility of two models (the Theory of Planned Behavior and Protection Motivation Theory) in identifying factors associated with intentions to undertake screening mammography, before and after an intervention. The comparison was made between the unique components of the two models. The effect of including implementation intentions was also investigated. Two hundred and fifty-one women aged 37 to 69 years completed questionnaires at baseline and following the delivery of a standard (control) or a protection motivation theory-based informational intervention. Hierarchical multiple regressions indicated that theory of planned behavior variables were associated with mammography intentions. Results also showed that inclusion of implementation intention in the model significantly increased the association with mammography intentions. The findings suggest that future interventions aiming to increase screening mammography participation should focus on the theory of planned behavior variables and that implementation intention should also be targeted.

A Cross-Cultural Approach to Understanding Entrepreneurial Intention

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Moriano, Juan A.; Gorgievski, Marjan; Laguna, Mariola; Stephan, Ute; Zarafshani, Kiumars

2012-01-01

The current research aims to shed light on the role of culture in the formation of career intentions. It draws on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB; Ajzen), which has been widely employed to predict intentions, including entrepreneurial career intentions, but past research has almost exclusively been conducted in "Western" countries.…

Daniel Dennett: intentionality system. An interpretation of intentional strategy

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Viorel ROTILĂ

2015-07-01

Full Text Available In this article, we show some of the meanings in which Daniel Dennett uses the term intentionality, in an attempt to establish to it the quality of key concept for understanding the mind, namely consciousness. By analyzing the American thinker’s ideas, we consider that in all of them an intentionality system can be identified, which includes the approaches and different names that he dedicates to this concept. Qualitative differences in the discourse about intentionality can open the way of the approach of intentionality from an evolutionary perspective, indicating the changes over time. The intentionality system is a proposal for understanding Dennett’s thinking in a coherent paradigm.

Shape understanding system machine understanding and human understanding

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Les, Zbigniew

2015-01-01

This is the third book presenting selected results of research on the further development of the shape understanding system (SUS) carried out by authors in the newly founded Queen Jadwiga Research Institute of Understanding. In this book the new term Machine Understanding is introduced referring to a new area of research aiming to investigate the possibility of building machines with the ability to understand. It is presented that SUS needs to some extent mimic human understanding and for this reason machines are evaluated according to the rules applied for the evaluation of human understanding. The book shows how to formulate problems and how it can be tested if the machine is able to solve these problems.    

Pedagogical Cues to an Artist's Intention in Young Children's Understanding of Drawings

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Salsa, Analía M.; Vivaldi, Romina A.

2016-01-01

Three studies investigated the effects of pedagogical cues to an artist's referential intention on 2- and 2.5-year-old children's understanding of drawings in a matching task without verbal labels support. Results showed that pedagogical cues, the combination of the artist's eye gaze while she was creating the drawings (nonlinguistic cues), and…

Understanding academic clinicians' intent to treat pediatric obesity.

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Frankfurter, Claudia; Cunningham, Charles; Morrison, Katherine M; Rimas, Heather; Bailey, Karen

2017-02-08

To examine the extent to which the theory of planned behavior (TPB) predicts academic clinicians' intent to treat pediatric obesity. A multi-disciplinary panel iteratively devised a Likert scale survey based on the constructs of the TPB applied to a set of pediatric obesity themes. A cross-sectional electronic survey was then administered to academic clinicians at tertiary care centers across Canada from January to April 2012. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize demographic and item agreement data. A hierarchical linear regression analysis controlling for demographic variables was conducted to examine the extent to which the TPB subscales predicted intent to treat pediatric obesity. A total of 198 physicians, surgeons, and allied health professionals across Canada (British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec) completed the survey. On step 1, demographic factors accounted for 7.4% of the variance in intent scores. Together in step 2, demographic variables and TPB subscales predicted 56.9% of the variance in a measure of the intent to treat pediatric obesity. Perceived behavioral control, that is, confidence in one's ability to manage pediatric obesity, and subjective norms, congruent with one's context of practice, were the most significant predictors of the intent to treat pediatric obesity. Attitudes and barriers did not predict the intent to treat pediatric obesity in this context. Enhancing self-confidence in the ability to treat pediatric obesity and the existence of supportive treatment environments are important to increase clinician's intent to treat pediatric obesity.

Children's understanding of the selling versus persuasive intent of junk food advertising: implications for regulation.

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Carter, Owen B J; Patterson, Lisa J; Donovan, Robert J; Ewing, Michael T; Roberts, Clare M

2011-03-01

Evidence suggests that until 8 years of age most children are cognitively incapable of appreciating the commercial purpose of television advertising and are particularly vulnerable to its persuasive techniques. After this age most children begin to describe the 'selling' intent of advertising and it is widely assumed this equips them with sufficient cognitive defences to protect against advertisers' persuasion attempts. However, much of the previous literature has been criticised for failing to differentiate between children's awareness of 'selling' versus 'persuasive' intent, the latter representing a more sophisticated understanding and superior cognitive defence. Unfortunately there is little literature to suggest at what age awareness of 'persuasive intent' emerges; our aim was to address this important issue. Children (n = 594) were recruited from each grade from Pre-primary (4-5 years) to Grade 7 (11-12 years) from ten primary schools in Perth, Western Australia and exposed to a McDonald's television advertisement. Understanding the purpose of television advertising was assessed both nonverbally (picture indication) and verbally (small discussion groups of 3-4), with particular distinction made between selling versus persuasive intent. Consistent with previous literature, a majority of children described the 'selling' intent of television advertising by 7-8 years both nonverbally and verbally, increasing to 90% by 11-12 years. Awareness of 'persuasive' intent emerged slowly as a function of age but even by our oldest age-group was only 40%. Vulnerability to television advertising may persist until children are far older than previously thought. These findings have important implications regarding the debate surrounding regulation of junk food (and other) advertising aimed at children. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Intention Understanding over T: A neuroimaging study on shared representations and tennis return predictions

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Stephanie eCacioppo

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Studying the way athletes predict actions of their peers during fast-ball sports, such as a tennis, has proved to be a valuable tool for increasing our knowledge of intention understanding. The working model in this area is that the anticipatory representations of others’ behaviors require internal predictive models of actions formed from pre-established and shared representations between the observer and the actor. This model also predicts that observers would not be able to read accurately the intentions of a competitor if the competitor were to perform the action without prior knowledge of their intention until moments before the action. To test this hypothesis, we recorded brain activity from 25 male tennis players while they performed a novel behavioral tennis intention inference task, which included two conditions: i one condition in which they viewed video clips of a tennis athlete who knew in advance where he was about to act/serve (initially intended serves and ii one condition in which they viewed video clips of that same athlete when he did not know where he was to act/serve until the target was specified after he had tossed the ball into the air to complete his serve (non-initially intended serves. Our results demonstrated that i tennis expertise is related to the accuracy in predicting where another server intends to serve when that server knows where he intends to serve before (but not after he tosses the ball in the air; and ii accurate predictions are characterized by the recruitment of both cortical areas within the human mirror neuron system (that is known to be involved in higher-order (top-down processes of embodied cognition and shared representation and subcortical areas within brain regions involved in procedural memory (caudate nucleus. Interestingly, inaccurate predictions instead recruit areas known to be involved in low-level (bottom-up computational processes associated with the sense of agency and self

The cross-cultural variation of predictors of human papillomavirus vaccination intentions.

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Lechuga, Julia; Swain, Geoffrey R; Weinhardt, Lance S

2011-02-01

The influence of health beliefs on human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine acceptability have been extensively documented in past research. However, studies documenting the generalizability of prior findings to culturally diverse participants are lacking. The importance of generalizability studies is underscored by the immense disparities in cervical cancer rates across ethnicities. Moreover, theory in cultural psychology suggests that beliefs derived from personal expectations may not be the strongest predictors of intentions in individuals socialized in collectivist cultures. The purpose of this research was to investigate the strongest predictors of mothers' intentions to vaccinate their daughters across three cultural groups: Hispanic, non-Hispanic white, and African American. One hundred fifty mothers were recruited from Public Health Department clinics in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mothers were asked to answer measures that assessed personal and normative predictors of intentions. Results indicated that predictors of vaccination intentions varied cross-culturally. Specifically, culture moderated the influence of norms on intentions. Interventions designed for Hispanics may be more effective if norms, rather than attitudes, are targeted.

Evilness as intention

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Bertelsen, Preben

2005-01-01

The purpose of this article is to examine on which psychological foundation we might be able to identify evil as an independent psychological phenomenon which requires its own. non-clinical concept and diagnostics. An evil act, it is proposed, is something which a person does intentionally and can...... be held responsible for. A basic model of human activity is presented based on human connectedness to the world in general and on co-existence as a core of the human condition in particular. Genuine evilness is defined as intentional detachment from and destruction of human co-existence. This definition...... presupposes a level of selforganization where co-existence can be an intentional project in itself. Only beings that can have co-existence as an intentional project in itself can intentionally detach from it and act destructively towards it in a genuinely evil manner....

Evilness as intention

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bertelsen, Preben

2005-01-01

be held responsible for. A basic model of human activity is presented based on human connectedness to the world in general and on co-existence as a core of the human condition in particular. Genuine evilness is defined as intentional detachment from and destruction of human co-existence. This definition...... presupposes a level of selforganization where co-existence can be an intentional project in itself. Only beings that can have co-existence as an intentional project in itself can intentionally detach from it and act destructively towards it in a genuinely evil manner.......The purpose of this article is to examine on which psychological foundation we might be able to identify evil as an independent psychological phenomenon which requires its own. non-clinical concept and diagnostics. An evil act, it is proposed, is something which a person does intentionally and can...

Understanding entrepreneurial intent in late adolescence: the role of intentional self-regulation and innovation.

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Geldhof, G John; Weiner, Michelle; Agans, Jennifer P; Mueller, Megan K; Lerner, Richard M

2014-01-01

Entrepreneurship represents a form of adaptive developmental regulation through which both entrepreneurs and their ecologies benefit. We describe entrepreneurship from the perspective of relational developmental systems theory, and examine the joint role of personal attributes, contextual attributes, and characteristics of person-context relationships in predicting entrepreneurial intent in a sample 3,461 college students enrolled in colleges and universities in the United States (60 % female; 61 % European American). Specifically, we tested whether personal characteristics (i.e., gender, intentional self-regulation skills, innovation orientation) and contextual factors (i.e., entrepreneurial parents) predicted college students' intentions to pursue an entrepreneurial career. Our findings suggest that self-regulation, innovation orientation, and having entrepreneurial role models (i.e., parents) predict entrepreneurial intent. Limitations and future directions for the study of youth entrepreneurship are discussed.

Learning and Inferring "Dark Matter" and Predicting Human Intents and Trajectories in Videos.

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Xie, Dan; Shu, Tianmin; Todorovic, Sinisa; Zhu, Song-Chun

2018-07-01

This paper presents a method for localizing functional objects and predicting human intents and trajectories in surveillance videos of public spaces, under no supervision in training. People in public spaces are expected to intentionally take shortest paths (subject to obstacles) toward certain objects (e.g., vending machine, picnic table, dumpster etc.) where they can satisfy certain needs (e.g., quench thirst). Since these objects are typically very small or heavily occluded, they cannot be inferred by their visual appearance but indirectly by their influence on people's trajectories. Therefore, we call them "dark matter", by analogy to cosmology, since their presence can only be observed as attractive or repulsive "fields" in the public space. A person in the scene is modeled as an intelligent agent engaged in one of the "fields" selected depending his/her intent. An agent's trajectory is derived from an Agent-based Lagrangian Mechanics. The agents can change their intents in the middle of motion and thus alter the trajectory. For evaluation, we compiled and annotated a new dataset. The results demonstrate our effectiveness in predicting human intent behaviors and trajectories, and localizing and discovering distinct types of "dark matter" in wide public spaces.

Do commitment based human resource practices influence job embeddedness and intention to quit?

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Debjani Ghosh

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This empirical paper provides evidence that commitment based human resource practices (CBHRP influence employees' turnover intentions by embedding newcomers more extensively into organisations. The study was conducted with 501 managers in 19 financial service organisations in India. Results reveal that CBHRP enable organisations to actively embed employees. The results also indicate that on-the-job embeddedness (on-the-JE is negatively related to turnover intentions and mediates relationships between CBHRP and employees' intention to quit.

Understanding behavioural intention to play online game: The case of VocBlast

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Ali, Z.

2018-04-01

Research has shown that mobile learning enables its users to learn at any time and place. The current study investigates the use of VocBlast; an app that integrates technical and engineering vocabulary, in terms of understanding the behavioural intention of its players. The study employs 129 engineering and technical students from Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP). Online survey was used to collect their opinions; in particular male and female students’ opinions on the use of the app in the future. The results of the study indicated that there was no significant difference pertaining to their behavioural intention using VocBlast in the course of time. The study implies that more time needs to be given to the students in playing VocBlast as it is believed that playing the game repetitively would promote positive perceptions among its players.

Understanding the Attitude-Action Gap: Functional Integration of Environmental Aspects in Car Purchase Intentions

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Mairesse, Olivier; Macharis, Cathy; Lebeau, Kenneth; Turcksin, Laurence

2012-01-01

This study aims at understanding how a general positive attitude toward the environment results in a limited purchase of environmentally friendlier cars, often referred to as the attitude-action gap. In a first experiment 27 volunteers performed a judgment task on car purchase intention. Participants were asked to evaluate the probability of…

Understanding strength exercise intentions and behavior in hematologic cancer survivors: an analysis of the intention-behavior gap.

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Vallerand, James R; Rhodes, Ryan E; Walker, Gordon J; Courneya, Kerry S

2016-12-01

Strength exercise improves many health outcomes in cancer survivors but the prevalence and correlates of strength exercise have not been well-described. Moreover, no study has examined the critical intention-behavior gap for exercise in cancer survivors. The aims of this study are to quantify the intention-behavior gap for strength exercise in hematologic cancer survivors (HCS) and examine correlates of both intention formation and translation using the multi-process action control framework (M-PAC). A random sample of 2100 HCS in Alberta, Canada, were mailed a survey assessing strength exercise behavior, the M-PAC, and demographic/medical variables. Separate logistic regressions were used to analyze the relationships between the correlates and intention formation and translation. Surveys were completed by 606 HCS with 58 % (n = 353) intending to do strength exercise. HCS who were not retired (OR = 1.56, p = 0.001), were highly educated (OR = 1.32, p = 0.001), and had a favorable attitude (OR = 1.56, p exercise intention. Of those with an exercise intention, 51 % (n = 181) reported regular strength exercise. HCS with a detailed plan (OR = 1.86, p attitude (OR = 1.68, p = 0.001), sense of obligation (OR = 1.38, p = 0.010), and self-regulated their affinity for competing activities (OR = 1.35, p = 0.012), were more likely to translate their intention into behavior. Just over half of HCS intended to do strength exercise and only half of intenders translated that intention into behavior. Interventions targeting both intention formation and translation may provide the best approach for increasing strength exercise in HCS.

Understanding the factors that determine registered nurses' turnover intentions.

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Osuji, Joseph; Uzoka, Faith-Michael; Aladi, Flora; El-Hussein, Mohammed

2014-01-01

Turnover among registered nurses (RNs) produces a negative impact on the health outcomes of any health care organization. It is also recognized universally as a problem in the nursing profession. Little is known about the turnover intentions and career orientations of RNs working in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The aim of this study is to contribute to the knowledge of and to advance the discussion on the turnover of nursing professionals. The study population consisted of RNs employed in the five major hospitals in Calgary. There were 193 surveys returned, representing a response rate of 77.2%. The results show that age and education have a negative effect on turnover intention. Education was found to have a significant negative effect on career satisfaction but not on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Length of service has a significant negative effect on turnover intention. Role ambiguity has significant highly negative effect on career satisfaction. Growth opportunity and supervisor support have a very significant positive effect on job satisfaction, career satisfaction, and organizational commitment. External career opportunities and organizational commitment do not seem to have a significant effect on turnover intention. Career satisfaction, on the other hand, had negative significant effects on turnover intention.

Understanding Gender, Creativity, and Entrepreneurial Intentions

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Smith, Ronda Marie; Sardeshmukh, Shruti R.; Combs, Gwendolyn M.

2016-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the complex relationships between gender and entrepreneurial intentions. Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses a two study design where the second study is a constructive replication of the first study. The first study uses a cross-sectional design, while the second uses a design where data…

Joint Intentionality

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Koreň Ladislav

2016-03-01

Full Text Available According to the shared intentionality hypothesis proposed by Michael Tomasello, two cognitive upgrades – joint and collective intentionality, respectively – make human thinking unique. Joint intentionality, in particular, is a mindset supposed to account for our early, species-specific capacity to participate in collaborative activities involving two (or a few agents. In order to elucidate such activities and their proximate cognitive-motivational mechanism, Tomasello draws on philosophical accounts of shared intentionality. I argue that his deference to such cognitively demanding accounts of shared intentional activities is problematic if his theoretical ambition is in part to show that and how early (prelinguistic and precultural capacities for joint action contribute to the development of higher cognitive capacities.

Analogy Lays the Foundation for Two Crucial Aspects of Symbolic Development: Intention and Correspondence.

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Yuan, Lei; Uttal, David H

2017-07-01

We argue that analogical reasoning, particularly Gentner's (1983, 2010) structure-mapping theory, provides an integrative theoretical framework through which we can better understand the development of symbol use. Analogical reasoning can contribute both to the understanding of others' intentions and the establishment of correspondences between symbols and their referents, two crucial components of symbolic understanding. We review relevant research on the development of symbolic representations, intentionality, comparison, and similarity, and demonstrate how structure-mapping theory can shed light on several ostensibly disparate findings in the literature. Focusing on visual symbols (e.g., scale models, photographs, and maps), we argue that analogy underlies and supports the understanding of both intention and correspondence, which may enter into a reciprocal bootstrapping process that leads children to gain the prodigious human capacity of symbol use. Copyright © 2017 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

An exploration in the will psychology of Otto Rank: human intentionality and individuality.

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Isono, Masayo

2012-12-01

The author explores the meaning and the importance of the will in Rank's relation-based self-creative, self-constructive psychology and argues for the consideration of the concept of the will in psychoanalysis. The paper shows that Rank's concept of the will explains what gives a human being the impetus to choose an action, positive or negative. When validated by the other, this will, the power of intention, enables a person to create his/her unique individuality. The paper reviews Rank's definition of will and traces the evolution of his ideas of intentionality in his writings. Further, the author discusses how Rank attempts to capture the subtle movements of the human mind as suffused with struggles and dynamic interplay between external and internal forces.

Mirror neurons and motor intentionality.

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Rizzolatti, Giacomo; Sinigaglia, Corrado

2007-01-01

Our social life rests to a large extent on our ability to understand the intentions of others. What are the bases of this ability? A very influential view is that we understand the intentions of others because we are able to represent them as having mental states. Without this meta-representational (mind-reading) ability their behavior would be meaningless to us. Over the past few years this view has been challenged by neurophysiological findings and, in particular, by the discovery of mirror neurons. The functional properties of these neurons indicate that intentional understanding is based primarily on a mechanism that directly matches the sensory representation of the observed actions with one's own motor representation of those same actions. These findings reveal how deeply motor and intentional components of action are intertwined, suggesting that both can be fully comprehended only starting from a motor approach to intentionality.

Inductive reasoning and the understanding of intention in schizophrenia.

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Corcoran, Rhiannon

2003-08-01

The study explored the relationship between the understanding of intention in veiled speech acts and the ability to reason inductively. A total of 39 people with DSM-IV-defined schizophrenia with no behavioural signs and 44 healthy participants performed the Hinting Task, a measure of pragmatic language in which the speaker's intention must be inferred, and a measure of inductive reasoning (Aha! Sentences) in which the meaning of ambiguous nonsocial sentences had to be inferred. The participants also completed measures of general intellectual ability, immediate memory for narrative and social problem-solving ability. A substantial correlation was found between performance on the inductive reasoning task and the Hinting Task in the sample of people with schizophrenia. The same relationship was not seen in the normal control sample. The robust relationship between these two measures in this sample survived when the roles of immediate memory for narrative and intellectual ability were controlled for. Furthermore, the relationship was distinctly more compelling for the patients who were currently ill compared to those in remission. These data suggest that people with schizophrenia use a different strategy to infer the meaning behind pragmatic language than that used by normally functioning adults. It is suggested that a reliance on different, possibly less specialised, skills in this group to perform this simple social inference task underlies their deficient performance on this and other measures of social inference. The fact that the relationship between the tasks in patients in remission is not as robust implies that the use of specialised skills to perform social inference tasks may be compromised most significantly during acute phases.

Investigating the ability to read others' intentions using humanoid robots.

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Sciutti, Alessandra; Ansuini, Caterina; Becchio, Cristina; Sandini, Giulio

2015-01-01

The ability to interact with other people hinges crucially on the possibility to anticipate how their actions would unfold. Recent evidence suggests that a similar skill may be grounded on the fact that we perform an action differently if different intentions lead it. Human observers can detect these differences and use them to predict the purpose leading the action. Although intention reading from movement observation is receiving a growing interest in research, the currently applied experimental paradigms have important limitations. Here, we describe a new approach to study intention understanding that takes advantage of robots, and especially of humanoid robots. We posit that this choice may overcome the drawbacks of previous methods, by guaranteeing the ideal trade-off between controllability and naturalness of the interactive scenario. Robots indeed can establish an interaction in a controlled manner, while sharing the same action space and exhibiting contingent behaviors. To conclude, we discuss the advantages of this research strategy and the aspects to be taken in consideration when attempting to define which human (and robot) motion features allow for intention reading during social interactive tasks.

Understanding online purchase intentions: contributions from technology and trust perspectives

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Heijden, J.G.M.; Verhagen, T.

2003-01-01

This paper explores factors that influence consumer's intentions to purchase online at an electronic commerce website. Specifically, we investigate online purchase intention using two different perspectives: a technology-oriented perspective and a trust-oriented perspective. We summarise and review

Understanding the pros and cons of organ donation decision-making: Decisional balance and expressing donation intentions among African Americans.

Science.gov (United States)

Flemming, Shauna St Clair; Redmond, Nakeva; Williamson, Dana Hz; Thompson, Nancy J; Perryman, Jennie P; Patzer, Rachel E; Arriola, Kimberly Jacob

2018-04-01

Increasing public commitment to organ donation is critical to improving donor kidney availability for end-stage renal disease patients desiring transplant. This study surveyed ( N = 1339) African Americans, measuring perceived pros relative to cons of organ donation, to evaluate an existing Transtheoretical Model decisional balance scale and associations between decisional balance and expressing donation intentions. Findings supported the existing scale structure. More positive decisional balance ratios were associated with 1.76 times the odds of expressing intentions (95% confidence interval = 1.52-2.04). Pros were more strongly linked to donation intentions than cons. Greater understanding of organ donation decision-making is valuable for informing interventions that encourage donation.

Folk-Psychological Interpretation of Human vs. Humanoid Robot Behavior: Exploring the Intentional Stance toward Robots.

Science.gov (United States)

Thellman, Sam; Silvervarg, Annika; Ziemke, Tom

2017-01-01

People rely on shared folk-psychological theories when judging behavior. These theories guide people's social interactions and therefore need to be taken into consideration in the design of robots and other autonomous systems expected to interact socially with people. It is, however, not yet clear to what degree the mechanisms that underlie people's judgments of robot behavior overlap or differ from the case of human or animal behavior. To explore this issue, participants ( N = 90) were exposed to images and verbal descriptions of eight different behaviors exhibited either by a person or a humanoid robot. Participants were asked to rate the intentionality, controllability and desirability of the behaviors, and to judge the plausibility of seven different types of explanations derived from a recently proposed psychological model of lay causal explanation of human behavior. Results indicate: substantially similar judgments of human and robot behavior, both in terms of (1a) ascriptions of intentionality/controllability/desirability and in terms of (1b) plausibility judgments of behavior explanations; (2a) high level of agreement in judgments of robot behavior - (2b) slightly lower but still largely similar to agreement over human behaviors; (3) systematic differences in judgments concerning the plausibility of goals and dispositions as explanations of human vs. humanoid behavior. Taken together, these results suggest that people's intentional stance toward the robot was in this case very similar to their stance toward the human.

The effect of human capital, social capital, and perceptual values on nascent entrepreneurs' export intentions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen, Poul Rind; Evald, Majbritt Rostgaard; Klyver, Kim

2011-01-01

This study investigates the influence of human capital, social capital, and cognition on nascent entrepreneurs' export intentions. The results indicate that while human capital and social capital influence the level of intended export, cognitive characteristics, such as self-efficacy and risk...

Social Cognitive Theory Predictors of Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Intentions of College Men at a Southeastern University.

Science.gov (United States)

Priest, Hannah M; Knowlden, Adam P; Sharma, Manoj

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study was to use social cognitive theory to predict human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination intentions of college men attending a large, southeastern university. Data collection comprised two phases. Phase I established face and content validity of the instrument by a panel of six experts. Phase II assessed internal consistency reliability using Cronbach's alpha and predicted behavioral intentions applying multiple linear regression. HPV knowledge, expectations, self-efficacy to get HPV vaccine, situational perception, self-efficacy in overcoming barriers to get HPV vaccine, and self-control to get HPV vaccine were regressed on behavioral intentions. Situational perception and self-control to get HPV vaccine were significant predictors, accounting for 22% of variance in behavioral intentions to get vaccinated within the next 6 months. Overall, college men reported low behavioral intentions to getting vaccinated. Future interventions should target situational perception and self-control to increase HPV vaccination intentions. © The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.

Understanding in the humanities: Gadamer's thought at the ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Because Gadamer is very sensitive to the role of history, tradition and authority within human life, the overall intention of this article will be to unveil major elements of modern philosophy which exerted an influence upon his thought. In this sense it can be seen as applying his notion of 'Wirkungsgeschichte' to an assessment ...

Decoding intention at sensorimotor timescales.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mathew Salvaris

Full Text Available The ability to decode an individual's intentions in real time has long been a 'holy grail' of research on human volition. For example, a reliable method could be used to improve scientific study of voluntary action by allowing external probe stimuli to be delivered at different moments during development of intention and action. Several Brain Computer Interface applications have used motor imagery of repetitive actions to achieve this goal. These systems are relatively successful, but only if the intention is sustained over a period of several seconds; much longer than the timescales identified in psychophysiological studies for normal preparation for voluntary action. We have used a combination of sensorimotor rhythms and motor imagery training to decode intentions in a single-trial cued-response paradigm similar to those used in human and non-human primate motor control research. Decoding accuracy of over 0.83 was achieved with twelve participants. With this approach, we could decode intentions to move the left or right hand at sub-second timescales, both for instructed choices instructed by an external stimulus and for free choices generated intentionally by the participant. The implications for volition are considered.

Investigating the ability to read others’ intentions using humanoid robots

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alessandra eSciutti

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The ability to interact with other people hinges crucially on the possibility to anticipate how their actions would unfold. Recent evidence suggests that a similar skill may be grounded on the fact that we perform an action differently if different intentions lead it. Human observers can detect these differences and use them to predict the purpose leading the action. Although intention reading from movement observation is receiving a growing interest in research, the currently applied experimental paradigms have important limitations. Here, we describe a new approach to study intention understanding that takes advantage of robots, and especially of humanoid robots. We posit that this choice may overcome the drawbacks of previous methods, by guaranteeing the ideal trade-off between controllability and naturalness of the interactive scenario. Robots indeed can establish an interaction in a controlled manner, while sharing the same action space and guaranteeing contingent behaviors. To conclude, we discuss the advantages of this research strategy and the aspects to be taken in consideration when attempting to define which human (and robot motion features allow for intention reading during social interactive tasks.

Understanding human DNA sequence variation.

Science.gov (United States)

Kidd, K K; Pakstis, A J; Speed, W C; Kidd, J R

2004-01-01

Over the past century researchers have identified normal genetic variation and studied that variation in diverse human populations to determine the amounts and distributions of that variation. That information is being used to develop an understanding of the demographic histories of the different populations and the species as a whole, among other studies. With the advent of DNA-based markers in the last quarter century, these studies have accelerated. One of the challenges for the next century is to understand that variation. One component of that understanding will be population genetics. We present here examples of many of the ways these new data can be analyzed from a population perspective using results from our laboratory on multiple individual DNA-based polymorphisms, many clustered in haplotypes, studied in multiple populations representing all major geographic regions of the world. These data support an "out of Africa" hypothesis for human dispersal around the world and begin to refine the understanding of population structures and genetic relationships. We are also developing baseline information against which we can compare findings at different loci to aid in the identification of loci subject, now and in the past, to selection (directional or balancing). We do not yet have a comprehensive understanding of the extensive variation in the human genome, but some of that understanding is coming from population genetics.

The relationship between human resource development factors, career growth and turnover intention: The mediating role of organizational commitment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhammad Shahid Nawaz

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Retaining the best employees is of high concern for most organizations and this issue has become a significant focus of attention for many researchers. For this reason, this paper discusses different factors which influence the employee turnover intention-behavior in the organization, specifically to examine the effect of salary, performance appraisal, training & development and career growth on turnover intention. In addition, based on the social exchange theory this paper explains the mediating role of organizational commitment in the relationship between human resource development factors, career growth and turnover intention. A cross sectional, survey data study is undertaken to investigate the relationships in a sample of 270 full time faculty members employed in different private universities of Pakistan. Partial Least Square two step path modeling is used to test the direct and the indirect hypothesis of the study. The results of PLS (SEM path modeling reveal that human resource development factors specially salary and performance appraisal were negatively associated with turnover intention. In addition, the results also indicate that career growth had significant relationships with turnover intention. Moreover, out of four dimensions of career growth, only two dimensions, namely promotion speed and remuneration growth, have strong influence on turnover intention. Finally, in terms of organizational commitment as mediating variable between the relationships of salary, performance appraisal, career growth and turnover intention, four out of six variables indicate partial mediation including career growth (career goal progress, career growth (promotion speed, career growth (remuneration growth and performance appraisal.

Robots As Intentional Agents: Using Neuroscientific Methods to Make Robots Appear More Social.

Science.gov (United States)

Wiese, Eva; Metta, Giorgio; Wykowska, Agnieszka

2017-01-01

Robots are increasingly envisaged as our future cohabitants. However, while considerable progress has been made in recent years in terms of their technological realization, the ability of robots to interact with humans in an intuitive and social way is still quite limited. An important challenge for social robotics is to determine how to design robots that can perceive the user's needs, feelings, and intentions, and adapt to users over a broad range of cognitive abilities. It is conceivable that if robots were able to adequately demonstrate these skills, humans would eventually accept them as social companions. We argue that the best way to achieve this is using a systematic experimental approach based on behavioral and physiological neuroscience methods such as motion/eye-tracking, electroencephalography, or functional near-infrared spectroscopy embedded in interactive human-robot paradigms. This approach requires understanding how humans interact with each other, how they perform tasks together and how they develop feelings of social connection over time, and using these insights to formulate design principles that make social robots attuned to the workings of the human brain. In this review, we put forward the argument that the likelihood of artificial agents being perceived as social companions can be increased by designing them in a way that they are perceived as intentional agents that activate areas in the human brain involved in social-cognitive processing. We first review literature related to social-cognitive processes and mechanisms involved in human-human interactions, and highlight the importance of perceiving others as intentional agents to activate these social brain areas. We then discuss how attribution of intentionality can positively affect human-robot interaction by (a) fostering feelings of social connection, empathy and prosociality, and by (b) enhancing performance on joint human-robot tasks. Lastly, we describe circumstances under which

Determinants of Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Intention Among Female Sex Workers in Amsterdam, the Netherlands

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Marra, E.; Dam, L. van; Kroone, N.; Alberts, C.J.; Craanen, M.; Zimet, G.D.; Heijmam, T.; Hogewoning, A.A.; Sonder, G.J.B.; Vries, H.J.C. de; Alberts, C.J.; Paulussen, T.G.W.M.; Schim van der Loeff, M.F.

2017-01-01

Introduction: Female sex workers (FSWs) are at risk for human papillomavirus (HPV)-induced diseases but are currently not targeted by the HPV vaccination program in the Netherlands. We explored determinants of their intention to get vaccinated against HPV in case vaccination would be offered to

Principle-based concept analysis: intentionality in holistic nursing theories.

Science.gov (United States)

Aghebati, Nahid; Mohammadi, Eesa; Ahmadi, Fazlollah; Noaparast, Khosrow Bagheri

2015-03-01

This is a report of a principle-based concept analysis of intentionality in holistic nursing theories. A principle-based concept analysis method was used to analyze seven holistic theories. The data included eight books and 31 articles (1998-2011), which were retrieved through MEDLINE and CINAHL. Erickson, Kriger, Parse, Watson, and Zahourek define intentionality as a capacity, a focused consciousness, and a pattern of human being. Rogers and Newman do not explicitly mention intentionality; however, they do explain pattern and consciousness (epistemology). Intentionality has been operationalized as a core concept of nurse-client relationships (pragmatic). The theories are consistent on intentionality as a noun and as an attribute of the person-intentionality is different from intent and intention (linguistic). There is ambiguity concerning the boundaries between intentionality and consciousness (logic). Theoretically, intentionality is an evolutionary capacity to integrate human awareness and experience. Because intentionality is an individualized concept, we introduced it as "a matrix of continuous known changes" that emerges in two forms: as a capacity of human being and as a capacity of transpersonal caring. This study has produced a theoretical definition of intentionality and provides a foundation for future research to further investigate intentionality to better delineate its boundaries. © The Author(s) 2014.

Grasping intentions: from thought experiments to empirical evidence

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cristina eBecchio

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Skepticism has been expressed concerning the possibility to understand others’ intentions by simply observing their movements: Since a number of different intentions may have produced a particular action, motor information – it has been argued - might be sufficient to understand what an agent is doing, but not her remote goal in performing that action. Here we challenge this conclusion by showing that in the absence of contextual information, intentions can be inferred from body movement. Based on recent empirical findings, we shall contend that: i intentions translate into differential kinematic patterns; ii observers are especially attuned to kinematic information and can use early differences in visual kinematics to anticipate the intention of an agent in performing a given action; iii during interacting activities, predictions about the future course of others’ actions tune online action planning; iv motor activation during action observation subtends a complementary understanding of what the other is doing. These findings demonstrate that intention understanding is deeply rooted in social interaction: by simply observing others’ movements, we might know what they have in mind to do and how we should act in response.

Understanding patients' behavioral intentions: evidence from Iran's private hospitals industry.

Science.gov (United States)

Zarei, Ehsan; Arab, Mohammad; Tabatabaei, Seyed Mahmoud Ghazi; Rashidian, Arash; Forushani, Abbas Rahimi; Khabiri, Roghayeh

2014-01-01

In the ever-increasing competitive market of private hospital industry, creating a strong relationship with the customers that shapes patients' loyalty has been considered a key factor in obtaining market share. The purpose of this paper is to test a model of customer loyalty among patients of private hospitals in Iran. This cross-sectional study was carried out in Tehran, the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2010. The study samples composed of 969 patients who were consecutively selected from eight private hospitals. The survey instrument was designed based on a review of the related literature and included 36 items. Data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling. For the service quality construct, three dimensions extracted: Process, interaction, and environment. Both process and interaction quality had significant effects on perceived value. Perceived value along with the process and interaction quality were the most important antecedents of patient overall satisfaction. The direct effect of the process and interaction quality on behavioral intentions was insignificant. Perceived value and patient overall satisfaction were the direct antecedents of patient behavioral intentions and the mediators between service quality and behavioral intentions. Environment quality of service delivery had no significant effect on perceived value, overall satisfaction, and behavioral intentions. Contrary to previous similar studies, the role of service quality was investigated not in a general sense, but in the form of three types of qualities including quality of environment, quality of process, and quality of interaction.

Transparency of intentions decreases privacy concerns in ubiquitous surveillance.

Science.gov (United States)

Oulasvirta, Antti; Suomalainen, Tiia; Hamari, Juho; Lampinen, Airi; Karvonen, Kristiina

2014-10-01

An online experiment (n=1,897) was carried out to understand how data disclosure practices in ubiquitous surveillance affect users' privacy concerns. Information about the identity and intentions of a data collector was manipulated in hypothetical surveillance scenarios. Privacy concerns were found to differ across the scenarios and moderated by knowledge about the collector's identity and intentions. Knowledge about intentions exhibited a stronger effect. When no information about intentions was disclosed, the respondents postulated negative intentions. A positive effect was found for disclosing neutral intentions of an organization or unknown data collector, but not for a private data collector. The findings underline the importance of disclosing intentions of data use to users in an easily understandable manner.

Cognitive environment simulation: An artificial intelligence system for human performance assessment: Modeling human intention formation: [Technical report, May 1986-June 1987

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Woods, D.D.; Roth, E.M.; Pople, H. Jr.

1987-11-01

This report documents the results of Phase II of a three phase research program to develop and validate improved methods to model the cognitive behavior of nuclear power plant (NPP) personnel. In Phase II a dynamic simulation capability for modeling how people form intentions to act in NPP emergency situations was developed based on techniques from artificial intelligence. This modeling tool, Cognitive Environment Simulation or CES, simulates the cognitive processes that determine situation assessment and intention formation. It can be used to investigate analytically what situations and factors lead to intention failures, what actions follow from intention failures (e.g., errors of omission, errors of commission, common mode errors), the ability to recover from errors or additional machine failures, and the effects of changes in the NPP person-machine system. The Cognitive Reliability Assessment Technique (or CREATE) was also developed in Phase II to specify how CES can be used to enhance the measurement of the human contribution to risk in probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) studies. 43 refs., 20 figs., 1 tab

Challenges in human behavior understanding

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Salah, A.A.; Gevers, T.; Sebe, N.; Vinciarelli, A.

2010-01-01

Recent advances in pattern recognition has allowed computer scientists and psychologists to jointly address automatic analysis of of human behavior via computers. The Workshop on Human Behavior Understanding at the International Conference on Pattern Recognition explores a number of different

Propositional Attitudes, Intentionality and Lawful Behaviors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luiz Henrique de A. Dutra

2003-12-01

Full Text Available This paper aims to discuss Quine’s last analysis of propositional attitudes as involving intentionality and as regards human action and the very subject matter of social sciences. As to this problem, Quine acquiesces in both Davidson’s anomalous monism and Dennett’s intentional stance. An alternative analysis is here presented, which is based on Howard Rachlin’s teleological behaviorism. Some problems regarding this approach are also considered. Intentionality and rationality are still to be saved, but they are construed according to a lawful perspective to human behavior and social contexts of action.

Cognitive neuroscience robotics B analytic approaches to human understanding

CERN Document Server

Ishiguro, Hiroshi; Asada, Minoru; Osaka, Mariko; Fujikado, Takashi

2016-01-01

Cognitive Neuroscience Robotics is the first introductory book on this new interdisciplinary area. This book consists of two volumes, the first of which, Synthetic Approaches to Human Understanding, advances human understanding from a robotics or engineering point of view. The second, Analytic Approaches to Human Understanding, addresses related subjects in cognitive science and neuroscience. These two volumes are intended to complement each other in order to more comprehensively investigate human cognitive functions, to develop human-friendly information and robot technology (IRT) systems, and to understand what kind of beings we humans are. Volume B describes to what extent cognitive science and neuroscience have revealed the underlying mechanism of human cognition, and investigates how development of neural engineering and advances in other disciplines could lead to deep understanding of human cognition.

Understanding customers' intention to use social network sites as complaint channel: an analysis of young customers' perspectives

Science.gov (United States)

Setiawan, Retno Agus; Setyohadi, Djoko Budiyanto; Pranowo

2018-02-01

Social network sites (SNSs) have grown rapidly in recent years. More and more companies have used SNSs as part of their business strategy. SNSs offer numerous advantages, especially in enhancing communication. SNSs have a potential as a new complaint channel for young customers to file their complaints to companies. The objective of this study is to investigate the acceptance of SNSs as complaint channel based on TAM. A structured questionnaire was distributed to young participants, which collected 222 valid questionnaires. Furthermore, structural equation modeling was utilized to investigate the structural model. The results revealed that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness have a positive correlation on the attitude towards SNSs. While the attitude plays an important role in understanding customers' intention to use SNSs to voice complaints. However perceived usefulness has no significant impact on intention to use. Limitations and further research were also discussed.

Robots As Intentional Agents: Using Neuroscientific Methods to Make Robots Appear More Social

Science.gov (United States)

Wiese, Eva; Metta, Giorgio; Wykowska, Agnieszka

2017-01-01

Robots are increasingly envisaged as our future cohabitants. However, while considerable progress has been made in recent years in terms of their technological realization, the ability of robots to interact with humans in an intuitive and social way is still quite limited. An important challenge for social robotics is to determine how to design robots that can perceive the user’s needs, feelings, and intentions, and adapt to users over a broad range of cognitive abilities. It is conceivable that if robots were able to adequately demonstrate these skills, humans would eventually accept them as social companions. We argue that the best way to achieve this is using a systematic experimental approach based on behavioral and physiological neuroscience methods such as motion/eye-tracking, electroencephalography, or functional near-infrared spectroscopy embedded in interactive human–robot paradigms. This approach requires understanding how humans interact with each other, how they perform tasks together and how they develop feelings of social connection over time, and using these insights to formulate design principles that make social robots attuned to the workings of the human brain. In this review, we put forward the argument that the likelihood of artificial agents being perceived as social companions can be increased by designing them in a way that they are perceived as intentional agents that activate areas in the human brain involved in social-cognitive processing. We first review literature related to social-cognitive processes and mechanisms involved in human–human interactions, and highlight the importance of perceiving others as intentional agents to activate these social brain areas. We then discuss how attribution of intentionality can positively affect human–robot interaction by (a) fostering feelings of social connection, empathy and prosociality, and by (b) enhancing performance on joint human–robot tasks. Lastly, we describe circumstances under

Robots As Intentional Agents: Using Neuroscientific Methods to Make Robots Appear More Social

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eva Wiese

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Robots are increasingly envisaged as our future cohabitants. However, while considerable progress has been made in recent years in terms of their technological realization, the ability of robots to interact with humans in an intuitive and social way is still quite limited. An important challenge for social robotics is to determine how to design robots that can perceive the user’s needs, feelings, and intentions, and adapt to users over a broad range of cognitive abilities. It is conceivable that if robots were able to adequately demonstrate these skills, humans would eventually accept them as social companions. We argue that the best way to achieve this is using a systematic experimental approach based on behavioral and physiological neuroscience methods such as motion/eye-tracking, electroencephalography, or functional near-infrared spectroscopy embedded in interactive human–robot paradigms. This approach requires understanding how humans interact with each other, how they perform tasks together and how they develop feelings of social connection over time, and using these insights to formulate design principles that make social robots attuned to the workings of the human brain. In this review, we put forward the argument that the likelihood of artificial agents being perceived as social companions can be increased by designing them in a way that they are perceived as intentional agents that activate areas in the human brain involved in social-cognitive processing. We first review literature related to social-cognitive processes and mechanisms involved in human–human interactions, and highlight the importance of perceiving others as intentional agents to activate these social brain areas. We then discuss how attribution of intentionality can positively affect human–robot interaction by (a fostering feelings of social connection, empathy and prosociality, and by (b enhancing performance on joint human–robot tasks. Lastly, we describe

Understanding the Societal Impact of Humanities Scholarship

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, David Budtz; Johansson, Lasse Gøhler

2016-01-01

in society. An important assumption in this paper is that impact should be studied both from conceptual, qualitative and quantitative perspectives. Any approach that focuses merely on scientific outputs (such as publications or citations) or that relies on purely bibliometric indicators will result...... both quantitative and qualitative tools, the paper argues that we need a better and more comprehensive understanding of the role the humanities as part of a wider web of societal institutions, networks, and agents. Granted that the impact of humanities breakthroughs cannot be located at clearly......The critical problem for understanding the societal impact of humanities scholarship is that we currently have no satisfactory tools for understanding how wider social impacts occur and, by implication, very few guidelines for stimulating a reflexive dialogue about the influence of the humanities...

Current understanding of the human microbiome

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gilbert, Jack A.; Blaser, Martin J.; Caporaso, J. Gregory; Jansson, Janet K.; Lynch, Susan V.; Knight, Rob

2018-04-10

Our understanding of the link between the human microbiome and disease, including obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis and autism, is rapidly expanding. Improvements in the throughput and accuracy of DNA sequencing of the genomes of microbial communities associated with human samples, complemented by analysis of transcriptomes, proteomes, metabolomes and immunomes, and mechanistic experiments in model systems, have vastly improved our ability to understand the structure and function of the microbiome in both diseased and healthy states. However, many challenges remain. In this Review we focus on studies in humans to describe these challenges, and propose strategies that leverage existing knowledge to move rapidly from correlation to causation, and ultimately to translation.

Cognitive neuroscience robotics A synthetic approaches to human understanding

CERN Document Server

Ishiguro, Hiroshi; Asada, Minoru; Osaka, Mariko; Fujikado, Takashi

2016-01-01

Cognitive Neuroscience Robotics is the first introductory book on this new interdisciplinary area. This book consists of two volumes, the first of which, Synthetic Approaches to Human Understanding, advances human understanding from a robotics or engineering point of view. The second, Analytic Approaches to Human Understanding, addresses related subjects in cognitive science and neuroscience. These two volumes are intended to complement each other in order to more comprehensively investigate human cognitive functions, to develop human-friendly information and robot technology (IRT) systems, and to understand what kind of beings we humans are. Volume A describes how human cognitive functions can be replicated in artificial systems such as robots, and investigates how artificial systems could acquire intelligent behaviors through interaction with others and their environment.

Understanding adolescents' intentions to commute by car or bicycle as adults

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sigurdardottir, Sigrun Birna; Kaplan, Sigal; Møller, Mette

2013-01-01

This study focuses on the intentions of adolescents to commute by car or bicycle as adults. The behavioral model is based on intrapersonal and interpersonal constructs from the theory of planned behavior extended to include constructs from the institutional, community and policy domains. Data from...... a survey among Danish adolescents is analyzed. It is found that car use intentions are related to positive car passenger experience, general interest in cars, and car ownership norms, and are negatively related to willingness to accept car restrictions and perceived lack of behavioral control. Cycling...

Understanding human management of automation errors

Science.gov (United States)

McBride, Sara E.; Rogers, Wendy A.; Fisk, Arthur D.

2013-01-01

Automation has the potential to aid humans with a diverse set of tasks and support overall system performance. Automated systems are not always reliable, and when automation errs, humans must engage in error management, which is the process of detecting, understanding, and correcting errors. However, this process of error management in the context of human-automation interaction is not well understood. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review of the variables that contribute to error management. We examined relevant research in human-automation interaction and human error to identify critical automation, person, task, and emergent variables. We propose a framework for management of automation errors to incorporate and build upon previous models. Further, our analysis highlights variables that may be addressed through design and training to positively influence error management. Additional efforts to understand the error management process will contribute to automation designed and implemented to support safe and effective system performance. PMID:25383042

Understanding human perception by human-made illusions.

Science.gov (United States)

Carbon, Claus-Christian

2014-01-01

IT MAY BE FUN TO PERCEIVE ILLUSIONS, BUT THE UNDERSTANDING OF HOW THEY WORK IS EVEN MORE STIMULATING AND SUSTAINABLE: They can tell us where the limits and capacity of our perceptual apparatus are found-they can specify how the constraints of perception are set. Furthermore, they let us analyze the cognitive sub-processes underlying our perception. Illusions in a scientific context are not mainly created to reveal the failures of our perception or the dysfunctions of our apparatus, but instead point to the specific power of human perception. The main task of human perception is to amplify and strengthen sensory inputs to be able to perceive, orientate and act very quickly, specifically and efficiently. The present paper strengthens this line of argument, strongly put forth by perceptual pioneer Richard L. Gregory (e.g., Gregory, 2009), by discussing specific visual illusions and how they can help us to understand the magic of perception.

