1,720,991 research outputs found
Why people were less compliant with public health regulations during the second wave of the Covid-19 outbreak: The role of trust in governmental organizations, future anxiety, fatigue, and Covid-19 risk perception
Full text linkTrust in governmental organizations is a crucial factor in terms of encouraging people to conform to public health regulations, such as those recommended to slow down the spread of SARS-CoV-2. However, trust in governmental organizations tends to decline over time, reducing the compliance with public health regulations. This study aimed at exploring, first, the role of future anxiety and fatigue as serial mediators of the relationship between trust in governmental organizations and protective behaviors, and, secondly, the role of Covid-19 risk perception as amoderator between fatigue and protective behaviors. A total of 948 Italian participants (302 males and 646 females), ranged from 18 to 80 years (M= 27.20, SD = 11.01), answered an online survey during the second wave of the Covid-19 outbreak. A moderated serial mediation model was performed using a structural equation modeling. The results indicate that: (1) a higher trust in Italian governmental organizations was associated with a greater compliance in terms of adopting protective behaviors; (2) a lower trust in Italian governmental organizations increased anxiety about the future which, in turn, raised levels of fatigue, leading, finally, to a reduction in the levels of protective behaviors; and (3) as the perceived risk related to Covid-19 increased, the effect of fatigue on protective behaviors decreased. The findings of the current study may provide indications for public health policy on how to increase compliance with the recommended behaviors to be adopted in order to decrease the spread of the SARS-CoV-2
'Isolated together': online group treatments during the COVID-19 pandemic. A systematic review
No full textConsidering the emerging need to face the negative impact of the pandemic on mental health, social support, and access to health services, it became a critical issue to adapt to online group settings, and create new group interventions to face the developing distress during this time. The aim of the current study is to investigate the main findings on OPGI conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020 until March 2022, with a particular focus on: a) the therapeutic group factors; b) what kind of OPGI works and for whom; c) settings and emerging dimensions. In accordance with PRISMA guidelines, we performed a systematic review on scientific databases (PsychINFO, PubMed, Web of Science and EBSCO) searching for studies published between March 2020 and March 2022. "Group intervention" or "group therapy" or "group treatment" crossed with "COVID-19" and synonymous, were used as keywords. Internet based intervention was used as an eligibility criteria during the full-text screening. A total of 1326 articles were identified, of which 24 met the inclusion criteria. Among all studies, with different participants and different orientations, data extracted supported psychological online group interventions as an effective approach to reducing psychological distress and increasing psychological resources in the interpersonal field. Our findings also showed that COVID-19 has led to new needs and issues, that require the investigation of new dimensions for online psychological interventions. Methodological and clinical implications will be discussed through a descriptive table related to setting characteristics. Recommendations are made for future research
Unitas Multiplex. Biological architectures of consciousness
Full text linkThe so-called Posthuman question - the birth of organisms generated by the encounter of biological and artificial entities (humanoid robots, cyborgs and so on) – is now on the agenda of science and, more generally