The emerging causal understanding of institutional objects.

Science.gov (United States)

Noyes, Alexander; Keil, Frank C; Dunham, Yarrow

2018-01-01

Institutional objects, such as money, drivers' licenses, and borders, have functions because of their social roles rather than their immediate physical properties. These objects are causally different than standard artifacts (e.g. hammers, chairs, and cars), sharing more commonality with other social roles. Thus, they inform psychological theories of human-made objects as well as children's emerging understanding of social reality. We examined whether children (N=180, ages 4-9) differentiate institutional objects from standard artifacts. Specifically, we examine whether children understand that mutual intentions (i.e., the intentions of a social collective) underlie the functional affordances of institutional objects in ways that they do not for standard artifacts. We find that young children assimilate institutional objects into their intuitive theories of standard artifacts; children begin to differentiate between the domains in the elementary school years. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Owen's Intentionality Model in Integrative Psychotherapy

African Journals Online (AJOL)

denise

The IPJP is a joint project of the Humanities Faculty of the University of Johannesburg (South Africa) and Edith Cowan ... Talk, Action, Belief: How the Intentionality Model Combines Attachment-Oriented .... application of the intentionality model in relation to ... Dr Guse's research interests include the training of psychologists,.

The Role of HRM Practices in Predicting Faculty Turnover Intention: Empirical Evidence from Private Universities in Bangladesh

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohd H.R. Joarder

2012-04-01

Full Text Available The present study was designed to examine the relationship between human resource management practices and turnover intention among the faculty members of private universities in Bangladesh. The prime objective of this study was to understand whether the institution’s HRM practices can influence faculty turnover decision. A total of 317 faculty members of different private universities located in Dhaka Metropolitan Area(DMA participated in the survey and returned the questionnaire to the researchers which represented 57% response rate of the study. Multiple regression analyses were used to test thehypotheses of the study. The study found faculty compensation, supervisory support and job security as statistically significant predictors of faculty turnover intention. Therefore, privateuniversity management should pay much attention to this area of human resource practices (compensation, supervisory support, job security to retain the potential faculty, thus reducing turnover intention. Limitations and suggestions for latest news headline are forwarded.

Understanding determinants of consumer mobile health usage intentions, assimilation, and channel preferences.

Science.gov (United States)

Rai, Arun; Chen, Liwei; Pye, Jessica; Baird, Aaron

2013-08-02

Consumer use of mobile devices as health service delivery aids (mHealth) is growing, especially as smartphones become ubiquitous. However, questions remain as to how consumer traits, health perceptions, situational characteristics, and demographics may affect consumer mHealth usage intentions, assimilation, and channel preferences. We examine how consumers' personal innovativeness toward mobile services (PIMS), perceived health conditions, health care availability, health care utilization, demographics, and socioeconomic status affect their (1) mHealth usage intentions and extent of mHealth assimilation, and (2) preference for mHealth as a complement or substitute for in-person doctor visits. Leveraging constructs from research in technology acceptance, technology assimilation, consumer behavior, and health informatics, we developed a cross-sectional online survey to study determinants of consumers' mHealth usage intentions, assimilation, and channel preferences. Data were collected from 1132 nationally representative US consumers and analyzed by using moderated multivariate regressions and ANOVA. The results indicate that (1) 430 of 1132 consumers in our sample (37.99%) have started using mHealth, (2) a larger quantity of consumers are favorable to using mHealth as a complement to in-person doctor visits (758/1132, 66.96%) than as a substitute (532/1132, 47.00%), and (3) consumers' PIMS and perceived health conditions have significant positive direct influences on mHealth usage intentions, assimilation, and channel preferences, and significant positive interactive influences on assimilation and channel preferences. The independent variables within the moderated regressions collectively explained 59.70% variance in mHealth usage intentions, 60.41% in mHealth assimilation, 34.29% in preference for complementary use of mHealth, and 45.30% in preference for substitutive use of mHealth. In a follow-up ANOVA examination, we found that those who were more favorable

Intentionality forms the matrix of healing: a theory.

Science.gov (United States)

Zahourek, Rothlyn P

2004-01-01

The understanding of intentionality in a healing context has been incomplete and confusing. Attempts have been made to describe it as a concrete mental force in healing while healing has been accepted as a nonlocal phenomenon. This paper reviews several definitions and theoretical frameworks of intentionality. It proposes a new integrative theory of intentionality, Intentionality: the Matrix of Healing. The theory proposes definitions, forms, and phases of intentionality, a process of development and mediators that sculpt intentionality in healing. The theory has implications for conceptualizing intentionality and provides a framework for continued exploration of the nature of intentionality in healing for scholars as well as clinicians. This study was done as a Doctoral dissertation at New York University, School of Education, Division of Nursing.

Understanding human action: integrating meanings, mechanisms, causes, and contexts

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Keestra, M.; Repko, A.F.; Newell, W.H.; Szostak, R.

2012-01-01

Humans are capable of understanding an incredible variety of actions performed by other humans. Even though these range from primary biological actions like eating and fleeing, to acts in parliament or in poetry, humans generally can make sense of each other’s actions. Understanding other people’s

A clean self reduces bribery intent.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Chao; Liu, Li; Zheng, Wenwen; Dang, Jianning; Liang, Yuan

2017-08-14

The present research aimed at investigating the effect of physical cleanliness on bribery intent and the moderating role of personal need for structure (PNS) on this relationship. In Study 1, we used questionnaires to establish the correlation between bodily cleanliness and bribery intent. In Study 2, we examined the effect by priming sense of self-cleanliness. Study 3 was conducted outside a public bath to test our finding that physical purity decreases bribery intent again; we further found that individuals with high PNS showed no reduction in bribery intent even after cleaning themselves. We thus connected physical cleanliness with the corruption field and improved our understanding of its underlying moderating mechanism. © 2017 International Union of Psychological Science.

Brands as Intentional Agents Framework: How Perceived Intentions and Ability Can Map Brand Perception

Science.gov (United States)

Kervyn, Nicolas; Fiske, Susan T.; Malone, Chris

2013-01-01

Building on the Stereotype Content Model, this paper introduces and tests the Brands as Intentional Agents Framework. A growing body of research suggests that consumers have relationships with brands that resemble relations between people. We propose that consumers perceive brands in the same way they perceive people. This approach allows us to explore how social perception theories and processes can predict brand purchase interest and loyalty. Brands as Intentional Agents Framework is based on a well-established social perception approach: the Stereotype Content Model. Two studies support the Brands as Intentional Agents Framework prediction that consumers assess a brand’s perceived intentions and ability and that these perceptions elicit distinct emotions and drive differential brand behaviors. The research shows that human social interaction relationships translate to consumer-brand interactions in ways that are useful to inform brand positioning and brand communications. PMID:24403815

Brands as Intentional Agents Framework: How Perceived Intentions and Ability Can Map Brand Perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Kervyn, Nicolas; Fiske, Susan T; Malone, Chris

2012-04-01

Building on the Stereotype Content Model, this paper introduces and tests the Brands as Intentional Agents Framework. A growing body of research suggests that consumers have relationships with brands that resemble relations between people. We propose that consumers perceive brands in the same way they perceive people. This approach allows us to explore how social perception theories and processes can predict brand purchase interest and loyalty. Brands as Intentional Agents Framework is based on a well-established social perception approach: the Stereotype Content Model. Two studies support the Brands as Intentional Agents Framework prediction that consumers assess a brand's perceived intentions and ability and that these perceptions elicit distinct emotions and drive differential brand behaviors. The research shows that human social interaction relationships translate to consumer-brand interactions in ways that are useful to inform brand positioning and brand communications.

40 CFR 26.1703 - Prohibition of reliance on research involving intentional exposure of human subjects who are...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

...), nursing women, or children. 26.1703 Section 26.1703 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION... 40 Protection of Environment 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Prohibition of reliance on research... intentional exposure of human subjects who are pregnant women (and therefore their fetuses), nursing women, or...

Why Geo-Humanities

Science.gov (United States)

Graells, Robert Casals i.; Sibilla, Anna; Bohle, Martin

2016-04-01

Anthropogenic global change is a composite process. It consists of societal processes (in the 'noosphere') and natural processes (in the 'bio-geosphere'). The 'noosphere' is the ensemble of social, cultural or political insights ('shared subjective mental concepts') of people. Understanding the composite of societal and natural processes ('human geo-biosphere intersections'), which shapes the features of anthropogenic global change, would benefit from a description that draws equally on natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. To that end it is suggested to develop a concept of 'geo-humanities': This essay presents some aspects of its scope, discussing "knowledge that is to manage", "intentions that are to shape", "choices that are to justify" and "complexity that is to handle". Managing knowledge: That people understand anthropogenic global change requires their insights into how 'human geosphere intersections' function. Insights are formed ('processed') in the noosphere by means of interactions between people. Understanding how 'human geosphere intersections' functions combines scientific, engineering and economic studies with studies of the dynamics of the noosphere. Shaping intentions: During the last century anthropogenic global change developed as the collateral outcome of humankind's accumulated actions. It is caused by the number of people, the patterns of their consumption of resources, and the alterations of their environments. Nowadays, anthropogenic global chance is either an intentional negligence or a conscious act. Justifying choices: Humanity has alternatives how to alter Earth at planetary scale consciously. For example, there is a choice to alter the geo-biosphere or to adjust the noosphere. Whatever the choice, it will depend on people's world-views, cultures and preferences. Thus beyond issues whether science and technology are 'sound' overarching societal issues are to tackle, such as: (i) how to appropriate and distribute natural

Practice Alignment and intent as distinctions for understanding cross-boundary knowledge creation practices in knowledge ecosystems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Aaen, Mathias

This paper explores how practice alignment and intent across organizational boundaries may serve as an explanation for collaborative knowledge creation in a knowledge ecosystem. The paper is based on a longitudinal case study of a large multinational knowledge ecosystem consisting of many...... communities of practices and organisations. By applying a practice theory approach to five data sets collected over a five-year period, the study investigates how two distinctions may serve as a potential gateway into understanding knowledge creation across boundaries. The two distinctions – practice...... are identified and discussed. Potential implications for organisational and knowledge ecosystem conceptions are identified and discussed for further research....

Mirror neurons and the understanding of behavioural symptoms in psychiatric disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Buccino, Giovanni; Amore, Mario

2008-05-01

Recent findings show that we can understand other people's actions, intentions and emotions through a mirror mechanism as if we performed the same actions and felt the same intentions or emotions (embodied simulation). The present paper reviews experimental evidence that this mechanism may be broken in some psychiatric disorders. A mirror neuron system has been described in both monkeys and humans that allows one to map an observed action on a correspondent motor representation in the observer's brain. This mechanism has been involved in many higher motor functions ranging from action understanding to imitation and intention coding. A mirror mechanism has also been invoked in empathy, through an embodied simulation. A dysfunction of the mirror neuron system may be at the root of the inability to empathize in patients with autism and may play a role in some negative and positive symptoms found in patients with schizophrenia. This opens up new perspectives in the interpretation of psychotic symptoms and possibly in developing therapeutic strategies.

What matters to infrequent customers: a pragmatic approach to understanding perceived value and intention to revisit trendy coffee café.

Science.gov (United States)

Ting, Hiram; Thurasamy, Ramayah

2016-01-01

businesses, and infrequent customers more than often make up the majority of the customers, the study provides meaningful and practical understanding of revisit intention.

Estimation Algorithm of Machine Operational Intention by Bayes Filtering with Self-Organizing Map

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Satoshi Suzuki

2012-01-01

Full Text Available We present an intention estimator algorithm that can deal with dynamic change of the environment in a man-machine system and will be able to be utilized for an autarkical human-assisting system. In the algorithm, state transition relation of intentions is formed using a self-organizing map (SOM from the measured data of the operation and environmental variables with the reference intention sequence. The operational intention modes are identified by stochastic computation using a Bayesian particle filter with the trained SOM. This method enables to omit the troublesome process to specify types of information which should be used to build the estimator. Applying the proposed method to the remote operation task, the estimator's behavior was analyzed, the pros and cons of the method were investigated, and ways for the improvement were discussed. As a result, it was confirmed that the estimator can identify the intention modes at 44–94 percent concordance ratios against normal intention modes whose periods can be found by about 70 percent of members of human analysts. On the other hand, it was found that human analysts' discrimination which was used as canonical data for validation differed depending on difference of intention modes. Specifically, an investigation of intentions pattern discriminated by eight analysts showed that the estimator could not identify the same modes that human analysts could not discriminate. And, in the analysis of the multiple different intentions, it was found that the estimator could identify the same type of intention modes to human-discriminated ones as well as 62–73 percent when the first and second dominant intention modes were considered.

Colloque S&T Symposium 2008: Understanding the Human Dimension in 21st Century Conflict/Warfare: The Complexities of Human-with-Human Relationships

Science.gov (United States)

2008-08-01

intentionally left blank. DRDC Corporate TR [2008-004] v Executive summary Colloque S&T Symposium 2008: The Complexities of Human...mettaient en jeu notre capacité ou notre incapacité de déterminer le prochain choc radical et la manière dont la communauté y réagit. Il a aussi...iii Executive summary

On "intention" in the definition of suicide.

Science.gov (United States)

Andriessen, Karl

2006-10-01

The need for a comprehensive nomenclature in suicidology is now well recognized. In this paper the focus is on the issue of intention, which is identified as an essential aspect of any definition of suicide and suicidal behavior primarily because of its distinction from accidental behavior. The distinction between the retrospective perspective of motives versus the prospective perspective of intentions is highlighted, and I argue that the latter is more closely related to suicidal behavior. Finally, while motives and intentions tend to be used together in research, there is a need for sound research to clarify the roles of intentions in order to better understand suicide and attempted suicide.

Attitudinal Explanation on Virtual Shopping Intention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ritzky Karina M.R. Brahmana

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract. Virtual stores provide great efficiency in the retail value chain, and their existence has tremendously paved the way for electronic commerce. Understanding the intention of consumers to shop online in attitudinal perspective will provide important contribution to the area of e-commerce. This research proposes Task Technology Fit, Perceived Ease of Use (PEoU, and Perceived Usefulness (PU as the factors that drive consumers’ intention. The results from our survey study of 310 online consumers in Indonesia indicate that TTF affects PEoU and PU significantly. Our hierarchical model also reports that PEoU is the mediating effect on the relationship between TTF and Intention. The resulting model explains a large portion of the factors that lead a user’s behavioural intention to use a virtual shop. Keywords : Attitudinal, Task Technology Fit, Perceived Ease of Use, Perceived Usefulness, Retail, Virtual Shopping Intention

A Principle of Intentionality.

Science.gov (United States)

Turner, Charles K

2017-01-01

The mainstream theories and models of the physical sciences, including neuroscience, are all consistent with the principle of causality. Wholly causal explanations make sense of how things go, but are inherently value-neutral, providing no objective basis for true beliefs being better than false beliefs, nor for it being better to intend wisely than foolishly. Dennett (1987) makes a related point in calling the brain a syntactic (procedure-based) engine. He says that you cannot get to a semantic (meaning-based) engine from there. He suggests that folk psychology revolves around an intentional stance that is independent of the causal theories of the brain, and accounts for constructs such as meanings, agency, true belief, and wise desire. Dennett proposes that the intentional stance is so powerful that it can be developed into a valid intentional theory. This article expands Dennett's model into a principle of intentionality that revolves around the construct of objective wisdom. This principle provides a structure that can account for all mental processes, and for the scientific understanding of objective value. It is suggested that science can develop a far more complete worldview with a combination of the principles of causality and intentionality than would be possible with scientific theories that are consistent with the principle of causality alone.

A Theory-Based Model for Understanding Faculty Intention to Use Students Ratings to Improve Teaching in a Health Sciences Institution in Puerto Rico

Science.gov (United States)

Collazo, Andrés A.

2018-01-01

A model derived from the theory of planned behavior was empirically assessed for understanding faculty intention to use student ratings for teaching improvement. A sample of 175 professors participated in the study. The model was statistically significant and had a very large explanatory power. Instrumental attitude, affective attitude, perceived…

Intention concepts and brain-machine interfacing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Franziska eThinnes-Elker

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Intentions, including their temporal properties and semantic content, are receiving increased attention, and neuroscientific studies in humans vary with respect to the topography of intention-related neural responses. This may reflect the fact that the kind of intentions investigated in one study may not be exactly the same kind investigated in the other. Fine-grained intention taxonomies developed in the philosophy of mind may be useful to identify the neural correlates of well-defined types of intentions, as well as to disentangle them from other related mental states, such as mere urges to perform an action. Intention-related neural signals may be exploited by brain-machine interfaces (BMIs that are currently being developed to restore speech and motor control in paralyzed subjects. Such BMI devices record the brain activity of the agent, interpret (‘decode’ the agent’s intended action, and send the corresponding execution command to an artificial effector system, e.g., a computer cursor or a robotic arm. In the present paper, we evaluate the potential of intention concepts from philosophy of mind to improve the performance and safety of BMIs based on higher-order, intention-related control signals. To this end, we address the distinction between future-, present-directed, and motor intentions, as well as the organization of intentions in time, specifically to what extent it is sequential or hierarchical. This has consequences as to whether these different types of intentions can be expected to occur simultaneously or not. We further illustrate how it may be useful or even necessary to distinguish types of intentions exposited in philosophy, including yes- vs. no-intentions and oblique vs. direct intentions, to accurately decode the agent’s intentions from neural signals in practical BMI applications.

Intention concepts and brain-machine interfacing.

Science.gov (United States)

Thinnes-Elker, Franziska; Iljina, Olga; Apostolides, John Kyle; Kraemer, Felicitas; Schulze-Bonhage, Andreas; Aertsen, Ad; Ball, Tonio

2012-01-01

Intentions, including their temporal properties and semantic content, are receiving increased attention, and neuroscientific studies in humans vary with respect to the topography of intention-related neural responses. This may reflect the fact that the kind of intentions investigated in one study may not be exactly the same kind investigated in the other. Fine-grained intention taxonomies developed in the philosophy of mind may be useful to identify the neural correlates of well-defined types of intentions, as well as to disentangle them from other related mental states, such as mere urges to perform an action. Intention-related neural signals may be exploited by brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) that are currently being developed to restore speech and motor control in paralyzed patients. Such BMI devices record the brain activity of the agent, interpret ("decode") the agent's intended action, and send the corresponding execution command to an artificial effector system, e.g., a computer cursor or a robotic arm. In the present paper, we evaluate the potential of intention concepts from philosophy of mind to improve the performance and safety of BMIs based on higher-order, intention-related control signals. To this end, we address the distinction between future-, present-directed, and motor intentions, as well as the organization of intentions in time, specifically to what extent it is sequential or hierarchical. This has consequences as to whether these different types of intentions can be expected to occur simultaneously or not. We further illustrate how it may be useful or even necessary to distinguish types of intentions exposited in philosophy, including yes- vs. no-intentions and oblique vs. direct intentions, to accurately decode the agent's intentions from neural signals in practical BMI applications.

Psychosocial predictors of human papillomavirus vaccination intentions for young women 18 to 26: religiosity, morality, promiscuity, and cancer worry.

Science.gov (United States)

Krakow, Melinda M; Jensen, Jakob D; Carcioppolo, Nick; Weaver, Jeremy; Liu, Miao; Guntzviller, Lisa M

2015-01-01

To determine whether five psychosocial variables, namely, religiosity, morality, perceived promiscuity, cancer worry frequency, and cancer worry severity, predict young women's intentions to receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination. Female undergraduate students (n=408) completed an online survey. Questions pertaining to hypothesized predictors were analyzed through bivariate correlations and hierarchical regression equations. Regressions examined whether the five psychosocial variables of interest predicted intentions to vaccinate above and beyond controls. Proposed interactions among predictor variables were also tested. Study findings supported cancer worry as a direct predictor of HPV vaccination intention, and religiosity and sexual experience as moderators of the relationship between concerns of promiscuity reputation and intentions to vaccinate. One dimension of cancer worry (severity) emerged as a particularly robust predictor for this population. This study provides support for several important, yet understudied, factors contributing to HPV vaccination intentions among college-aged women: cancer worry severity and religiosity. Future research should continue to assess the predictive contributions of these variables and evaluate how messages and campaigns to increase HPV vaccination uptake can utilize religious involvement and worry about cancer to promote more effectively HPV vaccination as a cancer prevention strategy. Copyright © 2015 Jacobs Institute of Women's Health. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Understanding channel purchase intentions : Measuring online and offline shopping value perceptions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Broekhuizen, T.L.J.

2006-01-01

This dissertation investigates consumers’ prepurchase evaluations of buying books offline and online. It synthesizes the E-Commerce and perceived value literature to develop a conceptual model that explains online and offline purchase intentions. Based on this literature review, it is proposed that

A Praxeological Approach to Intentional Action

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Futerman Alan G.

2017-10-01

Full Text Available The concept of Intentional Action is at the core of Praxeology, as developed by the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. Under this unique approach, defined as the science of human action and designed to study the field of the social sciences, Mises create “action axiom”: the contention that every acting man more satisfactory state of affairs for a Austrian scholar is able to derive the fundament human action; such as value, scale of value, scarcity, abundance, profit, loss, uncertainty and causality, among others. This paper intends to present the praxeological perspective on intentional action and its epistemologic implications; it also attempts to answer objections to this thesis.

Remembered Experiences and Revisit Intentions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Barnes, Stuart; Mattsson, Jan; Sørensen, Flemming

2016-01-01

Tourism is an experience-intensive sector in which customers seek and pay for experiences above everything else. Remembering past tourism experiences is also crucial for an understanding of the present, including the predicted behaviours of visitors to tourist destinations. We adopt a longitudinal...... approach to memory data collection from psychological science, which has the potential to contribute to our understanding of tourist behaviour. In this study, we examine the impact of remembered tourist experiences in a safari park. In particular, using matched survey data collected longitudinally and PLS...... path modelling, we examine the impact of positive affect tourist experiences on the development of revisit intentions. We find that longer-term remembered experiences have the strongest impact on revisit intentions, more so than predicted or immediate memory after an event. We also find that remembered...

40 CFR 26.1203 - Prohibition of research involving intentional exposure of any human subject who is a pregnant...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Prohibition of research involving intentional exposure of any human subject who is a pregnant woman (and therefore her fetus), a nursing woman, or a child. 26.1203 Section 26.1203 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY GENERAL...

Biographical and demographical variables as moderators in the prediction of turnover intentions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Janine du Plooy

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Orientation: The aim of the study was to explore the possible moderation effects of biographical and demographical variables on a prediction model of turnover intention (TI. Research purpose: The main purpose of the study was to determine how biographical and demographical variables have an impact on predictors of turnover intentions. Motivation for the study: Twenty-first century organisations face significant challenges in the management of talent and human capital. One in particular is voluntary employee turnover and the lack of appropriate business models to track this process. Research design, approach, and method: A secondary data analysis (SDA was performed in a quantitative research tradition on the cross-sectional survey sample (n = 2429. Data were collected from a large South African Information and Communication Technologies (ICT sector company (N = 23 134. Main findings: The results of the study confirmed significant moderation effects regarding race, age, and marital status in the prediction equations of TIs. Practical and managerial implications: Practical implications of the study suggested increased understanding of workforce diversity effects within the human resource (HR value chain, with resultant evidence-based, employee retention strategies and interventions. Issues concerning talent management could also be addressed. Contribution and value-add: The study described in this article took Industrial/Organisational (I/O psychological concepts and linked them in unique combinations to establish better predictive validity of a more comprehensive turnover intentions model.

Electrophysiological and Kinematic Correlates of Communicative Intent in the Planning and Production of Pointing Gestures and Speech.

Science.gov (United States)

Peeters, David; Chu, Mingyuan; Holler, Judith; Hagoort, Peter; Özyürek, Aslı

2015-12-01

In everyday human communication, we often express our communicative intentions by manually pointing out referents in the material world around us to an addressee, often in tight synchronization with referential speech. This study investigated whether and how the kinematic form of index finger pointing gestures is shaped by the gesturer's communicative intentions and how this is modulated by the presence of concurrently produced speech. Furthermore, we explored the neural mechanisms underpinning the planning of communicative pointing gestures and speech. Two experiments were carried out in which participants pointed at referents for an addressee while the informativeness of their gestures and speech was varied. Kinematic and electrophysiological data were recorded online. It was found that participants prolonged the duration of the stroke and poststroke hold phase of their gesture to be more communicative, in particular when the gesture was carrying the main informational burden in their multimodal utterance. Frontal and P300 effects in the ERPs suggested the importance of intentional and modality-independent attentional mechanisms during the planning phase of informative pointing gestures. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the complex interplay between action, attention, intention, and language in the production of pointing gestures, a communicative act core to human interaction.

Development of a Theory-based, Sociocultural Instrument to Assess Black Maternal Intentions to Vaccinate Their Daughters Aged 9 to 12 Against HPV.

Science.gov (United States)

Cunningham-Erves, Jennifer; Talbott, Laura L; O'Neal, Marcia R; Ivankova, Nataliya V; Wallston, Kenneth A

2016-09-01

The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine could assist in reducing the cervical cancer disparity existing between Black and White women. Understanding factors influencing Black maternal intentions to vaccinate their daughter is essential in improving vaccination uptake. However, existing instruments do not comprehensively assess factors (e.g., culture) influencing maternal intentions. This paper describes the development of the Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Survey for Black Mothers with Girls Aged 9 to 12 (HPVS-BM), the first instrument to measure knowledge, attitudes, subjective norms, and cultural beliefs relating to Black maternal intentions to vaccinate their daughters aged 9 to 12 years against HPV. The items and scales were refined using content review by experts, as well as cognitive interviews and pilot testing with target audience participants. The final version of the HPVS-BM was administered to 242 Black mothers with adolescent daughters. Internal reliability was determined using Cronbach's alpha. An a priori hypothetical model was developed to determine convergent and discriminant validity. All scales of the HPVS-BM had an acceptable internal reliability of 0.70 or higher. The intention scale of HPVS-BM was significantly correlated (p factors influencing maternal intentions is warranted.

A Conceptual Exploration of Succession Intent in Family Firms

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Boyd, Britta; Botero, Isabel; Fediuk, Tomasz

Succession has been the most studied topic in family firms. The reason for this is that many family firms fail during the transition of leadership and ownership between the current owner/manager and the next generation. Traditionally research on succession has focused on the family member...... as they enter the leadership role (i.e., how a family firm successfully transition to the next generation) or on the different issues that affect the succession process. In this approach there seems to be an underlying assumption that family business owners have the intent to engage in succession efforts. We...... believe that this is not always the case. Thus, we suggest that to better understand the succession process in family firms we first need to understand succession intent and the factors that influence an owner’s intent to pass on the business. This manuscript defines succession intent and provides...

A. How the intentions of the draftsman shape perception of a drawing.

OpenAIRE

Pignocchi , Alessandro

2010-01-01

The interaction between the recovery of the artist's intentions and the perception of an artwork is a classic topic for philosophy and history of art. It also frequently, albeit sometimes implicitly, comes up in everyday thought and conversation about art and artworks. Since recent work in cognitive science can help us understand how we perceive and understand the intentions of others, this discipline could fruitfully participate in a multidisciplinary investigation of the role of intention r...

Understanding the stakeholders' intention to use economic decision-support tools: A cross-sectional study with the tobacco return on investment tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheung, Kei Long; Evers, Silvia M A A; Hiligsmann, Mickaël; Vokó, Zoltán; Pokhrel, Subhash; Jones, Teresa; Muñoz, Celia; Wolfenstetter, Silke B; Józwiak-Hagymásy, Judit; de Vries, Hein

2016-01-01

Despite an increased number of economic evaluations of tobacco control interventions, the uptake by stakeholders continues to be limited. Understanding the underlying mechanism in adopting such economic decision-support tools by stakeholders is therefore important. By applying the I-Change Model, this study aims to identify which factors determine potential uptake of an economic decision-support tool, i.e., the Return on Investment tool. Stakeholders (decision-makers, purchasers of services/pharma products, professionals/service providers, evidence generators and advocates of health promotion) were interviewed in five countries, using an I-Change based questionnaire. MANOVA's were conducted to assess differences between intenders and non-intenders regarding beliefs. A multiple regression analysis was conducted to identify the main explanatory variables of intention to use an economic decision-support tool. Ninety-three stakeholders participated. Significant differences in beliefs were found between non-intenders and intenders: risk perception, attitude, social support, and self-efficacy towards using the tool. Regression showed that demographics, pre-motivational, and motivational factors explained 69% of the variation in intention. This study is the first to provide a theoretical framework to understand differences in beliefs between stakeholders who do or do not intend to use economic decision-support tools, and empirically corroborating the framework. This contributes to our understanding of the facilitators and barriers to the uptake of these studies. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Emergence of Shared Intentionality Is Coupled to the Advance of Cumulative Culture.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Simon D Angus

2015-10-01

Full Text Available There is evidence that the sharing of intentions was an important factor in the evolution of humans' unique cognitive abilities. Here, for the first time, we formally model the coevolution of jointly intentional behavior and cumulative culture, showing that rapid techno-cultural advance goes hand in hand with the emergence of the ability to participate in jointly intentional behavior. Conversely, in the absence of opportunities for significant techno-cultural improvement, the ability to undertake jointly intentional behavior is selected against. Thus, we provide a unified mechanism for the suppression or emergence of shared intentions and collaborative behavior in humans, as well as a potential cause of inter-species diversity in the prevalence of such behavior.

Expressive intent, ambiguity, and aesthetic experiences of music and poetry.

Science.gov (United States)

Margulis, Elizabeth Hellmuth; Levine, William H; Simchy-Gross, Rhimmon; Kroger, Carolyn

2017-01-01

A growing number of studies are investigating the way that aesthetic experiences are generated across different media. Empathy with a perceived human artist has been suggested as a common mechanism [1]. In this study, people heard 30 s excerpts of ambiguous music and poetry preceded by neutral, positively valenced, or negatively valenced information about the composer's or author's intent. The information influenced their perception of the excerpts-excerpts paired with positive intent information were perceived as happier and excerpts paired with negative intent information were perceived as sadder (although across intent conditions, musical excerpts were perceived as happier than poetry excerpts). Moreover, the information modulated the aesthetic experience of the excerpts in different ways for the different excerpt types: positive intent information increased enjoyment and the degree to which people found the musical excerpts to be moving, but negative intent information increased these qualities for poetry. Additionally, positive intent information was judged to better match musical excerpts and negative intent information to better match poetic excerpts. These results suggest that empathy with a perceived human artist is indeed an important shared factor across experiences of music and poetry, but that other mechanisms distinguish the generation of aesthetic appreciation between these two media.

Expressive intent, ambiguity, and aesthetic experiences of music and poetry

Science.gov (United States)

Margulis, Elizabeth Hellmuth; Levine, William H.; Simchy-Gross, Rhimmon; Kroger, Carolyn

2017-01-01

A growing number of studies are investigating the way that aesthetic experiences are generated across different media. Empathy with a perceived human artist has been suggested as a common mechanism [1]. In this study, people heard 30 s excerpts of ambiguous music and poetry preceded by neutral, positively valenced, or negatively valenced information about the composer's or author’s intent. The information influenced their perception of the excerpts—excerpts paired with positive intent information were perceived as happier and excerpts paired with negative intent information were perceived as sadder (although across intent conditions, musical excerpts were perceived as happier than poetry excerpts). Moreover, the information modulated the aesthetic experience of the excerpts in different ways for the different excerpt types: positive intent information increased enjoyment and the degree to which people found the musical excerpts to be moving, but negative intent information increased these qualities for poetry. Additionally, positive intent information was judged to better match musical excerpts and negative intent information to better match poetic excerpts. These results suggest that empathy with a perceived human artist is indeed an important shared factor across experiences of music and poetry, but that other mechanisms distinguish the generation of aesthetic appreciation between these two media. PMID:28746376

40 CFR 26.203 - Prohibition of research conducted or supported by EPA involving intentional exposure of any human...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... her fetus), a nursing woman, or child. 26.203 Section 26.203 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL... 40 Protection of Environment 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Prohibition of research conducted or... Involving Intentional Exposure of Human Subjects who are Children or Pregnant or Nursing Women § 26.203...

Telaah Hubungan Kepuasan Kerja Dan Komitmen Organisasional Terhadap Turnover Intention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ali Amran

2017-04-01

ABSTRACT       Employees are the most important resources of company. They are human resources to do and move all of the activities of company. Therefore, company needs to keep and maintain their job satisfaction and organizational commitment in order to reduce the intention to leave the company (turnover intention. It is necessary to study the relationship among job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intention. This will give benefit to determine the important values of employees’ job satisfaction and organizational commitment and its influences on turnover intention. The research methods are descriptive survey and verificative survey that is used to assess the performance of independent variables: those are job satisfaction and organizational commitment,  and dependent variable: that is turnover intention with doing observation to employees of PT. Alexindo Bekasi. The result of this research is there is influence of job satisfaction and organizational commitment on turnover intention. This research is the improvement of existing researches which can be applied in the other companies specially for the human resource or employee behavior field.   Keywords: Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, Turnover Intention

Using the Integrative Model of Behavioral Prediction to Understand College Students' STI Testing Beliefs, Intentions, and Behaviors.

Science.gov (United States)

Wombacher, Kevin; Dai, Minhao; Matig, Jacob J; Harrington, Nancy Grant

2018-03-22

To identify salient behavioral determinants related to STI testing among college students by testing a model based on the integrative model of behavioral (IMBP) prediction. 265 undergraduate students from a large university in the Southeastern US. Formative and survey research to test an IMBP-based model that explores the relationships between determinants and STI testing intention and behavior. Results of path analyses supported a model in which attitudinal beliefs predicted intention and intention predicted behavior. Normative beliefs and behavioral control beliefs were not significant in the model; however, select individual normative and control beliefs were significantly correlated with intention and behavior. Attitudinal beliefs are the strongest predictor of STI testing intention and behavior. Future efforts to increase STI testing rates should identify and target salient attitudinal beliefs.

Predicting and understanding undergraduate students' intentions to gamble in a casino using an extended model of the theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behavior.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Hyung-Seok

2013-06-01

Given that current television programming contains numerous gambling portrayals, it is imperative to understand whether and to what extent these gambling behaviors in media influence individuals' beliefs, attitudes, and intentions. This study explores an extended model of the theory of reasoned action (TRA) by including gambling media exposure as a distal, mediating and mediated factor in predicting undergraduate students' intentions to gamble in a casino. Findings show that the extended model of TRA clearly indicates that the constructs of gambling media exposure, prior gambling experience, and level of gambling addiction contribute to the prediction of undergraduate students' casino gambling intentions. Theoretical implications of gambling media effects and practical implications for public policy are discussed, and future research directions are outlined.

Investigators find hundreds of intentional nuclear releases

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lobsenz, G.

1994-01-01

Investigators with the federal Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments have said that the category of intentional releases is now known to be larger, in variety and quantity, than the 13 releases identified prior to the committee's formation in January 1994 by President Clinton. The committee is now aware of hundreds of additional intentional releases. In addition to the intentional releases, the committee said it had compiled documents on 400 biomedical experiments involving radiation prior to 1975, and had at least fragmentary evidence of more than 1,000 more. The committee also discovered a top secret 1953 Defense Department policy statement on human experimentation that was based on the World War II-era Nuremberg Code. The committee said it was looking into how or whether the policy was implemented. The committee is expected to issue a final report, including recommendations on possible compensation for victims by April 1995

Self-Deception: Intentional Plan or Mental Event?

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Anna Elisabetta Galeotti

2012-02-01

Full Text Available The focus of this paper is the discussion between supporters of the intentional account of SD and supporters of the causal account. Between these two options the author argues that SD is the unintentional outcome of intentional steps taken by the agent. More precisely, she argues that SD is a complex mixture of things that we do and that happen to us; the outcome is however unintended by the subject, though it fulfils some of his practical, though short-term, goals. In her account, SD is produced after a fashion similar to those beneficial social phenomena which serve some collective purpose, are the product of human action, but not of human design, such as money, language and many social conventions; and similarly SD can be accounted by invisible hand explanation. The paper will critically analyze both the intentional and the causal accounts, and then present the invisible hand explanation which avoids the most puzzling aspect of the intentional view, while keeping the distinctiveness of SD in the realm of motivated irrationality. A brief discussion of the issue of responsibility for SD will conclude the paper.

Judgments of Cause and Blame: Sensitivity to Intentionality in Asperger's Syndrome

Science.gov (United States)

Channon, Shelley; Lagnado, David; Fitzpatrick, Sian; Drury, Helena; Taylor, Isabelle

2011-01-01

Sensitivity to intentionality in people with Asperger's syndrome (AS) and matched controls was investigated using two scenario-based tasks. The first compared intentional and unintentional human actions and physical events leading to the same negative outcomes. The second compared intentional actions that varied in their subjective and objective…

Dogs (Canis familiaris, but not chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes, understand imperative pointing.

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Katharina C Kirchhofer

Full Text Available Chimpanzees routinely follow the gaze of humans to outside targets. However, in most studies using object choice they fail to use communicative gestures (e.g. pointing to find hidden food. Chimpanzees' failure to do this may be due to several difficulties with this paradigm. They may, for example, misinterpret the gesture as referring to the opaque cup instead of the hidden food. Or perhaps they do not understand informative communicative intentions. In contrast, dogs seem to be skilful in using human communicative cues in the context of finding food, but as of yet there is not much data showing whether they also use pointing in the context of finding non-food objects. Here we directly compare chimpanzees' (N = 20 and dogs' (N = 32 skills in using a communicative gesture directed at a visible object out of reach of the human but within reach of the subject. Pairs of objects were placed in view of and behind the subjects. The task was to retrieve the object the experimenter wanted. To indicate which one she desired, the experimenter pointed imperatively to it and directly rewarded the subject for handing over the correct one. While dogs performed well on this task, chimpanzees failed to identify the referent. Implications for great apes' and dogs' understanding of human communicative intentions are discussed.

Healing: through the lens of intentionality.

Science.gov (United States)

Zahourek, Rothlyn P

2012-01-01

Understanding and studying healing is one of our challenges as health care providers. This study is a presentation of a secondary analysis of data collected to study intentionality in the context of healing. Six healers and 6 healees, five of each who participate as dyads, described their experiences and their concepts of healing. The theory, Intentionality: the Matrix for Healing (IMH), is presented along with a more expanded definition of healing as an awareness of shift and a transformative process.

The Impact of Bundled High Performance Human Resource Practices on Intention to Leave: Mediating Role of Emotional Exhaustion

Science.gov (United States)

Jyoti, Jeevan; Rani, Roomi; Gandotra, Rupali

2015-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion (EE) in between bundled high-performance human resource practices (HPHRPs) and intention to leave (ITL) in the education sector. Design/methodology/approach: A survey questionnaire method was used to collect data from a sample of 514 teachers working in…

Feminist theory and its influence on female entrepreneur’s growth intentions

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Rabi Sidi Ali

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Existing results suggest that entrepreneurs vary considerably in their intentions to grow their businesses; that men have more success in pursing growth than women. Prior investigations on entrepreneurship also suggest female business owners might deliberately choose to keep their business from growing. However, these studies have been conducted in developed countries. Diversity in context and theories could vary by gender, business sectors and regions of the world. Scholars maintain that feminist perspectives theories are necessary to provide some insights in understanding the phenomena. The goal of this paper is to analyse research findings on the growth aspirations of the female entrepreneurs and offer alternative views of understanding, by employing feminist theories, in explaining why women behave differently in their adaptation of reduced growth intentions. In an attempt to understand the tendencies that might lead to reduced growth intentions in female entrepreneurship, literature was extensively reviewed on female entrepreneurship and growth intentions. The study uses a desk-based approach to data collection. An overview of the main issues concerning female entrepreneurs growth intentions is presented. The conclusions drawn from the literature provide foundations for policy measures assisting women to overcome their low growth aspirations and measures required to encourage women to grow their businesses. The paper identifies research gaps that continue to exist in female entrepreneurs growth intentions research with the aim of encouraging further research in this field.

Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders Imitate in the Context of Others' Prior Intention

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Huang, Chi-Tai; Chiang, Chung-Hsin; Hung, Chao-Yi

2017-01-01

Many studies have shown that children with autism spectrum disorder have some understanding of intentions behind others' goal-directed actions on objects. It is not clear whether they understand intentions at a high level of abstraction reliant on the context in which the actions occur. This study tested their understanding of others' prior…

Development of Object-understanding Among Students in the Humanities

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lindholm, Morten

This paper describes a on-going empirical study, inspired by phenomenography, aiming at understanding how students from the humanities learn the concepts of objects and object-orientation during a programming course.  ......This paper describes a on-going empirical study, inspired by phenomenography, aiming at understanding how students from the humanities learn the concepts of objects and object-orientation during a programming course.  ...

Human papillomavirus vaccination: assessing knowledge, attitudes, and intentions of college female students in Lebanon, a developing country.

Science.gov (United States)

Dany, Mohammed; Chidiac, Alissar; Nassar, Anwar H

2015-02-18

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is a common cause for genital warts and cervical cancer. Developing countries in the Middle East such as Lebanon are traditionally considered to be conservative societies with low incidence of sexually transmitted infections. However, nowadays, there is an unexpected increase in the incidence of HPV infections among Middle Eastern females. Thus, the objective of this study is to assess the behavioral perceptions of HPV vaccination among female students attending an academic institution in Lebanon. This cross-sectional study invited 512 students to complete a self-administered questionnaire that assessed the knowledge, attitudes, and intentions towards HPV vaccination. Data analysis included the calculation of knowledge scores ranging from 0 to 100, attitude scores ranging from most positive (1) to most negative (5), and intention scores ranging from lowest intention (0) to highest intention (10). With a response rate of n=215 (42%), 36.5% never heard of the vaccine before, and only 16.5% were already HPV vaccinated. The median knowledge score of 52.7% ± 1.71 reflects poor to moderate knowledge. Still, the median attitude score of 2.47 ± 0.05 shows a general positive attitude towards HPV vaccination where most of the participants agreed that female college students in Lebanon have a good chance of contracting HPV (62.1%) and that all gynecologists should recommend the vaccine (76.0%). Students in graduate programs, health related majors, and those who are vaccinated had significantly higher knowledge scores compared with students in undergraduate programs, non-health related majors, and HPV non-vaccinated students, respectively. Finally, the survey helped in increasing the intention to obtain HPV vaccine as the intention score increased significantly from 5.24 ± 0.27 before the students went through the survey to 6.98 ± 0.22 after the students completed the survey. Our study highlights the importance of offering guidance to

How the intentions of the draftsman shape perception of a drawing.

Science.gov (United States)

Pignocchi, Alessandro

2010-12-01

The interaction between the recovery of the artist's intentions and the perception of an artwork is a classic topic for philosophy and history of art. It also frequently, albeit sometimes implicitly, comes up in everyday thought and conversation about art and artworks. Since recent work in cognitive science can help us understand how we perceive and understand the intentions of others, this discipline could fruitfully participate in a multidisciplinary investigation of the role of intention recovery in art perception. The method I propose is to look for cases where recovery of the artist's intentions interacts with perception of a work of art, and this cannot be explain by a simple top-down influence of conscious propositional knowledge on perception. I will focus on drawing and show that recovery of the draftsman's intentional actions is handled by a psychological process shaped by the motor system of the observer. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Intention-Aware Autonomous Driving Decision-Making in an Uncontrolled Intersection

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Weilong Song

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Autonomous vehicles need to perform social accepted behaviors in complex urban scenarios including human-driven vehicles with uncertain intentions. This leads to many difficult decision-making problems, such as deciding a lane change maneuver and generating policies to pass through intersections. In this paper, we propose an intention-aware decision-making algorithm to solve this challenging problem in an uncontrolled intersection scenario. In order to consider uncertain intentions, we first develop a continuous hidden Markov model to predict both the high-level motion intention (e.g., turn right, turn left, and go straight and the low level interaction intentions (e.g., yield status for related vehicles. Then a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP is built to model the general decision-making framework. Due to the difficulty in solving POMDP, we use proper assumptions and approximations to simplify this problem. A human-like policy generation mechanism is used to generate the possible candidates. Human-driven vehicles’ future motion model is proposed to be applied in state transition process and the intention is updated during each prediction time step. The reward function, which considers the driving safety, traffic laws, time efficiency, and so forth, is designed to calculate the optimal policy. Finally, our method is evaluated in simulation with PreScan software and a driving simulator. The experiments show that our method could lead autonomous vehicle to pass through uncontrolled intersections safely and efficiently.

The Link between HR Attributions and Employees’ Turnover Intentions

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Juliana Caesaria Tandung

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Human Resources Management (HRM is part of the organizational functions that contribute to the effectiveness of a firm’s performance, and brings an organization a competitive advantage through the implementation of its Human Resources (HR practices. HR practices adopted by management are perceived or attributed subjectively by individual employees, and can in turn affect the employees’ attitudes and behavior (e.g. Job satisfaction and turnover intention. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the process-based approach by investigating the effect of HR attributions on turnover intentions, with job satisfaction playing a mediating role. The analysis is on the individual level, with 454 respondents from various organizations within the Netherlands. The results show that HR attributions can affect the turnover intention, through the presence of job satisfaction. Thus, it can be said that it is important to always consider the employees’ attitudes and behavior when examining their perception of HR practices, and in predicting their intention to leave.

Harsh Parenting, Deviant Peers, Adolescent Risky Behavior: Understanding the Meditational Effect of Attitudes and Intentions.

Science.gov (United States)

Neppl, Tricia K; Dhalewadikar, Jui; Lohman, Brenda J

2016-09-01

Although research supports the influence of parents and peers on adolescent risky behavior, less is known about mechanisms proposed to explain this relation. This study examined the influence of adolescent attitudes and intentions about such behaviors. Prospective, longitudinal data came from rural youth who participated throughout adolescence (n= 451). Observed harsh parenting and relationship with deviant peers was assessed in early adolescence, attitudes and intentions were measured during middle adolescence, and risky behavior was assessed in late adolescence. Results indicated that parenting and deviant peers was related to engagement in tobacco use, alcohol use, and risky sexual behaviors. Moreover, attitudes and intentions mediated this relationship even after parent use and adolescent early involvement in these behaviors were taken into account.

EXPLORING INTENTIONALITY. IDEOLOGICAL ROMANIAN MEDIA DISCOURSE

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LUMINIŢA ROŞCA

2014-05-01

Full Text Available This study examines the discursive practices of media “transition” from Romania 80’s and early 90’s in order to identify a pattern of the ideological discourse of transition. The pragmatic analysis is in line with recent studies that discuss media discourses in post-communist countries or “in transition” which led to new approaches and nuances of classical theories of the public sphere which we consider very important in the context of contemporary Romanian social discourse. The analysis of how to make the transition from “wooden language” to “informative discourse” of the Romanian media discourse focuses on intentionality describe in text linguistic as discursive component able to realize thematic choices, media discourse and attitude of media instances during the media process production. We also consider intentionality because it introduces in the discourse the component of journalist personality, with all that this may include: attitudes, training, professional conscience, and moral values. Understanding the mechanisms of intentionality in the media discourse production can lead to a more nuanced an complex understanding of the role of media in the production of meanings and the role of the journalist’s personality in media production

Unravelling intention

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vinding, Mikkel Christoffer; Pedersen, Michael Nygaard; Overgaard, Morten

2013-01-01

Experimental studies investigating the contribution of conscious intention to the generation of a sense of agency for one’s own actions tend to rely upon a narrow definition of intention. Often it is operationalized as the conscious sensation of wanting to move right before movement. Existing...... results and discussion are therefore missing crucial aspects of intentions, namely intention as the conscious sensation of wanting to move in advance of the movement. In the present experiment we used an intentional binding paradigm, in which we distinguished between immediate (proximal) intention......, as usually investigated, and longer standing (distal) intention. The results showed that the binding effect was significantly enhanced for distal intentions compared to proximal intentions, indicating that the former leads to stronger sense of agency. Our finding provides empirical support for a crucial...

Studying Abroad: Understanding the Relationships among Beliefs, Perceived Value, and Behavioral Intentions

Science.gov (United States)

Zhuang, Weiling; King, Kristen; Carnes, Lana

2015-01-01

Increased globalization highlights the importance of encouraging university students to participate in an international experience. In this study, the authors investigate how behavioral belief, subjective belief, and control belief influence students' perceived value and intention to study abroad. The authors further examine the moderation effects…

Assessing, and understanding, European organic dairy farmers’ intentions to improve herd health

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jones, P.J.; Sok, J.; Tranter, R.B.; Blanco-Penedo, I.; Fall, N.; Fourichon, C.; Hogeveen, H.; Krieger, M.C.; Sundrum, A.

2016-01-01

Many believe the health status of organic dairy herds in Europe should be improved to meet consumers’ and legislators’ expectations to improve animal welfare. This paper reports on a study in four countries that examined dairy farmers’ intentions towards improving the health status of their

Prospective parents' intentions regarding disclosure following the removal of donor anonymity.

Science.gov (United States)

Crawshaw, Marilyn

2008-06-01

This short survey of UK infertility counsellors was designed to determine whether the removal of donor anonymity resulted in noticeable changes in prospective parents' stated intentions regarding disclosure of their origins to any children conceived through donor conception. Members of the British Infertility Counselling Association working in Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) -- licensed centres, before and after the legal changes, were sent a short questionnaire that included space for free comments (take-up: 62%). Three-quarters reported changes. Of these, two-thirds said prospective parents were more likely to say they would disclose, while less than a tenth said prospective parents were less likely do so. Where no changes were noted, this was primarily because the majority of prospective parents had stated their intention to be open even prior to the legal changes. Possible influences on intentions included: the culture within the centre, moves towards openness within the wider society, and parents' lack of confidence regarding how to go about disclosure. Follow-up studies are needed to improve understanding of whether influences on decision making carry through to patterns of actual disclosure; whether involvement in counselling affects outcomes; and whether access to professional assistance at the time of planned disclosure is helpful.

Voting Intention and Choices: Are Voters Always Rational and Deliberative?

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, I-Ching; Chen, Eva E; Tsai, Chia-Hung; Yen, Nai-Shing; Chen, Arbee L P; Lin, Wei-Chieh

2016-01-01

Human rationality--the ability to behave in order to maximize the achievement of their presumed goals (i.e., their optimal choices)--is the foundation for democracy. Research evidence has suggested that voters may not make decisions after exhaustively processing relevant information; instead, our decision-making capacity may be restricted by our own biases and the environment. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which humans in a democratic society can be rational when making decisions in a serious, complex situation-voting in a local political election. We believe examining human rationality in a political election is important, because a well-functioning democracy rests largely upon the rational choices of individual voters. Previous research has shown that explicit political attitudes predict voting intention and choices (i.e., actual votes) in democratic societies, indicating that people are able to reason comprehensively when making voting decisions. Other work, though, has demonstrated that the attitudes of which we may not be aware, such as our implicit (e.g., subconscious) preferences, can predict voting choices, which may question the well-functioning democracy. In this study, we systematically examined predictors on voting intention and choices in the 2014 mayoral election in Taipei, Taiwan. Results indicate that explicit political party preferences had the largest impact on voting intention and choices. Moreover, implicit political party preferences interacted with explicit political party preferences in accounting for voting intention, and in turn predicted voting choices. Ethnic identity and perceived voting intention of significant others were found to predict voting choices, but not voting intention. In sum, to the comfort of democracy, voters appeared to engage mainly explicit, controlled processes in making their decisions; but findings on ethnic identity and perceived voting intention of significant others may suggest otherwise.

Voting Intention and Choices: Are Voters Always Rational and Deliberative?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

I-Ching Lee

Full Text Available Human rationality--the ability to behave in order to maximize the achievement of their presumed goals (i.e., their optimal choices--is the foundation for democracy. Research evidence has suggested that voters may not make decisions after exhaustively processing relevant information; instead, our decision-making capacity may be restricted by our own biases and the environment. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which humans in a democratic society can be rational when making decisions in a serious, complex situation-voting in a local political election. We believe examining human rationality in a political election is important, because a well-functioning democracy rests largely upon the rational choices of individual voters. Previous research has shown that explicit political attitudes predict voting intention and choices (i.e., actual votes in democratic societies, indicating that people are able to reason comprehensively when making voting decisions. Other work, though, has demonstrated that the attitudes of which we may not be aware, such as our implicit (e.g., subconscious preferences, can predict voting choices, which may question the well-functioning democracy. In this study, we systematically examined predictors on voting intention and choices in the 2014 mayoral election in Taipei, Taiwan. Results indicate that explicit political party preferences had the largest impact on voting intention and choices. Moreover, implicit political party preferences interacted with explicit political party preferences in accounting for voting intention, and in turn predicted voting choices. Ethnic identity and perceived voting intention of significant others were found to predict voting choices, but not voting intention. In sum, to the comfort of democracy, voters appeared to engage mainly explicit, controlled processes in making their decisions; but findings on ethnic identity and perceived voting intention of significant others may suggest

Understanding the factors which promote registered nurses' intent to stay in emergency and critical care areas.

Science.gov (United States)

Van Osch, Mary; Scarborough, Kathy; Crowe, Sarah; Wolff, Angela C; Reimer-Kirkham, Sheryl

2018-03-01

To explore the influential factors and strategies that promote an experienced nurse's intent to stay in their emergency or critical care area. Turnover among registered nurses (herein referred to as nurses) working in specialty areas of practice can result in a range of negative outcomes. The retention of specialty nurses at the unit level has important implications for hospital and health systems. These implications include lost knowledge and experience which may in turn impact staff performance levels, patient outcomes, hiring, orientating, development of clinical competence and other aspects of organizational performance. This qualitative study used an interpretive descriptive design to understand nurses' perceptions of the current factors and strategies that promote them staying in emergency or critical care settings for two or more years. Focus groups were conducted with 13 emergency and critical care nurses. Data analysis involved thematic analysis that evolved from codes to categories to themes. Four themes were identified: leadership, interprofessional relationships, job fit and practice environment. In addition, the ideas of feeling valued, respected and acknowledged were woven throughout. Factors often associated with nurse attrition such as burnout and job stresses were not emphasised by the respondents in our study as critical to their intent to stay in their area of practice. This study has highlighted positive aspects that motivate nurses to stay in their specialty areas. To ensure quality care for patients, retention of experienced emergency and critical care nurses is essential to maintaining specialty expertise in these practice settings. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The influence of intention and outcome on evaluations of social interaction.

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Xiaoying; Hua, Rui; Yang, Zhangxiang; Yin, Jun

2018-01-01

Reading and making sense of social interactions between individuals is an important part of our daily social lives. Given that actions tend to be interpreted in terms of intent within the observed outcome, we investigated how intent and outcome interactively influence evaluations of social interactions. Through visual animations, intent was operationalized as an agent's (i.e., actor's) act intentionally or unintentionally having an influence on another agent (i.e., affectee). In Experiment 1, the act was helpful and the consequences brought small or great benefits to the affectee. In Experiment 2, the act was harmful and brought small or great losses to the affectee. We found that for both helpful and harmful contexts, social interaction evaluations were influenced by an interaction between the intent and outcome of the act. Specifically, great help/harm (i.e., the great-benefits or great-losses condition) was rated as a stronger social interaction than small help/harm, and the difference was larger in the intentional condition than in the unintentional condition. Furthermore, regardless of the interaction valence, the effect of the intent was larger than the effect of the outcome when evaluating social interaction. This result suggests that observers consider the intent and outcome jointly when evaluating a given social interaction, and the intent has a privileged role in this process. These findings are consistent with the idea that the intent is often deemed to be the cause driving the effect of outcome, and they help us to understand how social interactions are constructed within the action understanding system. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

African American Parents’ HPV Vaccination Intent and Concerns

OpenAIRE

Sanders Thompson, Vetta L.; Arnold, Lauren D.; Notaro, Sheri R.

2012-01-01

This study describes attitudes and social and environmental factors that affect African American parents’ intent to vaccinate their daughters against human papillomavirus (HPV). Thirty African American parents of daughters aged nine to 17 years and no history of HPV infection completed semi-structured interviews. Interviews addressed factors that influenced intent to vaccinate, perception of community norms related to vaccination, vaccination scenarios involving place of vaccination, and vacc...

The intention of North-Western Ethiopian dairy farmers to control mastitis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mekonnen, Sefinew Alemu; Koop, Gerrit; Lam, Theo J G M; Hogeveen, Henk

2017-01-01

Understanding the intentions of dairy farmers towards mastitis control is important to design effective udder health control programs. We used the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to explore the intentions of North-Western Ethiopian dairy farmers towards implementing non-specified mastitis control

CAREER INTENTIONS OF INTERNATIONAL MASTER STUDENTS IN HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM MANAGEMENT

OpenAIRE

Li, Wenjun

2014-01-01

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate career intentions of international master's students in hospitality and tourism management (HTM) in the United States. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of 19 participants at two different U.S. institutions. Interview questions were designed to better understand students' career intentions upon graduation and the determinants behind the plans. Results indicated that student's career intention should include measure...

The Adaptation of Intentional Immigrant Entrepreneurs: A Case Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Prue Cruickshank

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Objective: This paper describes the experiences of a group of intentional immigrant entrepreneurs (IIEs who have successfully set up a business within three years of arrival in a new country. It shows how various forms of symbolic capital are successfully deployed at each stage of the entrepreneurial process and asserts that the study of intentional, well-resourced immigrants, can contribute to understanding immigrant entrepreneurs’ adaptation to their new settings and also inform immigration policy. Research Design & Methods: Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with a sample of New Zealand intentional immigrant entrepreneurs. The iterative analytical process used revealed the various dimensions of symbolic capital necessary for adaptation to the host country and to fulfilling visa requirements to gain residency. Findings: This paper demonstrates that the successful adaptation of IIEs, while in the first instance requiring adequate financial capital, also requires the strategic use of human, cultural and social capital, in different ways and at different times in the entrepreneurial process, to overcome the obstacles and barriers to success. Implications & Recommendations: As immigration policy makers seek to balance global migrant pressures and international obligations against internal national economic and political demands, the results of this study could resonate with both global policy analysts and scholars engaged in immigrant entrepreneurship. Contribution & Value Added: This article adds to the relatively small body of scholarship on IIEship, particularly those who, unlike the majority of immigrant entrepreneurs, do not establish a business within ethnic communities.

Understanding landowner intentions to create early successional forest habitat in the northeastern United States

Science.gov (United States)

Dayer, Ashley A.; Stedman, Richard C.; Allred, Shorna B.; Rosenberg, Kenneth V.; Fuller, Angela K.

2016-01-01

Early successional forest habitat (ESH) and associated wildlife species in the northeastern United States are in decline. One way to help create early successional forest conditions is engaging private forest landowners in even-aged forest management because their limited participation may have contributed to declines in ESH for wildlife species of high conservation concern. We applied the reasoned action approach from social psychology to predict intentions of landowners in the 13-county Southern Tier of New York State, USA, to conduct patch-cuts, which is a type of even-aged forest management. We tested the predictive ability of the model using data from a mail survey of landowners conducted from November 2010 to January 2011. Landowner intention to conduct patch-cuts was high (55% of respondents), with attitude being the strongest direct predictor of behavioral intention. Our results suggest that patch-cutting intentions are most likely expressed by landowners who think the behavior is good for their land and wildlife, believe in positive outcomes of land and wildlife management, belong to a game wildlife organization, and have conducted patch-cuts in the past. Strategies to engage more landowners in ESH management will have the highest likelihood of success if outreach efforts focus on influencing behavioral beliefs and subsequently attitudes, possibly working with game wildlife organizations to communicate a unified message for habitat conservation, including the importance of maintaining and creating ESH. Our results demonstrate the importance of social science research to increase the likelihood that conservation targets for declining wildlife species are met. Published 2015. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Understanding the underlying motives and intention among Indian blood donors towards voluntary blood donation: A cross-sectional study.

Science.gov (United States)

Saha, S; Chandra, B

2018-05-01

The present study aims to fill the gap in the literature by conducting a comprehensive research on Indian donor's intention towards voluntary blood donation in India. The study attempts to conceptualize and validate an integrative framework incorporating voluntary function inventory (VFI) in the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model with the purpose tomeasure the voluntary blood donation intention. Structural equation modeling (SEM) has been used to rigorously test the hypothesized interrelationships among the underlying motives influencing voluntary blood donation intention. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of respondents selected conveniently from selct locations in India. Total 450 completed questionnaires were received out of 1000 distributed. The study develops a final conceptual framework that determines the drivers of blood donor's intention towards voluntary donation. The components of theory of planned behavior (TPB) model which include 'attitude', 'subjective norms' (SN), and 'perceived behavioral control' (PBC) along with modified volunteer functions namely 'value', 'social', 'career' and 'enhancement' were found significantly explaining the donation intention in the model. The model achieves robustness with respect to predicting Indian donor's intention towards the voluntary donation of blood. The proposed model in this study advances the theory and research on thevolunteering motives towards blood donation. The study would provide a comprehensiveunderstanding of donors' intention to the practitioners, policy makers and Non-Government Organization (NGO), helping them to frame a calibrated strategydirected towards facilitating healthy blood donation practices. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Unravelling intention: distal intentions increase the subjective sense of agency.

Science.gov (United States)

Vinding, Mikkel C; Pedersen, Michael N; Overgaard, Morten

2013-09-01

Experimental studies investigating the contribution of conscious intention to the generation of a sense of agency for one's own actions tend to rely upon a narrow definition of intention. Often it is operationalized as the conscious sensation of wanting to move right before movement. Existing results and discussion are therefore missing crucial aspects of intentions, namely intention as the conscious sensation of wanting to move in advance of the movement. In the present experiment we used an intentional binding paradigm, in which we distinguished between immediate (proximal) intention, as usually investigated, and longer standing (distal) intention. The results showed that the binding effect was significantly enhanced for distal intentions compared to proximal intentions, indicating that the former leads to stronger sense of agency. Our finding provides empirical support for a crucial distinction between at least two types of intention when addressing the efficacy of conscious intentions. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Entrepreneurial intention benefitting from education, training and competence: Egypt and Iran

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ashourizadeh, Shayegheh; Nasiri, Niloofar; Schøtt, Thomas

2014-01-01

The question is, for adults in Egypt and Iran, are education, training and competencies positively interrelated and is this human capital benefitting intention to start a business?– Data on people’s human capital and intentions have been collected by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor in 2008....... The sample is 2,068 adults in Egypt and 2,610 adults in Iran who were not owning-managing a starting or operating business. Multivariate analyses reveal considerable effects of human capital in Egypt and Iran. Education benefits training, training during schooling benefits training after schooling, education...... and training largely benefit competencies such as self-efficacy and opportunity-alertness and education, training and competencies all benefit intention to start a business, but effects differ between Egypt and Iran. The study is valuable and original by demonstrating considerable effects of higher education...

Study Streams and Student Entrepreneurial Intention

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Chukuakadibia Eresia-Eke

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Understanding the levels of entrepreneurial intention among university students is particularly critical in Africa where the scourge of unemployment is profound. Alive to this, governments and well-meaning institutions are investing in entrepreneurship development, the gains of which remain to be seen leading to an ebbing of hope in the youth population. To this end the study investigates the entrepreneurial intention of university students in South Africa with an aim to reveal differences arising from study streams. The study consequently extends knowledge by examining entrepreneurial intention within the context of an unemployment-ridden society while leveraging on the theories of planned behaviour. The study executed from a positivist standpoint surveyed 238 students and quantitatively analysed the data principally to test deductively derived hypothesised relationships. The empirical study concludes that there is indeed a difference in entrepreneurial intention levels between the two groups. Empirical in nature, this quantitative study and concludes that there is indeed a difference in entrepreneurial intention levels between the two groups. Interventions aimed at enhancing entrepreneurship can only generate desirable results if the entrepreneurial intentions of the target population are known. This would ensure that the right type of interventions are created and delivered to specific groups as the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach continues to fail. Serving a clearly heterogeneous population with seemingly homogenous interventions appears faulty and this reality needs to inform pro-entrepreneurship initiatives in future.

PENGARUH PERSEPSI PEGAWAI MENGENAI OUTSOURCING TERHADAP KEPUASAN KERJA DAN TURNOVER INTENTION

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Retno Sari Murtiningsih

2016-02-01

Full Text Available The Background of this research was the trend of companies’ outsourcing human resource (expertise and specialists to accomplish tasks more cheaply and efficiently to increase productivity. The objective of this research was to find out the impact of employees’ perception of outsourcing human resource on their job satisfaction and turnover intention. To achieve this objective the quantitative research has been done by using explanatory survey method. The design of this research applies quantitative approach. The samples for the study consisted of 115 human resource division employees of three Banks in Jakarta. The primary data in this research was obtained by using closed ended questionnaires. Non probability sampling method with the convenience sampling technique was employed to select the sample. Data analysis used in this research was Structural Equation Modeling (SEM. The result of this research concludes that employees’ positive perception of outsourcing human resource increases their job satisfaction and decreases their turnover intention whereas negative perception of outsourcing human resource decreases job satisfaction and subsequently increases turnover intention. Based on the result of the research, it is important that a company outsource human resource to increase productivity.

Knowledge and Intention to Participate in Cervical Cancer Screening after the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine

Science.gov (United States)

Price, Rebecca Anhang; Koshiol, Jill; Kobrin, Sarah; Tiro, Jasmin A.

2011-01-01

Background If women who receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine are unduly reassured about the cancer prevention benefits of vaccination, they may choose not to participate in screening, thereby increasing their risk for cervical cancer. This study assesses adult women’s knowledge of the need to continue cervical cancer screening after HPV vaccination, describes Pap test intentions of vaccinated young adult women, and evaluates whether knowledge and intentions differ across groups at greatest risk for cervical cancer. Methods Data were from the 2008 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) and the 2008 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), which initiated data collection approximately 18 months after the first FDA approval of an HPV vaccine. We calculated associations between independent variables and the outcomes using chi-square tests. Results Of 1,586 female HINTS respondents ages 18 through 74, 95.6% knew that HPV-vaccinated women should continue to receive Pap tests. This knowledge did not vary significantly by race/ethnicity, education, income, or healthcare access. Among 1,101 female NHIS respondents ages 18 to 26 who had ever received a Pap test, the proportion (12.7%; n = 139) who reported receipt of the HPV vaccine were more likely than those not vaccinated to plan to receive a Pap test within three years (98.1% vs. 92.5%, pknowledge and intention to participate in Pap testing after HPV vaccination. The vast majority of young adult women who received the HPV vaccine within its first two years on the market intend to participate in cervical cancer screening in the near future. Future studies are needed to examine whether those vaccinated in adolescence will become aware of, and adhere to, screening guidelines as they become eligible. PMID:21473953

Improving the Transparency of an Exoskeleton Knee Joint Based on the Understanding of Motor Intent Using Energy Kernel Method of EMG.

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Chen, Xing; Zeng, Yan; Yin, Yuehong

2017-06-01

Transparent control is still highly challenging for robotic exoskeletons, especially when a simple strategy is expected for a large-impedance device. To improve the transparency for late-phase rehabilitation when "patient-in-charge" mode is necessary, this paper aims at adaptive identification of human motor intent, and proposed an iterative prediction-compensation motion control scheme for an exoskeleton knee joint. Based on the analysis of human-machine interactive mechanism (HMIM) and the semiphenomenological biomechanical model of muscle, an online adaptive predicting controller is designed using a focused time-delay neural network (FTDNN) with the inputs of electromyography (EMG), position and interactive force, where the activation level of muscle is estimated from EMG using a novel energy kernel method. The compensating controller is designed using the normative force-position control paradigm. Initial experiments on the human-machine integrated knee system validated the effectiveness and ease of use of the proposed control scheme.

Understanding Usability Work as a Human Activity

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nørgaard, Mie

Three core themes are explored in eight papers: Usability work as a human activity, usability practice and methods, and persuasiveness of evaluation results and feedback. We explore how usability work is much more than methods and work procedures, and argue that maturing our understanding...

Human activity understanding for robot-assisted living

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hu, N.

2016-01-01

This thesis investigated the problem of understanding human activities, at different levels of granularity and taking into account both the variability in activities and annotator disagreement. To be able to capture the large variations within each of the action classes, we propose a model that uses

CONSUMERS’ PURCHASE INTENTIONS TOWARDS NATURAL COSMETICS

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Matea Matić

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this paper is to determine which variables influence consumers’ intentions towards purchasing natural cosmetics. Several variables are included in the regression analysis such as age, gender, consumers’ purchase tendency towards organic food, consumers’ new natural cosmetics brands and consumers’ tendency towards health consciousness. The data was collected through an online survey questionnaire using the purposive sample of 204 consumers from the Dubrovnik-Neretva County in March and April of 2015. Various statistical analyses were used such as binary logistic regression and correlation analysis. Binary logistic regression results show that gender, consumers’ purchase tendency towards organic food and consumers’ purchase tendency towards new natural cosmetics brands have an influence on consumer purchase intentions. However, consumers’ tendency towards health consciousness has no influence on consumers’ intentions towards purchasing natural cosmetics. Results of the correlation analysis indicate that there is a strong positive correlation between purchase intentions towards natural cosmetics and consumer references of natural cosmetics. The findings may be useful to online retailers, as well as marketers and practitioners to recognize and better understand the new trends that occur in the industry of natural cosmetics.

Can human error theory explain non-adherence?

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Barber, Nick; Safdar, A; Franklin, Bryoney D

2005-08-01

To apply human error theory to explain non-adherence and examine how well it fits. Patients who were taking chronic medication were telephoned and asked whether they had been adhering to their medicine, and if not the reasons were explored and analysed according to a human error theory. Of 105 patients, 87 were contacted by telephone and they took part in the study. Forty-two recalled being non-adherent, 17 of them in the last 7 days; 11 of the 42 were intentionally non-adherent. The errors could be described by human error theory, and it explained unintentional non-adherence well, however, the application of 'rules' was difficult when considering mistakes. The consideration of error producing conditions and latent failures also revealed useful contributing factors. Human error theory offers a new and valuable way of understanding non-adherence, and could inform interventions. However, the theory needs further development to explain intentional non-adherence.

Explaining consumer choice: coming to terms with intentionality.

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Foxall, Gordon R

2007-06-01

Any attempt to understand the nature of behaviorism as a philosophy of science, to depict the essence of its distinctive explanatory system, or to delimit the scope of its capacity to explicate behavior, requires an appreciation of how its practitioners use language. Three behaviorist theories that are especially relevant to the explanation of economic behavior - radical behaviorism, teleological behaviorism, and picoeconomics - provide a necessary array of theoretical perspectives in that each contributes uniquely to understanding consumer choice. Despite the differences that separate them at a methodological level, and the internecine disputes in which their adherents sometimes address one another, these three perspectives play complementary roles in the depiction of everyday consumer behavior. Moreover, this combination of behavior theories owes much to the way in which each has responded to the challenge of intentional explanation. In order to demonstrate this, the paper proposes a framework of analysis which portrays the essential differences between intentional explanation and the extensional approach towards which many behaviorists have striven, and argues that while radical behaviorism scrupulously avoids intentional terms, teleological behaviorism and picoeconomics have in differing ways come to terms with the necessity of combining a behaviorist perspective with the explanatory value of intentional terminology. This continuum of explanations is applied to recent findings of consumer behavior analysis on consumer choice in natural environments.

Understanding Student Teachers’ Behavioural Intention to Use Technology: Technology Acceptance Model (TAM Validation and Testing

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Kung-Teck, Wong

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This study sets out to validate and test the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM in the context of Malaysian student teachers’ integration of their technology in teaching and learning. To establish factorial validity, data collected from 302 respondents were tested against the TAM using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA, and structural equation modelling (SEM was used for model comparison and hypotheses testing. The goodness-of-fit test of the analysis shows partial support of the applicability of the TAM in a Malaysian context. Overall, the TAM accounted for 37.3% of the variance in intention to use technology among student teachers and of the five hypotheses formulated, four are supported. Perceived usefulness is a significant influence on attitude towards computer use and behavioural intention. Perceived ease of use significantly influences perceived usefulness, and finally, behavioural intention is found to be influenced by attitude towards computer use. The findings of this research contribute to the literature by validating the TAM in the Malaysian context and provide several prominent implications for the research and practice of technology integration development.

Understanding intention to use electronic information resources: A theoretical extension of the technology acceptance model (TAM).

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Tao, Donghua

2008-11-06

This study extended the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by examining the roles of two aspects of e-resource characteristics, namely, information quality and system quality, in predicting public health students' intention to use e-resources for completing research paper assignments. Both focus groups and a questionnaire were used to collect data. Descriptive analysis, data screening, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) techniques were used for data analysis. The study found that perceived usefulness played a major role in determining students' intention to use e-resources. Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use fully mediated the impact that information quality and system quality had on behavior intention. The research model enriches the existing technology acceptance literature by extending TAM. Representing two aspects of e-resource characteristics provides greater explanatory information for diagnosing problems of system design, development, and implementation.

Gambling and the Reasoned Action Model: Predicting Past Behavior, Intentions, and Future Behavior.

Science.gov (United States)

Dahl, Ethan; Tagler, Michael J; Hohman, Zachary P

2018-03-01

Gambling is a serious concern for society because it is highly addictive and is associated with a myriad of negative outcomes. The current study applied the Reasoned Action Model (RAM) to understand and predict gambling intentions and behavior. Although prior studies have taken a reasoned action approach to understand gambling, no prior study has fully applied the RAM or used the RAM to predict future gambling. Across two studies the RAM was used to predict intentions to gamble, past gambling behavior, and future gambling behavior. In study 1 the model significantly predicted intentions and past behavior in both a college student and Amazon Mechanical Turk sample. In study 2 the model predicted future gambling behavior, measured 2 weeks after initial measurement of the RAM constructs. This study stands as the first to show the utility of the RAM in predicting future gambling behavior. Across both studies, attitudes and perceived normative pressure were the strongest predictors of intentions to gamble. These findings provide increased understanding of gambling and inform the development of gambling interventions based on the RAM.

Understanding human genetic variation in the era of high-throughput sequencing

OpenAIRE

Knight, Julian C.

2010-01-01

The EMBO/EMBL symposium ‘Human Variation: Cause and Consequence' highlighted advances in understanding the molecular basis of human genetic variation and its myriad implications for biology, human origins and disease.

The Silver Lining of Shame: Framing HPV to Influence Vaccination Intentions.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Janet Z; Pittman, McKenzie M

2017-08-01

College students suffer disproportionately from human papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually transmitted infection (STI) that could result in genital warts or cancers in both males and females. Research contends that stigma and shame may serve as barriers to disclosure intentions, as well as vaccination intentions. The goal of this study was to examine whether two framing strategies-whether to mention that HPV is sexually transmitted and whether to highlight the cause of infection as internal or external-would influence young adults' intentions to disclose a potential diagnosis and their intentions to get the recommended HPV vaccine. Results indicate that STI framing and gender had consistent impacts on disclosure and vaccination intentions. Further, causal attribution framing also influenced participants' intention to get the vaccine at no cost immediately and their intention to get the vaccine at the retail price of $375 in the future. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

Not by nature nor by intention

OpenAIRE

Heringer, Hans J.

1988-01-01

Not by nature nor by intention : the normative power of the language signs. - In: Normative structures of the social world / ed. by Giuliano di Bernardo. - Amsterdam : Rodopi, 1988. - S. 101-133. - (Poznán studies in the philosophy of the sciences and humanities ; 11)

Current understanding of mdig/MINA in human cancers.

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Thakur, Chitra; Chen, Fei

2015-07-01

Mineral dust-induced gene, mdig has recently been identified and is known to be overexpressed in a majority of human cancers and holds predictive power in the poor prognosis of the disease. Mdig is an environmentally expressed gene that is involved in cell proliferation, neoplastic transformation and immune regulation. With the advancement in deciphering the prognostic role of mdig in human cancers, our understanding on how mdig renders a normal cell to undergo malignant transformation is still very limited. This article reviews the current knowledge of the mdig gene in context to human neoplasias and its relation to the clinico-pathologic factors predicting the outcome of the disease in patients. It also emphasizes on the promising role of mdig that can serve as a potential candidate for biomarker discovery and as a therapeutic target in inflammation and cancers. Considering the recent advances in understanding the underlying mechanisms of tumor formation, more preclinical and clinical research is required to validate the potential of using mdig as a novel biological target of therapeutic and diagnostic value. Expression level of mdig influences the prognosis of several human cancers especially cancers of the breast and lung. Evaluation of mdig in cancers can offer novel biomarker with potential therapeutic interventions for the early assessment of cancer development in patients.

Toward an Understanding of Online Word-of-Mouth Message Content and the Booking Intentions of Lodging Consumers

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Van Loon, Gerald

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which the message structure of an online word-of-mouth referral influences the booking intentions of lodging consumers. The objectives were (1) determine what elements of the message structure of an online word-of-mouth referral influenced the booking intention of lodging consumers and (2)…

Grasping the intentions of others with one's own mirror neuron system.

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Marco Iacoboni

2005-03-01

Full Text Available Understanding the intentions of others while watching their actions is a fundamental building block of social behavior. The neural and functional mechanisms underlying this ability are still poorly understood. To investigate these mechanisms we used functional magnetic resonance imaging. Twenty-three subjects watched three kinds of stimuli: grasping hand actions without a context, context only (scenes containing objects, and grasping hand actions performed in two different contexts. In the latter condition the context suggested the intention associated with the grasping action (either drinking or cleaning. Actions embedded in contexts, compared with the other two conditions, yielded a significant signal increase in the posterior part of the inferior frontal gyrus and the adjacent sector of the ventral premotor cortex where hand actions are represented. Thus, premotor mirror neuron areas-areas active during the execution and the observation of an action-previously thought to be involved only in action recognition are actually also involved in understanding the intentions of others. To ascribe an intention is to infer a forthcoming new goal, and this is an operation that the motor system does automatically.

Self-Regulatory Processes Mediate the Intention-Behavior Relation for Adherence and Exercise Behaviors

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bruin, de M.; Sheeran, P.; Kok, G.; Hiemstra, A.; Prins, J.M.; Hospers, H.J.; Breukelen, G.J.P.

2012-01-01

Objectives: Understanding the gap between people's intentions and actual health behavior is an important issue in health psychology. Our aim in this study was to investigate whether self-regulatory processes (monitoring goal progress and responding to discrepancies) mediate the intention-behavior

From Life to Existence: A Reconsideration of the Question of Intentionality in Michel Henry’s Ethics

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Frédéric Seyler

2012-12-01

Full Text Available Michel Henry has renewed our understanding of life as immanent affectivity: life cannot be reduced to what can be made visible; it is – as immanent and as affectivity – radically invisible. However, if life (la vie is radically immanent, the living (le vivant has nonetheless to relate to the world: it has to exist. But, since existence requires and includes intentional components, human reality – being both living and existing – implies that immanence and intentionality be related to one another, even though they are conceived at the same time as radically distinct modes of appearing in Henry’s phenomenology of life. Following this line of thought, we are faced with at least two questions: First, what reality does immanent appearing have for us as existing and intentional beings? And second, from an ethical point of view, what does Henry’s opposition of “barbarism” and “second birth” mean in terms of existence? As will be shown, it follows from the standpoint of radical phenomenology itself that immanent affectivity has reality for us only insofar as it finds its expression or translation in the realm of the intentionally visible and that, with regard to ethics, both “barbarism” and its overcoming in “second birth” are effective only insofar as they are mediated through representations. Henry’s critique of representation and intentionality needs therefore to be revised, especially in the field of practical philosophy, where the essential role played by intentionality has to be acknowledged even by radical phenomenology.

Understanding intention to undergo colonoscopy among intermediate-risk siblings of colorectal cancer patients: a test of a mediational model.

Science.gov (United States)

Manne, Sharon; Markowitz, Arnold; Winawer, Sidney; Guillem, Jose; Meropol, Neal J; Haller, Daniel; Jandorf, Lina; Rakowski, William; Babb, James; Duncan, Terry

2003-01-01

There is a need for research to identify factors influencing intentions to undergo colorectal cancer (CRC) screening among family members at risk for CRC. This study tested a mediational model primarily guided by Ronis' elaboration of the Health Belief Model in predicting intention to have colorectal cancer screening among siblings of individuals diagnosed with colorectal cancer prior to age 56 years. Data were collected from 534 siblings of individuals diagnosed with CRC. A baseline survey was administered by telephone. Measures included perceived susceptibility, CRC severity, physician and family support for CRC screening, cancer-specific distress, the closeness of the relationship with the affected sibling, and future intention to have a colonoscopy. Participant age, gender, and number of prior colonoscopies, as well as the stage of the affected patient's cancer and time from the patient's diagnosis to the interview, were controlled for in the analyses. The proposed model was not a good fit to the data. A respecified model was fit to the data. In this model, physician support, family support, and sibling closeness were significantly associated with both perceived benefits and barriers. Perceived severity was associated with barriers. Benefits and barriers, as well as cancer-specific distress, were directly associated with colonoscopy intentions. Results were consistent with a mediational role for benefits and barriers in the associations of sibling closeness and with a mediational role for barriers in the association between perceived severity and colonoscopy intentions. Family and physician support impacted intentions both directly and indirectly through effects on benefits and barriers. Perceived risk was not associated with benefits, barriers, or colonoscopy intentions. Intervention efforts to increase colonoscopy intentions may benefit from targeting family influences, particularly the affected proband in the family, as well as physician influence, cancer

Mouse models for understanding human developmental anomalies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Generoso, W.M.

1989-01-01

The mouse experimental system presents an opportunity for studying the nature of the underlying mutagenic damage and the molecular pathogenesis of this class of anomalies by virtue of the accessibility of the zygote and its descendant blastomeres. Such studies could contribute to the understanding of the etiology of certain sporadic but common human malformations. The vulnerability of the zygotes to mutagens as demonstrated in the studies described in this report should be a major consideration in chemical safety evaluation. It raises questions regarding the danger to human zygotes when the mother is exposed to drugs and environmental chemicals

Opportunity Evaluation through Experiential Learning (OETEL): An Analysis of Perceived Desirability, Perceived Feasibility, and Entrepreneurial Intention

OpenAIRE

Krisakorn Sukavejworakit; Triyuth Promsiri; Thanaphol Virasa

2018-01-01

The entrepreneurial intention is recognized as the best predictor of entrepreneurship activity. This study aims to extend the understanding of entrepreneurial intention within the context of entrepreneurship education. The role of opportunity evaluation on entrepreneurial intention was explored with the application of Experiential Learning Theory. The conceptual framework was developed based on the integrated entrepreneurial intention model, where perceived desirability and perceived feasibil...

A Framework for Assessment of Intentional Fires

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Iraj Mohammadfam

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Background & Objectives : It is not possible to live without using fire. However, fire could destruct human properties in a short time. One of the most important types of fire is intentional fire. This type of fire has become a great problem for insurance companies, fire departments, industries, government and business in the recent years. This study aimed to provide a framework for risk assessment of intentional fires . Methods: In the present study, risk assessment and management model for protecting critical properties and security vulnerability assessment model were used to develop a comprehensive framework for risk assessment of intentional fires. The framework was examined in an automotive industry . Results : The designed framework contained five steps as 1 asset inventory and prioritizing them according to their importance, 2 invasion assessment, 3 vulnerability assessment, 4 risk assessment and design and 5 implementation and evaluating the effectiveness of corrective/preventive actions. Thirty different scenarios for intentional fires were identified by implementing the designed framework in an automotive company, and then the associated risk of each scenario was quantitatively determined. Conclusion : Compared to seven models, the proposed framework represents its comprehension. Development of safety and security standards and a central security information bank to reduce security risks, including the risk of intentional fires is recommended .

Inactive nurses in Taiwan: human capital, intention to return to hospital nursing, and incentives for returning.

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Yu, Hsing-Yi; Tang, Fu-In; Chen, I-Ju; Yin, Teresa J C; Chen, Chu-Chieh; Yu, Shu

2016-04-01

To investigate inactive nurses' human capital, intention to return to hospital nursing and incentives for returning. Few studies have discussed the loss of human capital with regard to inactive nurses and how to attract them to return to clinical work. Systematic random sampling was used, with 328 subjects completing the mailed questionnaires, resulting in a response rate of 25.4%. Inactive nurses not only had moderate to high human capital (average years of nursing experience was 10.29, with moderate to high levels of nursing professional commitment and nursing competence) and were young. Forty-three percent of subjects reported intending to return to hospital nursing. Sufficient nurse staffing, greater safety in the working environment, and re-entry preparation programmes were incentives for returning. Recruiting inactive nurses back to hospital work is vital and feasible as inactive nurses had a moderate to high degree of human capital. The most feasible way is offering reasonable working conditions, in particular, providing sufficient staffing, a safe working environment and re-entry preparation programmes. The findings confirm the human capital of inactive nurses and provide concrete directions for nursing managers to follow when recruiting inactive nurses to hospital nursing. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Factors associated with parental reasons for "no-intent" to vaccinate female adolescents with human papillomavirus vaccine: National Immunization Survey - Teen 2008-2012.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheruvu, Vinay K; Bhatta, Madhav P; Drinkard, Lauren N

2017-02-13

1) To identify socio-demographic factors associated with parental "no-intent" for their 13-17 year old unvaccinated daughter to receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine series within the next twelve months, 2) to describe patterns in "no-intent" by socio-demographic factors, and 3) to identify socio-demographic factors associated with parental reasons for "no-intent". Data from 2008-2012 National Immunization Survey - Teen (NIS - Teen) were examined in this study. Parents with "no-intent" to vaccinate their daughters were asked to identify reasons for their decision. All responses were categorized into five domains identified as barriers to receive the HPV vaccine series: 1) Safety and Effectiveness Concerns; 2) Systemic Barriers; 3) Vaccine Misinformation; 4) Lack of Knowledge about the Vaccine; and 5) Socio-cultural Barriers. Multivariable logistic regression models were performed to address the study objectives. Number of people in the household, household income, mother's age, education, health insurance, recommendation of a health care provider, and the survey year were significantly associated with parental "no-intent". Race/ethnicity, mother's education, marital status, recommendation of a health care provider, household income, age of the unvaccinated daughter, and the survey year, were significantly associated with one or more domains identified as barriers to receive the HPV vaccine. This study identified sub-groups of parents across different socio-demographic factors with "no-intent" for their adolescent daughters to receive the HPV vaccine. Developing strategies that target educational tools towards the identified sub-groups of parents about the purpose, safety, and efficacy of the HPV vaccine, and HPV infection, may help increase HPV vaccine acceptance, initiation and completion rates.

‘We are the future’: understanding adolescents’ intentions to commute by car or bicycle as adults

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sigurdardottir, Sigrun Birna; Kaplan, Sigal; Møller, Mette

This study focuses on the intentions of adolescents to commute by car or bicycle as adults, as key elements towards promoting societal transition towards sustainable modes. The behavioral model is based on the theory of planned behavior combined with positive current travel experience, willingness...... passenger experience, general interest in cars, and car-ownership norms, and are negatively related to willingness to accept car restrictions and perceived lack of behavioral control; (ii) cycling intentions are positively related to positive cycling experience, willingness to accept car restrictions...

Spatio-temporal dynamics of the mirror neuron system during social intentions.

Science.gov (United States)

Cacioppo, Stephanie; Bolmont, Mylene; Monteleone, George

2017-10-27

Previous research has shown that specific goals and intentions influence a person's allocation of social attention. From a neural viewpoint, a growing body of evidence suggests that the inferior fronto-parietal network, including the mirror neuron system, plays a role in the planning and the understanding of motor intentions. However, it is unclear whether and when the mirror neuron system plays a role in social intentions. Combining a behavioral task with electrical neuroimaging in 22 healthy male participants, the current study investigates whether the temporal brain dynamic of the mirror neuron system differs during two types of social intentions i.e., lust vs. romantic intentions. Our results showed that 62% of the stimuli evoking lustful intentions also evoked romantic intentions, and both intentions were sustained by similar activations of the inferior frontal gyrus and the inferior parietal lobule/angular gyrus for the first 432 ms after stimulus onset. Intentions to not love or not lust, on the other hand, were characterized by earlier differential activations of the inferior fronto-parietal network i.e., as early as 244 ms after stimulus onset. These results suggest that the mirror neuron system may not only code for the motor correlates of intentions, but also for the social meaning of intentions and its valence at both early/automatic and later/more elaborative stages of information processing.

The Impact Of Website Design Features On Behavioral Intentions

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Chun-Chin Chiu

2015-08-01

Full Text Available The design of a website interface plays an important role in online purchasing and customers are more likely to visit and buy from better-designed websites. However previous studies have not provided consistent information about the features a website should provide. Based on Hausman and Siekpes 2009 comprehensive model this study aims to empirically verify whether the model can be applied in e-service markets to predict and explain website users behavioral intentions trade intentions and revisit intentions. Based on the data from a survey of 303 Internet users the results indicate that computer factors and human factors the key website design features are significantly related to website users experiences perceived usefulness perceived entertainment value and perceived informativeness in turn significantly affect the intermediary outcomes of attitude toward the site and ultimately influence users behavioral intentions.

Intentional replantation: A viable alternative for management of palatogingival groove

OpenAIRE

Vijay Kumar; Ajay Logani; Naseem Shah

2013-01-01

Radicular groove is an anatomical malformation that often leads to combined endodontic-periodontic lesions. Treatment of complex groove presents a clinical challenge to the operator. A case of type III palatogingival groove is successfully treated with intentional replantation. With the understanding of the procedure and strict adherence to guidelines improves, practitioners can use intentional replantation as an easy and cost-effective alternative for the management of radicular groove. The ...

The role of salient beliefs in graduates’ intention to apply

OpenAIRE

Samantha Adams; François de Kock

2015-01-01

Orientation: Organisations compete fiercely to recruit the best graduates, because they consider them a rich source of future talent. In the recruitment literature, it has become increasingly important to understand the factors that influence graduate applicant intentions. Research purpose: Drawing on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), we tested a model proposing that applicant intention is a function of their attitude towards applying, beliefs about referent other’s expectations (su...

Exorcising Grice's ghost: an empirical approach to studying intentional communication in animals.

Science.gov (United States)

Townsend, Simon W; Koski, Sonja E; Byrne, Richard W; Slocombe, Katie E; Bickel, Balthasar; Boeckle, Markus; Braga Goncalves, Ines; Burkart, Judith M; Flower, Tom; Gaunet, Florence; Glock, Hans Johann; Gruber, Thibaud; Jansen, David A W A M; Liebal, Katja; Linke, Angelika; Miklósi, Ádám; Moore, Richard; van Schaik, Carel P; Stoll, Sabine; Vail, Alex; Waller, Bridget M; Wild, Markus; Zuberbühler, Klaus; Manser, Marta B

2017-08-01

Language's intentional nature has been highlighted as a crucial feature distinguishing it from other communication systems. Specifically, language is often thought to depend on highly structured intentional action and mutual mindreading by a communicator and recipient. Whilst similar abilities in animals can shed light on the evolution of intentionality, they remain challenging to detect unambiguously. We revisit animal intentional communication and suggest that progress in identifying analogous capacities has been complicated by (i) the assumption that intentional (that is, voluntary) production of communicative acts requires mental-state attribution, and (ii) variation in approaches investigating communication across sensory modalities. To move forward, we argue that a framework fusing research across modalities and species is required. We structure intentional communication into a series of requirements, each of which can be operationalised, investigated empirically, and must be met for purposive, intentionally communicative acts to be demonstrated. Our unified approach helps elucidate the distribution of animal intentional communication and subsequently serves to clarify what is meant by attributions of intentional communication in animals and humans. © 2016 Cambridge Philosophical Society.

Family and Cultural Correlates of Mexican-origin Youths’ Sexual Intentions

Science.gov (United States)

Killoren, Sarah E.; Updegraff, Kimberly A.; Christopher, F. Scott

2013-01-01

Understanding how culture and familial relationships are related to Mexican-origin youths’ normative sexual development is important. Using cultural-ecological, sexual scripting, and risk and resilience perspectives, the associations between parent-adolescent relationship characteristics, adolescents’ cultural orientations and familism values, and sexual intentions among 246 Mexican-origin adolescents (50% female) were investigated. Regression analyses were conducted to examine the connections between youths’ cultural orientations and familism values and their intentions to engage in sexual intercourse and to test the moderating role of parent-adolescent relationship characteristics and adolescent sex. For boys, under conditions of high maternal acceptance, higher Anglo orientations and higher Mexican orientations were related to greater sexual intentions. For girls, familism values played a protective role and were related to fewer sexual intentions when girls spent less time with their parents. The findings highlight the complex nature of relationships between culture, family relationships, and youths’ sexual intentions and different patterns for girls versus boys. PMID:20835919

Family and cultural correlates of Mexican-origin youths' sexual intentions.

Science.gov (United States)

Killoren, Sarah E; Updegraff, Kimberly A; Christopher, F Scott

2011-06-01

Understanding how culture and familial relationships are related to Mexican-origin youths' normative sexual development is important. Using cultural-ecological, sexual scripting, and risk and resilience perspectives, the associations between parent-adolescent relationship characteristics, adolescents' cultural orientations and familism values, and sexual intentions among 246 Mexican-origin adolescents (50% female) were investigated. Regression analyses were conducted to examine the connections between youths' cultural orientations and familism values and their intentions to engage in sexual intercourse and to test the moderating role of parent-adolescent relationship characteristics and adolescent sex. For boys, under conditions of high maternal acceptance, higher Anglo orientations and higher Mexican orientations were related to greater sexual intentions. For girls, familism values played a protective role and were related to fewer sexual intentions when girls spent less time with their parents. The findings highlight the complex nature of relationships between culture, family relationships, and youths' sexual intentions and different patterns for girls versus boys.

I Meant to Do That: Determining the Intentions of Action in the Face of Disturbances.

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Horowitz, Justin; Patton, James

2015-01-01

Our actions often do not match our intentions when there are external disturbances such as turbulence. We derived a novel modeling approach for determining this motor intent from targeted reaching motions that are disturbed by an unexpected force. First, we demonstrated how to mathematically invert both feedforward (predictive) and feedback controls to obtain an intended trajectory. We next examined the model's sensitivity to a realistic range of parameter uncertainties, and found that the expected inaccuracy due to all possible parameter mis-estimations was less than typical movement-to-movement variations seen when humans reach to similar targets. The largest sensitivity arose mainly from uncertainty in joint stiffnesses. Humans cannot change their intent until they acquire sensory feedback, therefore we tested the hypothesis that a straight-line intent should be evident for at least the first 120 milliseconds following the onset of a disturbance. As expected, the intended trajectory showed no change from undisturbed reaching for more than 150 milliseconds after the disturbance onset. Beyond this point, however, we detected a change in intent in five out of eight subjects, surprisingly even when the hand is already near the target. Knowing such an intent signal is broadly applicable: enhanced human-machine interaction, the study of impaired intent in neural disorders, the real-time determination (and manipulation) of error in training, and complex systems that embody planning such as brain machine interfaces, team sports, crowds, or swarms. In addition, observing intent as it changes might act as a window into the mechanisms of planning, correction, and learning.

I Meant to Do That: Determining the Intentions of Action in the Face of Disturbances.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Justin Horowitz

Full Text Available Our actions often do not match our intentions when there are external disturbances such as turbulence. We derived a novel modeling approach for determining this motor intent from targeted reaching motions that are disturbed by an unexpected force. First, we demonstrated how to mathematically invert both feedforward (predictive and feedback controls to obtain an intended trajectory. We next examined the model's sensitivity to a realistic range of parameter uncertainties, and found that the expected inaccuracy due to all possible parameter mis-estimations was less than typical movement-to-movement variations seen when humans reach to similar targets. The largest sensitivity arose mainly from uncertainty in joint stiffnesses. Humans cannot change their intent until they acquire sensory feedback, therefore we tested the hypothesis that a straight-line intent should be evident for at least the first 120 milliseconds following the onset of a disturbance. As expected, the intended trajectory showed no change from undisturbed reaching for more than 150 milliseconds after the disturbance onset. Beyond this point, however, we detected a change in intent in five out of eight subjects, surprisingly even when the hand is already near the target. Knowing such an intent signal is broadly applicable: enhanced human-machine interaction, the study of impaired intent in neural disorders, the real-time determination (and manipulation of error in training, and complex systems that embody planning such as brain machine interfaces, team sports, crowds, or swarms. In addition, observing intent as it changes might act as a window into the mechanisms of planning, correction, and learning.

The role of salient beliefs in graduates’ intention to apply

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Samantha Adams

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Orientation: Organisations compete fiercely to recruit the best graduates, because they consider them a rich source of future talent. In the recruitment literature, it has become increasingly important to understand the factors that influence graduate applicant intentions. Research purpose: Drawing on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB, we tested a model proposing that applicant intention is a function of their attitude towards applying, beliefs about referent other’s expectations (subjective norms and perceived behavioural control with respect to this behaviour. Motivation for the study: The study was motivated by the need to shed light on graduate applicants’ decisions to apply to an organisation of their choice. Research approach, design and method: The study used a quantitative design to test hypotheses that attitudes towards behaviour, norms and control beliefs would influence intention to apply. We surveyed prospective job seekers (N = 854 studying at a South African university about their beliefs regarding the job application process. Main findings: Structural equation modelling showed reasonable fit of the proposed model to the survey data. Latent variable analysis demonstrated that perceived behavioural control and subjective norm explained intention to apply. With the combination of all three variables, only attitude towards applying did not play a significant role in the prediction of intention to apply, which is contrary to previous research. Practical/managerial implications: The findings highlight the role of salient control beliefs in the application process. Efforts by universities and organisations to affect intentions to apply may potentially benefit from focusing on support services that could enhance feelings of control and minimise perceived obstacles. Recruiters could focus on control to increase potential recruitment pools. Contribution/value-add: The study contributes to the recruitment literature in three ways

Understanding E-Book Continuance Intention: Empirical Evidence from E-Book Users in a Developing Country.

Science.gov (United States)

Maduku, Daniel K

2017-01-01

The book publishing industry is going through radical transformations that are driven by recent developments in information systems (IS). E-books are merely one of these developments. Notwithstanding the projections in the growth of e-book use, producers of these products contend with the issue of building user retention and loyalty through continued use. Extending the technology acceptance model (TAM), this study examined the impact of factors of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, social influence, and facilitating conditions on e-book continuance intention among users. The subjects of this study were 317 students from five higher institutions of learning in South Africa. Empirical testing of the research model was carried out using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that 42 percent of the variance in e-book users' continuance intention is explained by perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and social influence. Interestingly, facilitating conditions have an influence, although indirectly, through perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and social influence. The study not only contributes to the existing IS literature by extending the TAM to explain continuance intention in the e-book IS domain in a developing country but also makes recommendations to practitioners who attempt to foster continuous use of this technology.

Intact and Impaired Mechanisms of Action Understanding in Autism

Science.gov (United States)

Vivanti, Giacomo; McCormick, Carolyn; Young, Gregory S.; Abucayan, Floridette; Hatt, Naomi; Nadig, Aparna; Ozonoff, Sally; Rogers, Sally J.

2016-01-01

Typically developing children understand and predict others’ behavior by extracting and processing relevant information such as the logic of their actions within the situational constraints and the intentions conveyed by their gaze direction and emotional expressions. Children with autism have difficulties understanding and predicting others’ actions. With the use of eye tracking and behavioral measures, we investigated action understanding mechanisms used by 18 children with autism and a well-matched group of 18 typically developing children. Results showed that children with autism (a) consider situational constraints in order to understand the logic of an agent’s action and (b) show typical usage of the agent’s emotional expressions to infer his or her intentions. We found (c) subtle atypicalities in the way children with autism respond to an agent’s direct gaze and (d) marked impairments in their ability to attend to and interpret referential cues such as a head turn for understanding an agent’s intentions. PMID:21401220

Deciding as Intentional Action: Control over Decisions

Science.gov (United States)

Shepherd, Joshua

2015-01-01

Common-sense folk psychology and mainstream philosophy of action agree about decisions: these are under an agent's direct control, and are thus intentional actions for which agents can be held responsible. I begin this paper by presenting a problem for this view. In short, since the content of the motivational attitudes that drive deliberation and decision remains open-ended until the moment of decision, it is unclear how agents can be thought to exercise control over what they decide at the moment of deciding. I note that this problem might motivate a non-actional view of deciding—a view that decisions are not actions, but are instead passive events of intention acquisition. For without an understanding of how an agent might exercise control over what is decided at the moment of deciding, we lack a good reason for maintaining commitment to an actional view of deciding. However, I then offer the required account of how agents exercise control over decisions at the moment of deciding. Crucial to this account is an understanding of the relation of practical deliberation to deciding, an understanding of skilled deliberative activity, and the role of attention in the mental action of deciding. PMID:26321765

Comparing three attitude-behavior theories for predicting science teachers' intentions

Science.gov (United States)

Zint, Michaela

2002-11-01

Social psychologists' attitude-behavior theories can contribute to understanding science teachers' behaviors. Such understanding can, in turn, be used to improve professional development. This article describes leading attitude-behavior theories and summarizes results from past tests of these theories. A study predicting science teachers' intention to incorporate environmental risk education based on these theories is also reported. Data for that study were collected through a mail questionnaire (n = 1336, radjusted = 80%) and analyzed using confirmatory factor and multiple regression analysis. All determinants of intention to act in the Theory of Reasoned Action and Theory of Planned Behavior and some determinants in the Theory of Trying predicted science teachers' environmental risk education intentions. Given the consistency of results across studies, the Theory of Planned Behavior augmented with past behavior is concluded to provide the best attitude-behavior model for predicting science teachers' intention to act. Thus, science teachers' attitude toward the behavior, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norm need to be enhanced to modify their behavior. Based on the Theory of Trying, improving their attitude toward the process and toward success, and expectations of success may also result in changes. Future research should focus on identifying determinants that can further enhance the ability of these theories to predict and explain science teachers' behaviors.

Breast-feeding intentions among low-income pregnant and lactating women.

Science.gov (United States)

Hill, Gina Jarman; Arnett, Dennis B; Mauk, Eileen

2008-01-01

Provide a better understanding of the process used by low-income pregnant/postpartum women when deciding whether to breast-feed or not. Pregnant/postpartum women admitted to an obstetrics floor completed a survey to determine breast-feeding intention (n=88). Subjects were primarily Hispanic and African American women. Beliefs and referent other were related positively to attitude and subjective norm, respectively. Subjective norm was related positively to intention to breast-feed. Breast-feeding knowledge was low. Others' opinions clearly influence feeding intentions among this population of low-income women. Inclusion of these significant others, family, and friends within the breast-feeding education process is warranted.

Understanding the determinants of hotel booking intentions and moderating role of habit

OpenAIRE

El-Masry, AA; Agag, G

2016-01-01

When there are more and more online hotel consumers, it is important for industry players to know why consumers prefer one online booking channel among others. Grounded in the commitment–trust theory (KMV) and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), this paper seeks to develop and empirically test a comprehensive framework to examine which factors influence consumer intentions to book hotel online. Using SEM to analyse the data collected from a sample of 1431 Internet users, the results indica...

Exploring Midwives' Need and Intention to Adopt Electronic Integrated Antenatal Care.

Science.gov (United States)

Markam, Hosizah; Hochheiser, Harry; Kuntoro, Kuntoro; Notobroto, Hari Basuki

2018-01-01

Documentation requirements for the Indonesian integrated antenatal care (ANC) program suggest the need for electronic systems to address gaps in existing paper documentation practices. Our goals were to quantify midwives' documentation completeness in a primary healthcare center, understand documentation challenges, develop a tool, and assess intention to use the tool. We analyzed existing ANC records in a primary healthcare center in Bangkalan, East Java, and conducted interviews with stakeholders to understand needs for an electronic system in support of ANC. Development of the web-based Electronic Integrated ANC (e-iANC) system used the System Development Life Cycle method. Training on the use of the system was held in the computer laboratory for 100 midwives chosen from four primary healthcare centers in each of five regions. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) questionnaire was used to assess their intention to adopt e-iANC. The midwives' intention to adopt e-iANC was significantly influenced by performance expectancy, effort expectancy and facilitating conditions. Age, education level, and computer literacy did not significantly moderate the effects of performance expectancy and effort expectancy on adoption intention. The UTAUT results indicated that the factors that might influence intention to adopt e-iANC are potentially addressable. Results suggest that e-iANC might well be accepted by midwives.

Intentionality as a link between the neuropsychology and the symptoms of schizophrenia.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaiser, Stefan; Weisbrod, Matthias

2007-01-01

Cognitive deficits are an important feature of schizophrenia, particularly in the areas of working memory and executive function. However, their relationship to other clinical dimensions of the illness has remained elusive. We suggest that a phenomenological exploration of disordered intentionality in schizophrenia symptoms might provide us with a framework for understanding the role of cognitive deficits. We propose an understanding of intentionality as having a layered structure, which facilitates a mapping onto neuropsychological concepts. A disturbance of basic intentional processes can explain some of the 'positive' symptoms of schizophrenia. We focus on the temporal aspect of intentionality, which will be related to recent conceptions of prefrontal cortical function as the temporal organization of thought and behavior. A compensation of these basic disturbances leads to a 'minimization of change', which can explain some of the 'negative' symptoms. The compensatory strategies are thought to rely on the higher-order executive functions of the prefrontal cortex. These are also disturbed in schizophrenia, which often renders the process of compensation ineffective, leading to a fragmentation of thought and behavior. Thus the concept of intentionality might help us relate different aspects of prefrontal dysfunction to specific schizophrenic symptom clusters. (c) 2007 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Emotion based human-robot interaction

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Berns Karsten

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Human-machine interaction is a major challenge in the development of complex humanoid robots. In addition to verbal communication the use of non-verbal cues such as hand, arm and body gestures or mimics can improve the understanding of the intention of the robot. On the other hand, by perceiving such mechanisms of a human in a typical interaction scenario the humanoid robot can adapt its interaction skills in a better way. In this work, the perception system of two social robots, ROMAN and ROBIN of the RRLAB of the TU Kaiserslautern, is presented in the range of human-robot interaction.

Employee Development and Turnover Intention: Theory Validation

Science.gov (United States)

Rahman, Wali; Nas, Zekeriya

2013-01-01

Purpose: This study aims to examine the pattern of behavior of turnover intentions in developing countries "vis-a-vis" the one in advanced countries through the empirical data from public universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The study provides empirical evidence from academia in Pakistan, thereby enriching the understanding of…

Recognition and Prediction of Human Actions for Safe Human-Robot Collaboration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Rasmus Skovgaard; Bøgh, Simon; Ceballos, Iker

Collaborative industrial robots are creating new opportunities for collaboration between humans and robots in shared workspaces. In order for such collaboration to be efficient, robots - as well as humans - need to have an understanding of the other's intentions and current ongoing action....... In this work, we propose a method for learning, classifying, and predicting actions taken by a human. Our proposed method is based on the human skeleton model from a Kinect. For demonstration of our approach we chose a typical pick-and-place scenario. Therefore, only arms and upper body are considered......; in total 15 joints. Based on trajectories on these joints, different classes of motion are separated using partitioning around medoids (PAM). Subsequently, SVM is used to train the classes to form a library of human motions. The approach allows run-time detection of when a new motion has been initiated...

Examining intentions to use CoQ10 amongst breast cancer patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Hill, Gina Jarman; Shriver, Brent J; Arnett, Dennis B

2006-01-01

To determine factors that influence breast cancer patients' intentions to supplement with CoQ10. A survey based upon the expanded rational expectations intentions model was completed by breast cancer outpatients (N=160). A significantly positive relationship existed between referent other (the influence specific people have in terms of an individual's behavior) and subjective norm (subject's perception of how people view a behavior). Beliefs, referent other, attitude, and subjective norm did have a significant effect on intention to use CoQ10. Health practitioners may address supplementation with breast cancer patients with a better understanding of what factors impact supplement use.

The mediating effect of organizational citizenship behavior on the relationship between workplace spirituality and intention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roya Anvari

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Purpose: This study aims to explore the relationships between workplace spirituality, intention to leave and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB among nurses and whether OCB mediates the relationship between workplace spirituality and intention to leave. Design/methodology/approach: Due to the shifting paradigm of health policies, administrations in Malaysian hospitals are faced with trials of cost reduction. The high rate of nurses leaving the hospital poses a burden to the human resource department. This study aims to discover how to cope with this problem by utilizing workplace spirituality and organizational citizenship behaviour. In the present correlational study, data were collected using questionnaires. A total of 345 nurses from three public and general hospitals located in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, were chosen as samples using a random sampling method to respond to questionnaires. The measurement and structural model were assessed using SmartPls 2.0. Findings:  Workplace spirituality has significant negative influence on nurses’ intention to leave and positive influence on OCB. Amongst nurses, workplace spirituality contributed to 34% of the variation in intention to leave, whereas 36% of the variation was in accordance to OCBI and 45% of the variation was in accordance to OCBO. Furthermore, OCB arbitrated the effect of workplace spirituality on the intention to leave. Originality/value: Workplace spirituality contributes to nurses’ intention to leave and OCB. This study highlights the benefits of the novel idea of workplace spirituality, especially amongst nurses needing motivation in their duties. Social implications: This study has shown the probable advantages of better understanding the positive impact of workplace spirituality on nurses’ tendency to leave and OCB. This is important for the managers of nurses in the effort to improve nurses’ performance and, by extension, the healthcare system.

PENGARUH JOB SATISFACTION TERHADAP OCB DAN TURNOVER INTENTION

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Febru Rida Ningsih

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This article aims to provide the impact of job satisfaction to OCB and turnover intention. This study used a quantitative method with a statistical analysis. Simple analysis regression used to test each hypotheses. The object of this research is a branch of national bank. Population in this research are entire employees of a brach of national bank that is e non frontliner employees. Non-probability sampling is used of this reseach. The measurement of job satiafaction and turnover intention variables used likert scale that developed by Rinaldi (2008 and measurement of OCB variable adopted from  Organ (1988.  The result of this research has shown that hypotheses one is rejected and hypotheses two is accepted. Eventually, through this article, an understanding that job satisfaction does not significantly influence to OCB but job satisfaction has significant influence to turnover intention.

Understanding action control of daily walking behavior among dog owners: a community survey

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Ryan E. Rhodes

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Walking among dog owners may be a means to achieve health benefits, yet almost half of owners (approximately 30% of households are not regularly walking their dogs. Current research on the correlates of dog walking has generally considered intention as the primary determinant of behavior, yet the intention-behavior relationship is modest. The purpose of this paper was to apply a framework designed to evaluate the intention-behavior gap, known as multi-process action control (M-PAC, to understand daily walking among dog owners. Method A community sample of adult dog owners (N = 227 in Victoria, Canada completed M-PAC measures of motivational (dog and human outcome expectations, affective judgments, perceived capability and opportunity, regulatory (planning, and reflexive (automaticity, identity processes as well as intention to walk and behavior. Results Three intention-behavior profiles emerged: a non-intenders who were not active (26%; n = 59, b unsuccessful intenders who failed to enact their positive intentions (33%; n = 75, and c successful intenders who were active (40%; n = 91. Congruent with M-PAC, a discriminant function analysis showed that affective judgements (r = 0.33, automaticity (r = 0.38, and planning (r = 0.33 distinguished between all three intention-behavior profiles, while identity (r = 0.22 and dog breed size (r = 0.28 differentiated between successful and unsuccessful intenders. Conclusions The majority of dog owners have positive intentions to walk, yet almost half fail to meet these intentions. Interventions focused on affective judgments (e.g., more enjoyable places to walk, behavioral regulation (e.g., setting a concrete plan, habit (e.g., making routines and cues and identity formation (e.g., affirmations of commitment may help overcome difficulties with translating these intentions into action, thus increasing overall levels of walking.

Toward an Understanding of Motivational Influences on Prospective Memory Using Value-Added Intentions

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Gabriel I Cook

2015-05-01

Full Text Available This study examined value-added intentions by manipulating the cognitive frame associated with monetary contingencies for detecting prospective memory cues. We associated a loss-frame with a monetary punishment for failing to respond to cues and a gain-frame with a monetary reward for remembering to respond to cues and compared those frames to a no-frame control condition with no contingency linked to performance. Across two experiments, we find increased prospective memory performance for participants in the loss-frame (Experiments 1 and 2 and in the gain-frame (Experiment 2 conditions relative to the no-frame condition. This value-related improvement in prospective memory was not accompanied by a significant increase in cue monitoring as measured by intention induced interference to an ongoing task and recognition memory for ongoing task items. The few previous studies investigating motivational prospective memory showed mixed results regarding whether prospective memory improves due to incentives or not. Our results provide further evidence that, under some experimental conditions, prospective memory improves with rewards and that the benefit generalizes to penalizing performance. The results have both practical implications and theoretical implications for motivation models of prospective memory.

The moderating role of gender on entrepreneurial intentions: A TPB perspective

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José Luis Ruizalba Robledo

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Purpose: To disentangle the ways in which social norms shape the entrepreneurial intention of university students and to analyse the moderating effect of gender that may arise.Design/methodology/approach: We use the entrepreneurial intention model based on Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB literature and moderated by students’ gender affecting this intention. We tested some hypotheses using data from undergraduate business students in Spain and their entrepreneurial intentions.Findings: Our results suggest that perceived behavioural control and attitudes affect the entrepreneurial intentions of university students towards entrepreneurship while subjective norms don’t. Furthermore, our findings reveal that the moderating effect of gender has a positive influence effect for women on the relationship between those subjective norms and the perceived behavioural control. However, as to some research done so far, the moderating role of gender does not seem to have a particular effect on predicting entrepreneurial intentions when moderating TPB dimensions.Practical implications: Given the socio-economic benefits attributed to entrepreneurship results allow the design of more effective education initiatives and policy makers.Originality/value: This research provides support to the application of the TPB allowing for a better understanding of gender differences in entrepreneurial intention.

Prediction of Intention during Interaction with iCub with Probabilistic Movement Primitives

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Oriane Dermy

2017-10-01

Full Text Available This article describes our open-source software for predicting the intention of a user physically interacting with the humanoid robot iCub. Our goal is to allow the robot to infer the intention of the human partner during collaboration, by predicting the future intended trajectory: this capability is critical to design anticipatory behaviors that are crucial in human–robot collaborative scenarios, such as in co-manipulation, cooperative assembly, or transportation. We propose an approach to endow the iCub with basic capabilities of intention recognition, based on Probabilistic Movement Primitives (ProMPs, a versatile method for representing, generalizing, and reproducing complex motor skills. The robot learns a set of motion primitives from several demonstrations, provided by the human via physical interaction. During training, we model the collaborative scenario using human demonstrations. During the reproduction of the collaborative task, we use the acquired knowledge to recognize the intention of the human partner. Using a few early observations of the state of the robot, we can not only infer the intention of the partner but also complete the movement, even if the user breaks the physical interaction with the robot. We evaluate our approach in simulation and on the real iCub. In simulation, the iCub is driven by the user using the Geomagic Touch haptic device. In the real robot experiment, we directly interact with the iCub by grabbing and manually guiding the robot’s arm. We realize two experiments on the real robot: one with simple reaching trajectories, and one inspired by collaborative object sorting. The software implementing our approach is open source and available on the GitHub platform. In addition, we provide tutorials and videos.

Distinct electrophysiological potentials for intention in action and prior intention for action

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vinding, Mikkel C; Jensen, Mads; Overgaard, Morten

2014-01-01

The role of conscious intention in relation to motoric movements has become a major topic of investigation in neuroscience. Traditionally, reports of conscious intention have been compared to various features of the readiness-potential (RP) – an electrophysiological signal that appears before...... electrophysiological “intention potential” above the mid-frontal areas at the time participants formed a distal intention. This potential was only found when the distal intention was self-paced and not when the intention was formed in response to an external cue....

Fertility intentions and outcomes: Implementing the Theory of Planned Behavior with graphical models.

Science.gov (United States)

Mencarini, Letizia; Vignoli, Daniele; Gottard, Anna

2015-03-01

This paper studies fertility intentions and their outcomes, analyzing the complete path leading to fertility behavior according to the social psychological model of Theory Planned Behavior (TPB). We move beyond existing research using graphical models to have a precise understanding, and a formal description, of the developmental fertility decision-making process. Our findings yield new results for the Italian case which are empirically robust and theoretically coherent, adding important insights to the effectiveness of the TPB for fertility research. In line with TPB, all intentions' primary antecedents are found to be determinants of the level of fertility intentions, but do not affect fertility outcomes, being pre-filtered by fertility intentions. Nevertheless, in contrast with TPB, background factors are not fully mediated by intentions' primary antecedents, influencing directly fertility intentions and even fertility behaviors. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Modelling Engagement in Multi-Party Conversations : Data-Driven Approaches to Understanding Human-Human Communication Patterns for Use in Human-Robot Interactions

OpenAIRE

Oertel, Catharine

2016-01-01

The aim of this thesis is to study human-human interaction in order to provide virtual agents and robots with the capability to engage into multi-party-conversations in a human-like-manner. The focus lies with the modelling of conversational dynamics and the appropriate realization of multi-modal feedback behaviour. For such an undertaking, it is important to understand how human-human communication unfolds in varying contexts and constellations over time. To this end, multi-modal human-human...

Animal and human models to understand ageing.

Science.gov (United States)

Lees, Hayley; Walters, Hannah; Cox, Lynne S

2016-11-01

Human ageing is the gradual decline in organ and tissue function with increasing chronological time, leading eventually to loss of function and death. To study the processes involved over research-relevant timescales requires the use of accessible model systems that share significant similarities with humans. In this review, we assess the usefulness of various models, including unicellular yeasts, invertebrate worms and flies, mice and primates including humans, and highlight the benefits and possible drawbacks of each model system in its ability to illuminate human ageing mechanisms. We describe the strong evolutionary conservation of molecular pathways that govern cell responses to extracellular and intracellular signals and which are strongly implicated in ageing. Such pathways centre around insulin-like growth factor signalling and integration of stress and nutritional signals through mTOR kinase. The process of cellular senescence is evaluated as a possible underlying cause for many of the frailties and diseases of human ageing. Also considered is ageing arising from systemic changes that cannot be modelled in lower organisms and instead require studies either in small mammals or in primates. We also touch briefly on novel therapeutic options arising from a better understanding of the biology of ageing. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

Leadership practices and staff nurses' intent to stay: a systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Cowden, Tracy; Cummings, Greta; Profetto-McGrath, Joanne

2011-05-01

The aim of the present study was to describe the findings of a systematic review of the literature that examined the relationship between managers' leadership practices and staff nurses' intent to stay in their current position. The nursing shortage demands that managers focus on the retention of staff nurses. Understanding the relationship between leadership practices and nurses' intent to stay is fundamental to retaining nurses in the workforce. Published English language articles on leadership practices and staff nurses' intent to stay were retrieved from computerized databases and a manual search. Data extraction and quality assessments were completed for the final 23 research articles. Relational leadership practices influence staff nurses' intentions to remain in their current position. This study supports a positive relationship between transformational leadership, supportive work environments and staff nurses' intentions to remain in their current positions. Incorporating relational leadership theory into management practices will influence nurse retention. Advancing current conceptual models will increase knowledge of intent to stay. Clarifying the distinction between the concepts intent to stay and intent to leave is needed to establish a clear theoretical foundation for further intent to stay research. Nurse managers and leaders who practice relational leadership and ensure quality workplace environments are more likely to retain their staff. The findings of the present study support the claim that leadership practices influence staff nurse retention and builds on intent to stay knowledge. © 2011 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

EXPERIMENTAL SEMIOTICS: AN ENGINE OF DISCOVERY FOR UNDERSTANDING HUMAN COMMUNICATION

OpenAIRE

BRUNO GALANTUCCI; GARETH ROBERTS

2012-01-01

The recent growth of Experimental Semiotics (ES) offers us a new option to investigate human communication. We briefly introduce ES, presenting results from three themes of research which emerged within it. Then we illustrate the contribution ES can make to the investigation of human communication systems, particularly in comparison with the other existing options. This comparison highlights how ES can provide an engine of discovery for understanding human communication. In fact, in complemen...

How Does Your Brain See “Living” Circles: A Study of Animacy and Intention Using fMRI

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P McAleer

2011-04-01

Full Text Available It is widely reported that the perception of animacy can occur from simple displays of moving shapes with participants attributing such qualities as goals, beliefs, and intentions. Furthermore, via neuroimaging studies, a network of brain areas, including regions of the temporal and frontal lobes, has been shown to process the percept. However, problems exist that prevent the bridging of fMRI studies on the perception of animacy and intention in shapes to the same percept of human movement. First, the issue of prior displays being poorly controlled in terms of low-level visual cues blurs the actual root of the effect. Second, the general use of synthetically generated displays and their relationship to actual human movement: a problem previously addressed in behavioural studies via a systematic reduction of live visual footage of human actors. Therefore, we propose experiments that incorporate both synthetically generated animacy stimuli and displays derived from human motion. Following the classic Tremoulet and Feldman displays, stimuli are created that allow for manipulation of animacy and intent whilst controlling low-level visual cues. These displays are then used in a whole-brain fMRI study to locate neural regions sensitive to the perception of animacy and intention. Finally, within these regions, a region-of-interest analysis is performed to examine the change in brain activation from viewing animacy displays derived from human movement with varying intent (eg, chasing or following. This study develops the relationship between previous animacy literature and the real-world perception of intent.

Hermeneutics and the Historicity of Human Understanding

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gholamreza Jamshidnia

2009-02-01

Full Text Available Whether objectivity in the understanding of history is achivable? Putting  in another way, whether it is possible to account a historical event purely objectively, and free of one's own values, attitudes, and interests? Whether it is possible to have a "complete history'' and a complete explanation of any historical matter? If it is not possible, then it necessarily leads to a relativistic approach which finds any historical narrative acceptable? Are there any criteria according to which one could compare truthfulness of various historical narratives? The present study approach these questions hermeneutically. However, not all hermeneutical approaches answer them alike. Denying the relativist approach, this study attempts to analyze historicity of the human understanding and that of the interpreter him/herself.

Modulating Conscious Movement Intention by Noninvasive Brain Stimulation and the Underlying Neural Mechanisms

OpenAIRE

Douglas, Zachary H.; Maniscalco, Brian; Hallett, Mark; Wassermann, Eric M.; He, Biyu J.

2015-01-01

Conscious intention is a fundamental aspect of the human experience. Despite long-standing interest in the basis and implications of intention, its underlying neurobiological mechanisms remain poorly understood. Using high-definition transcranial DC stimulation (tDCS), we observed that enhancing spontaneous neuronal excitability in both the angular gyrus and the primary motor cortex caused the reported time of conscious movement intention to be ∼60–70 ms earlier. Slow brain waves recorded ∼2–...

Assessment of perception and intention in pesticide purchase in Taiwan.

Science.gov (United States)

Yeh, Jong Chao; Liao, Chih-Hsiang

2016-05-01

Environmental chemical agents such as pesticides can be purchased easily at a relatively low price, and this has resulted in high concern of environmental toxicity to human health, due to their persistence in various environmental bodies. Hence, this study aims to propose important factors influencing pesticide purchase intentions, including consumers' perceptions of the brand image and the ecological health risk. Since consumers are primary users, the seller knows the product's features but not the psychology of those who purchase it. Therefore, we attempted to clarify purchase intentions and perceptions using structural equation modeling techniques to empirically analyze survey data from 324 pesticide consumers in Taiwan. Our results demonstrate that perceived brand image positively affects perceived quality of a product, whereas perceived risk negatively affects perceived quality and purchase intentions. Furthermore, this study provides evidence that perceived quality positively affects purchase intentions. These relationships suggest that perceived quality mediates both the positive association between brand image and purchase intentions and the negative association between perceived risk and purchase intentions. Based on such outcomes, we propose that consumers need to be informed of pesticides related to costs and environmental benefits.

Cultural affordances: Scaffolding local worlds through shared intentionality and regimes of attention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maxwell James D. Ramstead

2016-07-01

Full Text Available In this paper we outline a framework for the study of the mechanisms involved in the engagement of human agents with cultural affordances. Our aim is to better understand how culture and context interact with human biology to shape human behavior, cognition, and experience. We attempt to integrate several related approaches in the study of the embodied, cognitive, and affective substrates of sociality and culture and the sociocultural scaffolding of experience. The integrative framework we propose bridges cognitive and social sciences to provide (i an expanded concept of ‘affordance’ that extends to sociocultural forms of life, and (ii a multilevel account of the socioculturally scaffolded forms of affordance learning and the transmission of affordances in patterned sociocultural practices and regimes of shared attention. This framework provides an account of how cultural content and normative practices are built on a foundation of contentless basic mental processes that acquire content through immersive participation of the agent in social practices that regulate joint attention and shared intentionality.

Detection of movement intention using EEG in a human-robot interaction environment

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Ernesto Pablo Lana

Full Text Available Introduction : This paper presents a detection method for upper limb movement intention as part of a brain-machine interface using EEG signals, whose final goal is to assist disabled or vulnerable people with activities of daily living. Methods EEG signals were recorded from six naïve healthy volunteers while performing a motor task. Every volunteer remained in an acoustically isolated recording room. The robot was placed in front of the volunteers such that it seemed to be a mirror of their right arm, emulating a Brain Machine Interface environment. The volunteers were seated in an armchair throughout the experiment, outside the reaching area of the robot to guarantee safety. Three conditions are studied: observation, execution, and imagery of right arm’s flexion and extension movements paced by an anthropomorphic manipulator robot. The detector of movement intention uses the spectral F test for discrimination of conditions and uses as feature the desynchronization patterns found on the volunteers. Using a detector provides an objective method to acknowledge for the occurrence of movement intention. Results When using four realizations of the task, detection rates ranging from 53 to 97% were found in five of the volunteers when the movement was executed, in three of them when the movement was imagined, and in two of them when the movement was observed. Conclusions Detection rates for movement observation raises the question of how the visual feedback may affect the performance of a working brain-machine interface, posing another challenge for the upcoming interface implementation. Future developments will focus on the improvement of feature extraction and detection accuracy for movement intention using EEG data.

A Conceptual Model to Identify Intent to Use Chemical-Biological Weapons

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Mary Zalesny

2017-10-01

Full Text Available This paper describes a conceptual model to identify and interrelate indicators of intent of non-state actors to use chemical or biological weapons. The model expands on earlier efforts to understand intent to use weapons of mass destruction by building upon well-researched theories of intent and behavior and focusing on a sub-set of weapons of mass destruction (WMD to account for the distinct challenges of employing different types of WMD in violent acts. The conceptual model is presented as a first, critical step in developing a computational model for assessing the potential for groups to use chemical or biological weapons.

Goal Expectations as Predictors of Retirement Intentions

Science.gov (United States)

Brougham, Ruby R.; Walsh, David A.

2005-01-01

The current study explored the contribution of personal goals to retirement decisions. A SMARTER methodology (to assess multiattribute utility) and taxonomy of human goals were used to investigate the relationship between older workers' personal goals and their retirement intentions. Two hundred and fifty-one employees of a large university,…

Mediator of moderators: temporal stability of intention and the intention-behavior relation.

Science.gov (United States)

Sheeran, Paschal; Abraham, Charles

2003-02-01

Intention certainty, past behavior, self-schema, anticipated regret, and attitudinal versus normative control all have been found to moderate intention-behavior relations. It is argued that moderation occurs because these variables produce "strong" intentions. Stability of intention over time is a key index of intention strength. Consequently, it was hypothesized that temporal stability of intention would mediate moderation by these other moderators. Participants (N = 185) completed questionnaire measures of theory of planned behavior constructs and moderator variables at two time points and subsequently reported their exercise behavior. Findings showed that all of the moderators, including temporal stability, were associated with significant improvements in consistency between intention and behavior. Temporal stability also mediated the effects of the other moderators, supporting the study hypothesis. Copyright 2003 Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Workplace experiences and turnover intention among adult survivors of childhood cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Crom, Deborah B; Ness, Kirsten K; Martinez, Larry R; Hebl, Michelle R; Robison, Leslie L; Hudson, Melissa M; Brinkman, Tara M

2018-03-17

The purpose of this study was to investigate workplace experiences and turnover intention (consideration of leaving or changing a job) and to examine factors associated with turnover intention among survivors. Adult survivors of childhood cancer with a history of employment (n = 289) completed measures of workplace experiences (n = 50, 18-29 years; n = 183, 30-44 years; n = 56; > 45 years of age at follow-up). Turnover intention was assessed using three items from the Job Satisfaction Scale. Responses were dichotomized as reflecting high vs. low turnover intention. Path analysis was used to estimate the influence of demographic characteristics, treatment exposures (cranial radiation therapy [CRT]), and workplace experiences on turnover intention. Thirty percent of survivors reported high turnover intention (95% CL, 25 to 36%). Exposure to CRT (P = 0.003), older attained age (P workplace discrimination (P = 0.008), and having lower continuance (P discrimination, mediated through job satisfaction, also influenced survivors' reported intent to leave their jobs. One third of adult survivors of childhood cancer report turnover intention, which is related to their cancer treatment, but more temporally proximal, workplace discrimination. Additional research is needed to understand the consequences of turnover intention among survivors. Survivors and their health care providers should be aware of legislative policies related to workplace discrimination (e.g., American with Disabilities Act) and related implications for job turnover.

Moderators of the Mediated Effect of Intentions, Planning, and Saturated-Fat Intake in Obese Individuals

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Soureti, A.; Hurling, R.; van Mechelen, W.; Cobain, M.; Chin A Paw, M.J.M.

2012-01-01

Objective: The present study aimed to advance our understanding of health-related theory, that is, the alleged intention-behavior gap in an obese population. It examined the mediating effects of planning on the intention-behavior relationship and the moderated mediation effects of age, self-efficacy

Biological and social understanding of human nature: biopolitical dimension

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S. K. Kostiuchkov

2014-07-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the position of the biopolitical nature of man as a biosocial being given supplies of both the two spheres of life – natural, biological and social. The necessity of understanding of human nature, which by definition are bio-social importance of the approach to the definition of man as an integral, binary-konnotovanoyi of the «social individual – a species» which is characterized by symmetrical opposition – upposition social and biological. It was found that the main task of modern political science, and in particular bio-political studies presented appeals to rethink the political picture of the world in order to predict the development of a new order or a new chaos. Understanding the formation of a new global civilization worldview is today one of the most important problems, which is connected with the main problem of the modern world – the task of preserving life on the planet. It is concluded that the contradictions of human nature – between the biological and the social, physical and spiritual, universal and the particular, natural and artificial, rational and emotional – in today’s conditions are extremely sharp. The said situation requires more in-depth scientific analysis of human nature, the study of the structural level as human biosocial system.

Work engagement, burnout and related constructs as predictors of turnover intentions

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Janine du Plooy

2010-12-01

Research purpose: The main purpose of the study was to determine whether work engagement, burnout, organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB and work alienation are predictors of turnover intentions. Motivation for the study: Organisations operating within the 21st century face significant challenges in the management of talent and human capital. One in particular is voluntary employee turnover and the lack of appropriate business models to track this process. Research design, approach and method: A secondary data analysis (SDA was performed in a quantitative research tradition on the cross-sectional survey data collected from a large South African Information and Communication Technologies (ICT sector company (n = 2429. Main findings: The results of the study confirmed the predictive model (work engagement, burnout, OCB and work alienation of turnover intention. Specifically, work engagement and OCBs were significantly negatively related to turnover intention; whilst burnout and work alienation were significantly positively related to turnover intention. Several third-variable relationships, such as biographic and demographic variables, indicated statistical significance. Practical/managerial implications: Practical implications of the study could impact on human resource (HR value-chain activities in the form of evidence-based and improved recruitment and selection procedures, employee retention strategies and training and development interventions. Issues concerning talent management could also be addressed. Contribution/value-add: The study described in this article took Industrial/Organisational (I/O psychological concepts and linked them in unique combinations to establish better predictive validity of a new turnover intentions model.

Do self- reported intentions predict clinicians' behaviour: a systematic review

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Dickinson Heather O

2006-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Implementation research is the scientific study of methods to promote the systematic uptake of clinical research findings into routine clinical practice. Several interventions have been shown to be effective in changing health care professionals' behaviour, but heterogeneity within interventions, targeted behaviours, and study settings make generalisation difficult. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the 'active ingredients' in professional behaviour change strategies. Theories of human behaviour that feature an individual's "intention" to do something as the most immediate predictor of their behaviour have proved to be useful in non-clinical populations. As clinical practice is a form of human behaviour such theories may offer a basis for developing a scientific rationale for the choice of intervention to use in the implementation of new practice. The aim of this review was to explore the relationship between intention and behaviour in clinicians and how this compares to the intention-behaviour relationship in studies of non-clinicians. Methods We searched: PsycINFO, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Science/Social science citation index, Current contents (social & behavioural med/clinical med, ISI conference proceedings, and Index to Theses. The reference lists of all included papers were checked manually. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they had: examined a clinical behaviour within a clinical context, included measures of both intention and behaviour, measured behaviour after intention, and explored this relationship quantitatively. All titles and abstracts retrieved by electronic searching were screened independently by two reviewers, with disagreements resolved by discussion. Discussion Ten studies were found that examined the relationship between intention and clinical behaviours in 1623 health professionals. The proportion of variance in behaviour explained by

African American parents' HPV vaccination intent and concerns.

Science.gov (United States)

Sanders Thompson, Vetta L; Arnold, Lauren D; Notaro, Sheri R

2012-02-01

This study describes attitudes and social and environmental factors that affect African American parents' intent to vaccinate their daughters against human papillomavirus (HPV). Thirty African American parents of daughters aged nine to 17 years and no history of HPV infection completed semi-structured interviews. Interviews addressed factors that influenced intent to vaccinate, perception of community norms related to vaccination, vaccination scenarios involving place of vaccination, and vaccination prior to or after the child's initiation of sexual activity. A recurring theme was the influence of physician recommendation on African American parents' intent to obtain HPV vaccination for their daughters. Most parents reported that they could overcome barriers to vaccination, except vaccine costs and lack of insurance. While religious beliefs were important to parents, they reported that they would not interfere with vaccination decisions; fears of early sexuality due to vaccination were limited. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Is recursion language-specific? Evidence of recursive mechanisms in the structure of intentional action.

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Vicari, Giuseppe; Adenzato, Mauro

2014-05-01

In their 2002 seminal paper Hauser, Chomsky and Fitch hypothesize that recursion is the only human-specific and language-specific mechanism of the faculty of language. While debate focused primarily on the meaning of recursion in the hypothesis and on the human-specific and syntax-specific character of recursion, the present work focuses on the claim that recursion is language-specific. We argue that there are recursive structures in the domain of motor intentionality by way of extending John R. Searle's analysis of intentional action. We then discuss evidence from cognitive science and neuroscience supporting the claim that motor-intentional recursion is language-independent and suggest some explanatory hypotheses: (1) linguistic recursion is embodied in sensory-motor processing; (2) linguistic and motor-intentional recursions are distinct and mutually independent mechanisms. Finally, we propose some reflections about the epistemic status of HCF as presenting an empirically falsifiable hypothesis, and on the possibility of testing recursion in different cognitive domains. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Suicide ideation and intent in Malaysia: a review of the literature.

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Aishvarya, S; Maniam, T; Sidi, Hatta; Oei, T P S

2014-01-01

The aim of this paper was to review the literature on suicide ideation and intent in Malaysia. PsyINFO, PubMed, Medline databases from 1845 to 2012 and detailed manual search of local official reports from Ministry of Health, Malaysian Psychiatric Association and unpublished dissertations from 3 local universities providing postgraduate psychiatric training, were included in the current review. A total of 13 studies on suicide ideation and intent in Malaysia were found and reviewed. The review showed that research on suicide ideation and intent in Malaysia was fragmented and limited, at best. Approximately 50% of existing research on suicide ideation and intent simply focused on sociodemographic data. Fifty-four percent of the data were obtained from hospitals. No study has been conducted on treatment and interventions for suicide ideation and intent. None of the studies used validated suicide scales. The impact of culture was rarely considered. It was clear from the review that for researchers, clinicians and public health policy makers to gain a better understanding of suicide behavior especially suicide ideation and intent in Malaysia, more systematic and empirically stringent methodologies and research frameworks need to be used. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

ActivityNet: A Large-Scale Video Benchmark for Human Activity Understanding

KAUST Repository

Heilbron, Fabian Caba

2015-06-02

In spite of many dataset efforts for human action recognition, current computer vision algorithms are still severely limited in terms of the variability and complexity of the actions that they can recognize. This is in part due to the simplicity of current benchmarks, which mostly focus on simple actions and movements occurring on manually trimmed videos. In this paper we introduce ActivityNet, a new largescale video benchmark for human activity understanding. Our benchmark aims at covering a wide range of complex human activities that are of interest to people in their daily living. In its current version, ActivityNet provides samples from 203 activity classes with an average of 137 untrimmed videos per class and 1.41 activity instances per video, for a total of 849 video hours. We illustrate three scenarios in which ActivityNet can be used to compare algorithms for human activity understanding: untrimmed video classification, trimmed activity classification and activity detection.

ActivityNet: A Large-Scale Video Benchmark for Human Activity Understanding

KAUST Repository

Heilbron, Fabian Caba; Castillo, Victor; Ghanem, Bernard; Niebles, Juan Carlos

2015-01-01

In spite of many dataset efforts for human action recognition, current computer vision algorithms are still severely limited in terms of the variability and complexity of the actions that they can recognize. This is in part due to the simplicity of current benchmarks, which mostly focus on simple actions and movements occurring on manually trimmed videos. In this paper we introduce ActivityNet, a new largescale video benchmark for human activity understanding. Our benchmark aims at covering a wide range of complex human activities that are of interest to people in their daily living. In its current version, ActivityNet provides samples from 203 activity classes with an average of 137 untrimmed videos per class and 1.41 activity instances per video, for a total of 849 video hours. We illustrate three scenarios in which ActivityNet can be used to compare algorithms for human activity understanding: untrimmed video classification, trimmed activity classification and activity detection.

Revisiting Phenomenal Intentionality

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Farid Masrour

2016-04-01

Full Text Available This essay has two goals. The goal of the first section is to raise a few clarificatory questions about the exact contour of Crane’s account of intentionality, its relation to phenomenology, and his motivation for it. The second section aims to describe a general worry about programs that combine a broadly anti-externalist outlook on intentionality with the idea that there is an intimate connection between phenomenology and intentionality. I argue that programs like this either suffer from a problem that I call intentional luck or, in the attempt to avoid this problem, have to weaken the connection between intentionality and phenomenology. Since Crane’s general outlook falls under this program, it is subject to this worry.

The intent to exercise influences the cerebral O(2)/carbohydrate uptake ratio in humans

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dalsgaard, Mads K; Ide, Kojiro; Cai, Yan

2002-01-01

During and after maximal exercise there is a 15-30 % decrease in the metabolic uptake ratio (O(2)/[glucose + 1/2 lactate]) and a net lactate uptake by the human brain. This study evaluated if this cerebral metabolic uptake ratio is influenced by the intent to exercise, and whether a change could......, the a-v difference for the amino acids and glycerol did not change significantly, and there was only a minimal increase in the a-v difference for free fatty acids after maximal exercise. After maximal exercise the metabolic uptake ratio of the brain decreased from 6.1 +/- 0.5 (mean +/- S.E.M.) at rest.......2) in the early recovery (n = 10; P brain are increased out of proportion to O(2) when the brain is activated by exhaustive exercise, and that such metabolic changes are influenced by the will to exercise. We speculate that the uptake ratio...

The relationships between organisational citizenship behaviour, job satisfaction and turnover intention.

Science.gov (United States)

Tsai, Yafang; Wu, Shih-Wang

2010-12-01

This study aims to explore the relationships between organisational citizenship behaviour, job satisfaction and turnover intention. Because of the changing health policies landscape, Taiwan's hospital administrators are facing major cost reduction challenges. Specifically, the high turnover rate of nurses represents a hindrance and a human resource cost. This study focuses on ways of reducing the employee turnover rate through enhanced organisational citizenship behaviour and job satisfaction. A cross-sectional study. This study focuses on hospital nurses in Taiwan. Our research samples were obtained from one medical centre, three regional hospitals and seven district hospitals. Out of 300 questionnaires distributed among samples, 237 were completed and returned. Pearson's correlation was used to test for relationships among the main variables. One-way analysis of variance and Scheffé's post hoc analysis were employed to test the influence of demographic data on the main variables. The results reveal that the nurses' job satisfaction has a significantly positive correlation with organisational citizenship behaviour and a negative correlation with turnover intention. This study has proven that the turnover intention of clinical nurses is related to their organisational citizenship behaviour and job satisfaction. Hospital administrators can reduce the turnover intention by meeting nurses' needs and by promoting their organisational citizenship behaviour. Organisational citizenship behaviour involves behaviour that encourages staff to endeavour to voluntarily improve organisational performance without lobbying for compensation. Employees' job satisfaction includes satisfaction with the working environment or welfare programme in the context of human resource initiatives. Similarly, human resource protocols may serve as the starting point for promoting staff organisational citizenship behaviour. Administrators in clinical healthcare are encouraged to meet their

Understanding the Influence of Electronic Word-of-Mouth on Outbound Tourists’ Visit Intention

OpenAIRE

Wang , Ping

2014-01-01

Part 1: Digital Services; International audience; The valence of online user-generated reviews is an increasing important antecedents affecting tourist’s decision with the pervasion of Web 2.0 and information and communication technology. The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) on outbound tourists’ intention to visit a destination through a dual-process perspective. A research model was proposed based on the dual-route theory of elaboration li...

Conversion Intentions of Interns: What Are the Motivating Factors?

Science.gov (United States)

Hurst, Jessica L.; Good, Linda K.; Gardner, Phil

2012-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate interns' supervisory support expectations, psychological contract obligations, job satisfaction, perception of advancement opportunities and affective organisational commitment in an attempt to gain a better understanding of how these variables influence interns' conversion intentions.…

A review of human factors challenges of complex adaptive systems: discovering and understanding chaos in human performance.

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Karwowski, Waldemar

2012-12-01

In this paper, the author explores a need for a greater understanding of the true nature of human-system interactions from the perspective of the theory of complex adaptive systems, including the essence of complexity, emergent properties of system behavior, nonlinear systems dynamics, and deterministic chaos. Human performance, more often than not, constitutes complex adaptive phenomena with emergent properties that exhibit nonlinear dynamical (chaotic) behaviors. The complexity challenges in the design and management of contemporary work systems, including service systems, are explored. Examples of selected applications of the concepts of nonlinear dynamics to the study of human physical performance are provided. Understanding and applications of the concepts of theory of complex adaptive and dynamical systems should significantly improve the effectiveness of human-centered design efforts of a large system of systems. Performance of many contemporary work systems and environments may be sensitive to the initial conditions and may exhibit dynamic nonlinear properties and chaotic system behaviors. Human-centered design of emergent human-system interactions requires application of the theories of nonlinear dynamics and complex adaptive system. The success of future human-systems integration efforts requires the fusion of paradigms, knowledge, design principles, and methodologies of human factors and ergonomics with those of the science of complex adaptive systems as well as modern systems engineering.

Effect of implementation intentions to change behaviour: moderation by intention stability.

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Godin, Gaston; Bélanger-Gravel, Ariane; Amireault, Steve; Gallani, Maria-Cecilia B J; Vohl, Marie-Claude; Pérusse, Louis

2010-02-01

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of implementation intentions on leisure-time physical activity, taking into account the stability of intention. At baseline (T0), 349 participants completed a psychosocial questionnaire and were randomly assigned to implementation intention or control condition. Three months after baseline assessment (T1), participants in the experimental group were asked to plan where, when, and how they would exercise. Leisure-time physical activity was assessed 3 mo. later (i.e., at 6-mo. follow-up; T2). The intervention had no significant effect on physical activity at 6-mo. follow-up. However, a significant interaction of group and intention stability was observed, with the effect of the intervention on behaviour statistically significant only among those with unstable intention. Intention stability thus moderated the effect of the intervention, i.e., the intervention was more successful among individuals who needed support to change (unstable intenders).

Embodied artificial agents for understanding human social cognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Wykowska, Agnieszka; Chaminade, Thierry; Cheng, Gordon

2016-05-05

In this paper, we propose that experimental protocols involving artificial agents, in particular the embodied humanoid robots, provide insightful information regarding social cognitive mechanisms in the human brain. Using artificial agents allows for manipulation and control of various parameters of behaviour, appearance and expressiveness in one of the interaction partners (the artificial agent), and for examining effect of these parameters on the other interaction partner (the human). At the same time, using artificial agents means introducing the presence of artificial, yet human-like, systems into the human social sphere. This allows for testing in a controlled, but ecologically valid, manner human fundamental mechanisms of social cognition both at the behavioural and at the neural level. This paper will review existing literature that reports studies in which artificial embodied agents have been used to study social cognition and will address the question of whether various mechanisms of social cognition (ranging from lower- to higher-order cognitive processes) are evoked by artificial agents to the same extent as by natural agents, humans in particular. Increasing the understanding of how behavioural and neural mechanisms of social cognition respond to artificial anthropomorphic agents provides empirical answers to the conundrum 'What is a social agent?' © 2016 The Authors.

The Understanding of Intentions, Desires and Beliefs in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Broekhof, Evelien; Ketelaar, Lizet; Stockmann, Lex; van Zijp, Annette; Bos, Marieke G. N.; Rieffe, Carolien

2015-01-01

This study provides a comprehensive picture of three core elements (Intentions, Desires, Beliefs) of Theory of Mind (ToM) in young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD, n = 63, "M"age = 55 months) and typically developing children (TD, n = 69, "M"age = 54 months). Outcomes showed that ASD and TD children understood…

Women and postfertilization effects of birth control: consistency of beliefs, intentions and reported use

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Kim Han S

2005-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background This study assesses the consistency of responses among women regarding their beliefs about the mechanisms of actions of birth control methods, beliefs about when human life begins, the intention to use or not use birth control methods that they believe may act after fertilization or implantation, and their reported use of specific methods. Methods A questionnaire was administered in family practice and obstetrics and gynecology clinics in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Participants included women ages 18–50 presenting for any reason and women under age 18 presenting for family planning or pregnancy care. Analyses were based on key questions addressing beliefs about whether specific birth control methods may act after fertilization, beliefs about when human life begins, intention to use a method that may act after fertilization, and reported use of specific methods. The questionnaire contained no information about the mechanism of action of any method of birth control. Responses were considered inconsistent if actual use contradicted intentions, if one intention contradicted another, or if intentions contradicted beliefs. Results Of all respondents, 38% gave consistent responses about intention to not use or to stop use of any birth control method that acted after fertilization, while 4% gave inconsistent responses. The corresponding percentages for birth control methods that work after implantation were 64% consistent and 2% inconsistent. Of all respondents, 34% reported they believed that life begins at fertilization and would not use any birth control method that acts after fertilization (a consistent response, while 3% reported they believed that life begins at fertilization but would use a birth control method that acts after fertilization (inconsistent. For specific methods of birth control, less than 1% of women gave inconsistent responses. A majority of women (68% or greater responded accurately about the

Does ethnicity matter in intentions to study abroad? Analysis of High School students in Estonia

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pungas, E.; Täht, K.; Realo, A.; Tammaru, T.

2015-01-01

This paper examines factors that shape intentions to study abroad. Previous research highlights the importance of various forms of capital - human, economic, social, cultural and mobility capital - as well as of personality traits in the formation of the intention to complete education in foreign

Intentional replantation: A viable alternative for management of palatogingival groove

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Vijay Kumar

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Radicular groove is an anatomical malformation that often leads to combined endodontic-periodontic lesions. Treatment of complex groove presents a clinical challenge to the operator. A case of type III palatogingival groove is successfully treated with intentional replantation. With the understanding of the procedure and strict adherence to guidelines improves, practitioners can use intentional replantation as an easy and cost-effective alternative for the management of radicular groove. The paper presents a brief review of palatogingival groove and highlights an easy and predictable alternative for its management.

Implementation-intention encoding in a prospective memory task enhances spontaneous retrieval of intentions.

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Rummel, Jan; Einstein, Gilles O; Rampey, Hilary

2012-01-01

Although forming implementation intentions (Gollwitzer, 1999) has been demonstrated to generally improve prospective memory, the underlying cognitive mechanisms are not completely understood. It has been proposed that implementation-intention encoding encourages spontaneous retrieval (McDaniel & Scullin, 2010). Alternatively one could assume the positive effect of implementation-intention encoding is caused by increased or more efficient monitoring for target cues. To test these alternative explanations and to further investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying implementation-intention benefits, in two experiments participants formed the intention to respond to specific target cues in a lexical decision task with a special key, but then had to suspend this intention during an intervening word-categorisation task. Response times on trials directly following the occurrence of target cues in the intervening task were significantly slower with implementation-intention encoding than with standard encoding, indicating that spontaneous retrieval was increased (Experiment 1). However, when activation of the target cues was controlled for, similar slowing was found with both standard and implementation-intention encoding (Experiment 2). The results imply that implementation-intention encoding as well as increased target-cue activation foster spontaneous retrieval processes.

The intention interference effect.

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Cohen, Anna-Lisa; Kantner, Justin; Dixon, Roger A; Lindsay, D Stephen

2011-01-01

Intentions have been shown to be more accessible (e.g., more quickly and accurately recalled) compared to other sorts of to-be-remembered information; a result termed an intention superiority effect (Goschke & Kuhl, 1993). In the current study, we demonstrate an intention interference effect (IIE) in which color-naming performance in a Stroop task was slower for words belonging to an intention that participants had to remember to carry out (Do-the-Task condition) versus an intention that did not have to be executed (Ignore-the-Task condition). In previous work (e.g., Cohen et al., 2005), having a prospective intention in mind was confounded with carrying a memory load. In Experiment 1, we added a digit-retention task to control for effects of cognitive load. In Experiment 2, we eliminated the memory confound in a new way, by comparing intention-related and control words within each trial. Results from both Experiments 1 and 2 revealed an IIE suggesting that interference is very specific to the intention, not just to a memory load.

Predicting students' intention to use stimulants for academic performance enhancement.

Science.gov (United States)

Ponnet, Koen; Wouters, Edwin; Walrave, Michel; Heirman, Wannes; Van Hal, Guido

2015-02-01

The non-medical use of stimulants for academic performance enhancement is becoming a more common practice among college and university students. The objective of this study is to gain a better understanding of students' intention to use stimulant medication for the purpose of enhancing their academic performance. Based on an extended model of Ajzen's theory of planned behavior, we examined the predictive value of attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, psychological distress, procrastination, substance use, and alcohol use on students' intention to use stimulants to improve their academic performance. The sample consisted of 3,589 Flemish university and college students (mean age: 21.59, SD: 4.09), who participated anonymously in an online survey conducted in March and April 2013. Structural equation modeling was used to investigate the relationships among the study variables. Our results indicate that subjective norm is the strongest predictor of students' intention to use stimulant medication, followed by attitude and perceived behavioral control. To a lesser extent, procrastinating tendencies, psychological distress, and substance abuse contribute to students' intention. Conclusions/ Importance: Based on these findings, we provide several recommendations on how to curtail students' intention to use stimulant medication for the purpose of improving their academic performance. In addition, we urge researchers to identify other psychological variables that might be related to students' intention.

A study of relationship between job stress, quality of working life and turnover intention among hospital employees.

Science.gov (United States)

Mosadeghrad, Ali Mohammad; Ferlie, Ewan; Rosenberg, Duska

2011-11-01

Job stress is a serious threat to the quality of working life (QWL) of health-care employees and can cause hostility, aggression, absenteeism and turnover, as well as reduced productivity. In addition, job stress among employees affects the quality of health-care services. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the relationships between job stress and QWL of employees, and their impact on turnover intention at Isfahan hospitals, Iran. The study employed a cross-sectional research design. A validated questionnaire was used to collect data from hospital employees. Overall, 26% of employees graded their job stress high. The major sources of stress were inadequate pay, inequality at work, too much work, staff shortage, lack of recognition and promotion prospects, time pressure, lack of job security and lack of management support. An inverse relationship was found between job stress and QWL among hospital employees. The most important predictor of QWL was disturbance handling, followed by job proud, job security and job stress. Finally, while QWL was negatively associated with turnover intentions, job stress was positively related to employees' intention to quit. Since job stress has a strong correlation with employee QWL and turnover intention, it is very important to apply the right human resources policies to increase employees' QWL and decrease subsequent turnover. This study invites further research to explore, implement and evaluate intervention strategies for prevention of occupational stress and improvement in QWL.

It’s all relative : how customer-perceived competitive advantage influences referral intentions

OpenAIRE

Mende, Martin; Thompson, Scott; Coenen, Christian

2014-01-01

Better understanding the mechanisms that influence customer intentions to spread positive word-of-mouth (WOM) is crucial to both marketing scholars and managers. This multimethod research contributes to marketing knowledge by revealing how a firm’s customer-perceived competitive advantage (CPCA) influences positive WOM intentions. Analyses of (1) cross-sectional survey data on bank customers in Germany and (2) experimental data on customers of car insurance companies in the USA reveal two cru...

Defining Human Enhancement

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nordberg, Ana

2017-01-01

-matter definitions are vital legal tools to determine what is currently regulated in established fields of law and whether there is room for a new legal field – Enhancement Law. This paper provides a reflection on the relevance of establishing a legal definition of human enhancement and to what extent different...... legal fields and jurisdictions may warrant different understandings of such concept. It reviews a number of different and often divergent concepts and taxonomies of human enhancement and concludes with the proposal and analysis of a definition: Use of technological means with the intention to improve......Emerging technologies open the prospect of extraordinary interventions on the human body. These may go beyond what is strictly necessary to sustain health and well-being. While responding to social and ethical challenges of such advances, the Law simultaneously faces the challenge of reflecting...

Development of a health information technology acceptance model using consumers' health behavior intention.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Jeongeun; Park, Hyeoun-Ae

2012-10-01

For effective health promotion using health information technology (HIT), it is mandatory that health consumers have the behavioral intention to measure, store, and manage their own health data. Understanding health consumers' intention and behavior is needed to develop and implement effective and efficient strategies. To develop and verify the extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in health care by describing health consumers' behavioral intention of using HIT. This study used a cross-sectional descriptive correlational design. We extended TAM by adding more antecedents and mediating variables to enhance the model's explanatory power and to make it more applicable to health consumers' behavioral intention. Additional antecedents and mediating variables were added to the hypothetical model, based on their theoretical relevance, from the Health Belief Model and theory of planned behavior, along with the TAM. We undertook structural equation analysis to examine the specific nature of the relationship involved in understanding consumers' use of HIT. Study participants were 728 members recruited from three Internet health portals in Korea. Data were collected by a Web-based survey using a structured self-administered questionnaire. The overall fitness indices for the model developed in this study indicated an acceptable fit of the model. All path coefficients were statistically significant. This study showed that perceived threat, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use significantly affected health consumers' attitude and behavioral intention. Health consumers' health status, health belief and concerns, subjective norm, HIT characteristics, and HIT self-efficacy had a strong indirect impact on attitude and behavioral intention through the mediators of perceived threat, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use. An extended TAM in the HIT arena was found to be valid to describe health consumers' behavioral intention. We categorized the concepts in

Rights and Intentions in Value Modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Johannesson, Paul; Bergholtz, Maria

In order to manage increasingly complex business and IT environments, organizations need effective instruments for representing and understanding this complexity. Essential among these instruments are enterprise models, i.e. computational representations of the structure, processes, information, resources, and intentions of organizations. One important class of enterprise models are value models, which focus on the business motivations and intentions behind business processes and describe them in terms of high level notions like actors, resources, and value exchanges. The essence of these value exchanges is often taken to be an ownership transfer. However, some value exchanges cannot be analyzed in this way, e.g. the use of a service does not influence ownership. The goal of this chapter is to offer an analysis of the notion of value exchanges, based on Hohfeld's classification of rights, and to propose notation and practical modeling guidelines that make use of this analysis.

Understanding the Quality Factors That Influence the Continuance Intention of Students toward Participation in MOOCs

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Ming; Shao, Zhen; Liu, Qian; Liu, Chuiyi

2017-01-01

The massive open online course (MOOC) is emerging as the new paradigm for modern education. The success of MOOCs depends on learners' continued usage. Drawing upon the information systems success model (IS success model) and technology acceptance model, a theoretical model for studying learners' continuance intentions toward participation in MOOCs…

Intentional and inadvertent non-adherence in adult coeliac disease. A cross-sectional survey.

Science.gov (United States)

Hall, Nicola J; Rubin, Gregory P; Charnock, Anne

2013-09-01

Adherence to a gluten-free diet is the mainstay of treatment for coeliac disease. Non-adherence is common as the diet is restrictive and can be difficult to follow. This study aimed to determine the rates of intentional and inadvertent non-adherence in adult coeliac disease and to examine the factors associated with both. A self-completion questionnaire was mailed to adult coeliac patients identified from the computer records of 31 family practices within the North East of England. We received 287 responses after one reminder. Intentional gluten consumption was reported by 115 (40%) of respondents. 155 (54%) had made at least one known mistaken lapse over the same period and 82 (29%) reported neither intentional nor mistaken gluten consumption. Using logistic regression analysis, low self-efficacy, perceptions of tolerance to gluten and intention were found to be independently predictive of intentional gluten consumption. A statistical model predicted 71.8% of cases reporting intentional lapses. Intentional non-adherence to the GFD was found to be common but not as frequent as inadvertent lapses. Distinguishing the factors influencing both intentional and inadvertent non-adherence is useful in understanding dietary self-management in coeliac disease. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

When nurse emotional intelligence matters: How transformational leadership influences intent to stay.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Lin; Tao, Hong; Bowers, Barbara J; Brown, Roger; Zhang, Yaqing

2018-05-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of staff nurse emotional intelligence between transformational leadership and nurse intent to stay. Nurse intent to stay and transformational leadership are widely recognized as vital components of nurse retention. Staff nurse emotional intelligence that has been confirmed improvable has been recently recognized in the nursing literature as correlated with retention. Yet, the nature of the relationships among these three variables is not known. Cross-sectional data for 535 Chinese nurses were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling. Transformational leadership and staff nurse emotional intelligence were significant predictors of nurse intent to stay, accounting for 34.3% of the variance in nurse intent to stay. Staff nurse emotional intelligence partially mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and nurse intent to stay. The findings of the study emphasized the importance of transformational leadership in enhancing nurse emotional intelligence and to provide a deeper understanding of the mediating role of emotional intelligence in the relationship between nurse manager's transformational leadership and nurse's intent to stay. Nurse leaders should develop training programmes to improve nursing manager transformational leadership and staff nurse emotional intelligence in the workplace. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Motion Segments Decomposition of RGB-D Sequences for Human Behavior Understanding

OpenAIRE

Devanne , Maxime; Berretti , Stefano; Pala , Pietro; Wannous , Hazem; Daoudi , Mohamed; Bimbo , Alberto ,

2017-01-01

International audience; In this paper, we propose a framework for analyzing and understanding human behavior from depth videos. The proposed solution first employs shape analysis of the human pose across time to decompose the full motion into short temporal segments representing elementary motions. Then, each segment is characterized by human motion and depth appearance around hand joints to describe the change in pose of the body and the interaction with objects. Finally , the sequence of te...

Using the theory of planned behavior to understand caregivers' intention to serve sugar-sweetened beverages to non-Hispanic black preschoolers.

Science.gov (United States)

Tipton, Julia A

2014-01-01

The purpose of this correlational study was to determine the ability the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to explain caregivers' intention to serve sugar-sweetened beverages to non-Hispanic black preschoolers. A sample of 165 caregivers of non-Hispanic black children preschoolers completed a written questionnaire. Multiple regression with path analysis confirmed the relationships of attitude and subjective norm, but not perceived behavioral control (PBC),with intention. After removing PBC, the model accounted for 45.1% of variance in intention. Nurses and other health care professionals can use these findings to tailor behaviorally-based obesity prevention programs at the individual, family, and community-based levels. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Using actor-partner interdependence modeling to understand HPV vaccine acceptance.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laura E VanderDrift

Full Text Available A wealth of scientific literature has been devoted to understanding what factors influence parents and their adolescent children to obtain the HPV vaccine. This literature is relatively uniform in its methodological approach of sampling individuals (i.e., either parents or adolescents and examining the predictors of uptake for that individual. To improve understanding of HPV vaccination uptake, we sampled low-income, African American parent-child dyads with either a female (n = 93 or a male (n = 116 adolescent who had not been vaccinated. Both parents and children completed self-report measures that tapped intent to receive the vaccine and hypothesized predictors of intent (i.e., self-efficacy, beliefs about the vaccine, beliefs about HPV, knowledge of HPV. Using a dyadic analytic approach (i.e., the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model or APIM [1], we found that parents and their adolescents have different structures of beliefs regarding HPV vaccination (i.e., they are empirically distinguishable. Consistent with prior research, the majority of predictors of an individual's own intention to vaccinate were individual-level variables; uniquely though, some predictors endorsed by one member of the dyad influenced the intentions held by the other member. Specifically, parents' reports of HPV severity and their self-efficacy were both associated with adolescents' intent to obtain the vaccine. Further, adolescents' beliefs that the vaccine will lead to greater promiscuity or be stigmatizing were associated with parents holding an increased intent to vaccinate. Use APIM improves understanding of HPV vaccination uptake and can be used to guide intervention efforts.

Reference in human and non-human primate communication: What does it take to refer?

Science.gov (United States)

Sievers, Christine; Gruber, Thibaud

2016-07-01

The concept of functional reference has been used to isolate potentially referential vocal signals in animal communication. However, its relatedness to the phenomenon of reference in human language has recently been brought into question. While some researchers have suggested abandoning the concept of functional reference altogether, others advocate a revision of its definition to include contextual cues that play a role in signal production and perception. Empirical and theoretical work on functional reference has also put much emphasis on how the receiver understands the referential signal. However, reference, as defined in the linguistic literature, is an action of the producer, and therefore, any definition describing reference in non-human animals must also focus on the producer. To successfully determine whether a signal is used to refer, we suggest an approach from the field of pragmatics, taking a closer look at specific situations of signal production, specifically at the factors that influence the production of a signal by an individual. We define the concept of signaller's reference to identify intentional acts of reference produced by a signaller independently of the communicative modality, and illustrate it with a case study of the hoo vocalizations produced by wild chimpanzees during travel. This novel framework introduces an intentional approach to referentiality. It may therefore permit a closer comparison of human and non-human animal referential behaviour and underlying cognitive processes, allowing us to identify what may have emerged solely in the human lineage.

A New World Information Order for Better Human Understanding.

Science.gov (United States)

Masmoudi, Mustapha

Many studies, particularly the report of the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (ICSCP), have tried to define a new world information order for better human understanding. What appears to be needed is the establishment of a new, open-ended, conceptual framework leading to a freer, more efficient, more equitable,…

The role of issue familiarity and social norms: findings on new college students’ alcohol use intentions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rajiv N. Rimal

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Background. Scholars in a variety of disciplines are interested in understanding the conditions under which social norms affect human behavior. Following the distinction made between descriptive and injunctive norms by the focus theory of normative conduct, the theory of normative social behavior predicts that the influence of descriptive norms on behavior is moderated by injunctive norms, outcome expectations, and group identity. We extended the theory by testing the proposition that the influence of descriptive norms on behavior would be greater under conditions of greater issue familiarity, defined as the ease with which one can cognitively access the behavior or behavioral issue. Design and Methods. The model was tested in the domain of alcohol consumption intentions by conducting a survey among incoming students (n=719 to a large university in the United States. Data indicated that students in the sample were well representative of the university population. Results. The influence of descriptive norms on behavioral intentions was moderated by issue familiarity, as predicted. Familiarity was a facilitator of behavior: the influence of descriptive norms on behavioral intentions was greater under conditions of high, rather than low, familiarity. The overall model explained 53% of the variance in alcohol consumption intentions. Conclusions. Public health interventions promoting health behaviors need to take into account the extent to which the behaviors are familiar to the target audience. The influence of norms appears to be weaker when the behavior is unfamiliar or novel. Implications for theory and interventions for reducing alcohol consumption are discussed.

What Does It Mean to Understand Human Rights as Essentially ‘Triggers for Intervention’?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hawre Hasan Hama

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Traditional theories of human rights regard human rights to be equivalent to universal moral rights. They also claim that human rights are justified by an appeal to some valuable aspect of human nature. These approaches, however, have been strongly challenged by the political theory of human rights. The latter derived from John Rawls’s conception of human rights in his famous work, Law of Peoples, argues that human rights are not equivalent to our universal moral rights, but are a subset of those rights: they are those rights that once violated lead to an erosion of state sovereignty, thus acting as ‘triggers for intervention’. This article mainly discusses the political conception of human rights to explain this question; what does it mean to understand human rights in the ways that their violations lead to intervention? Furthermore, the article strongly argues that such understanding of human rights is neither accurate nor helpful for reasons that will be mentioned in chapter two.

Does health status influence intention regarding screening mammography?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Park, Keeho; Park, Jong-Hyock; Park, Jae-Hyun; Kim, Hui-Jeong; Park, Bo-Yoon

2010-01-01

We analyzed information surveyed from a community-based sample of Korean women older than 40 years of age to understand the relationships between health status and screening behavior. In a cross-sectional population-based study, a two-stage, geographically stratified household-based sampling design was used for assembly of a probability sample of women aged 40-69 years living in Gunpo in Korea, resulting in a total sample size of 503 women. The primary outcome variable for this analysis was the respondent's intention to obtain a mammogram. Predictor variables included health status and other factors known to influence the use of cancer screening, such as age, education, income, marital status and the presence of co-morbid illnesses. Health status was assessed by using the EuroQol (EQ-5D). The median EQ visual analogue scale score was 75.0, ranging from 20 to 100. In bivariate analyses, the percentage of women reporting to have intention toward mammography use decreased with worsening health status. Women who had problems with mobility or anxiety/depression showed lower intention to undergo future screening mammography. Multivariate logistic regression confirmed that health status was significantly associated with intention toward mammography use. Anxiety or depression was an independent predictor of future screening mammography use. Health status is significantly associated with intention regarding screening mammography use. Physicians or other health professionals should be aware that health status is an important component for health promotion, and should pay more attention to clients' possible vulnerability in screening mammography use due to their poor health status. (author)

Understanding nurse anesthetists' intention to leave their job: how burnout and job satisfaction mediate the impact of personality and workplace characteristics.

Science.gov (United States)

Meeusen, Vera C H; Van Dam, Karen; Brown-Mahoney, Chris; Van Zundert, Andre A J; Knape, Hans T A

2011-01-01

The retention of nurse anesthetists is of paramount importance, particularly in view of the fact that the health care workforce is shrinking. Although many health care providers find their work satisfying, they often consider leaving their jobs because of the stress. Are there ways to improve this situation? This study investigated how work environment characteristics and personality dimensions relate to burnout and job satisfaction and ultimately to turnover intention among Dutch nurse anesthetists. An online self-reporting questionnaire survey was performed among Dutch nurse anesthetists. The questionnaire included scales to assess personality dimensions, work climate, work context factors, burnout, job satisfaction, and turnover intention. The research model stated that personality dimensions, work climate, and work context factors, mediated by burnout and job satisfaction, predict turnover intention. Structural equation modeling was used to test the research model. Nine hundred twenty-three questionnaires were completed (46% response rate). Burnout mediated the relationship between personality dimensions and turnover intention; job satisfaction mediated the relationship of work climate and work context factors to turnover intention. To retain nursing staff and to maintain adequate staff strength, it is important to improve job satisfaction by creating a positive work climate and work context and to prevent burnout by selecting the most suitable employees through personality assessment.

Scientific Letter: High-intent suicide and the Beck's Suicide Intent ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Scientific Letter: High-intent suicide and the Beck's Suicide Intent scale: a case report. ... African Journal of Psychiatry. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current ... Abstract. Scientific Letter - No Abstract Available ...

How big is the physical activity intention-behaviour gap? A meta-analysis using the action control framework

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rhodes, R.E.; de Bruijn, G.-J.

2013-01-01

Objectives The physical activity (PA) intention-behaviour gap is a topic of considerable contemporary research, given that most of our models used to understand physical activity suggest that intention is the proximal antecedent of behavioural enactment. The purpose of this study was to quantify the

Chol understandings of suicide and human agency.

Science.gov (United States)

Imberton, Gracia

2012-06-01

According to ethnographic material collected since 2003, the Chol Mayan indigenous people in southern Mexico have different causal explanations for suicide. It can be attributed to witchcraft that forces victims to take their lives against their own will, to excessive drinking, or to fate determined by God. However, it can also be conceived of as a conscious decision made by a person overwhelmed by daily problems. Drawing from the theoretical framework developed by Laura M. Ahearn, inspired by practice theory, the paper contends that these different explanations operate within two different logics or understandings of human agency. The first logic attributes responsibility to supernatural causes such as witchcraft or divine destiny, and reflects Chol notions of personhood. The second logic accepts personal responsibility for suicide, and is related to processes of social change such as the introduction of wage labor, education and a market economy. The contemporary Chol resort to both logics to make sense of the human drama of suicide.

Understanding human behavior in times of war.

Science.gov (United States)

Vetter, Stefan

2007-12-01

The Third Geneva Convention reflects on the values of humanism, declaring the rights of humaneness, honor, and protection before torture and final discharge of war prisoners after the end of a war. These days, the occurrences in Baghdad Central Detention Center (formerly known as Abu Ghraib Prison), the actions of British soldiers in Basra, and the inflamed public discussion of whether torture might be an appropriate method to obtain crucial information from terrorists put the Third Geneva Convention back in the spotlight. The aforementioned occurrences raise questions regarding the psychological mass phenomena that make us vulnerable to think and to act against our education, habits, and beliefs. Only an understanding of these phenomena will help us to act against behavior we condemn. This article is an attempt to show how cognition of societies and individuals slowly changes during longer conflicts. Furthermore, it tries to summarize the possibilities we have to confront these tendencies.

Research on operation and maintenance support system adaptive to human recognition and understanding in human-centered plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Numano, Masayoshi; Matsuoka, Takeshi; Mitomo, N.

2004-01-01

As a human-centered plant, advanced nuclear power plant needs appropriate role sharing between human and mobile intelligent agents. Human-machine cooperation for plant operation and maintenance activities is also required with an advanced interface. Plant's maintenance is programmed using mobile robots working under the radiation environments instead of human beings. Operation and maintenance support system adaptive to human recognition and understanding should be developed to establish adequate human and machine interface so as to induce human capabilities to the full and enable human to take responsibility for plan's operation. Plant's operation and maintenance can be cooperative activities between human and intelligent automonous agents having surveillance and control functions. Infrastructure of multi-agent simulation system for the support system has been investigated and developed based on work plans derived from the scheduler. (T. Tanaka)

Modulating conscious movement intention by noninvasive brain stimulation and the underlying neural mechanisms.

Science.gov (United States)

Douglas, Zachary H; Maniscalco, Brian; Hallett, Mark; Wassermann, Eric M; He, Biyu J

2015-05-06

Conscious intention is a fundamental aspect of the human experience. Despite long-standing interest in the basis and implications of intention, its underlying neurobiological mechanisms remain poorly understood. Using high-definition transcranial DC stimulation (tDCS), we observed that enhancing spontaneous neuronal excitability in both the angular gyrus and the primary motor cortex caused the reported time of conscious movement intention to be ∼60-70 ms earlier. Slow brain waves recorded ∼2-3 s before movement onset, as well as hundreds of milliseconds after movement onset, independently correlated with the modulation of conscious intention by brain stimulation. These brain activities together accounted for 81% of interindividual variability in the modulation of movement intention by brain stimulation. A computational model using coupled leaky integrator units with biophysically plausible assumptions about the effect of tDCS captured the effects of stimulation on both neural activity and behavior. These results reveal a temporally extended brain process underlying conscious movement intention that spans seconds around movement commencement. Copyright © 2015 Douglas et al.

Hand based visual intent recognition algorithm for wheelchair motion

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Luhandjula, T

2010-05-01

Full Text Available This paper describes an algorithm for a visual human-machine interface that infers a person’s intention from the motion of the hand. Work in progress shows a proof of concept tested on static images. The context for which this solution is intended...

Automatic Video-based Analysis of Human Motion

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fihl, Preben

The human motion contains valuable information in many situations and people frequently perform an unconscious analysis of the motion of other people to understand their actions, intentions, and state of mind. An automatic analysis of human motion will facilitate many applications and thus has...... received great interest from both industry and research communities. The focus of this thesis is on video-based analysis of human motion and the thesis presents work within three overall topics, namely foreground segmentation, action recognition, and human pose estimation. Foreground segmentation is often...... the first important step in the analysis of human motion. By separating foreground from background the subsequent analysis can be focused and efficient. This thesis presents a robust background subtraction method that can be initialized with foreground objects in the scene and is capable of handling...

Medical Representatives' Intention to Use Information Technology in Pharmaceutical Marketing.

Science.gov (United States)

Kwak, Eun-Seon; Chang, Hyejung

2016-10-01

Electronic detailing (e-detailing), the use of electronic devices to facilitate sales presentations to physicians, has been adopted and expanded in the pharmaceutical industry. To maximize the potential outcome of e-detailing, it is important to understand medical representatives (MRs)' behavior and attitude to e-detailing. This study investigates how information technology devices such as laptop computers and tablet PCs are utilized in pharmaceutical marketing, and it analyzes the factors influencing MRs' intention to use devices. This study has adopted and modified the theory of Roger's diffusion of innovation model and the technology acceptance model. To test the model empirically, a questionnaire survey was conducted with 221 MRs who were working in three multinational or eleven domestic pharmaceutical companies in Korea. Overall, 28% and 35% of MRs experienced using laptop computers and tablet PCs in pharmaceutical marketing, respectively. However, the rates were different across different groups of MRs, categorized by age, education level, position, and career. The results showed that MRs' intention to use information technology devices was significantly influenced by perceived usefulness in general. Perceived ease of use, organizational and individual innovativeness, and several MR characteristics were also found to have significant impacts. This study provides timely information about e-detailing devices to marketing managers and policy makers in the pharmaceutical industry for successful marketing strategy development by understanding the needs of MRs' intention to use information technology. Further in-depth study should be conducted to understand obstacles and limitations and to improve the strategies for better marketing tools.

Factors influencing intentions to use social recommender systems: a social exchange perspective.

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Tsung-Sheng; Hsiao, Wei-Hung

2013-05-01

This study employs the perspective of social exchange theory and seeks to understand users' intentions to use social recommender systems (SRS) through three psychological factors: trust, shared values, and reputation. We use structural equation modeling to analyze 221 valid questionnaires. The results show that trust has a direct positive influence on the intention to use SRS, followed by shared values, whereas reputation has an indirect influence on SRS use. We further discuss specific recommendations concerning these factors for developing SRS.

The role of forgetting in undermining good intentions.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kristina R Olson

Full Text Available Evaluating others is a fundamental feature of human social interaction--we like those who help more than those who hinder. In the present research, we examined social evaluation of those who not only intentionally performed good and bad actions but also those to whom good things have happened (the lucky and those to whom bad things have happened (the unlucky. In Experiment 1a, subjects demonstrated a sympathetic preference for the unlucky. However, under cognitive load (Experiment 1b, no such preference was expressed. Further, in Experiments 2a and 2b, when a time delay between impression formation (learning and evaluation (memory test was introduced, results showed that younger (Experiment 2a and older adults (Experiment 2b showed a significant preference for the lucky. Together these experiments show that a consciously motivated sympathetic preference for those who are unlucky dissolves when memory is disrupted. The observed dissociation provides evidence for the presence of conscious good intentions (favoring the unlucky and the cognitive compromising of such intentions when memory fails.

Personality Traits and Training Initiation Process: Intention, Planning, and Action Initiation.

Science.gov (United States)

Laguna, Mariola; Purc, Ewelina

2016-01-01

The article aims at investigating the role of personality traits in relation to training initiation. Training initiation is conceptualized as a goal realization process, and explained using goal theories. There are three stages of the process analyzed: intention to undertake training, plan formulation, and actual training undertaking. Two studies tested the relationships between five personality traits, defined according to the five factor model, and the stages of the goal realization process. In Study 1, which explains training intention and training plans' formulation, 155 employees participated. In Study 2, which was time-lagged with two measurement points, and which explains intention, plans, and training actions undertaken, the data from 176 employees was collected at 3 month intervals. The results of these studies show that personality traits, mainly openness to experience, predict the training initiation process to some degree: intention, plans, and actual action initiation. The findings allow us to provide recommendations for practitioners responsible for human resource development. The assessment of openness to experience in employees helps predict their motivation to participate in training activities. To increase training motivation it is vital to strengthen intentions to undertake training, and to encourage training action planning.

Understanding the effects of MTV's 16 and Pregnant on adolescent girls' beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions toward teen pregnancy.

Science.gov (United States)

Aubrey, Jennifer Stevens; Behm-Morawitz, Elizabeth; Kim, Kyungbo

2014-01-01

This article examines the impact of a popular documentary series about teen pregnancy, MTV's 16 and Pregnant, on adolescent girls' pregnancy-related attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral intentions. The results suggest that girls who watched 16 and Pregnant, compared with a control group, reported a lower perception of their own risk for pregnancy and a greater perception that the benefits of teen pregnancy outweigh the risks. The authors also examined the relationships between homophily and parasocial interaction with the teen moms featured in 16 and Pregnant and attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral intentions, finding that homophily predicted lower risk perceptions, greater acceptance of myths about teen pregnancy, and more favorable attitudes about teen pregnancy. Parasocial interaction demonstrated the same pattern of results, with the addition of also predicting fewer behavioral intentions to avoid teen pregnancy. Last, results revealed that teen girls' perceptions that the message of 16 and Pregnant was encouraging of teen pregnancy predicted homophily and parasocial interaction with the teen moms. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Cross-Country Entrepreneurial Intentions Study: The Danube Region Perspective

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Urban Šebjan

2016-12-01

Full Text Available In this article, we investigate how entrepreneurial intentions of individuals in the eight countries of the Danube region are shaped by different components of individuals’ personal attitudes, the subjective norm and personal behavioral control. We analyze the internal structure of these components as well as some demographic and human capital factors. Cultural and developmental differences influencing variation in causal effects among variables in the model are analyzed. Structural equation modeling is used for data obtained by adult population surveys within the GEM research. Results of our study show that the entrepreneurial intention model is applicable across countries and that the internal effects among components of motivational antecedents exist, although not all hypothesized relationships are confirmed. Our study suggests that the process from perception to intention is similarly shaped across the eight countries of the Danube region, although there are several differences in the magnitude of causal effects as well as differences regarding influential factors.

Human Activity-Understanding: A Multilayer Approach Combining Body Movements and Contextual Descriptors Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Consuelo Granata

2015-07-01

Full Text Available A deep understanding of human activity is key to successful human-robot interaction (HRI. The translation of sensed human behavioural signals/cues and context descriptors into an encoded human activity remains a challenge because of the complex nature of human actions. In this paper, we propose a multilayer framework for the understanding of human activity to be implemented in a mobile robot. It consists of a perception layer which exploits a D-RGB-based skeleton tracking output used to simulate a physical model of virtual human dynamics in order to compensate for the inaccuracy and inconsistency of the raw data. A multi-support vector machine (MSVM model trained with features describing the human motor coordination through temporal segments in combination with environment descriptors (object affordance is used to recognize each sub-activity (classification layer. The interpretation of sequences of classified elementary actions is based on discrete hidden Markov models (DHMMs (interpretation layer. The framework assessment was performed on the Cornell Activity Dataset (CAD-120 [1]. The performances of our method are comparable with those presented in [2] and clearly show the relevance of this model-based approach.

Organizing to Understand: How to Operate Effectively in the Human Domain

Science.gov (United States)

2015-05-21

was both entering and creating when it overthrew Saddam Hussein and dismantled the Iraqi government and security forces. The research examines the...sponsored initiative to help tactical and operational level commanders understand the human terrain, the “social, ethnographic , cultural, economic, and...as an intelligence function within TRADOC “as the primary and enduring social science-based human domain research , analysis, and training capability

When does it pay to invest in a patch? The evolution of intentional niche construction.

Science.gov (United States)

Mohlenhoff, Kathryn A; Codding, Brian F

2017-09-01

Humans modify their environments in ways that significantly transform the earth's ecosystems. Recent research suggests that such niche-constructing behaviors are not passive human responses to environmental variation, but instead should be seen as active and intentional management of the environment. Although such research is useful in highlighting the interactive dynamics between humans and their natural world, the niche-construction framework, as currently applied, fails to explain why people would decide to modify their environments in the first place. To help resolve this problem, we use a model of technological intensification to analyze the cost-benefit trade-offs associated with niche construction as a form of patch investment. We use this model to assess the costs and benefits of three paradigmatic cases of intentional niche construction in Western North America: the application of fire in acorn groves, the manufacture of fishing weirs, and the adoption of maize agriculture. Intensification models predict that investing in patch modification (niche construction) only provides a net benefit when the amount of resources needed crosses a critical threshold that makes the initial investment worthwhile. From this, it follows that low-cost investments, such as burning in oak groves, should be quite common, while more costly investments, such as maize agriculture, should be less common and depend on the alternatives available in the local environment. We examine how patterns of mobility, risk management, territoriality, and private property also co-evolve with the costs and benefits of niche construction. This approach illustrates that explaining niche-constructing behavior requires understanding the economic trade-offs involved in patch investment. Integrating concepts from niche construction and technological intensification models within a behavioral ecological framework provides insights into the coevolution and active feedback between adaptive behaviors and

The Relationship Between Brand Awareness and Price Levels Toward Purchase Intention: An Experiment with Luxury Perfumes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Deonir De Toni

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Luxury products carry with them different and complementary meanings. However, the symbolic meanings, manifested through its extrinsic attributes such as brand and price, are strongly related to their image and often outperform intrinsic attributes. This study aims to understand the role of brand and price on purchase intention, perception of quality and value in luxury goods. From an experiment with factorial design of order 2 (brand: known, unknown x 2 (price: high, low, it was found that purchase intention both in situations of low prices as high prices is significantly higher for luxury perfume known brands; the perception of quality for perfume known brands is significantly greater than that for unknown brands, regardless of the price level. Other findings indicate that the relationship between brand awareness and purchase intention is mediated by perceived quality and the relationship between price perception and purchase intention is mediated by perceived value. Thus, the study results allow a better understanding of the role of brand and price in the consumption of luxury products. 

Stereotype threat among older employees: relationship with job attitudes and turnover intentions.

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von Hippel, Courtney; Kalokerinos, Elise K; Henry, Julie D

2013-03-01

Stereotype threat, or the belief that one may be the target of demeaning stereotypes, leads to acute performance decrements and reduced psychological well-being. The current research examined stereotype threat among older employees, a group that is the target of many negative stereotypes. Study 1 surveyed older workers in two different organizations regarding their experiences of stereotype threat, their job attitudes and work mental health, and their intentions to resign or retire. Across both samples, feelings of stereotype threat were related to more negative job attitudes and poorer work mental health. In turn, these negative job attitudes were associated with intentions to resign and (possibly) retire. In Study 2, younger and older employees were surveyed. The results indicated that only for older employees were feelings of stereotype threat negatively related to job attitudes, work mental health, and intentions to resign. The implications of these findings for understanding job attitudes and intentions among older workers are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).

Thinking computers and virtual persons essays on the intentionality of machines

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Dietrich, Eric

1994-01-01

Thinking Computers and Virtual Persons: Essays on the Intentionality of Machines explains how computations are meaningful and how computers can be cognitive agents like humans. This book focuses on the concept that cognition is computation.Organized into four parts encompassing 13 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the analogy between intentionality and phlogiston, the 17th-century principle of burning. This text then examines the objection to computationalism that it cannot prevent arbitrary attributions of content to the various data structures and representations involved in a c

Understanding arsenic metabolism through spectroscopic determination of arsenic in human urine

OpenAIRE

Brima, Eid I.; Jenkins, Richard O.; Haris, Parvez I.

2006-01-01

In this review we discuss a range of spectroscopic techniques that are currently used for analysis of arsenic in human urine for understanding arsenic metabolism and toxicity, especially in relation to genetics/ethnicity, ingestion studies and exposure to arsenic through drinking water and diet. Spectroscopic techniques used for analysis of arsenic in human urine include inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry (HG-AAS), hydride ...

Gen Y Recruitment: Understanding Graduate Intentions to Join an Organisation Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour

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Warmerdam, Amanda; Lewis, Ioni; Banks, Tamara

2015-01-01

Purpose: Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) framework, the purpose of this paper is to explore whether the standard TPB constructs explained variance in Generation Y (Gen Y) individuals' intentions to join their ideal organisation. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed methods approach was used featuring qualitative and quantitative…

Public understanding of One Health messages: The role of temporal framing.

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Roh, Sungjong; Rickard, Laura N; McComas, Katherine A; Decker, Daniel J

2018-02-01

Building on research in motivated reasoning and framing in science communication, we examine how messages that vary attribution of responsibility (human vs animal) and temporal orientation (now vs in the next 10 years) for wildlife disease risk influence individuals' conservation intentions. We conducted a randomized experiment with a nationally representative sample of US adults ( N = 355), which revealed that for people low in biospheric concern, messages that highlighted both human responsibility for and the imminent nature of the risk failed to enhance conservation intentions compared with messages highlighting animal responsibility. However, when messages highlighting human responsibility placed the risk in a temporally distal frame, conservation intentions increased among people low in biospheric concern. We assess the underlying mechanism of this effect and discuss the value of temporal framing in overcoming motivated skepticism to improve science communication.

Collective Referential Intentionality in the Semantics of Dialogue

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Jacquette Dale

2014-03-01

Full Text Available The concept of a dialogue is considered in general terms from the standpoint of its referential presuppositions. The semantics of dialogue implies that dialogue participants must generally have a collective intentionality of agreed-upon references that is minimally sufficient for them to be able to disagree about other things, and ideally for outstanding disagreements to become clearer at successive stages of the dialogue. These points are detailed and illustrated in a fictional dialogue, in which precisely these kinds of referential confusions impede progress in shared understanding. It is only through a continuous exchange of question and answer in this dialogue case study that the meanings of key terms and anaphorical references are disambiguated, and a relevantly complete collective intentionality of shared meaning between dialogue participants is achieved. The importance of a minimally shared referential semantics for the terms entering into reasoning and argument in dialogue contexts broadly construed cannot be over-estimated. Where to draw the line between referential agreement and disagreement within any chosen dialogue, as participants work toward better mutual understanding in clearing up referential incongruities, is sometimes among the dialogue’s main points of dispute.

Negligent and intentional fires in Portugal: the role of human and biophysical drivers on the spatial distribution

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Parente, Joana; Pereira, Mário; Amraoui, Malik; Tedim, Fantina

2017-04-01

The European Mediterranean countries, such as Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece, have the higher incidence of fire. Of these countries, Portugal present the highest average number of fires (NF) and one of the highest burnt area (BA), in spite of its relatively smaller land area. The study period is focused in the recent years of 2012 - 2014, when a total of 59 257 fires were recorded and the fire cause is known for more than 50% of the fire records. All fires with known causes were then classified into intentional (40% of the total number of fires) and negligent (60%), leading to a total of 45% of fires related with human factors and activities. Taking into account these values the authors believe it's necessary to better understand the fire regime of this type of fires for a better fire prevention, firefighting and crisis management. Accordingly, the use of statistical analysis and GIS techniques were used to assess the spatial distribution of the human caused fires in each of the NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics level I, which divides Portugal in 5 basic economic regions, namely Norte, Centro, Area Metropolitana de Lisboa, Alentejo, and Algarve. The number of fires distribution increases with latitude, making north of Portugal the region with the highest number of fires. The analysis will also aims to assess the role of the most important human and biophysical drivers of the spatial distribution, namely the population density, land use land cover (LULC), distance to communication routes (roads and railways) and topographic variables (altitude, slope). The results show that: a) population density is highly and positively correlated with the agglomeration of fire ignitions, but doesn't imply highest burned area; b) burnt area increase with the distance to roads and altitude; and, c) 58% of the fires occurred on agriculture areas and 33% of fires occurred in forest and scrubs areas. Acknowledgements: This work was supported by: (i) the

Intention of dog owners to participate in rabies control measures in Flores Island, Indonesia.

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Wera, Ewaldus; Mourits, Monique C M; Hogeveen, Henk

2016-04-01

The success of a rabies control strategy depends on the commitment and collaboration of dog owners. In this study the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) was used to identify the factors, which are associated with the intention of dog owners to participate in rabies control measures in the Manggarai and Sikka regencies of Flores Island, Indonesia. Questionnaires were administered to 450 dog owners from 44 randomly selected villages in the two regencies. Ninety-six percent of the dog owners intended to participate in a free-of-charge vaccination campaign. The intention decreased to 24% when dog owners were asked to pay a vaccination fee equal to the market price of the vaccine (Rp 18.000 per dose=US$2). Approximately 81% of the dog owners intended to keep their dogs inside their house or to leash them day and night during a period of at least three months in case of an incidence of rabies in the dog population within their village. Only 40% intended to cull their dogs in case of a rabies incident within their village. Using multivariable logistic regression analysis, the attitude item 'vaccinating dogs reduces rabies cases in humans', and the perceived behavioural control items 'availability of time' and 'ability to confine dogs' were shown to be significantly associated with the intention to participate in a free-of-charge vaccination campaign. The attitude item 'culling dogs reduces rabies cases in humans' was significantly associated with the intention to participate in a culling measure. The attitude item 'leashing of dogs reduces human rabies cases' and perceived behavioural controls 'availability of time' and 'money to buy a leash' were associated with the intention to leash dogs during a rabies outbreak. As the attitude variables were often significantly associated with intention to participate in a rabies control measure, an educational rabies campaign focusing on the benefit of rabies control measures is expected to increase the intention of dog owners to

How big is the physical activity intention-behaviour gap? A meta-analysis using the action control framework.

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Rhodes, Ryan E; de Bruijn, Gert-Jan

2013-05-01

The physical activity (PA) intention-behaviour gap is a topic of considerable contemporary research, given that most of our models used to understand physical activity suggest that intention is the proximal antecedent of behavioural enactment. The purpose of this study was to quantify the intention-PA gap at public health guidelines with a meta-analysis of the action control framework. Systematic review and meta-analysis. Literature searches were conducted in July 2012 among five key search engines. This search yielded a total of 2,865 potentially relevant records; of these, 10 studies fulfilled the full eligibility criteria (N = 3,899). Random-effects meta-analysis procedures with correction for sampling bias were employed in the analysis for estimates of non-intenders who subsequently did not engage in physical activity (21%), non-intenders who subsequently performed physical activity (2%), intenders who were not successful at following through with their PA (36%), and successful intenders (42%). The overall intention-PA gap was 46%. These results emphasize the weakness in early intention models for understanding PA and suggest this would be a problem during intervention. Contemporary research that is validating and exploring additional constructs (e.g., self-regulation, automaticity) that augment intention or improving the measurement of motivation seems warranted. What is already known on this subject? Intention is considered the proximal antecedent of behaviour in many popular models. Intention is also an established correlate of physical activity behaviour, yet discordance is considerable in experimental research. What does this study add? This meta-analysis of studies that have assessed concordance/discordance of physical activity intention and behaviour at public health guidelines shows the intention-behaviour gap at 48% and the discordance is from intenders who do not act. The results demonstrate that discordance is not just from extreme levels of

UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM OF HADITH NARRATION: TOWARDS A COMPREHENSIVE READING OF HADITH

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Maizuddin M. Nur

2015-12-01

Full Text Available As the source of Islamic teaching, hadith must be apprehended according to the intent of the prophet. If done otherwise, the understanding of prophet’s intention as the explanation of Quranic teaching can be misunderstood. The chance becomes even more likely as hadith has its own problems, especially in the context of its comprehension. These problems will create conclusions which at times influence ones’ understanding. Among the problems are the complete narration of the hadith, riwayat bi al-ma’na, and conciseness of the hadith. Ones’ understanding of a hadith whose information is complete would be different from the one that is not. Thus, the understanding of hadith problems is very crucial to comprehensively understand hadith.

Intention stability assessed using residual change scores moderates the intention-behaviour association: a prospective cohort study.

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Rowan, Alicia A; McDermott, Máirtín S; Allen, Mark S

2017-12-01

Intention stability is considered to be one of the key pre-requisites for a strong association between intention and behaviour. It has been claimed, however, that studies examining the moderating impact of intention stability may be invalid, as they have relied on statistically inferior methods. Residual change scores have been suggested as a more appropriate method of measuring change (or lack thereof) in constructs. The aim of the current study, therefore, is to test whether intention stability, calculated using residual change scores, moderates the intention-physical activity behaviour association. A total of 163 participants (124 women, 39 men) completed questionnaires online at three time points separated by 14 day intervals. The moderating impact of intention stability was assessed using multiple linear regression followed up using simple slope analyses to identify the direction of any effect. The interaction of intention and intention stability was found to significantly improve the overall model fit. Intentions had a stronger positive association with behaviour when intentions were more stable than when they were more unstable. However, sensitivity analyses revealed that the association was not robust and reduced to non-significant with the removal of potential multivariate outliers. Future research should use residual change scores as the preferred method of assessing intention stability.

Gay guys using gay language: friendship, shared values and the intent-context-effect matrix.

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McCormack, Mark; Wignall, Liam; Morris, Max

2016-12-01

This article draws on in-depth interviews with 35 openly gay male undergraduates from four universities in England to develop an understanding of the changing nature of language related to homosexuality. In addition to finding a diminution in the prevalence of homophobic language, we demonstrate that participants maintain complex and nuanced understandings of phrases that do not use homophobic pejoratives, such as 'that's so gay'. The majority of participants rejected the notion that these phrases are inherently homophobic, instead arguing that the intent with which they are said and the context in which they are used are vital in understanding their meaning and effect. We conceptualize an intent-context-effect matrix to understand the interdependency of these variables. Highlighting the situated nature of this matrix, we also demonstrate the importance of the existence of shared norms between those saying and hearing the phrase when interpreting such language. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2016.

Intenção de comportamento socialmente responsável do consumidor: sua relação com os valores humanos básicos Intention of social responsible conduct consumer: relationship with human basic values

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Fabiana Queiroga

2006-12-01

Full Text Available Este estudo teve como objetivo explorar a relação entre a intenção de comportamento do consumidor e os valores humanos, abordando temas como proteção ao meio ambiente e a outras pessoas. Participaram do estudo universitários com idade média de 21 anos (DP = 4,6 e a maioria foi do sexo feminino (72,4%. Os estudantes responderam coletivamente em sala de aula a um questionário com questões objetivas sobre comportamento social. Os resultados apontaram para a importância dos valores humanos na compreensão dos processos subjacentes à intenção de compra dos consumidores tendo em vista os aspectos sociais mensurados. A categoria de valores centrais explicou 3% da variância para preocupação ambiental; 4% para preocupação com a reciclagem; e para preocupação social a variância explicada foi de 5%. Tais resultados indicaram que a tipologia dos valores humanos apresentou coerência na explicação do construto estudado e que existe relação compreensível entre ambos.This study had the objective of exploring the relationship between the intention of consumer behavior and human values approaching subjects as environmental protection and the protection of other people. They had participated of the study university with average age of 21 years (s.d. = 4.6 and a majority was females (72.4%. The students had collectively answered in classroom a questionnaire with objective questions on social behavior. The results had pointed with respect to importance of the human values in the understanding of the underlying processes to the intention of purchase of the consumers considering the social aspects measured. The category of central values explained 3% of the variance for environmental concern; 4% for concern with recycling; and for social concern the explained variance was of 5%. Such results had indicated that the typology of human values presented coherence in the explanation of the studied construct and that an understandable relationship

Intentionality in Healing--The Voices of Men in Nursing: A Grounded Theory Investigation.

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Zahourek, Rothlyn P

2015-12-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate and potentially modify or expand a previously developed theory: Intentionality: The Matrix of Healing (IMH) using a sample of men in nursing. A modified grounded theory approach described by Chen and Boore (2009) and by Amsteus (2014). Twelve men in nursing were recruited. Each was interviewed at least once and their feedback solicited to determine accuracy of interpretation. Results were compared and contrasted to those obtained from the earlier research with six female nurses and their patients. Both groups viewed intentionality as different from, and greater than, intention. Intentionality reflects the whole person's values, goals, and experiences. The men emphasized the importance of reflective spiritual practices, developing self-awareness, being aware of the stress experienced by males in a female profession, and the role of action in manifesting intentionality in healing. The theory is substantiated with minor changes in emphases. Further study is warranted to expand the understanding of this basic concept in nursing and healing. © The Author(s) 2015.

Design and validation of a Cannabis Use Intention Questionnaire (CUIQ) for adolescents.

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Lloret Irles, Daniel; Morell-Gomis, Ramón; Laguía, Ana; Moriano, Juan A

2018-01-01

In Spain, one in four 14 to 18-year-old adolescents has used cannabis during the last twelve months. Demand for treatment has increased in European countries. These facts have prompted the development of preventive interventions that require screening tools in order to identify the vulnerable population and to properly asses the efficacy of such interventions. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), widely used to forecast behavioural intention, has also demonstrated a good predictive capacity in addictions. The aim of this study is to design and validate a Cannabis Use Intention Questionnaire (CUIQ) based on TPB. 1,011 teenagers answered a set of tests to assess attitude towards use, subjective norms, self-efficacy towards non-use, and intention to use cannabis. CUIQ had good psychometric properties. Structural Equation Modelling results confirm the predictive model on intention to use cannabis in the Spanish adolescent sample, classified as users and non-users, explaining 40% of variance of intention to consume. CUIQ is aimed at providing a better understanding of the psychological processes that lead to cannabis use and allowing the evaluation of programmes. This can be particularly useful for improving the design and implementation of selective prevention programmes.

Understanding specificity in metabolic pathways-Structural biology of human nucleotide metabolism

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Welin, Martin; Nordlund, Paer

2010-01-01

Interactions are the foundation of life at the molecular level. In the plethora of activities in the cell, the evolution of enzyme specificity requires the balancing of appropriate substrate affinity with a negative selection, in order to minimize interactions with other potential substrates in the cell. To understand the structural basis for enzyme specificity, the comparison of structural and biochemical data between enzymes within pathways using similar substrates and effectors is valuable. Nucleotide metabolism is one of the largest metabolic pathways in the human cell and is of outstanding therapeutic importance since it activates and catabolises nucleoside based anti-proliferative drugs and serves as a direct target for anti-proliferative drugs. In recent years the structural coverage of the enzymes involved in human nucleotide metabolism has been dramatically improved and is approaching completion. An important factor has been the contribution from the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) at Karolinska Institutet, which recently has solved 33 novel structures of enzymes and enzyme domains in human nucleotide metabolism pathways and homologs thereof. In this review we will discuss some of the principles for substrate specificity of enzymes in human nucleotide metabolism illustrated by a selected set of enzyme families where a detailed understanding of the structural determinants for specificity is now emerging.

Pengembangan Pembelajaran Kemahiran Berbicara Bahasa Arab Menggunakan Pendekatan Cross Cultural Understanding

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Cahya Edi Setyawan

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Language and culture are the two components that can not be separated from human communication. As a tool to communicate with one and another, many discussion about the theory between language and culture. The relationship between the language and culture of linguists is the most common concern for those who have included language instruction for foreign language, understanding the language where different cultural complexities are needed in this study were a concern of the Arabic language. Moreover, many scholars emphasize the learning model of Arabic-speaking skills on the basis of theory through cultural understanding. The main aspect you should be interested in learning the Arabic language such as cross cultural knowledge, cross cultural awareness, cross-cultural sensitivity, cross cultural. The theory of Odes developing the intentional skill of speaking Arabic, devolution of educational materials, the development of professional teacher, the development of approaches and the development of the method, and the development of learning assessment. Each component had elements of mutual cultural understanding.

Applying Theory to Understand and Modify Nurse Intention to Adhere to Recommendations regarding the Use of Filter Needles: An Intervention Mapping Approach.

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Cassista, Julianne; Payne-Gagnon, Julie; Martel, Brigitte; Gagnon, Marie-Pierre

2014-01-01

The manipulation of glass ampoules involves risk of particle contamination of parenteral medication, and the use of filter needles has often been recommended in order to reduce the number of particles in these solutions. This study aims to develop a theory-based intervention to increase nurse intention to use filter needles according to clinical guideline recommendations produced by a large university medical centre in Quebec (Canada). Using the Intervention Mapping framework, we first identified the psychosocial determinants of nurse intention to use filter needles according to these recommendations. Second, we developed and implemented an intervention targeting nurses from five care units in order to increase their intention to adhere to recommendations on the use of filter needles. We also assessed nurse satisfaction with the intervention. In total, 270 nurses received the intervention and 169 completed the posttest questionnaire. The two determinants of intention, that is, attitude and perceived behavioral control, were significantly higher after the intervention, but only perceived behavioral control remained a predictor of intention. In general, nurses were highly satisfied with the intervention. This study provides support for the use of Intervention Mapping to develop, implement, and evaluate theory-based interventions in order to improve healthcare professional adherence to clinical recommendations.

Applying Theory to Understand and Modify Nurse Intention to Adhere to Recommendations regarding the Use of Filter Needles: An Intervention Mapping Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Julianne Cassista

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The manipulation of glass ampoules involves risk of particle contamination of parenteral medication, and the use of filter needles has often been recommended in order to reduce the number of particles in these solutions. This study aims to develop a theory-based intervention to increase nurse intention to use filter needles according to clinical guideline recommendations produced by a large university medical centre in Quebec (Canada. Using the Intervention Mapping framework, we first identified the psychosocial determinants of nurse intention to use filter needles according to these recommendations. Second, we developed and implemented an intervention targeting nurses from five care units in order to increase their intention to adhere to recommendations on the use of filter needles. We also assessed nurse satisfaction with the intervention. In total, 270 nurses received the intervention and 169 completed the posttest questionnaire. The two determinants of intention, that is, attitude and perceived behavioral control, were significantly higher after the intervention, but only perceived behavioral control remained a predictor of intention. In general, nurses were highly satisfied with the intervention. This study provides support for the use of Intervention Mapping to develop, implement, and evaluate theory-based interventions in order to improve healthcare professional adherence to clinical recommendations.

Integrating the social sciences to understand human-water dynamics

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Carr, G.; Kuil, L., Jr.

2017-12-01

Many interesting and exciting socio-hydrological models have been developed in recent years. Such models often aim to capture the dynamic interplay between people and water for a variety of hydrological settings. As such, peoples' behaviours and decisions are brought into the models as drivers of and/or respondents to the hydrological system. To develop and run such models over a sufficiently long time duration to observe how the water-human system evolves the human component is often simplified according to one or two key behaviours, characteristics or decisions (e.g. a decision to move away from a drought or flood area; a decision to pump groundwater, or a decision to plant a less water demanding crop). To simplify the social component, socio-hydrological modellers often pull knowledge and understanding from existing social science theories. This requires them to negotiate complex territory, where social theories may be underdeveloped, contested, dynamically evolving, or case specific and difficult to generalise or upscale. A key question is therefore, how can this process be supported so that the resulting socio-hydrological models adequately describe the system and lead to meaningful understanding of how and why it behaves as it does? Collaborative interdisciplinary research teams that bring together social and natural scientists are likely to be critical. Joint development of the model framework requires specific attention to clarification to expose all underlying assumptions, constructive discussion and negotiation to reach agreement on the modelled system and its boundaries. Mutual benefits to social scientists can be highlighted, i.e. socio-hydrological work can provide insights for further exploring and testing social theories. Collaborative work will also help ensure underlying social theory is made explicit, and may identify ways to include and compare multiple theories. As socio-hydrology progresses towards supporting policy development, approaches that

Mothers' intentions to vaccinate their teenaged children against human papillomavirus, as predicted by sex in South Korea: An application of the theory of planned behavior.

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Kim, Kyung Mi; Choi, Jeong Sil

2017-10-01

This study was conducted in order to examine the intention of mothers to vaccinate their teenaged children against human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, according to the children's sex. Based on the theory of planned behavior, the study identified the sex-specific predictors of mothers' intention to vaccinate their teenaged children against HPV. This was a descriptive survey study that included, as participants, 200 mothers whose teenaged children were not vaccinated against HPV. The mothers' experience with HPV vaccination was a significant predictor of their childrens' HPV vaccination status. For the mothers of sons, subjective norms, attitudes, and perceived behavioral control were found to be significant predictors of intention of HPV vaccination, with an explanatory power of 69.5%. For those with daughters, only attitudes and subjective norms were significant predictors, with an explanatory power of 79.6%. The application of the theory of planned behavior is an effective method to determine the predictors of children's HPV vaccination status. In order to improve the HPV vaccination rate of teenaged children, strategies for education and effective promotion that involve mothers should be developed. © 2016 Japan Academy of Nursing Science.

Attribution of intentional causation influences the perception of observed movements: Behavioural evidence and neural correlates

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James W Moore

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Recent research on human agency suggests that intentional causation is associated with a subjective compression in the temporal interval between actions and their effects. That is, intentional movements and their causal effects are perceived as closer together in time than equivalent unintentional movements and their causal effects. This so-called intentional binding effect is consistently found for one’s own self-generated actions. It has also been suggested that intentional binding occurs when observing intentional movements of others. However, this evidence is undermined by limitations of the paradigm used. In the current study we aimed to overcome these limitations using a more rigorous design in combination with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI to explore the neural underpinnings of intentional binding of observed movements. In particular, we aimed to identify brain areas sensitive to the interaction between intentionality and causality attributed to the observed action. Our behavioural results confirmed the occurrence of intentional binding for observed movements using this more rigorous paradigm. Our fMRI results highlighted a collection of brain regions whose activity was sensitive to the interaction between intentionality and causation. Intriguingly, these brain regions have previously been implicated in the sense of agency over one’s own movements. We discuss the implications of these results for intentional binding specifically, and the sense of agency more generally.

Intentionality and Consciousness

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ierna, Carlo; Jacquette, Dale

2018-01-01

In this chapter I concentrate on the notion of intentionality and its relation to consciousness. Ever since its re-introduction into contemporary philosophy in the works of Franz Brentano, intentionality has been associated in various ways with consciousness. In the continental and analytic

75 FR 71448 - Notice of Intent To Provide Supplemental Funding

Science.gov (United States)

2010-11-23

... dollars loss annually due to Medicare/Medicaid fraud, error and abuse. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services data has revealed that Medicare fraud is rampant in the Hispanic community. Hispanic older adults... DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Administration on Aging Notice of Intent To Provide...

Online sparse Gaussian process based human motion intent learning for an electrically actuated lower extremity exoskeleton.

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Long, Yi; Du, Zhi-Jiang; Chen, Chao-Feng; Dong, Wei; Wang, Wei-Dong

2017-07-01

The most important step for lower extremity exoskeleton is to infer human motion intent (HMI), which contributes to achieve human exoskeleton collaboration. Since the user is in the control loop, the relationship between human robot interaction (HRI) information and HMI is nonlinear and complicated, which is difficult to be modeled by using mathematical approaches. The nonlinear approximation can be learned by using machine learning approaches. Gaussian Process (GP) regression is suitable for high-dimensional and small-sample nonlinear regression problems. GP regression is restrictive for large data sets due to its computation complexity. In this paper, an online sparse GP algorithm is constructed to learn the HMI. The original training dataset is collected when the user wears the exoskeleton system with friction compensation to perform unconstrained movement as far as possible. The dataset has two kinds of data, i.e., (1) physical HRI, which is collected by torque sensors placed at the interaction cuffs for the active joints, i.e., knee joints; (2) joint angular position, which is measured by optical position sensors. To reduce the computation complexity of GP, grey relational analysis (GRA) is utilized to specify the original dataset and provide the final training dataset. Those hyper-parameters are optimized offline by maximizing marginal likelihood and will be applied into online GP regression algorithm. The HMI, i.e., angular position of human joints, will be regarded as the reference trajectory for the mechanical legs. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, experiments are performed on a subject at a natural speed. The experimental results show the HMI can be obtained in real time, which can be extended and employed in the similar exoskeleton systems.

Special Education Teachers' Perceptions and Intentions toward Data Collection

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Ruble, Lisa A.; McGrew, John H.; Wong, Wing Hang; Missall, Kristen N.

2018-01-01

Although data-based decision making is an evidence-based practice, many special educators have difficulty applying the practice within daily routines. We applied the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to understand the influences that promote or hinder early childhood special educators' intentions to collect data. We assessed three influences on…

Intentional activity and free will as core concepts in criminal law and psychology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bertelsen, Preben

2012-01-01

Whether or not intentional actions initiated and formed by free will exist, it can be shown that lack of belief in such behavior makes people behave less ethically and less law-abidingly (they cheat more). Therefore, this phenomenon—often called a necessary illusion—is crucial to moral as well as...... model within the domain of criminal law and psychology explaining human intentional actions based on a scientific notion of free will as a real-world phenomenon....

The Influence of Destination Image on Medical Tourist’s Intention for Future Destination Choice

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Norhaslin Abu Hassan

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This study proposed to explore how the image of a destination could influence medical tourists in choosing a destination as their future medical and tourism destination choice. Scholars argued that destination image had a significant relationship with behavioral intentions. Destination image influence not only the decision-making process but also conditions after-decision-making behaviors of tourists. In the current study context, the future destination choice behavior referred to the intention to revisit the previous destination and the intention to spread the positive word-of-mouth to others. For this study, inbound medical tourists from private hospitals registered with Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC in Penang, Malacca, Kuala Lumpur and Selangor in Malaysia will be approached quantitatively by survey questionnaires. This study will contribute to an understanding of the significant factors influencing medical tourists’ intention for future destination choice.

Radykalna interpretacja intencjonalności w filozofii Martina Heideggera (Radical interpretation of intentionality in Martin Heidegger’s philosophy

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Andrzej Dąbrowski

2012-06-01

Full Text Available The aim of this paper is to present Martin Heidegger’s view on intentionality. We start from initial observations on the phenomenon of intentionality (here we refer to four possible concepts of intentionality: mentalistic, linguistic, pragmatic, and naturalistic and a few remarks on the fundamental ontology of Heidegger. Then we show what intentionality is not for Heidegger: fi rst, it is not an objectively existing relationship between two entities and, secondly, intentionality is not the subjectivity of the subject; and we specify what intentionality is: in Heidegger’s ontology, intentionality is closely related to the transcendence of being-in-the-world. Transcending – the constancy in crossing – Dasein enables it to refer to itself, other conscious beings, and, in general, all present entities. We have shown that none of the above concepts of intentionality (mentalistic, linguistic, pragmatic, and naturalistic is not congruent with the interpretation of Heidegger, which concentrates on the following issue: how to go beyond the traditional understanding of intentionality and reach a more basic form of experience.

Goal conflict and the moderating effects of intention stability in intention-behavior relations: physical activity among Hong Kong chinese.

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Li, Kin-Kit; Chan, Darius K S

2008-02-01

This study examined how goal conflict influences the pattern of the moderating effects of intention stability on the intention-behavior relations in the context of physical activity participation. A longitudinal study of 136 young adult students with three waves of data collection (a 2-week interval between waves) was conducted. Results showed a significant three-way interaction among intention, goal conflict,& intention stability in explaining vigorous-intensity physical activity (Beta = -.25, p goal conflict was low, the intention-behavior relations were stronger with stable intentions and weaker with unstable intentions. However, when the level of goal conflict was high, the intention-behavior relations were weaker with stable intentions and stronger with unstable intentions. Possible underlying processes of goal conflict and intention stability on the intention-behavior relations are discussed.

Do you know what I mean? Brain oscillations and the understanding of communicative intentions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marcella eBrunetti

2014-02-01

Full Text Available Pointing gesture allows children to communicate their intentions before the acquisition of language. In particular, two main purposes seem to underlie the gesture: to request a desired object (imperative pointing or to share attention on that object (declarative pointing. Since the imperative pointing has an instrumental goal and the declarative an interpersonal one, only the latter gesture is thought to signal the infant’s awareness of the communicative partner as a mental agent. The present study examined the neural responses of adult subjects with the aim to test the hypothesis that declarative rather than imperative pointing reflects mentalizing skills. Fourteen subjects were measured in a MEG environment including 4 conditions, based on the goal of the pointing–imperative or declarative–and the role of the subject–sender or receiver of pointing. Time-Frequency modulations of brain activity in each condition (Declarative Production and Comprehension, Imperative Production and Comprehension were analyzed. Both low BETA and high BETA power were stronger during Declarative than Imperative condition, in anterior cingulated cortex and right posterior superior temporal sulcus, respectively. Furthermore, high GAMMA activity was higher in right temporo-parietal junction during the sender than receiving condition. This suggests that communicative pointing modulated brain regions previously described in neuroimaging research as linked to social cognitive skills and that declarative pointing is more capable of eliciting that activation than imperative. Our results contribute to the understanding of the roles of brain rhythm dynamics in social cognition, thus supporting neural research on that topic during developmental both in typical and atypical conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder. In particular, the identification of relevant regions in a mature brain may stimulate a future work on the developmental changes of neural activation in

The Past, Present and Future of Human Computer Interaction

KAUST Repository

Churchill, Elizabeth

2018-01-16

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) focuses on how people interact with, and are transformed by computation. Our current technology landscape is changing rapidly. Interactive applications, devices and services are increasingly becoming embedded into our environments. From our homes to the urban and rural spaces, we traverse everyday. We are increasingly able toﾖoften required toﾖmanage and configure multiple, interconnected devices and program their interactions. Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques are being used to create dynamic services that learn about us and others, that make conclusions about our intents and affiliations, and that mould our digital interactions based in predictions about our actions and needs, nudging us toward certain behaviors. Computation is also increasingly embedded into our bodies. Understanding human interactions in the everyday digital and physical context. During this lecture, Elizabeth Churchill -Director of User Experience at Google- will talk about how an emerging landscape invites us to revisit old methods and tactics for understanding how people interact with computers and computation, and how it challenges us to think about new methods and frameworks for understanding the future of human-centered computation.

PHENOMENOLOGY OF LIFE IN UNDERSTANDING THE COSMOPOLITAN HUMANNESS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

CARMEN COZMA

2013-05-01

Full Text Available One of the most significant directions of the world-wide contemporary philosophy, phenomenology of life of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka represents a major path of thinking and acting for the promotion of what does mean the universal valuable in human beingness by disclosing and unfolding an essential modality of understanding and shaping some paradigms of world culture. We face an original author and a reputed activist doing exceptional work to foster a culture of dialogue in the world. The impressive Tymienieckan philosophical work has imposed itself as a great contribution to the heralding of a “New Enlightenment” encompassing humanity in the endeavour of creating, maintaining and developing the wellbeing and the common good of mankind, in securing the human common destiny. Putting in act a holistic and dynamic philosophy upon life and human condition, phenomenology of life offers a viable pattern of communication between different cultures, of overcoming any kind of contradictions in dealing with the fundamental issues of living together and sharing-in-life. We can find elements for tackling and comprehending in a better way our cosmopolitan humanness, due to the opening of a creative approach of identity and otherness, by admitting differentiation and also by working for harmony in the play of life. Throughout new concepts and a very own complex vision of the respect for life, the philosophy-in-act of AnnaTeresa Tymieniecka manifests valences of an integrator enterprise in interpreting the cosmopolitan status of the philosopher in nowadays, in affirming the role of a responsible citizen of the world.

Understanding Older Adult's Perceptions of Factors that Support Trust in Human and Robot Care Providers.

Science.gov (United States)

Stuck, Rachel E; Rogers, Wendy A

2017-06-01

As the population of older adults increase so will the need for care providers, both human and robot. Trust is a key aspect to establish and maintain a successful older adult-care provider relationship. However, due to trust volatility it is essential to understand it within specific contexts. This proposed mixed methods study will explore what dimensions of trust emerge as important within the human-human and human-robot dyads in older adults and care providers. First, this study will help identify key qualities that support trust in a care provider relationship. By understanding what older adults perceive as needing to trust humans and robots for various care tasks, we can begin to provide recommendations based on user expectations for design to support trust.

How influencers’ credibility on Instagram is perceived by consumers and its impact on purchase intention

OpenAIRE

Rebelo, Marta Figueiredo

2017-01-01

The purpose of this thesis is to understand the perception Instagram users, in other words consumers, have of influencers they follow on Instagram. Consumer perceived credibility of influencers, and its impact on the purchase intention, is therefore studied. This dissertation aims to highlight which credibility dimensions better explain the purchase intention. Gender is also explored to verify behavior differences between female and male consumers. To better analyze the perc...

SPORTS SHOES PURCHASE INTENTION AMONG MALAYSIAN VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS VS. NON-VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS: A CONCEPTUAL PAPER

OpenAIRE

GOH PIN SIANG; ZURAIDAH SULAIMAN

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study is to advance the understanding of volleyball players’ purchase intention toward sport shoes by investigating the relationship between the independent variables (endorsement, advertising, pricing and electronic word-of-mouth) and purchase intention. Descriptive research and causal research will be used as the research design, thus questionnaire and experimentation will be used to obtain data. Primary data in this study is attained by distributing the questionnaire to...

Effects of Likeability Dynamics on Consumers' Intention to Share Online Video Advertisements

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Shehu, Edlira; Bijmolt, Tammo H. A.; Clement, Michel

Understanding how consumer evaluations of online advertisements affect their intention to share advertising content online is essential for successful viral advertising. This article examines consumer decisions whether or not to share video advertisements, in particular the role of their

Understanding "Human" Waves: Exploiting the Physics in a Viral Video

Science.gov (United States)

Ferrer-Roca, Chantal

2018-01-01

Waves are a relevant part of physics that students find difficult to grasp, even in those cases in which wave propagation kinematics can be visualized. This may hinder a proper understanding of sound, light or quantum physics phenomena that are explained using a wave model. So-called "human" waves, choreographed by people, have proved to…

Intention and Normative Belief

OpenAIRE

Chislenko, Eugene

2016-01-01

I defend the view that we act “under the guise of the good.” More specifically, I argue that an intention to do something is a belief that one ought to do it. I show how conflicts in intention and belief, as well as more complex impairments in these states, account for the central problem cases: akrasia in belief and intention, apparently unintelligible choices, and lack of motivation or accidie.

Predicting entrepreneurial career intentions: Values and the theory of planned behavior.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

M.J. Gorgievski-Duijvesteijn (Marjan); U. Stephan (Ute); M. Laguna (Mariola); J.A. Moriano (Juan)

2017-01-01

textabstractIntegrating predictions from the theory of human values with the theory of planned behavior (TPB), our primary goal is to investigate mechanisms through which individual values are related to entrepreneurial career intentions using a sample of 823 students from four European countries.

Challenges for Preclinical Investigations of Human Biofield Modalities

Science.gov (United States)

Gronowicz, Gloria; Bengston, William

2015-01-01

Preclinical models for studying the effects of the human biofield have great potential to advance our understanding of human biofield modalities, which include external qigong, Johrei, Reiki, therapeutic touch, healing touch, polarity therapy, pranic healing, and other practices. A short history of Western biofield studies using preclinical models is presented and demonstrates numerous and consistent examples of human biofields significantly affecting biological systems both in vitro and in vivo. Methodological issues arising from these studies and practical solutions in experimental design are presented. Important questions still left unanswered with preclinical models include variable reproducibility, dosing, intentionality of the practitioner, best preclinical systems, and mechanisms. Input from the biofield practitioners in the experimental design is critical to improving experimental outcomes; however, the development of standard criteria for uniformity of practice and for inclusion of multiple practitioners is needed. Research in human biofield studies involving preclinical models promises a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the efficacy of biofield therapies and will be important in guiding clinical protocols and integrating treatments with conventional medical therapies. PMID:26665042

Use of physical restraint: Nurses' knowledge, attitude, intention and practice and influencing factors.

Science.gov (United States)

Eskandari, Fatemeh; Abdullah, Khatijah Lim; Zainal, Nor Zuraida; Wong, Li Ping

2017-12-01

To investigate the knowledge, attitude, intention and practice of nurses towards physical restraint and factors influencing these variables. A literature review showed a lack of studies focused on the intention of nurses regarding physical restraint throughout the world. Considering that very little research on physical restraint use has been carried out in Malaysia, assessment of nurses' knowledge, attitude, intention and practice is necessary before developing a minimising programme in hospitals. A cross-sectional study was used. A questionnaire to assess the knowledge, attitude, intention and practice was completed by all nurses (n = 309) in twelve wards of a teaching hospital in Kuala Lumpur. Moderate knowledge and attitude with strong intention to use physical restraint were found among the nurses. Less than half of nurses considered alternatives to physical restraint and most of them did not understand the reasons for the physical restraint. Nurses' academic qualification, read any information source during past year and nurses' work unit showed a significant association with nurses' knowledge. Multiple linear regression analysis found knowledge, attitude and intention were significantly associated with nurses' practice to use physical restraint. This study showed some important misunderstandings of nurses about using physical restraint and strong intention regarding using physical restraint. Findings of this study serve as a supporting reason for importance of educating nurses about the use of physical restraint. Exploring the knowledge, attitude, intention and current practice of nurses towards physical restraint is important so that an effective strategy can be formulated to minimise the use of physical restraints in hospitals. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Understanding the purchase intention towards remanufactured product in closed-loop supply chains : An empirical study in China

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wang, Y.; Wiegerinck, V.J.J.; Krikke, H.R.; Zhang, H.

2013-01-01

Purpose – The paper aims to explore the reasons underlying the key assumption in the closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) literature that consumers' purchase intention is lower for remanufactured products than for new products. It aims to complement the predominantly operation-focused CLSC research by

The influence of an online auction's product price and e-retailer reputation on consumers' perception, attitude, and behavioral intention.

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Wann-Yih; Huang, Po-Ching; Fu, Chen-Su

2011-06-01

Online auctions combine the conventional auction model with information technology. However, information asymmetry within such auctions causes risks and uncertainties that influence consumer purchase intentions. In this study, a 2 (product price: high vs. low) × 2 (e-retailer reputation: high vs. low) experimental design was used to understand whether the product price and e-retailer reputation will influence consumers' perceived risk, attitude toward the website and purchase intention. The results of this study indicate that perceived risk negatively influences consumer attitude toward the website and online purchase intention, while consumer attitude toward the website positively influences purchase intention. Moreover, involvement moderates the influence of product price and e-retailer reputation only on social risk but does not have a significant effect on consumer attitude toward the website. This study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of online auction users' behavior. Finally, the managerial implications, limitations and future research directions are also provided. © 2011 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology © 2011 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations.

DEFINING AND CONSTRUCTING THE TEACHING MODEL OF ENTREPRENEUR EDUCATION BASED ON ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION MODEL

OpenAIRE

Henry Pribadi

2005-01-01

Concept of entrepreneurship has been widely debated whether to be an entrepreneur one need to get formal entrepreneurial education or not. Most of the formal entrepreneur education yield the same flaw, which is the lack of teaching soft skill and building the necessary entrepreneurship characteristics. Intention-based models of entrepreneurship education try to fill the gap by focusing the education on the human intention of becoming entrepreneur by defining four model of entrepreneurship edu...

From evolution to revolution: understanding mutability in large and disruptive human groups

Science.gov (United States)

Whitaker, Roger M.; Felmlee, Diane; Verma, Dinesh C.; Preece, Alun; Williams, Grace-Rose

2017-05-01

Over the last 70 years there has been a major shift in the threats to global peace. While the 1950's and 1960's were characterised by the cold war and the arms race, many security threats are now characterised by group behaviours that are disruptive, subversive or extreme. In many cases such groups are loosely and chaotically organised, but their ideals are sociologically and psychologically embedded in group members to the extent that the group represents a major threat. As a result, insights into how human groups form, emerge and change are critical, but surprisingly limited insights into the mutability of human groups exist. In this paper we argue that important clues to understand the mutability of groups come from examining the evolutionary origins of human behaviour. In particular, groups have been instrumental in human evolution, used as a basis to derive survival advantage, leaving all humans with a basic disposition to navigate the world through social networking and managing their presence in a group. From this analysis we present five critical features of social groups that govern mutability, relating to social norms, individual standing, status rivalry, ingroup bias and cooperation. We argue that understanding how these five dimensions interact and evolve can provide new insights into group mutation and evolution. Importantly, these features lend themselves to digital modeling. Therefore computational simulation can support generative exploration of groups and the discovery of latent factors, relevant to both internal group and external group modelling. Finally we consider the role of online social media in relation to understanding the mutability of groups. This can play an active role in supporting collective behaviour, and analysis of social media in the context of the five dimensions of group mutability provides a fresh basis to interpret the forces affecting groups.

Anti-nuclear behavioral intentions: The role of perceived knowledge, information processing, and risk perception

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhu, Weiwei; Wei, Jiuchang; Zhao, Dingtao

2016-01-01

This study explored the key factors underlying people's anti-nuclear behavioral intentions. The protective action decision model and the heuristic–systematic model were integrated and adapted from a risk information perspective to construct a hypothetical model. A questionnaire study was conducted on a sample of residents near the Haiyang Nuclear Power Plant, which is under construction in Shandong Province, China (N=487). Results show that, as expected, perceived knowledge is vital in predicting people's information insufficiency, information seeking, systematic processing, and risk perception. Moreover, the inverted U relationship between perceived knowledge and anti-nuclear behavioral intentions is indicated in the study. Information insufficiency and information seeking also significantly predict systematic processing. Furthermore, people's behavioral intentions are motivated by risk perception but fail to be stimulated by systematic processing. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed. - Highlights: • The study explores anti-nuclear behavior from a risk information perspective. • Risk perception and knowledge matter to anti-nuclear behavioral intentions. • Inverted U relationship between knowledge and behavioral intentions is indicated. • More understanding of nuclear power could reduce public opposition.

DETERMINANTS OF ROMANIAN CONSUMERS’ GREEN PURCHASE INTENTION- A PSYCHOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

SANDU RALUCA-MIHAELA

2016-02-01

Full Text Available If demographics refers to external characteristics, including age, gender, annual income or educational attainment, psychographics manages to break the external barrier and provides insight of consumers’ lifestyles, values, attitudes, interests or opinions. In comparison, demographics has the benefit of understanding “who” buys the product or the service, while psychographics is responsible for understanding “why” they buy it. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the psychographic factors that influence the consumer’s green purchase intention. In order to achieve this, the questionnaire proposed by Sandu (2015, based on the study of relevant and recent literature and adapted to the Romanian environment, was applied online to potential consumers and effective consumers of ecological products of Iaşi city. A number of 98 answers were collected and analyzed with the help of SPSS 20.0 software. Results show that, from the four selected psychographic factors, perceived consumer effectiveness and health consciousness have an influence on consumer’s green purchase intention. The significance of the study consists in a better understanding of the green consumer’s behavior and a starting point for marketing people in targeting consumers and building strategies to increase the market share of ecological products.

78 FR 6303 - Notice of Intent To Prepare a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the Effects of...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-30

..., 2010, NMFS, as lead agency, announced its intent to prepare an EIS analyzing the impacts to the human... Intent To Prepare a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the Effects of Oil and Gas Activities in the Arctic Ocean AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and...

Space, time and the limits of human understanding

CERN Document Server

Ghirardi, Giancarlo

2017-01-01

In this compendium of essays, some of the world’s leading thinkers discuss their conceptions of space and time, as viewed through the lens of their own discipline. With an epilogue on the limits of human understanding, this volume hosts contributions from six or more diverse fields. It presumes only rudimentary background knowledge on the part of the reader. Time and again, through the prism of intellect, humans have tried to diffract reality into various distinct, yet seamless, atomic, yet holistic, independent, yet interrelated disciplines and have attempted to study it contextually. Philosophers debate the paradoxes, or engage in meditations, dialogues and reflections on the content and nature of space and time. Physicists, too, have been trying to mold space and time to fit their notions concerning micro- and macro-worlds. Mathematicians focus on the abstract aspects of space, time and measurement. While cognitive scientists ponder over the perceptual and experiential facets of our consciousness of spac...

The Role of Preceptorship and Group Cohesion on Newly Licensed Registered Nurses' Satisfaction and Intent to Stay.

Science.gov (United States)

Bontrager, Sarah; Hart, Patricia L; Mareno, Nicole

2016-03-01

Thirteen percent of newly licensed registered nurses (NLRNs) vacate their first job after 1 year, and 37% report that they feel ready to change jobs. Turnover can lead to consistent and detrimental nursing shortages in nursing units, as well as increased costs for health care systems. A descriptive, prospective, cross-sectional design was used to understand how preceptor role effectiveness and group cohesion affect NLRNs' satisfaction and intent to stay. NLRNs reported high levels of perceived preceptor role effectiveness, group cohesion, and job satisfaction, with only moderate levels of intent to stay. Statistically significant relationships were found among preceptor role effectiveness, job satisfaction, and intent to stay, as well as among group cohesion, job satisfaction, and intent to stay. Preceptor role effectiveness and group cohesion are predictors of NLRNs' level of job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is a predictor of NLRNs' intent to stay. Effective preceptors and positive group cohesion are factors that are important to NLRNs' job satisfaction and intent to stay. Copyright 2016, SLACK Incorporated.

Progress in understanding human ovarian folliculogenesis and its implications in assisted reproduction.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Dong Zi; Yang, Wan; Li, Yu; He, Zuanyu

2013-02-01

To highlight recent progress in understanding the pattern of follicular wave emergence of human menstrual cycle, providing a brief overview of the new options for human ovarian stimulation and oocyte retrieval by making full use of follicular physiological waves of the patients either with normal or abnormal ovarian reserve. Literature review and editorial commentary. There has been increasing evidence to suggest that multiple (two or three) antral follicular waves are recruited during human menstrual cycle. The treatment regimens designed based on the theory of follicular waves, to promote increased success with assisted reproduction technology (ART) and fertility preservation have been reported. These new options for human ovarian stimulation and oocyte retrieval by making full use of follicular waves of the patients either with normal or abnormal ovarian reserve lead to new thinking about the standard protocols in ART and challenge the traditional theory that a single wave of antral follicles grows only during the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle. The understanding of human ovarian folliculogenesis may have profound implications in ART and fertility preservation. Further studies are needed to evaluate the optimal regimens in ART based on the theory of follicular waves and to identify non-invasive markers for predicting the outcome and the potential utilities of follicles obtained from anovulatory follicular waves in ART.

Promoting the translation of intentions into action by implementation intentions: Behavioral effects and physiological correlates

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Frank eWieber

2015-07-01

Full Text Available The present review addresses the physiological correlates of planning effects on behavior. Although intentions to act qualify as predictors of behavior, accumulated evidence indicates that there is a substantial gap between even strong intentions and subsequent action. One effective strategy to reduce this intention-behavior gap is the formation of implementation intentions that specify when, where, and how to act on a given goal in an if-then format (If I encounter situation Y, then I will initiate action Z!. It has been proposed that implementation intentions render the mental representation of the situation highly accessible and establish a strong associative link between the mental representations of the situation and the action. These process assumptions have been examined in behavioral research, and in physiological research, a field that has begun to investigate the temporal dynamics of and brain areas involved in implementation intention effects. In the present review, we first summarize studies on the cognitive processes that are central to the strategic automation of action control by implementation intentions. We then examine studies involving critical samples with impaired self-regulation. Lastly, we review studies that have applied physiological measures such as heart rate, cortisol level, and eye movement, as well as electroencephalography (EEG and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI studies on the neural correlates of implementation intention effects. In support of the assumed processes, implementation intentions increased goal attainment in studies on cognitive processes and in critical samples, modulated brain waves related to perceptual and decision processes, and generated less activity in brain areas associated with effortful action control. In our discussion, we reflect on the status quo of physiological research on implementation intentions, methodological and conceptual issues, related research, and propose future

Relative Importance of Human Resource Practices on Affective Commitment and Turnover Intention in South Korea and United States

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jaeyoon Lee

2018-05-01

Full Text Available The main purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of perceived HR practices on affective commitment and turnover intention. This study explored which HR practices were relatively more important in predicting affective commitment and turnover intention. A total of 302 employees from the United States and 317 from South Korea completed the same questionnaires for assessing the aforementioned relationships. The results illustrated that among perceived HR practices, internal mobility had the most significant association with turnover intention in both the United States and South Korea. While internal mobility was a stronger predictor of affective commitment for the United States sample, training was the most important variable for predicting affective commitment in South Korea. The second purpose of the study was to examine whether individuals’ positive affect influences the relationship between perceived HR practices and affective commitment and turnover intention. In the United States, positive affect moderated the relationship between perceived HR practices and affective commitment and turnover intention such that the relationships were stronger for individuals reporting high positive affect relative to those reporting low positive affect. However, these relationships were not significant in South Korea. We discuss the implications of these results, study limitations, and practical suggestions for future research.

3. Depiction and Intention

OpenAIRE

Blumson, Ben

2016-01-01

Whereas the analysis of meaning in terms of intention is orthodoxy in the philosophy of language, it is highly controversial in the philosophy of art. So even if it is agreed that inserting resemblance into the analysis of speaker meaning in terms of intention escapes counterexamples to the sufficiency of resemblance for depiction, it’s likely to be argued that defining depiction as a kind of intentional representation draws too close an analogy between depiction and description. Counterexamp...

Nurse manager job satisfaction and intent to leave

Science.gov (United States)

Warshawsky, Nora E.; Havens, Donna S.

2015-01-01

Background The nurse manager role is critical to staff nurse retention and often the portal to senior nursing leadership, yet little is known about nurse managers' job satisfaction and career plans. The purpose of this study was to describe nurse managers' job satisfaction and intent to leave. Methods An electronic survey was used to collect data from 291 nurse managers working in U.S. hospitals. Findings Seventy percent were satisfied or very satisfied with their jobs and 68% were either likely or very likely to recommend nursing management as a career choice. Seventy-two percent of these nurse managers were also planning to leave their positions in the next five years. The four most common reasons reported for intent to leave included burnout, career change, retirement, and promotion. Burnout was the most common reason cited by the entire sample but the fourth most common reason for leaving cited by those nurse managers who were planning to leave and also satisfied or very satisfied with their positions. Conclusions Recommendations for nursing leaders include evaluating the workload of nurse managers, providing career counseling, and developing succession plans. Additional research is needed to understand the determinants and consequences of nurse manager job satisfaction, intent to leave, and turnover. PMID:24689156

Thalamic physiology of intentional essential tremor is more like cerebellar tremor than postural essential tremor

OpenAIRE

Zakaria, R; Lenz, FA; Hua, S; Avin, BH; Liu, CC; Mari, Z

2013-01-01

The neuronal physiological correlates of clinical heterogeneity in human essential tremor are unknown. We now test the hypothesis that thalamic neuronal and EMG activities during intention essential tremor are similar to those of the intention tremor which is characteristic of cerebellar lesions. Thalamic neuronal firing was studied in a cerebellar relay nucleus (ventral intermediate, Vim) and in a pallidal relay nucleus (ventral oral posterior, Vop) during stereotactic surgery for the treatm...

Nurses' intention to leave: critically analyse the theory of reasoned action and organizational commitment model.

Science.gov (United States)

Liou, Shwu-Ru

2009-01-01

To systematically analyse the Organizational Commitment model and Theory of Reasoned Action and determine concepts that can better explain nurses' intention to leave their job. The Organizational Commitment model and Theory of Reasoned Action have been proposed and applied to understand intention to leave and turnover behaviour, which are major contributors to nursing shortage. However, the appropriateness of applying these two models in nursing was not analysed. Three main criteria of a useful model were used for the analysis: consistency in the use of concepts, testability and predictability. Both theories use concepts consistently. Concepts in the Theory of Reasoned Action are defined broadly whereas they are operationally defined in the Organizational Commitment model. Predictability of the Theory of Reasoned Action is questionable whereas the Organizational Commitment model can be applied to predict intention to leave. A model was proposed based on this analysis. Organizational commitment, intention to leave, work experiences, job characteristics and personal characteristics can be concepts for predicting nurses' intention to leave. Nursing managers may consider nurses' personal characteristics and experiences to increase their organizational commitment and enhance their intention to stay. Empirical studies are needed to test and cross-validate the re-synthesized model for nurses' intention to leave their job.

Mental Disorders and Suicidal Intention.

Science.gov (United States)

Litman, Robert E.

1987-01-01

Explores use of psychological autopsies to clarify intention in suicide. Compares clinical experience with courtroom experience. Discusses the "decriminalization" of suicide and insurance concerns, mental disorders, and intention to commit suicide. Notes that capacity to have the intent to commit suicide is lost due to mental disorders only under…

GOAL Agents Instantiate Intention Logic

OpenAIRE

Hindriks, Koen; van der Hoek, Wiebe

2008-01-01

It is commonly believed there is a big gap between agent logics and computational agent frameworks. In this paper, we show that this gap is not as big as believed by showing that GOAL agents instantiate Intention Logic of Cohen and Levesque. That is, we show that GOAL agent programs can be formally related to Intention Logic.We do so by proving that the GOAL Verification Logic can be embedded into Intention Logic. It follows that (a fragment of) Intention Logic can be used t...

WMD Intent Identification and Interaction Analysis Using the Dark Web

Science.gov (United States)

2016-04-01

understanding the intent and interaction patterns among adversarial parties. The basic research questions are grounded on computational linguistics ...relationships between the virtual and real measures. Research Hypotheses Based on the literature , several expectations were established regarding the...group’s geographic location, will have an influence on the 6 virtual behaviors of groups. Previous literature has suggested that certain social

Who Is to Blame? Framing HPV to Influence Vaccination Intentions among College Students.

Science.gov (United States)

Vorpahl, McKenzie M; Yang, Janet Z

2018-05-01

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a prevalent sexually transmitted infection (STI) among college students. Although previous research has studied HPV-related health communication strategies using various framing techniques, the goal of this study is to test how two unique message frames-whether mentioning HPV as an STI and whether to attribute the cause of infection as external or internal-would influence young adults' intentions to receive the recommended HPV vaccine. Results indicate that gender and causal attribution framing influenced participants' intentions to receive the HPV vaccine.

Home nurses' turnover intentions: the impact of informal supervisory feedback and self-efficacy.

Science.gov (United States)

Van Waeyenberg, Thomas; Decramer, Adelien; Anseel, Frederik

2015-12-01

To examine how home nurses' turnover intentions are affected by the quality and frequency of supervisory feedback and by their own self-efficacy. Little is known about effective retention strategies for the growing home healthcare sector that struggles to retain an adequate workforce. While the work environment and supervisors have been found to play a key-role in nurses' turnover intentions, home nurses mostly work autonomously and apart from their supervisors. These circumstances require a customized approach and need to be understood to ensure high-quality home health care. We used a correlational, cross-sectional survey design. A convenience sample of 312 home nurses was selected from a division of a large home health care organization in Flanders, Belgium. Data were collected in 2013 using structured questionnaires and analysed using descriptive statistics, structural equation modelling and relative weight analysis. The quality of feedback was related to lower levels of turnover intentions. This relationship was fully mediated by home nurses' self-efficacy. Frequent favourable feedback was directly related to lower turnover intentions while the relationship between frequent unfavourable feedback and turnover intentions was conditional on home nurses' level of self-efficacy. This study contributes to our understanding of home nurses' turnover intentions and the role of informal supervisory feedback and home nurses' self-efficacy. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Self-regulatory processes mediate the intention-behavior relation for adherence and exercise behaviors.

Science.gov (United States)

de Bruin, Marijn; Sheeran, Paschal; Kok, Gerjo; Hiemstra, Anneke; Prins, Jan M; Hospers, Harm J; van Breukelen, Gerard J P

2012-11-01

Understanding the gap between people's intentions and actual health behavior is an important issue in health psychology. Our aim in this study was to investigate whether self-regulatory processes (monitoring goal progress and responding to discrepancies) mediate the intention-behavior relation in relation to HIV medication adherence (Study 1) and intensive exercise behavior (Study 2). In Study 1, questionnaire and electronically monitored adherence data were collected at baseline and 3 months later from patients in the control arm of an HIV-adherence intervention study. In Study 2, questionnaire data was collected at 3 time points 6-weeks apart in a cohort study of physical activity. Complete data at all time points were obtained from 51 HIV-infected patients and 499 intensive exercise participants. Intentions were good predictors of behavior and explained 25 to 30% of the variance. Self-regulatory processes explained an additional 11% (Study 1) and 6% (Study 2) of variance in behavior on top of intentions. Regression and bootstrap analyses revealed at least partial, and possibly full, mediation of the intention-behavior relation by self-regulatory processes. The present studies indicate that self-regulatory processes may explain how intentions drive behavior. Future tests, using different health behaviors and experimental designs, could firmly establish whether self-regulatory processes complement current health behavior theories and should become routine targets for intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

Factors influencing intention to purchase beef in the Irish market.

Science.gov (United States)

McCarthy, M; de Boer, M; O'Reilly, S; Cotter, L

2003-11-01

This paper reports on the findings of a study into consumer perceptions towards beef and the influence of these perceptions on consumption. Fishbein and Ajzen's [Belief, attitude, intention and behaviour. An introduction to theory and research (1995) Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley] Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) provided a useful framework for this analysis. The influence of attitudes and important others (subjective norm) on intention to consume beef were explored. The findings support the usefulness of this model in understanding behaviour towards beef. In this study both attitude and the subjective norm influenced intention to consume beef, but it was attitude that was of greater importance. Health, eating enjoyment and safety were most important determinants of attitude with price, environment and animal welfare less so. An evaluation of the impact of the introduction of new information which related to one belief (health) was also conducted. Those indicating that they would consider increasing their consumption of beef had a more positive attitude towards beef and had more positive health and eating enjoyment beliefs about beef than the 'no' group who had significantly higher safety concerns.

Retaining the nursing workforce: factors contributing to the reduction of nurses' turnover intention in Japan.

Science.gov (United States)

Takase, Miyuki; Teraoka, Sachiko; Yabase, Kousuke

2016-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of psychological contract fulfilment, perceived advancement opportunities and age on reducing the turnover intention of nurses in Japan. The factors that contribute to and mitigate the intentions of nurses to leave their organisations need to be investigated to understand the determinants of nurse turnover better. However, there is a paucity of studies identifying these mitigating factors. Potential participants were 1337 registered nurses and midwives, of whom 766 participated in the study (a return rate of 57%). The data were analysed using a moderated regression analysis. Fulfilment of the psychological contract and perceived advancement opportunities independently and jointly contributed to a reduction in nurses' turnover intentions. The results also showed that nurses' ages were negatively correlated with their turnover intentions. Fulfilment of the psychological contract and advancement opportunities are important for reducing nurses' turnover intentions, especially among younger nurses. Clear guidelines/evaluations of contributions made by nurses and their organisations are needed to enhance the experience of nurses in terms of psychological contract fulfilment. Moreover, a structured advancement support system needs to be implemented to reduce nurses' turnover intentions. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

SPORTS SHOES PURCHASE INTENTION AMONG MALAYSIAN VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS VS. NON-VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS: A CONCEPTUAL PAPER

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GOH PIN SIANG

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to advance the understanding of volleyball players’ purchase intention toward sport shoes by investigating the relationship between the independent variables (endorsement, advertising, pricing and electronic word-of-mouth and purchase intention. Descriptive research and causal research will be used as the research design, thus questionnaire and experimentation will be used to obtain data. Primary data in this study is attained by distributing the questionnaire to the Malaysian volleyball players throughout several volleyball tournament venues in Malaysia. The experiment will be conducted by comparing two groups of respondents, including volleyball players and non-volleyball players. This study is limited to several independent variables such as endorsement, advertising, pricing and electronic word-of-mouth. This study is significant for marketers for solving the challenges faced in the sport industry. It also helps to identify consumers’ purchase preferences for sport shoes. The marketer would understand more about their targeted customers’ intentions to purchase, thus the sport industry related with sport marketing in Malaysia might gain more profit.

How Can Humanities Interventions Promote Progress in the Environmental Sciences?

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Sally L. Kitch

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Environmental humanists make compelling arguments about the importance of the environmental humanities (EH for discovering new ways to conceptualize and address the urgent challenges of the environmental crisis now confronting the planet. Many environmental scientists in a variety of fields are also committed to incorporating socio-cultural analyses in their work. Despite such intentions and rhetoric, however, and some humanists’ eagerness to incorporate science into their own work, “radical interdisciplinarity [across the humanities and sciences] is ... rare ... and does not have the impact one would hope for” (Holm et al. 2013, p. 32. This article discusses reasons for the gap between transdisciplinary intentions and the work being done in the environmental sciences. The article also describes a project designed to address that gap. Entitled “From Innovation to Progress: Addressing Hazards of the Sustainability Sciences”, the project encourages humanities interventions in problem definition, before any solution or action is chosen. Progress offers strategies for promoting expanded stakeholder engagement, enhancing understanding of power struggles and inequities that underlie problems and over-determine solutions, and designing multiple future scenarios based on alternative values, cultural practices and beliefs, and perspectives on power distribution and entitlement.

THE ROLE OF PRAGMATICS IN UNDERSTANDING HUMAN COMMUNICATION IN AN INSTITUTIONAL SETTING

OpenAIRE

Hussain AL SHAROUFI

2013-01-01

This study tries to show the importance of pragmatics in understanding human communication in an institutional setting. Speakers and listeners are actively involved in a negotiating process that leads to creating a cycle of actively changing contexts in which speech acts win their legitimacy of being real doers of action in real-time situations. Particular cultural repertoires in human societies facilitate language with a wealth of contextual resources that can help anchor meaning by favourin...

Variations in judgments of intentional action and moral evaluation across eight cultures.

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Robbins, Erin; Shepard, Jason; Rochat, Philippe

2017-07-01

Individuals tend to judge bad side effects as more intentional than good side effects (the Knobe or side-effect effect). Here, we assessed how widespread these findings are by testing eleven adult cohorts of eight highly contrasted cultures on their attributions of intentional action as well as ratings of blame and praise. We found limited generalizability of the original side-effect effect, and even a reversal of the effect in two rural, traditional cultures (Samoa and Vanuatu) where participants were more likely to judge the good side effect as intentional. Three follow-up experiments indicate that this reversal of the side-effect effect is not due to semantics and may be linked to the perception of the status of the protagonist. These results highlight the importance of factoring cultural context in our understanding of moral cognition. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Lundbeck's Pentobarbital Human Rights Dilemma or When Good Intentions Turn Lethal

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Buhmann, Karin; Rasmussen, Line Pedini

2015-01-01

of situations based on Lundbeck’s handling of the issue and the evolution of stakeholder reactions. Based on interviews with top management in the firm, the case offers learning from the perspective of the Vice President of Corporate Communication in Lundbeck. It invites students to look beyond...... the communication perspective to grasp how CSR issues and commitments challenge management decisions in relation to stakeholders, sustainability and the value chain. The case offers learning in treatment of CSR challenges as issue management that requires a firm to understand and relate to diverse stakeholder...... by CSR standards and guidance, such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights and the UN Global Compact’s ten principles....

Meta-Analysis of the Reasoned Action Approach (RAA) to Understanding Health Behaviors.

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McEachan, Rosemary; Taylor, Natalie; Harrison, Reema; Lawton, Rebecca; Gardner, Peter; Conner, Mark

2016-08-01

Reasoned action approach (RAA) includes subcomponents of attitude (experiential/instrumental), perceived norm (injunctive/descriptive), and perceived behavioral control (capacity/autonomy) to predict intention and behavior. To provide a meta-analysis of the RAA for health behaviors focusing on comparing the pairs of RAA subcomponents and differences between health protection and health-risk behaviors. The present research reports a meta-analysis of correlational tests of RAA subcomponents, examination of moderators, and combined effects of subcomponents on intention and behavior. Regressions were used to predict intention and behavior based on data from studies measuring all variables. Capacity and experiential attitude had large, and other constructs had small-medium-sized correlations with intention; all constructs except autonomy were significant independent predictors of intention in regressions. Intention, capacity, and experiential attitude had medium-large, and other constructs had small-medium-sized correlations with behavior; intention, capacity, experiential attitude, and descriptive norm were significant independent predictors of behavior in regressions. The RAA subcomponents have utility in predicting and understanding health behaviors.

Human rights literacy: Moving towards rights-based education and transformative action through understandings of dignity, equality and freedom

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Anne Becker

2015-05-01

Full Text Available The twentieth century has been characterised by the proliferation of human rights in the discursive practices of the United Nations (Baxi, 1997. In this article, we explore the continual process of rights-based education towards transformative action, and an open and democratic society, as dependent upon the facilitation of human rights literacy in teacher training. Our theoretical framework examines the continual process of moving towards an open and democratic society through the facilitation of human rights literacy, rights-based education and transformative action. We focus specifically on understandings of dignity, equality and freedom, as both rights (legal claims and values (moral action across horizontal and vertical applications, considering the internalisation and implementation of dignity, equality and freedom towards transformative action. Our analysis of data stemming from a project funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF entitled 'Human Rights Literacy: A quest for meaning', brought student-teachers' understandings into conversation with the proposed theoretical framework. In terms of understandings related to dignity, equality and freedom, participants seemingly understand human rights either as legal interests, or alternatively, as they pertain to values such as caring, ubuntu, respect, human dignity and equality. Legal understandings primarily focus on the vertical application of the Bill of Rights (RSA, 1996a and the role of government in this regard, whereas understandings related to the realisation of values tended to focus on the horizontal applications of particularly dignity and equality as the product of the relation between self and other. We conclude the article by linking the analysis and the theoretical framework to education as a humanising practice within human rights as a common language of humanity. In so doing, we argue that human rights literacy and rights-based education transcend knowledge about human

Predictors of Intention of Reporting Child Abuse among Emergency Nurses.

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Lee, Hye-Mi; Kim, Ji-Soo

The current study investigates predictors of intention of reporting child abuse among emergency nurses in Korea. A descriptive cross-sectional design was used. Data were collected from 200 emergency nurses in eight general hospitals in Korea through a questionnaire that asked about their general characteristics, knowledge about child abuse, perceived behavioral control, experiences of child abuse cases and reporting, and attitude toward child abuse. Multiple regression analysis indicated that attitude toward child abuse was the most influential predictor of the intention of reporting child abuse among Korea's emergency nurses. Knowledge about child abuse, and perceived behavioral control were also significant influencing predictors of reporting intention. These variables explained 22.1% of the variances in the intention of reporting child abuse among emergency nurses. Reporting child abuse has not yet been established as a professional responsibility among Korea's emergency nurses. Increasing the level of awareness of the characteristics of child abuse and encouraging communication among nurses about the responsibility to report suspected child abuse will increase nurses' confidence to report. Training for reporting child abuse should be implemented in the near future to improve emergency nurses' understanding of child abuse. A support program is also needed to help emergency nurses build confidence in reporting child abuse as a professional responsibility. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Place attachment and migration intentions of the population: An example of eight cities in Serbia

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Petrović Mina

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Following the need to combine macro structural and micro actors’ perspective, this paper conceptually starts from endogenous city development paradigm within which place attachment and intentions to migrate are given specific importance since human resources are perceived of pivotal significance. Such paradigm is related to diversified factors that makes city more or less attractive for local population, thus enhancing their place attachment and involvement or migrational intentions. Focused connection between the place attachment and migration intentions are discussed as neglected in studies of migration, and conceptually supported by the notion of territorial identity and specific reinterpretation of Bourdieu’s ideas of sense of comfort in place, and by employing his concept of habitus to the city. Empirically, the connection of people’s place attachment and intentions to migrate is analyzed for eight cities in Serbia. The selected cities: Kragujevac, Sabac, Užice, Novi Pazar, Sombor, Zrenjanin, Leskovac, and Zaječar are chosen as middle sized cities for which the issues to develop attractiveness and attach their population becomes particularly complex in times of (post-socialist transformation and economic crisis. Empirical analysis is aimed to illustrate the researched cities potential to keep their population by investigating their place attachment (emotional and functional and the way they perceive their city, in relation to their intention to migrate. Data are collected through questionnaire survey, in the 2013-2015 period. Such an explorative aim intended to demonstrate the importance to research local population perspective in order to understand the cities as lived spaces and their acting potential, as such important information are left out of scope by regular statistics. Research findings confirm the basic assumption that cities with higher migration inclinations are also the cities with lower place attachment. That supports

Influence of brand personality-marker attributes on purchasing intention: the role of emotionality.

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Guido, Gianluigi; Peluso, Alessandro M; Provenzano, Mariarosaria

2010-06-01

Marketing researchers employ the Five-Factor Model to describe branded products using attributes of human personality. "Marker attributes" used to elicit these brand personality attributes may be related to consumers' intention to purchase. Two connected studies, carried out on two samples of 91 and 557 participants, respectively, indicated that brand personality-marker attributes predict intention to purchase, but only to the extent that such attributes are "vivid" and, in particular, when they elicit emotional responses (i.e., when they are emotionally interesting). These findings have several implications for people involved in developing strategies for advertising.

Explaining Intentions to Seek Help for Depressive Symptoms in the Context of Responsibility Message Framing.

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Lueck, Jennifer; Yzer, Marco

2018-08-01

U.S. college students are disproportionally affected by depression but typically do not seek help. To advance understanding of the role of health messages in shaping college students' help-seeking intentions, we used a reasoned action approach to experimentally investigate help-seeking intentions for depressive symptoms. Due to negative interpretation biases among those who suffer from depression, scholars have previously warned against attempts to decrease feelings of responsibility for one's depression in health messages. We tested the determinants of help-seeking intentions as a function of exposure to depression help-seeking messages that differed in responsibility cues. Findings revealed that in our sample low responsibility health message framing did not affect determinants of help-seeking intentions. We identified instrumental attitude (β = .53) and descriptive norms (β = .24) as determinants of intentions to seek help (R 2  = .42) across message conditions and across levels of depression. These findings indicate potentially important targets for messages that seek to increase help-seeking among depressed college students.

HIV and Pregnancy Intentions: Do Services Adequately Respond to Women's Needs?

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Firestone, Rebecca; MacCarthy, Sarah; Ferguson, Laura

2008-01-01

Too little is known about how an HIV diagnosis and access to care and treatment affect women's childbearing intentions. As access to antiretroviral therapy improves, greater numbers of HIV-positive women are living longer, healthier lives, and many want to have children. Effectively supporting women's reproductive decisionmaking in the context of HIV requires understanding how pregnancy, reproduction, and HIV intersect and asking questions that bridge the biomedical and social sciences. Considering women to be at the center of decisions on health policy and service delivery can help provide an appropriate constellation of services. A clear research agenda is needed to create a more coordinated approach to policies and programs supporting the pregnancy intentions of women with HIV. PMID:18703432

Psychological Help-Seeking Intention among College Students across Three Problem Areas

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Hess, Timothy R.; Tracey, Terence J. G.

2013-01-01

The theory of planned behavior (TPB) was used to understand psychological help-seeking intention for 3 common concerns: anxiety or depression, career choice concerns, and alcohol or drug use. Eight hundred eighty-nine university students completed surveys for the TPB variables plus belief in personal efficacy and control to solve the problems.…

Commission errors of active intentions: the roles of aging, cognitive load, and practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Boywitt, C Dennis; Rummel, Jan; Meiser, Thorsten

2015-01-01

Performing an intended action when it needs to be withheld, for example, when temporarily prescribed medication is incompatible with the other medication, is referred to as commission errors of prospective memory (PM). While recent research indicates that older adults are especially prone to commission errors for finished intentions, there is a lack of research on the effects of aging on commission errors for still active intentions. The present research investigates conditions which might contribute to older adults' propensity to perform planned intentions under inappropriate conditions. Specifically, disproportionally higher rates of commission errors for still active intentions were observed in older than in younger adults with both salient (Experiment 1) and non-salient (Experiment 2) target cues. Practicing the PM task in Experiment 2, however, helped execution of the intended action in terms of higher PM performance at faster ongoing-task response times but did not increase the rate of commission errors. The results have important implications for the understanding of older adults' PM commission errors and the processes involved in these errors.

Moving beyond a knowledge deficit perspective to understand climate action by youth

Science.gov (United States)

Busch, K. C.

2016-12-01

This presentation reports on an experiment testing two framings of uncertainty on students' intent to take action to mitigate climate change. Additionally, to explore possible mechanisms involved in the choice of taking mitigating action, several factors highlighted within behavior theory literature were measured to create a theoretical model for youth's choice to take mitigating action. The factors explored were: knowledge, certainty, affect, efficacy, and social norms. The experiment was conducted with 453 middle and high school students within the Bay Area. Findings indicated that these students did hold a basic understanding of the causes and effects of climate change. They were worried and felt negatively about the topic. They felt somewhat efficacious about their personal ability to mitigate climate change. The students reported that they associated with people who were more likely to think climate change was real and caused by humans. Students also reported that they often take part in private pro-environmental behaviors such as using less electricity. When asked to respond freely to a question about what think about climate change, participants described the negative effects of human-caused climate change on Earth systems at the global scale and as a current phenomenon. The results of the experiment showed that while the text portraying climate change with high uncertainty did affect student's own certainty and their perception of scientists' certainty, it did not affect behavioral intention. This result can be explained through regression analysis. It was found that efficacy and social norms were direct determinants of pro-environmental behaviors. The cognitive variables - knowledge and certainty - and the psychological variable - affect - were not significant predictors of pro-environmental behavior. The implications for this study are that while students hold basic understanding of the causes and effects of climate change, this understanding lacks

The expressive stance: intentionality, expression, and machine art

OpenAIRE

Linson, Adam

2013-01-01

This paper proposes a new interpretive stance for interpreting artistic works and performances that is relevant to artificial intelligence research but also has broader implications. Termed the expressive stance, this stance makes intelligible a critical distinction between present-day machine art and human art, but allows for the possibility that future machine art could find a place alongside our own. The expressive stance is elaborated as a response to Daniel Dennett's notion of the intent...

Potential Factors Associated with Contraceptive Intention Among Adolescent Males in Taiwan

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Ruey-Hsia Wang

2004-03-01

Full Text Available This study explored the predictors of contraceptive intention in adolescent males in Taiwan. It used a cross-sectional design and a sample of 1,000 vocational high school male students to determine the potential factors associated with contraceptive intention. Data were collected on an anonymous, self-administered questionnaire, including personal background variables, prior sexual experience, contraceptive knowledge, contraceptive attitude, contraceptive self-efficacy, perception of peers' contraceptive behavior, perception of support from significant others, and parental-adolescent communication about contraception. A total of 230 participants (23% had prior sexual experience, 13% (30 of whom reported being involved in their girlfriends' pregnancies. Of the participants, 45% recognized the use of condoms as the most favorable contraceptive method for future sexual intercourse. Second to condom use, the combination of the calendar method and condom use was also popular (13.1%. Multiple stepwise regression indicated that better contraceptive attitudes, higher contraceptive self-efficacy, no prior sexual experience, more perception of peers' contraceptive behavior, and higher perception of support from significant others were predictors of higher contraceptive intention. The above predicting factors explained 31.9% of the total variance for contraceptive intention among adolescents. These results provide health professionals with important information to understand the reality adolescents encounter and to design effective contraceptive programs for male adolescents.

Job satisfaction and leaving intentions of midwives: analysis of a multinational cross-sectional survey.

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Jarosova, Darja; Gurkova, Elena; Palese, Alvisa; Godeas, Gloria; Ziakova, Katarina; Song, Mi Sook; Lee, Jongwon; Cordeiro, Raul; Chan, Sally Wai-Chi; Babiarczyk, Beata; Fras, Malgorzata; Nedvedova, Daniela

2016-01-01

To investigate the relationship between turnover intentions and job satisfaction among hospital midwives from seven countries and to determine how the related variables differ between countries. Studies investigating professional turnover and job satisfaction among midwives are limited in scope. A cross-sectional descriptive survey was used to investigate the intended turnover and job satisfaction relationship among 1190 hospital midwives in European and Asian countries. Data were collected using a set of questionnaires that included questions regarding the leaving intentions of midwives and the McCloskey/Mueller satisfaction scale. Midwives were least satisfied with their extrinsic rewards and professional opportunities and with the balance between family and work. Significant differences were found in all domains of job satisfaction according to midwives' intentions to leave their current workplace in hospital or profession of midwife, and to work abroad. There are some general satisfying and dissatisfying elements for the profession of midwife across different countries. The results highlight the importance of understanding midwives' leaving intentions and related factors across different countries. To prevent midwife turnover, health-care managers should gain greater insight into the early stage of midwives' turnover intention. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Understanding Transfer as Personal Change: Concerns, Intentions, and Resistance

Science.gov (United States)

Young, Jeani C.

2013-01-01

Adult education is about change. Change in knowledge and understanding. Change in attitudes and beliefs. Change in skills and behaviors. The transfer that adult educators and learners often want to achieve is that change. In situations where transfer equals change, models of change can be useful to describe, support, and predict transfer. This…

Attitudes and Intentions Regarding Abortion Provision Among Medical School Students in South Africa

Science.gov (United States)

Wheeler, Stephanie B.; Zullig, Leah L.; Reeve, Bryce B.; Buga, Geoffrey A.; Morroni, Chelsea

2018-01-01

CONTEXT Although South Africa liberalized its abortion law in 1996, significant barriers still impede service provision, including the lack of trained and willing providers. A better understanding is needed of medical students’ attitudes, beliefs and intentions regarding abortion provision. METHODS Surveys about abortion attitudes, beliefs and practice intentions were conducted in 2005 and 2007 among 1,308 medical school students attending the University of Cape Town and Walter Sisulu University in South Africa. Bivariate and multivariate analyses identified associations between students’ characteristics and their general and conditional support for abortion provision, as well as their intention to act according to personal attitudes and beliefs. RESULTS Seventy percent of medical students believed that women should have the right to decide whether to have an abortion, and large majorities thought that abortion should be legal in a variety of medical circumstances. Nearly one-quarter of students intended to perform abortions once they were qualified, and 72% said that conscientiously objecting clinicians should be required to refer women for such services. However, one-fifth of students believed that abortion should not be allowed for any reason. Advanced medical students were more likely than others to support abortion provision. In multivariate analyses, year in medical school, race or ethnicity, religious affiliation, relationship status and sexual experience were associated with attitudes, beliefs and intentions regarding provision. CONCLUSIONS Academic medical institutions must ensure that students understand their responsibilities with respect to abortion care—regardless of their personal views—and must provide appropriate abortion training to those who are willing to offer these services in the future. PMID:23018137

Attitude and Entrepreneurial Intention Among Rural Community: the Mediating Role of Entrepreneurial Opportunity Recognition

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Dahalan Norziani

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Entrepreneurship has been well documented to have an economic and social implication for the nation to increase income. Most of developing countries give further consideration to include entrepreneurship as an agenda to help the poor to increase the living standard. In fact, entrepreneurship offers various business opportunities for rural communities to achieve better quality of life. However, the crucial part of doing business is to recognize business opportunity. Entrepreneurship and opportunity are two terms that complement each other. Opportunity recognition enables the entrepreneur to identify a good idea and transform it into a business concept. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between attitude (attitude toward money, attitude toward start-up and entrepreneurial intention. This paper also intends to understand the role of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition as a mediator between attitude and entrepreneurial intention. The aim of this research is to support training providers, to identify input for entrepreneurial training, specifically developing business concepts among rural community. From the practical perspective, it might help the government to understand the necessity to encourage entrepreneurial movement among rural community as to ensure business ideas flow. This research employed the quantitative method of data collection. The questionnaires were distributed to 500 local populations according to districts and villages. The findings of this study showed that both attitude (attitude toward money, attitude toward start-up influence entrepreneurial intention. The relationship between attitude toward start-up and entrepreneurial intention was mediated by opportunity recognition.

Men's Intentions to Engage in Behaviors to Protect Against Human Papillomavirus (HPV): Testing the Risk Perception Attitude Framework.

Science.gov (United States)

Pask, Elizabeth B; Rawlins, Sarah T

2016-01-01

Guided by the risk perception attitude framework (RPA), this study examined men's perceptions of risk and efficacy beliefs as predictors of their intentions to engage in self-protective behaviors. The results of multiple regression analyses did not provide support for the RPA prediction that efficacy beliefs moderate the relationship between risk perceptions and self-protective behavior. However, the results provide support for the main effects of risk and efficacy on all four behavioral intentions examined (i.e., Internet information seeking, communication with a health provider, HPV vaccination, and condom use). Risk and efficacy were positively related to (and significant individual predictors of) all four behavioral intentions. Scholarly and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

THE EFFECT OF JOB SATISFACTION ON IT EMPLOYEES TURNOVER INTENTION IN ISRAEL

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Ladelsky Limor

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Employee voluntary turnover is very costly for companies, particularly for the Hi-Tech sector, where the costs of their IT labor force is expensive. Employees\\' voluntary turnover has substantial negative impacts on the companies especially costs, potential loss of valuable knowledge, skills and organizational knowledge.That is why it becomes a critical issue to take address. Studies have been carried out on the reasons which lead to this tendency, however the ability to explain and predict it remains restricted.The objective of this paper is to present the reasons for voluntary turnover of employees in the IT sector in Israel from the IT employees` perspective. A broad analysis of the field literature led to the following groups of causes affecting voluntary turnover: organizational causes: Human Resource Management (HRM related, organizational culture, job related, leadership and internal marketing related; extra organizational causes: individual and, respectively, labor market related causes. This could be approached as n light of this review this article will focus on one of the extra organizational causes of voluntary turnover, i.e. the effect of job satisfaction on voluntary turnover intention among IT employees in Hi-Tech companies in Israel. This correlation was researched in an extensive empirical study among two population groups: IT employees and IT managers and by using mixed method research (combination of quantitative and qualitative research.The findings that supported the literature show job satisfaction has a negative effect on voluntary turnover intention among IT employees in Hi-Tech companies in Israel. Additionally, it was found that job satisfaction indirectly affects voluntary turnover intentions and that emotional variables such as commitment, motivation and loyalty mediate voluntary turnover intention.This finding is supported partially in the literature which only pointed out commitment as a mediating factor in the

Early human communication helps in understanding language evolution.

Science.gov (United States)

Lenti Boero, Daniela

2014-12-01

Building a theory on extant species, as Ackermann et al. do, is a useful contribution to the field of language evolution. Here, I add another living model that might be of interest: human language ontogeny in the first year of life. A better knowledge of this phase might help in understanding two more topics among the "several building blocks of a comprehensive theory of the evolution of spoken language" indicated in their conclusion by Ackermann et al., that is, the foundation of the co-evolution of linguistic motor skills with the auditory skills underlying speech perception, and the possible phylogenetic interactions of protospeech production with referential capabilities.

Artifacts, intentions, and contraceptives: the problem with having a plan B for plan B.

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Reed, Philip A

2013-12-01

It is commonly proposed that artifacts cannot be understood without reference to human intentions. This fact, I contend, has relevance to the use of artifacts in intentional action. I argue that because artifacts have intentions embedded into them antecedently, when we use artifacts we are sometimes compelled to intend descriptions of our actions that we might, for various reasons, be inclined to believe that we do not intend. I focus this argument to a specific set of artifacts, namely, medical devices, before considering an extended application to emergency contraceptive devices. Although there is some debate about whether emergency contraception has an abortifacient effect, I argue that if there is an abortifacient effect, then the effect cannot normally be a side effect of one's action.

Intentionality and hatha yoga: an exploration of the theory of intentionality, the matrix of healing--a growth model.

Science.gov (United States)

Deary, Lauri; Roche, Joan; Plotkin, Karen; Zahourek, Rothlyn

2011-01-01

Hatha yoga increases self-awareness and well-being. Intentionality is creating motivation and then action. This qualitative study explored intentionality during hatha yoga sessions using narrative analysis. The results supported and expanded Zahourek's theory of intentionality, the matrix of healing, and provide new insights into intentionality in healing.

Investigating the Image of Japanese Food on Intention of Behavior: Indonesian Intention to Visit Japan

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Mega Mirasaputri Cahyanti

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Country-of-Origin Image (COI has been recognized as a possible factor to influence the image of product especially toward international products. COI occurred due to the consumer’s behavior which uses the nation image on some international products to consider the quality before they build a bearing on the products. The better the country’s image in some products, the greater influence and impact will be given to their products image. Many previous studies have been done on COI toward foreign products, focused on the intention behavior. The intention behavior in this study is including a purchase intention or intention to try a product. However, research about its impact in the term of tourism is limited. Moreover, the use of international food as an object is limited as well. This study addressed an insight of tourism impact about Indonesian intention to visit Japan which influenced by image of Japanese food, which given by country’s image (Japan. The results showed that the image of Japanese food perceived after they consumed it, significantly influence an intention to visit Japan. Therefore, marketing and promotions of a countries as one entity should focus to use their traditional food (international product for other people from other countries to promote their country as tourism destination. Keywords: Country of Origin Image (COI, Intention to Visit a Country, International food.

Chimpanzees and humans mimic pupil-size of conspecifics.

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Mariska E Kret

Full Text Available Group-living typically provides benefits to individual group members but also confers costs. To avoid incredulity and betrayal and allow trust and cooperation, individuals must understand the intentions and emotions of their group members. Humans attend to other's eyes and from gaze and pupil-size cues, infer information about the state of mind of the observed. In humans, pupil-size tends to mimic that of the observed. Here we tested whether pupil-mimicry exists in our closest relative, the chimpanzee (P. troglodytes. We conjectured that if pupil-mimicry has adaptive value, e.g. to promote swift communication of inner states and facilitate shared understanding and coordination, pupil-mimicry should emerge within but not across species. Pupillometry data was collected from human and chimpanzee subjects while they observed images of the eyes of both species with dilating/constricting pupils. Both species showed enhanced pupil-mimicry with members of their own species, with effects being strongest in humans and chimpanzee mothers. Pupil-mimicry may be deeply-rooted, but probably gained importance from the point in human evolution where the morphology of our eyes became more prominent. Humans' white sclera surrounding the iris, and the fine muscles around their eyes facilitate non-verbal communication via eye signals.

Determinants of Social Entrepreneurial Intentions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hockerts, Kai

2017-01-01

This article tests the model proposed by Mair and Noboa (2006) who identify four antecedents which they suggest predict social entrepreneurial intentions. The study extends the model by including prior experience with social problems as an additional variable. Findings show that prior experience ...... social entrepreneurship electives students enroll in is predicted by social entrepreneurial intentions.......This article tests the model proposed by Mair and Noboa (2006) who identify four antecedents which they suggest predict social entrepreneurial intentions. The study extends the model by including prior experience with social problems as an additional variable. Findings show that prior experience...... predicts social entrepreneurial intentions. This effect is mediated by the antecedents suggested by Mair and Noboa. Social entrepreneurial self-efficacy has both the largest impact on intentions as well as being itself most responsive to prior experience. Lastly, the study shows that the amount of optional...

Assessing the effects of customer innovativeness, environmental value and ecological lifestyles on residential solar power systems install intention

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, Kee Kuo

2014-01-01

To understand the impact of environmental value, ecological lifestyle, customer innovativeness on customer intention to install solar power system (SPS) in their private houses, an empirical model was proposed. Customer innovativeness was treated as a second-order construct with two first-order dimensions, with each of the latter being measured by means of reflective indicators. Using structural equation modeling, data collected from 203 college students and faculties at a University of Taiwan were tested against the model. We found that environmental value has a positive impact on ecological lifestyle and SPS install intention. Although ecological lifestyle associates positively with SPS install intention, the effect disappears when environmental value is included in the model. The effect of customer innovativeness on SPS install intention results from the tendency of customer novelty seeking, while the impact of customer independent judgment-making on SPS install intention is insignificant. The model explained 76% of the total variations within SPS install intention. Managerial implications for promoting of SPS are considered, and suggestions for further research provided. - Highlights: • We integrate customer innovativeness into an environmental behavior model. • The impact of customer innovativeness on SPS install intention was confirmed. • The impact of novelty seeking on SPS install intention has been found. • Environmental value is the most important factor for SPS install intention. • The model explained 76% of the total variations within SPS install intention

Ethics without Intention

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Di Nucci, Ezio

Ethics Without Intention tackles the questions raised by difficult moral dilemmas by providing a critical analysis of double effect and its most common ethical and political applications. The book discusses the philosophical distinction between intended harm and foreseen but unintended harm...... of our time. An engaging and comprehensive introduction to the doctrine of double effect. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/ethics-without-intention-9781472525796/#sthash.NKISOPL8.dpuf...

Infants' Developing Understanding of Social Gaze

Science.gov (United States)

Beier, Jonathan S.; Spelke, Elizabeth S.

2012-01-01

Young infants are sensitive to self-directed social actions, but do they appreciate the intentional, target-directed nature of such behaviors? The authors addressed this question by investigating infants' understanding of social gaze in third-party interactions (N = 104). Ten-month-old infants discriminated between 2 people in mutual versus…

Beliefs about volunteerism, volunteering intention, volunteering behavior, and purpose in life among Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong.

Science.gov (United States)

Law, Ben M F; Shek, Daniel T L

2009-09-01

The relationships among beliefs about volunteerism, volunteering intention, volunteering behavior, and purpose in life were examined in this study. A total of 5,946 participants completed a series of scales, including the Revised Personal Functions of Volunteerism Scale, Volunteering Intention Scale, and Purpose in Life Scale. The results showed that participants whose purpose in life had different levels also had varied prosocial beliefs about volunteerism, volunteering intention, and volunteering behavior. Purpose in life was associated more strongly with prosocial value function than with other types of beliefs (except understanding function). When different beliefs are grouped, the correlation between purpose in life and other-serving beliefs was higher than that between purpose in life and self-serving beliefs. Purpose in life was also associated with volunteering intention and behavior. Path analyses showed that purpose in life predicted volunteering behavior via beliefs and intention. While other-serving beliefs predicted volunteering behavior directly, self-serving beliefs did not have such direct effect.

Users' intention to continue using social fitness-tracking apps: expectation confirmation theory and social comparison theory perspective.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Jia; Liu, Xuan; Ma, Ling; Zhang, Weiqiang

2018-03-05

The key step in changing health behavior is understanding why users continue to use fitness apps. Therefore, we intend to investigate the users' intention to continue using social fitness-tracking apps. We identify two major forces driving continuous behavior. Expectation confirmation is the internal driving force and social comparison is the external driving force. A survey was conducted to test this proposed research model. We obtained 211 valid questionnaires. Our results indicate that activity amount ranking (p fitness-tracking apps. In addition, the impact of activity amount ranking and activity frequency ranking on continuous intention is moderated by expectation confirmation. Meanwhile, as the upward comparison tendency increases, the positive effect of confirmation on continuous intention decreases (p Social rank expectation and confirmation are the primary driving forces of continuous intention in individuals using fitness-tracking apps. Social rank is a meaningful and straightforward measurement individuals can use to evaluate their activity performance. An upward comparison tendency weakens the effect of confirmation on continuous intention.

Beliefs about Volunteerism, Volunteering Intention, Volunteering Behavior, and Purpose in Life among Chinese Adolescents in Hong Kong

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ben M. F. Law

2009-01-01

Full Text Available The relationships among beliefs about volunteerism, volunteering intention, volunteering behavior, and purpose in life were examined in this study. A total of 5,946 participants completed a series of scales, including the Revised Personal Functions of Volunteerism Scale, Volunteering Intention Scale, and Purpose in Life Scale. The results showed that participants whose purpose in life had different levels also had varied prosocial beliefs about volunteerism, volunteering intention, and volunteering behavior. Purpose in life was associated more strongly with prosocial value function than with other types of beliefs (except understanding function. When different beliefs are grouped, the correlation between purpose in life and other-serving beliefs was higher than that between purpose in life and self-serving beliefs. Purpose in life was also associated with volunteering intention and behavior. Path analyses showed that purpose in life predicted volunteering behavior via beliefs and intention. While other-serving beliefs predicted volunteering behavior directly, self-serving beliefs did not have such direct effect.

The Psychology of Isolated and Confined Environments: Understanding Human Behavior in Antarctica.

Science.gov (United States)

Palinkas, Lawrence A.

2003-01-01

Reviews lessons learned from research in Antarctica with relevance to understanding human behavior in other isolated and confined environments. Outlines four distinct characteristics of psychosocial adaptation to such environments and discusses some of the benefits for individuals seeking challenging experiences. (Contains references.) (SLD)

NATIONAL CULTURE AND ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENT: CASE STUDY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TÉBESSA (ALGERIA AND THE UNIVERSITY OF CRAIOVA (ROMANIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Soufyane BADRAOUI

2018-06-01

Full Text Available This research aims to understand and investigate the relationship between entrepreneurial intent and national culture in a post-socialist context. Currently, in Post-Socialist societies that have experienced a wave of economic reforms and a process of transition to the liberal economy, such as Algeria and Romania. The importance of entrepreneurship is in their vitality in the dynamics of development, and that is the significance of testing and understanding the entrepreneurial intentions of the students in connection with the local and/or national culture in Algeria and Romania.

Men in Nursing: Intention, Intentionality, Caring, and Healing: Emphasis on the Results of a Grounded Theory Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Zahourek, Rothlyn P

2016-01-01

The purpose of this article is to amplify the results section of a grounded theory study on how men in nursing view and experience intention, intentionality, caring, and healing. This is the second grounded theory study addressing intentionality in healing. The first study included a female population. The theory that was generated-Intentionality: The Matrix of Healing (IMH)-is examined with these new data. The results are compared with issues generally faced by men in nursing and how they described their beliefs and experiences with intentionality and healing. The theory (IMH) is supported; the importance of action in this cohort was an additional emphasis. This article provides an expanded view of men in nursing and their experiences as nurses and with intentionality, caring, and healing and has implications for the development of holistic nursing theory as well.

A One Health Message about Bats Increases Intentions to Follow Public Health Guidance on Bat Rabies.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hang Lu

Full Text Available Since 1960, bat rabies variants have become the greatest source of human rabies deaths in the United States. Improving rabies awareness and preventing human exposure to rabid bats remains a national public health priority today. Concurrently, conservation of bats and the ecosystem benefits they provide is of increasing importance due to declining populations of many bat species. This study used a visitor-intercept experiment (N = 521 in two U.S. national parks where human and bat interactions occur on an occasional basis to examine the relative persuasiveness of four messages differing in the provision of benefit and uncertainty information on intentions to adopt a rabies exposure prevention behavior. We found that acknowledging benefits of bats in a risk message led to greater intentions to adopt the recommended rabies exposure prevention behavior without unnecessarily stigmatizing bats. These results signify the importance of communicating benefits of bats in bat rabies prevention messages to benefit both human and wildlife health.

Social evaluation of intentional, truly accidental, and negligently accidental helpers and harmers by 10-month-old infants.

Science.gov (United States)

Woo, Brandon M; Steckler, Conor M; Le, Doan T; Hamlin, J Kiley

2017-11-01

Whereas adults largely base their evaluations of others' actions on others' intentions, a host of research in developmental psychology suggests that younger children privilege outcome over intention, leading them to condemn accidental harm. To date, this question has been examined only with children capable of language production. In the current studies, we utilized a non-linguistic puppet show paradigm to examine the evaluation of intentional and accidental acts of helping or harming in 10-month-old infants. In Experiment 1 (n=64), infants preferred intentional over accidental helpers but accidental over intentional harmers, suggestive that by this age infants incorporate information about others' intentions into their social evaluations. In Experiment 2 (n=64), infants did not distinguish "negligently" accidental from intentional helpers or harmers, suggestive that infants may find negligent accidents somewhat intentional. In Experiment 3 (n=64), we found that infants preferred truly accidental over negligently accidental harmers, but did not reliably distinguish negligently accidental from truly accidental helpers, consistent with past work with adults and children suggestive that humans are particularly sensitive to negligently accidental harm. Together, these results imply that infants engage in intention-based social evaluation of those who help and harm accidentally, so long as those accidents do not stem from negligence. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Intentional exposure to ultraviolet radiation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kivisakk, E.

1987-01-01

Exposure to UV radiation can cause a number of detrimental effects to human health. Some of these are particularly grave, as for instance the induction of skin cancer. Nevertheless, intentional exposure to UV radiation is commonly practiced for many purposes, ranging from medical treatment to merely a simple form of pastime. From the radiation point of view, the risks associated with exposure to UV radiation in any particular application should be carefully considered, and only accepted if they are obviously compensated by the benefits of the irradiation. This is not always the case today, to some extent due to shortage of information about the effect of UV radiation - especially on a long term basis

Predicting health plan member retention from satisfaction surveys: the moderating role of intention and complaint voicing.

Science.gov (United States)

Huppertz, John W

2008-01-01

Many health plans have tried to increase member retention by improving their scores on customer satisfaction surveys. However, prior research has demonstrated weak relationships between member satisfaction and retention, suggesting that other variables are needed to understand how satisfaction impacts member retention. In a longitudinal study 4,806 health plan members who completed satisfaction surveys were re-assessed three years later; we compared measures of satisfaction, intention, and complaining behavior from voluntary disenrollees and retained members. The relationship between satisfaction and retention was moderated by members' intentions to disenroll. The findings suggest that health plans can enhance the predictive validity of their satisfaction surveys by including measures of both satisfaction and intentions.

Overcoming the knowledge-behavior gap: The effect of evidence-based HPV vaccination leaflets on understanding, intention, and actual vaccination decision.

Science.gov (United States)

Wegwarth, O; Kurzenhäuser-Carstens, S; Gigerenzer, G

2014-03-10

Informed decision making requires transparent and evidence-based (=balanced) information on the potential benefit and harms of medical preventions. An analysis of German HPV vaccination leaflets revealed, however, that none met the standards of balanced risk communication. We surveyed a sample of 225 girl-parent pairs in a before-after design on the effects of balanced and unbalanced risk communication on participants' knowledge about cervical cancer and the HPV vaccination, their perceived risk, their intention to have the vaccine, and their actual vaccination decision. The balanced leaflet increased the number of participants who were correctly informed about cervical cancer and the HPV vaccine by 33 to 66 absolute percentage points. In contrast, the unbalanced leaflet decreased the number of participants who were correctly informed about these facts by 0 to 18 absolute percentage points. Whereas the actual uptake of the HPV vaccination 14 months after the initial study did not differ between the two groups (22% balanced leaflet vs. 23% unbalanced leaflet; p=.93, r=.01), the originally stated intention to have the vaccine reliably predicted the actual vaccination decision for the balanced leaflet group only (concordance between intention and actual uptake: 97% in the balanced leaflet group, rs=.92, p=.00; 60% in the unbalanced leaflet group, rs=.37, p=.08). In contrast to a unbalanced leaflet, a balanced leaflet increased people's knowledge of the HPV vaccination, improved perceived risk judgments, and led to an actual vaccination uptake, which first was robustly predicted by people's intention and second did not differ from the uptake in the unbalanced leaflet group. These findings suggest that balanced reporting about HPV vaccination increases informed decisions about whether to be vaccinated and does not undermine actual uptake. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

In-hospital Breastfeeding and Intention to Return to Work Influence Mothers' Breastfeeding Intentions.

Science.gov (United States)

Thomas-Jackson, Shera C; Bentley, Gail E; Keyton, Kristina; Reifman, Alan; Boylan, Mallory; Hart, Sybil L

2016-11-01

Research continues to demonstrate that formula feeding is associated with numerous long-term negative outcomes for a mother and her infant. However, many women cease breastfeeding sooner than intended and recommended. Breastfeeding has been found to be related to demographics, maternal mood, and returning to work outside the home. This study aimed to shed light on the woman's perception of the effect of working on intended breastfeeding duration. This study used intentions to return to work and in-hospital breastfeeding to predict breastfeeding intentions. Women (N = 160) were surveyed during the first 48 hours postdelivery of healthy, full-term infants. Survey instruments included demographics (socioeconomic status, maternal age, education, and marital status), depression, fetal attachment, current exclusive breastfeeding status, as well as breastfeeding and return-to-work intentions for the next year. A path analysis was used to explore relationships and predictors of breastfeeding intentions. The model had a good fit and breastfeeding intentions were predicted by exclusive breastfeeding in the hospital (β = 0.21, P work (β = -0.18, P work influence how long a mother intends to breastfeed. Attention to these areas can be provided immediately postpartum to support exclusive breastfeeding and provide informational support on continuing to breastfeed/express milk upon return to work if the mother intends to return to work.

Bounded Intention Planning Revisited

OpenAIRE

Sievers Silvan; Wehrle Martin; Helmert Malte

2014-01-01

Bounded intention planning provides a pruning technique for optimal planning that has been proposed several years ago. In addition partial order reduction techniques based on stubborn sets have recently been investigated for this purpose. In this paper we revisit bounded intention planning in the view of stubborn sets.

Human-like object tracking and gaze estimation with PKD android.

Science.gov (United States)

Wijayasinghe, Indika B; Miller, Haylie L; Das, Sumit K; Bugnariu, Nicoleta L; Popa, Dan O

2016-05-01

As the use of robots increases for tasks that require human-robot interactions, it is vital that robots exhibit and understand human-like cues for effective communication. In this paper, we describe the implementation of object tracking capability on Philip K. Dick (PKD) android and a gaze tracking algorithm, both of which further robot capabilities with regard to human communication. PKD's ability to track objects with human-like head postures is achieved with visual feedback from a Kinect system and an eye camera. The goal of object tracking with human-like gestures is twofold : to facilitate better human-robot interactions and to enable PKD as a human gaze emulator for future studies. The gaze tracking system employs a mobile eye tracking system (ETG; SensoMotoric Instruments) and a motion capture system (Cortex; Motion Analysis Corp.) for tracking the head orientations. Objects to be tracked are displayed by a virtual reality system, the Computer Assisted Rehabilitation Environment (CAREN; MotekForce Link). The gaze tracking algorithm converts eye tracking data and head orientations to gaze information facilitating two objectives: to evaluate the performance of the object tracking system for PKD and to use the gaze information to predict the intentions of the user, enabling the robot to understand physical cues by humans.

Human-like object tracking and gaze estimation with PKD android

Science.gov (United States)

Wijayasinghe, Indika B.; Miller, Haylie L.; Das, Sumit K.; Bugnariu, Nicoleta L.; Popa, Dan O.

2016-05-01

As the use of robots increases for tasks that require human-robot interactions, it is vital that robots exhibit and understand human-like cues for effective communication. In this paper, we describe the implementation of object tracking capability on Philip K. Dick (PKD) android and a gaze tracking algorithm, both of which further robot capabilities with regard to human communication. PKD's ability to track objects with human-like head postures is achieved with visual feedback from a Kinect system and an eye camera. The goal of object tracking with human-like gestures is twofold: to facilitate better human-robot interactions and to enable PKD as a human gaze emulator for future studies. The gaze tracking system employs a mobile eye tracking system (ETG; SensoMotoric Instruments) and a motion capture system (Cortex; Motion Analysis Corp.) for tracking the head orientations. Objects to be tracked are displayed by a virtual reality system, the Computer Assisted Rehabilitation Environment (CAREN; MotekForce Link). The gaze tracking algorithm converts eye tracking data and head orientations to gaze information facilitating two objectives: to evaluate the performance of the object tracking system for PKD and to use the gaze information to predict the intentions of the user, enabling the robot to understand physical cues by humans.

Intentional attunement: a neurophysiological perspective on social cognition and its disruption in autism.

Science.gov (United States)

Gallese, Vittorio

2006-03-24

A direct form of experiential understanding of others, "intentional attunement", is achieved by modeling their behavior as intentional experiences on the basis of the activation of shared neural systems underpinning what the others do an feel and what we do and feel. This modeling mechanism is embodied simulation. In parallel with the detached sensory description of the observed social stimuli, internal representations of the body states associated with actions, emotions, and sensations are evoked in the observer, as if he/she would be doing a similar action or experiencing a similar emotion or sensation. Mirror neuron systems are likely the neural correlate of this mechanism. By means of a shared neural state realized in two different bodies, the "objectual other" becomes "another self". A defective intentional attunement caused by a lack of embodies simulation might cause some of the social impairments of autistic individuals.

Design as intentional action: a conceptual analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Galle, Per

1999-01-01

Drawing on methods and literature from the field of philosophy, an account is given of the general nature of the artefact production process in order to provide a conceptual platform for design research. Designing itself is defined as the production of design representations; and the latter notion......, and so the major philosophical difficulty is to propose a reasonably precise definition of ‘design representation’ without implying the existence of such non-existent things. To overcome that difficulty, a definition is developed in terms of human agents, their actions and ideas (including intentions...

The effect of different cardiovascular risk presentation formats on intentions, understanding and emotional affect: a randomised controlled trial using a web-based risk formatter (protocol

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Newcombe Robert

2010-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The future risk of heart disease can be predicted with increasing precision. However, more research is needed into how this risk is conveyed and presented. The aim of this study is to compare the effects of presenting cardiovascular risk in different formats on individuals' intention to change behaviour to reduce risk, understanding of risk information and emotional affect. Methods/design A randomised controlled trial comprising four arms, with a between subjects design will be performed. There will be two intervention groups and two control groups. The first control comprises a pre-intervention questionnaire and presents risk in a bar graph format. The second control presents risk in a bar graph format without pre-intervention questionnaire. These two control groups are to account for the potential Hawthorne effect of thinking about cardiovascular risk before viewing actual risk. The two intervention groups comprise presenting risk in either a pictogram or metonym format (image depicting seriousness of having a myocardial infarction. 800 individuals' aged between 45 and 64 years, who have not been previously diagnosed with heart disease and have access to a computer with internet, will be given a link to a website comprising a risk calculator and electronic questionnaires. 10-year risk of having a coronary heart disease event will be assessed and presented in one of the three formats. A post-intervention questionnaire will be completed after viewing the risk format. Main outcome measures are (i intention to change behaviour, (ii understanding of risk information, (iii emotional affect and (iv worry about future heart disease. Secondary outcomes are the sub-components of the theory of planned behaviour: attitudes, perceived behavioural control and subjective norms. Discussion Having reviewed the literature, we are not aware of any other studies which have used the assessment of actual risk, in a trial to compare different

Job satisfaction, occupational commitment and intent to stay among Chinese nurses: a cross-sectional questionnaire survey.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Lin; Tao, Hong; Ellenbecker, Carol H; Liu, Xiaohong

2012-03-01

This study was designed to identify the level of nurses' job satisfaction, occupational commitment and intent to stay among mainland Chinese nurses, to explore the relationship among them.   Little is known about the magnitude of Chinese nurses' intent to stay. Understanding the association among demographic characteristics and job satisfaction, occupational commitment and intent to stay among Chinese nurses is most important in a time of nurse shortages. Methods.  A descriptive correlation design was used to examine the relationship among variables related to intent to stay. Data were collected by a self-administered survey questionnaire from 560 nurses working in four large hospital facilities in Shanghai in 2009. The mean scores for nurses' job satisfaction, occupational commitment and intent to stay were 3·25(0·48), 3·11(0·40) and 3·56(0·65), respectively. Job satisfaction and occupational commitment were significantly related to intent to stay. A statistically significant positive correlation was found between occupational commitment and job satisfaction. Age and job position were significantly related to job satisfaction, occupational commitment and intent to stay. Levels of job satisfaction, occupational commitment and intent to stay reported by nurses in this study can be improved. Suggested strategies for improvement are: increasing salaries, decreasing workloads, modifying task structure, cultivating work passion and creating more professional opportunity for nurses' personal growth development and promotion. Enhancing nurses' job satisfaction and occupational commitment are vital to improve nurses' intent to stay and for strategies to address the nursing shortage. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Public understanding for medical radiation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yoo, Seongyeol

1994-01-01

Main sources of radiation exposure are radiography for the diagnosis of disease and radiation therapy to kill cancer cells, which are using X-ray generators or radioisotopes. The radiation of medical purpose irradiates intentionally to the patients. Another example of intentional exposure is occupational workers who are handling radiological equipment. The patients receive radiation more than the dose exposed to the occupational workers, but there is no doubt for the secondary radiation hazard. Although the epidemiologic studies represents that even low dose irradiation can cause epidemiologic studies represents that even low dose irradiation can cause cancer or congenital anomaly in human as a late effect, the risk is negligible, particularly when it is compared with the incidence of same disease in general population

Investigating the adequacy of the Competence-Turnover Intention Model: how does nursing competence affect nurses' turnover intention?

Science.gov (United States)

Takase, Miyuki; Teraoka, Sachiko; Kousuke, Yabase

2015-03-01

The aim of this study was to test the adequacy of the Competence-Turnover Intention Model, which was developed to identify how nursing competence could affect nurses' turnover intention (nurses' intention to voluntarily leave an organisation). Recent studies have suggested that the level of nursing competence is negatively related to nurses' intention to leave their jobs, suggesting that a lack of competence threatens both the quality and quantity of the nursing workforce. However, the mechanism of how nursing competence affects nurses' turnover intention has not been explored previously. A cross-sectional survey design was used. Surveys were distributed to 1337 Japanese registered nurses/midwives in October, 2013. The adequacy of the model was analysed using structural equation modelling. In total, 766 questionnaires were returned, with a return rate of 57%. The model fitted well with the data. The results showed that the level of nursing competence was related positively to the quantity of organisational rewards they felt they had received, and negatively related to the level of exhaustion they experienced. Moreover, the perceived organisational rewards and exhaustion were correlated with nurses' turnover intention through affective commitment. The Competence-Turnover Intention Model is useful for explaining how nursing competence impacts on their turnover intention. Clinical implications derived from the findings are that: promoting nursing competence is key to improving not only the quality of care provided by nurses, but also to retaining the nursing workforce, and the model can be used to develop strategies that would mitigate their turnover intention. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Statistical Learning as a Basis for Social Understanding in Children

Science.gov (United States)

Ruffman, Ted; Taumoepeau, Mele; Perkins, Chris

2012-01-01

Many authors have argued that infants understand goals, intentions, and beliefs. We posit that infants' success on such tasks might instead reveal an understanding of behaviour, that infants' proficient statistical learning abilities might enable such insights, and that maternal talk scaffolds children's learning about the social world as well. We…

Association Between Parental HPV Knowledge and Intentions to Have Their Daughters Vaccinated.

Science.gov (United States)

Mansfield, Lisa N; Onsomu, Elijah O; Merwin, Elizabeth; Hall, Naomi M; Harper-Harrison, Alfreda

2018-04-01

Human papillomavirus (HPV) 16 and 18 causes 66% of cervical cancers (Dunne et al., 2014). Vaccination during adolescence can prevent HPV-associated cervical cancers, yet less than half of adolescent girls are vaccinated. This study examined the association between HPV knowledge and parental intentions to vaccinate daughters against HPV. A retrospective, cross-sectional, national data set from the 2006-2007 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) was used. A multivariate multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the association between intent to vaccinate and HPV knowledge. After controlling for other covariates, parents who were knowledgeable were more likely to intend to have their daughters vaccinated compared with those who were not knowledgeable (adjusted relative risk ratio [aRRR] = 3.96, p = .004). Having HPV knowledge would significantly increase parents' intent for vaccination against the disease for their daughters. Health care providers should integrate HPV-related education for parents within their services, and policymakers should consider requiring HPV vaccination for school attendance.

Cognitive factors predicting intentions to search for health information: an application of the theory of planned behaviour.

Science.gov (United States)

Austvoll-Dahlgren, Astrid; Falk, Ragnhild S; Helseth, Sølvi

2012-12-01

Peoples' ability to obtain health information is a precondition for their effective participation in decision making about health. However, there is limited evidence describing which cognitive factors can predict the intention of people to search for health information. To test the utility of a questionnaire in predicting intentions to search for health information, and to identify important predictors associated with this intention such that these could be targeted in an Intervention. A questionnaire was developed based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour and tested on both a mixed population sample (n=30) and a sample of parents (n = 45). The questionnaire was explored by testing for internal consistency, calculating inter-correlations between theoretically-related constructs, and by using multiple regression analysis. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire were found to be satisfactory and consistent across the two samples. The questionnaires' direct measures prediction of intention was high and accounted for 47% and 55% of the variance in behavioural intentions. Attitudes and perceived behavioural control were identified as important predictors to intention for search for health information. The questionnaire may be a useful tool for understanding and evaluating behavioural intentions and beliefs related to searches for health information. © 2012 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2012 Health Libraries Group.

Destination Motivation, Cultural Orientation, and Adaptation: International Students' Destination-Loyalty Intention

Science.gov (United States)

Jamaludin, Nor Lelawati; Sam, David Lackland; Sandal, Gro Mjeldheim

2018-01-01

This study aims to understand factors predicting destination-loyalty intention in international education. A sample of 378 long-term (n = 195) and short-term (n = 183) international students participated in the study carried out in 2014 through an on-line survey at the University of Bergen, Norway. Using a series of hierarchical regression…

Determinants of Entrepreneurial Intentions: Technical-Vocational Education and Training Students in Ethiopia

Science.gov (United States)

Buli, Bereket Mamo; Yesuf, Wasihun Mohammed

2015-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine factors that could explain the difference in entrepreneurial intention (EI) among technical-vocational education and training (TVET) program students. Centered on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the paper aims to contribute to the understanding of factors that affect EIs of students and offer…

Dog obesity: can dog caregivers' (owners') feeding and exercise intentions and behaviors be predicted from attitudes?

Science.gov (United States)

Rohlf, Vanessa I; Toukhsati, Samia; Coleman, Grahame J; Bennett, Pauleen C

2010-01-01

Dog obesity is a common nutritional disorder affecting up to 40% of the companion animal (pet) dog population in Australia and other developed nations. A clear understanding of factors determining relevant caregiver (owner) behaviors underpins effective treatment for this disorder. The theory of planned behavior can be used to understand factors contributing to human behavior. This article describes research informed by this theory. The research examined relationships between owners' behavioral beliefs and barriers, normative beliefs and perceptions of control, owners' feeding and exercise behaviors toward their dogs, and the body condition scores (BCSs) of dogs. The study recruited a sample of 182 dog and owner dyads. The researcher independently assessed BCSs. Owners completed a questionnaire measuring relevant feeding and exercise beliefs and behaviors. This revealed significant correlations between many psychological variables and BCSs and between psychological variables and specific owner behaviors: for example, the relationship of low levels of intentions to feed appropriately to ambivalent beliefs toward feeding appropriately and low perceived control. Careful consideration of the specific variables identified will permit the development of more effective interventions.

Impact of work engagement on turnover intention: moderation by psychological capital in India

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Manish Gupta

2017-08-01

Full Text Available With increased number of employment opportunities in India, employers are increasingly finding it difficult to control employee turnover. Nonetheless, positive psychologists argue that one of the ways to face this challenge is by understanding the positive factors such as, work engagement and personal resources that negatively affect employees’ turnover intention. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine the moderating role of psychological capital in the work engagement – employee turnover intention relationship. Hierarchical regression was used to analyze a sample of 228 employees working in diverse industries. The findings indicate that psychological capital moderates the relationship between work engagement and intention to turnover. The findings augment the theory of self and role by identifying moderating role of personal resources in strengthening the negative relationship between work engagement and turnover intention. Managers may take steps to enhance the employee-co-worker and employee-supervisor relationship either by promoting team related activities or by enabling their employees to work independently. Also, in order to save the cost of hiring a new candidate and losing an experienced employee, managers may create mechanisms for measuring work engagement of at least their key employees or a regular basis. This paper fulfils an identified need to study how psychological capital plays a key role in affecting the work engagement–employee turnover intention relationship in Indian context.

What You Sow Is What You Reap? (Dis-Incentives for Adaptation Intentions in Farming

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Franca Buelow

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Adaptation by farmers and other land managers responsible for climate-sensitive activities is central to ensuring resilience in the face of ongoing climate variability and change. However, there remains an adaptation deficit among agricultural producers: action to reduce vulnerability to the impacts of climate change is insufficient. To motivate adaptation, diverse incentives are in place most notably through the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy which offers financial incentives to farmers. However, the effect of incentives on behaviour appears to be low. To better understand adaptation intentions, we report on the results of a survey experiment assessing framing effects on German farmers. Four framings of adaptation motifs—financial, norms, risk awareness, and technological innovation—are tested against a socio-cognitive model based on Protection Motivation Theory (PMT. According to PMT, adaptation intentions are a function of an individual’s risk and coping appraisal. Results show that, contrary to assumptions of profit maximizing individuals, economic incentives trigger fewer overall change intentions. Economic rewards do act on risk perception, but are less likely to trigger coping perception, while other treatments do. As coping perception is one of two socio-cognitive reactions to climate change, financial incentive structures fail to act on about half the factors leading to adaptation intentions. These effects dependent on subgroups, farm structures, and are mediated by climate experience. To support transitions towards robust adaptation, adaptation incentives must move beyond financial framings alone, and leverage on farmers’ recent experiences with adverse climate impacts, understandings of climate change, and the influence of social norms.

Conflict management style of Jordanian nurse managers and its relationship to staff nurses' intent to stay.

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Hamdan, Zaid; Nussera, Hayat; Masa'deh, Rami

2016-03-01

To explore the relationship between conflict management styles used by nurse managers and intent to stay of staff nurses. Nursing shortages require managers to focus on the retention of staff nurses. Understanding the relationship between conflict management styles of nurse managers and intent to stay of staff nurses is one strategy to retain nurses in the workforce. A cross-sectional descriptive quantitative study was carried out in Jordan. The Rahim organization conflict inventory II (ROCI II) was completed by 42 nurse managers and the intent to stay scale was completed by 320 staff nurses from four hospitals in Jordan. The anova analysis was carried out. An integrative style was the first choice for nurse managers and the last choice was a dominating style. The overall level of intent to stay for nurses was moderate. Nurses tend to keep their current job for 2-3 years. There was a negative relationship between the dominating style as a conflict management style and the intent to stay for nurses. The findings of the present study support the claim that leadership practices affect the staff nurses' intent to stay and the quality of care. Nurse managers can improve the intent to stay for staff nurses if they use the appropriate conflict management styles. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Toward identifying a broader range of social cognitive determinants of dietary intentions and behaviors.

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Hankonen, Nelli; Absetz, Pilvikki; Kinnunen, Marja; Haukkala, Ari; Jallinoja, Piia

2013-03-01

Measurement of social cognitive variables is often restricted to long-term and health-related outcomes. A more comprehensive measurement of cognitive determinants would enable evidence-based design of health behavior interventions with a focus on the most relevant targets. The purpose of this study was to examine the relative impact of different social cognitive determinants on fruit and vegetable (FV) and fast food consumption. Finnish male conscripts (N = 855, age M = 20) filled in questionnaires on social cognitive factors when entering the military service, and on food consumption frequency after two months. The data were analysed using structural equation modeling. Physical well-being expectation and bad taste expectation were most strongly related to both FV and fat avoidance intentions. Perceived weight gain risk predicted fat avoidance intention, whereas perceived risk for other health problems predicted FV intention. Social self-efficacy was associated with FV intention only. Consumption of both FV and fast food was predicted by action planning and intention. A more careful evaluation of subtypes of social cognitions sheds light on the specific content behind motivation. Such understanding might help in designing more effective intervention messages. © 2012 The Authors. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being © 2012 The International Association of Applied Psychology.

Predictors of hospitalized patients' intentions to prevent healthcare harm: a cross sectional survey.

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Davis, R; Anderson, O; Vincent, C; Miles, K; Sevdalis, N

2012-04-01

Patients can play an important role in reducing healthcare harm but little is known about the factors that may affect patients' willingness to participate. In order to encourage the 'active' patient it is critical that we gain a deeper understanding of the antecedents of safety-relevant behaviours. Doing this will enable the implementation of effective interventions aimed at supporting patients to work with healthcare professionals in ensuring safe care. To examine predictors of patients' intentions to engage in two safety behaviours: (1) reminding healthcare staff to wash their hands and; (2) notifying healthcare staff if they are not wearing a hospital identification bracelet. Cross-sectional survey study. A purposive sampling method was employed to recruit 80 medical and surgical hospital inpatients aged 18-80 (mean 48) from one inner city London teaching hospital. A 42 item survey that measured the extent that patients' control beliefs, behavioural beliefs, normative beliefs and perceived susceptibility and severity towards a hospital-acquired infection or a misidentification error could predict their intentions to ask doctors/nurses about their hand washing compliance or notify doctors/nurses if they are not wearing a hospital identification bracelet. Data was analysed using multiple regression analysis. Control beliefs, normative beliefs and perceived severity were the strongest predictors of patients' intentions to participate in both behaviours. The regression models accounted for a smaller percentage of the variance in patients' intentions to ask doctors/nurses if they have washed their hands (42%/37%) than notifying staff if they were not wearing an identification bracelet (54%/56%). If patients understand why a behaviour is beneficial, they perceive it as acceptable to participate in and that they have control over the decision to engage in the behaviour, we hypothesise that more patients will intend to participate in that behaviour. When designing

Intent, Future, Anticipation: A Semiotic, Transdisciplinary Approach

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Loeckenhoff, Hellmut

2008-10-01

Encouraged e.g. by chaos theory and (bio-)semiotics science is trying to attempt a deeper understanding of life. The paradigms of physics alone prove not sufficient to explain f. ex. evolution or phylogenesis and ontogenesis. In complement, research on life systems reassesses paradigmatic models not only for living systems and not only on the strict biological level. The ontological as well as the epistemological base of science in toto is to be reconsidered. Science itself proves a historical and cultural phenomenon and can be seen as shaped by evolution and semiosis. -Living systems are signified by purpose, intent and, necessarily, by the faculty to anticipate e.g. the cyclic changes of their environment. To understand the concepts behind a proposal is developed towards a model set constituting a transdisciplinary approach. It rests e.g. on concepts of systems, evolution, complexity and semiodynamics.

The role of aesthetic, cultural, utilitarian and branding factors in young Chinese consumers' repurchase intention of smartphone brands

OpenAIRE

Filieri, Raffaele; Lin, Zhibin

2017-01-01

Despite the exponential growth of smartphone consumption, to date, very few studies have investigated the factors that influence consumers' repurchase intention of smartphone brands. China has become the world's largest consumer markets for smartphones, therefore understanding young Chinese consumers' repurchase intention in the smartphone market is of crucial importance to smartphone companies. A preliminary qualitative study based on 30 face-to-face interviews has led to the development of ...

Pregnancy intentions among female sex workers: recognising their rights and wants as mothers.

Science.gov (United States)

Duff, Putu; Shoveller, Jeannie; Feng, Cindy; Ogilvie, Gina; Montaner, Julio; Shannon, Kate

2015-04-01

To better understand the prevalence and correlates of pregnancy intentions among female sex workers (FSWs). Cross-sectional analysis using data from an open prospective cohort of street and off-street FSWs in Vancouver, Canada, in partnership with local sex work and community agencies. FSWs were recruited through outreach to street and off-street locations (e.g. massage parlours, micro-brothels) and completed interviewer-administered questionnaires and HIV/sexually transmitted infection testing. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regression was used to evaluate correlates of pregnancy intention, based on a 'yes' or 'no' response to the question "Are you planning on have any (any more) children in the future?". Of the 510 women, 394 (77.3%) reported prior pregnancy, with 140 (27.5%) of the entire sample reporting positive pregnancy intentions. Regarding ethnicity, 35.3% were Caucasian and 26.3% were Asian/visible minority, with no differences in pregnancy intention by ethnicity or HIV status; 38.4% reported Canadian Aboriginal ancestry. In our final multivariable model, servicing clients in formal indoor settings, inconsistent condom use by clients, younger age, and intimate partner violence (IPV) were associated with pregnancy intention. FSWs may have pregnancy intention levels similar to that of women in other occupations. Policy changes are needed to improve FSWs' access to integrated HIV and reproductive health services and harm reduction services, particularly for FSWs experiencing IPV. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

Preconceito e intenção em manter contato social: evidências acerca dos valores humanos Prejudice and intention to maintain social contact: Evidences concerning human values

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Tatiana Cristina Vasconcelos

2004-12-01

Full Text Available Este trabalho objetivou conhecer como os valores humanos estão relacionados às atitudes preconceituosas e à intenção em manter o contato social com pessoas negras. Para tanto, contou-se com uma amostra de 303 pessoas da população geral da cidade de João Pessoa (PB, a maioria mulheres com idades compreendidas entre 12 e 74 anos (M = 30,5; DP = 14,2. Seguindo-se um procedimento padrão, foi pedido que respondessem aos seguintes instrumentos: Escala de Atitudes Preconceituosas, Escala de Intenção de Contato Social, Questionário dos Valores Humanos Básicos e um questionário de Caracterização da Amostra. Os resultados foram consistentes em relação a achados anteriores. As atitudes preconceituosas correlacionaram-se principalmente com os valores suprapessoais. Encontrou-se, ademais, que os valores suprapessoais e de realização atuaram como bons preditores para as atitudes preconceituosas, e que estas foram boas explicadoras da intenção em manter contato social com negros.The current research aimed to know how the human values is related to the prejudiced attitudes and to the intention to maintain social contact with Blacks. 303 subjects from the general population of João Pessoa (PB were considered. The respondents were mainly women, and the ages varying from 12 to 74 years (M = 30,5; DP = 14,2. The Prejudiced Attitudes Scale, Intention to Maintain Social Contact Scale, Basic Human Values Questionnaire and demographics questions were applied. Results showed that the prejudiced attitudes were primarily correlated with the suprapersonal values. Furthermore, the suprapersonals and of achievement values were good predictors, and satisfactory to explain the intention in maintaining social contact with Blacks.

Educational Cooperation between Thailand and Cambodia: Outcomes on Human Development, International Understanding and Future Prospect

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Kijtorntham, Wichuda; Ruangdej, Phumjit; Saisuwan, Chatchanog

2015-01-01

Thailand and Cambodia set up educational cooperation since 1996, before signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Promotion of Education in 2003. This research aimed to investigate outcomes of educational cooperation projects on Cambodia human development and international understanding, process of participatory learning and…

Understanding variation in human fertility: what can we learn from evolutionary demography?

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Sear, Rebecca; Lawson, David W; Kaplan, Hillard; Shenk, Mary K

2016-04-19

Decades of research on human fertility has presented a clear picture of how fertility varies, including its dramatic decline over the last two centuries in most parts of the world. Why fertility varies, both between and within populations, is not nearly so well understood. Fertility is a complex phenomenon, partly physiologically and partly behaviourally determined, thus an interdisciplinary approach is required to understand it. Evolutionary demographers have focused on human fertility since the 1980s. The first wave of evolutionary demographic research made major theoretical and empirical advances, investigating variation in fertility primarily in terms of fitness maximization. Research focused particularly on variation within high-fertility populations and small-scale subsistence societies and also yielded a number of hypotheses for why fitness maximization seems to break down as fertility declines during the demographic transition. A second wave of evolutionary demography research on fertility is now underway, paying much more attention to the cultural and psychological mechanisms underpinning fertility. It is also engaging with the complex, multi-causal nature of fertility variation, and with understanding fertility in complex modern and transitioning societies. Here, we summarize the history of evolutionary demographic work on human fertility, describe the current state of the field, and suggest future directions. © 2016 The Author(s).

VIM: A Platform for Violent Intent Modeling

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sanfilippo, Antonio P.; Schryver, Jack C.; Whitney, Paul D.; Augustenborg, Elsa C.; Danielson, Gary R.; Thompson, Sandra E.

2009-03-31

Radical and contentious political/religious activism may or may not evolve into violent behavior depending on contextual factors related to social, political, cultural and infrastructural conditions. Significant theoretical advances have been made in understanding these contextual factors and the import of their interrelations. However, there has been relative little progress in the development of processes and capabilities which leverage such theoretical advances to automate the anticipatory analysis of violent intent. In this paper, we describe a framework which implements such processes and capabilities, and discuss the implications of using the resulting system to assess the emergence of radicalization leading to violence.

On Libertarianism and the Proprietary Understanding of Human Rights (O libertarizmu in lastninskem pojmovanju človekovih pravic

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Luka Mišič

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The article deals with the theory of libertarianism which is clearly distinguished from the theory of liberalism and tries to answer the question of what exactly is “a libertarian understanding” of human rights. The author, already in the article’s title, offers an answer in a form of the “proprietary” understanding and through the text confronts the reader with the reasoning behind such an understanding. He points out several elements of the substantive and formal transformation of the traditional notion of human rights and basic freedoms needed for the notion to be coherent with the theory of libertarianism. The author understands the traditional function of human rights as a protective mechanism for the individual against the state and presents the libertarian understanding of the notion as a result of the libertarian understanding of one’s personal freedom that is based on the principle of self-ownership and the nonaggression principle by which every encroachment with one’s property (extending to his own body and will has to derive from a consensus among (two parties. Thereby human rights need to put on a new role in which they are completely dependent on the right to property (being the only natural and superior right and function in a negative, relative and value-neutral manner.

Momentum Trumps Intention: Failed Intentions toward Higher Education of Low-Wage Working Women

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Deutsch, Francine M.; Ta, Phuong H.

2015-01-01

Two longitudinal studies examined the effects of explicit intention, as described in Ajzen's (1991) theory of planned behavior, on preschool teachers' success in enrolling in college. In the first study, 88 low-wage female teachers and teachers' aides who represented 85 child care centers were surveyed about their intentions to pursue college…

The Phenomenological, Sociological, and Psychological Understanding of Music

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Gregor Pompe

2016-03-01

Full Text Available When trying to investigate the understanding of music, there are a number of epistemologically and methodologically diverse perspectives, and this is associated with the fairly vague definition of music. Firstly, music exists in the form of a waving motion as a physical-acoustic dimension that reaches the listener’s/receiver’s ear. At the time of the »reception« of music, the human neuropsychological mechanism is triggered, which causes the process of semiosis – when we imbue music with meaning strongly exceeding the basic, physical characteristics of music as a sound. In the history of music studies, one can discern the periodical shifting of scientific methodologies that have placed now this and later the other perspective in the center of their research. Meanwhile the author of the article claims that for a holistic understanding of music one needs to employ all the different methodological starting points. Music must be understood as a “two-sided” process: it is possible to investigate the “path” that leads from the creation of music to the emergence of listener’s meaning or to begin with the latter and try to connect it with the intentionality of the author.

Getting Vaccinated against HPV: Attitudes, Intentions and Perceived Barriers of Female Undergraduates

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Burke, Sloane C.; Vail-Smith, Karen; White, David M.; Baker, Elizabeth; Mitchell, Terri

2010-01-01

This study examines college women's intention to receive the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine and their perceived barriers to being vaccinated. The study reports findings from an online questionnaire completed by 856 undergraduate women enrolled in a required personal health course at a large (27,000 plus) southeastern university. The majority…

Understanding Human Error in Naval Aviation Mishaps.

Science.gov (United States)

Miranda, Andrew T

2018-04-01

To better understand the external factors that influence the performance and decisions of aviators involved in Naval aviation mishaps. Mishaps in complex activities, ranging from aviation to nuclear power operations, are often the result of interactions between multiple components within an organization. The Naval aviation mishap database contains relevant information, both in quantitative statistics and qualitative reports, that permits analysis of such interactions to identify how the working atmosphere influences aviator performance and judgment. Results from 95 severe Naval aviation mishaps that occurred from 2011 through 2016 were analyzed using Bayes' theorem probability formula. Then a content analysis was performed on a subset of relevant mishap reports. Out of the 14 latent factors analyzed, the Bayes' application identified 6 that impacted specific aspects of aviator behavior during mishaps. Technological environment, misperceptions, and mental awareness impacted basic aviation skills. The remaining 3 factors were used to inform a content analysis of the contextual information within mishap reports. Teamwork failures were the result of plan continuation aggravated by diffused responsibility. Resource limitations and risk management deficiencies impacted judgments made by squadron commanders. The application of Bayes' theorem to historical mishap data revealed the role of latent factors within Naval aviation mishaps. Teamwork failures were seen to be considerably damaging to both aviator skill and judgment. Both the methods and findings have direct application for organizations interested in understanding the relationships between external factors and human error. It presents real-world evidence to promote effective safety decisions.

Critical notice: Michael Tomasello on the “prosocial” human animal

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, Steen Nepper

2014-01-01

1999) he states that human infants are very social from the moment they are born, if not before, and that intention reading and human beings’ inborn capability to identify with conspecifics are the clues to the unique human interaction and joint attention. The four theses of this article are: the idea...... and linguistic interaction as a derived form of pointing gestures are very limited; and he underestimates the power and ‘nature’ of unforeseen events. Social synchronisation – creates the possibility for joint attention and not the intention reading. New forms of social interaction do not spring from cognitive...... intention reading processes inside the brain. Humans have certain biological predispositions, but they cannot explain joint attention patterns....

The Exploration of human experience in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey

OpenAIRE

Mulas, Francesco Gesuino

2005-01-01

Jane Austen's purpose in Northanger Abbey, both in her aesthetic principles and moral intents, is to explore the human experience in its fullest sense. How do people perceive and understand themselves and each other? What are they like and how can they learn and grow? If moral problems are a question of thought rather than of action, as a consequence to ask what characters are like is also to ask what an author's conception of them should be.

Predicting healthy eating intention and adherence to dietary recommendations during pregnancy in Australia using the Theory of Planned Behaviour.

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Malek, Lenka; Umberger, Wendy J; Makrides, Maria; ShaoJia, Zhou

2017-09-01

This study aims to aid in the development of more effective healthy eating intervention strategies for pregnant women by understanding the relationship between healthy eating intention and actual eating behaviour. Specifically, the study explored whether Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) constructs [attitude, subjective-norm, perceived-behavioural-control (PBC)] and additional psychosocial variables (perceived stress, health value and self-identity as a healthy eater) are useful in explaining variance in women's 1) intentions to consume a healthy diet during pregnancy and 2) food consumption behaviour (e.g. adherence to food group recommendations) during pregnancy. A cross-sectional sample of 455 Australian pregnant women completed a TPB questionnaire as part of a larger comprehensive web-based nutrition questionnaire. Women's perceived stress, health value and self-identity as a healthy eater were also measured. Dietary intake was assessed using six-items based on the 2013 Australian Dietary Guidelines. Hierarchical multiple linear regression models were estimated (significance level healthy eating intention scores and 12% of the variance in adherence to food group recommendations. TPB constructs explained 66% of the total variance in healthy eating intention. Significant predictors of stronger healthy eating intention were greater PBC and subjective norm, followed by positive attitude and stronger self-identity as a healthy eater. Conversely, TPB constructs collectively explained only 3.4% of total variance in adherence to food group recommendations. These findings reveal that the TPB framework explains considerable variance in healthy eating intention during pregnancy, but explains little variance in actual food consumption behaviour. Further research is required to understand this weak relationship between healthy eating intention and behaviour during pregnancy. Alternative behavioural frameworks, particularly those that account for the automatic nature of most

Using event related potentials to identify a user's behavioural intention aroused by product form design.

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Ding, Yi; Guo, Fu; Zhang, Xuefeng; Qu, Qingxing; Liu, Weilin

2016-07-01

The capacity of product form to arouse user's behavioural intention plays a decisive role in further user experience, even in purchase decision, while traditional methods rarely give a fully understanding of user experience evoked by product form, especially the feeling of anticipated use of product. Behavioural intention aroused by product form designs has not yet been investigated electrophysiologically. Hence event related potentials (ERPs) were applied to explore the process of behavioural intention when users browsed different smart phone form designs with brand and price not taken into account for mainly studying the brain activity evoked by variety of product forms. Smart phone pictures with different anticipated user experience were displayed with equiprobability randomly. Participants were asked to click the left mouse button when certain picture gave them a feeling of behavioural intention to interact with. The brain signal of each participant was recorded by Curry 7.0. The results show that pictures with an ability to arouse participants' behavioural intention for further experience can evoke enhanced N300 and LPPs (late positive potentials) in central-parietal, parietal and occipital regions. The scalp topography shows that central-parietal, parietal and occipital regions are more activated. The results indicate that the discrepancy of ERPs can reflect the neural activities of behavioural intention formed or not. Moreover, amplitude of ERPs occurred in corresponding brain areas can be used to measure user experience. The exploring of neural correlated with behavioural intention provide an accurate measurement method of user's perception and help marketers to know which product can arouse users' behavioural intention, maybe taken as an evaluating indicator of product design. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved.

Enterprise Potential, Entrepreneurial Intentions and Envy

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Edit Terek

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the results of research about the impact of envy on enterprise potential and entrepreneurial intentions. The research was conducted in Serbia and the respondents were students from 5 faculties, from the first to the fifth year of study. The results were gained by statistical analysis of the gathered information (380 completed questionnaires. Descriptive, correlation and regression analysis are the methods of statistical analysis that were used. From the dimensions of enterprise potential, the highest average value has the dimension Creativity, while from the dimensions of entrepreneurial intentions, the highest average value has the dimension Subjective norm. Of all the observed dimensions, the lowest value has the Envy dimension. Between envy and dimensions of enterprise potential and dimensions of entrepreneurial intentions, there are a number of statistically significant negative correlations. This is more prevalent at the dimension of entrepreneurial intentions. Feelings of inferiority in relation to other people and the perception of having a boring or a bad life have an especially negative impact on entrepreneurial potential and intentions. Envy, which occurs due to the desire for more entertainment, travel, and due to the perception of the lack of fortune, also has a negative impact on entrepreneurial potential and intentions, but the influence is considerably weaker. There is a statistically significant predictive effect of certain items of envy on enterprise potential dimensions and entrepreneurial intentions dimensions. But this fact is not so strongly expressed. Some results suggest the possibility (however small that envy, in some circumstances, can mildly encourage entrepreneurial intention.

Effectiveness of online simulation training: Measuring faculty knowledge, perceptions, and intention to adopt.

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Kim, Sujeong; Park, Chang; O'Rourke, Jennifer

2017-04-01

Best practice standards of simulation recommend standardized simulation training for nursing faculty. Online training may offer an effective and more widely available alternative to in-person training. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior, this study evaluated the effectiveness of an online simulation training program, examining faculty's foundational knowledge of simulation as well as perceptions and intention to adopt. One-group pretest-posttest design. A large school of nursing with a main campus and five regional campuses in the Midwestern United States. Convenience sample of 52 faculty participants. Knowledge of foundational simulation principles was measured by pre/post-training module quizzes. Perceptions and the intention to adopt simulation were measured using the Faculty Attitudes and Intent to Use Related to the Human Patient Simulator questionnaire. There was a significant improvement in faculty knowledge after training and observable improvements in attitudes. Attitudes significantly influenced the intention to adopt simulation (B=2.54, p<0.001). Online simulation training provides an effective alternative for training large numbers of nursing faculty who seek to implement best practice of standards within their institutions. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Assessing, and understanding, European organic dairy farmers' intentions to improve herd health.

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Jones, P J; Sok, J; Tranter, R B; Blanco-Penedo, I; Fall, N; Fourichon, C; Hogeveen, H; Krieger, M C; Sundrum, A

2016-10-01

Many believe the health status of organic dairy herds in Europe should be improved to meet consumers' and legislators' expectations to improve animal welfare. This paper reports on a study in four countries that examined dairy farmers' intentions towards improving the health status of their organic herds through the use of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. It was found that farmers across the countries were positive about taking additional preventative measures to improve the health status of their herds. They believed this would not only improve herd physical performance, such as milk yield and fertility, but also achieve greater cost effectiveness and improved job satisfaction for them. Most study farmers would implement a tailored package of improvement measures designed by the study team with higher uptake most likely being by younger farmers, those who make greater use of veterinarians and professional advisory services, and those supplying specialist milk-marketing chains. Furthermore, farmers will be most likely to take-up additional health promotion if compatible with their everyday activities and if they have strong business performance goals aimed at maximising the physical performance of the herd. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Nurses' leaving intentions: antecedents and mediating factors.

Science.gov (United States)

Takase, Miyuki; Yamashita, Noriko; Oba, Keiko

2008-05-01

This paper is a report of a study to investigate how nurses' work values, perceptions of environmental characteristics, and organizational commitment are related to their leaving intentions. Nurse leaving is a serious international problem as it contributes to the nursing shortage that threatens the welfare of society. The characteristics of nurses, the work environment and nurses' feelings towards their jobs (or organizations) have an impact on their leaving intentions. A convenience sample of 849 Registered Nurses was recruited from three public hospitals in the central-west region of Japan during 2006 and 319 completed questionnaires were returned (response rate 39%). Data were analysed using regression analysis. Nurses' work values and their perceptions of their workplace environment interacted to influence leaving intentions. When there was a match between the importance nurses placed on being able to challenge current clinical practices and the number of the actual opportunities to do so, leaving intentions were low. When there was a mismatch, intention to quit the job became stronger. In addition, organizational commitment intervened between nurses' perceptions of the match in clinical challenges and leaving intention. Nurses' leaving intentions, deserve extensive exploration of their causes. Such exploration should include attending to both nurses' needs and organizational characteristics, investigating how the match between them could affect nurses' leaving intention, and exploring factors that intervene between nurses' perceptions of the match and leaving intention.

Antecedents of Social Entrepreneurial Intentions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hockerts, Kai

2013-01-01

This paper is a contribution towards Mair and Noboa ‘s (2006) model of the antecedents of social entrepreneurial intentions. The Mair/Noboa model builds on Krueger’s (1993) proposal of a theory of planned behavior for entrepreneurial intention formation by suggesting that social entrepreneurial...... intentions are driven by an individual’s perceived desirability and perceived feasibility of starting a social venture. This article proposes and validates measures of the antecedents of social entrepreneurial behavior with a sample of nascent social entrepreneurs. The measures developed adapt constructs...

Factors Affecting Re-usage Intentions of Virtual Communities Supporting Cosmetic Products

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Jhong-Min Yang

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Aim/Purpose: This study uses a cosmetic virtual community (VC as the research context and the UTAUT model as the theoretical structure aim to explore factors affecting the re-usage intentions of VC members. Background: The Internet use rate of VC was up to 50%, thereby implying that VC gained the attention of Internet users. Therefore, operating a VC will be an effective way to communicate with customers. However, to maintain an existing member is more efficient than creating a new one. As such, understanding determinants of VC members’ re-use intentions becomes important for firms. Methodology: Through an online survey, 276 valid responses were gathered. The collected data were examined by performing confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modelling procedures, as well as the moderator analysis. Contribution: This study shows the importance in the context of online cosmetics-related VC, which was rarely explored before. We provide issues for future research, despite the accumulated academic literature related to UTAUT and VC. Findings: Results show that only performance expectancy and social influence significantly affecting re-usage intentions and only gender has moderating effects on the path from performance expectancy to VC re-use intention and from trust to VC re-use intention. Recommendations for Practitioners\t: This study found that users emphasized performance expectancy most of all. A cosmetic product-related VC should introduce products abundantly, offer useful information, and help people accomplish tasks quickly and productively. Recommendation for Researchers: Future researchers may use our findings to conduct further positivist research in the area of social influence using different subjects and research contexts.

Career intentions and dropout causes among medical students in Kazakhstan.

Science.gov (United States)

Faizullina, Kamila; Kausova, Galina; Kalmataeva, Zhanna; Nurbakyt, Ardak; Buzdaeva, Saule

2013-01-01

The number of new entrants to higher medical schools of Kazakhstan increased by 1.6 times from 2007 to 2012. However, it is not known how it will affect the shortage of human resources for health. Additionally, human resources for health in rural areas of Kazakhstan are 4 times scarcer than in urban areas. The aim of the present study was to investigate the intentions of students toward their professional future and readiness to work in rural areas, as well as to determine the causes for dropping out from medical schools. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2 medical universities in Almaty during the academic year 2011-2012. The study sample included medical students and interns. In total, 2388 students participated in the survey. The survey tool was an anonymous questionnaire. The students of the first years of studies compared with those of later years of studies were more optimistic about the profession and had more intentions to work in the medical field. Only 8% of the students reported a wish to work in rural localities. On the other hand, 4% of the students did not plan to pursue the profession. On the average, every third medical student dropped out on his/her own request. Associations between intentions to work according to the profession and the year of studies, faculty, and residence area before enrolling in a medical school were documented. The majority of the students who came from rural areas preferred to stay and look for work in a city, which might contribute to an unequal distribution of physicians across the country.

Moral Foundations and Voting Intention in Italy

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Patrizia Milesi

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Based on the view of morality proposed by the Moral Foundations Theory, this paper investigates whether voting intention is associated with moral foundation endorsement in not perfectly bipolar electoral contexts. Three studies carried out in Italy from 2010 to 2013, showed that controlling for ideological orientation, moral foundation endorsement is associated with voting intention. In Study 1 and 3, in fictitious and real national elections, intention to vote for right-wing political groups rather than for left-wing rivals was associated with Sanctity, confirming previous results obtained in the U.S. Furthermore, as a function of the specific competing political groups in each of the examined contexts other moral foundations predicted voting intention. In Study 1, Care and Authority predicted voting intention for the major political groups rather than for an autonomist party that aimed at decreasing central government’s fiscal power in favor of fiscal regional autonomy. In Study 3, Loyalty predicted the intention to vote for the major parliamentarian parties rather than for a movement that aimed at capturing disaffection towards traditional politics. In Study 2, at real regional elections, Loyalty predicted voting intention for the incumbent right-wing governor rather than for the challengers and Fairness predicted voting intention for left-wing extra-parliamentarian political groups rather than for the major left-wing party. Thus multiple moral concerns can be associated with voting intention. In fragmented and unstable electoral contexts, at each election the context of the competing political groups may elicit specific moral concerns that can contribute to affect voting intention beyond ideological orientation.

Detecting false intent using eye blink measures

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Frank M Marchak

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Eye blink measures have been shown to be diagnostic in detecting deception regarding past acts. Here we examined – across two experiments with increasing degrees of ecological validity – whether changes in eye blinking can be used to determine false intent regarding future actions. In both experiments, half of the participants engaged in a mock crime and then transported an explosive device with the intent of delivering it to a ‘contact’ that would use it to cause a disturbance. Eye blinking was measured for all participants when presented with three types of questions: relevant to intent to transport an explosive device, relevant to intent to engage in an unrelated illegal act, and neutral questions. Experiment 1 involved standing participants watching a video interviewer with audio presented ambiently. Experiment 2 involved standing participants questioned by a live interviewer. Across both experiments, changes in blink count during and immediately following individual questions, total number of blinks, and maximum blink time length differentiated those with false intent from truthful intent participants. In response to questions relevant to intent to deliver an explosive device versus questions relevant to intent to deliver illegal drugs, those with false intent showed a suppression of blinking during the questions when compared to the ten second period after the end of the questions, a lower number of blinks, and shorter maximum blink duration. The results are discussed in relation to detecting deception about past activities as well as to the similarities and differences to detecting false intent as described by prospective memory and arousal.

"Violent Intent Modeling: Incorporating Cultural Knowledge into the Analytical Process

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sanfilippo, Antonio P.; Nibbs, Faith G.

2007-08-24

While culture has a significant effect on the appropriate interpretation of textual data, the incorporation of cultural considerations into data transformations has not been systematic. Recognizing that the successful prevention of terrorist activities could hinge on the knowledge of the subcultures, Anthropologist and DHS intern Faith Nibbs has been addressing the need to incorporate cultural knowledge into the analytical process. In this Brown Bag she will present how cultural ideology is being used to understand how the rhetoric of group leaders influences the likelihood of their constituents to engage in violent or radicalized behavior, and how violent intent modeling can benefit from understanding that process.

Employee perceptions of management relations as influences on job satisfaction and quit intentions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Frenkel, S.; Sanders, Karin; Bednall, T.

2013-01-01

In this paper we use a relational approach to investigate how employee perceptions of their relationships with three types of managers—senior, line, and human resource managers—are related to employees’ job satisfaction and intention to quit. Based on an employee survey (n = 1,533), and manager

A road paved with safe intentions: Increasing intentions to use alcohol protective behavioral strategies via Deviance Regulation Theory.

Science.gov (United States)

Dvorak, Robert D; Pearson, Matthew R; Neighbors, Clayton; Martens, Matthew P; Stevenson, Brittany L; Kuvaas, Nicholas J

2016-06-01

Drinking remains a problem across college campuses. Changing this behavior requires interventions that can be easily and widely dispersed. Several theories place intentions as a proximal predictor of behavior change. The current study examines the effects of a Web-based Deviance Regulation Theory (DRT) intervention on (1) intentions to use alcohol protective behavior strategies (PBS) and (2) associations between these intentions and actual behavior. Participants (n = 76) completed a 6-week, Web-based study examining drinking behaviors. Participants were randomly assigned to receive a positive frame about individuals who use PBS or a negative frame about individuals who do not. They also reported normative perceptions of PBS use among college students. They subsequently logged onto a secure server each week to report on alcohol involvement, use of 3 types of PBS (Manner of Drinking, Stopping/Limiting, and Serious Harm Reduction), and intentions to use these PBS the following week. Consistent with DRT, negative frames resulted in higher PBS use intentions if individuals held high normative beliefs about PBS use. Positive frames resulted in higher Manner of Drinking PBS use intentions if individuals held low normative beliefs about PBS use, but only if individuals endorsed a high belief in the frame. In addition, there was a DRT consistent increase in intention-action associations, but only for Stopping/Limiting PBS. A brief Web-based DRT intervention was effective at increasing PBS intentions and increasing PBS intention-action associations. DRT may provide a mechanism to additively or synergistically improve other Web-based interventions for college drinking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

The fate of completed intentions.

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, Francis T; Einstein, Gilles O

2017-04-01

The goal of this research was to determine whether and how people deactivate prospective memory (PM) intentions after they have been completed. One view proposes that PM intentions can be deactivated after completion, such that they no longer come to mind and interfere with current tasks. Another view is that now irrelevant completed PM intentions exhibit persisting activation, and continue to be retrieved. In Experiment 1, participants were given a PM intention embedded within the ongoing task during Phase 1, after which participants were told either that the PM task had been completed or suspended until later. During Phase 2, participants were instructed to perform only the ongoing task and were periodically prompted to report their thoughts. Critically, the PM targets from Phase 1 reappeared in Phase 2. All of our measures, including thoughts reported about the PM task, supported the existence of persisting activation. In Experiment 2, we varied conditions that were expected to mitigate persisting activation. Despite our best attempts to promote deactivation, we found evidence for the persistence of spontaneous retrieval in all groups after intentions were completed. The theoretical and practical implications of this potential dark side to spontaneous retrieval are discussed.

Using the Theory of Planned Behavior to Predict College Students' Intention to Intervene With a Suicidal Individual.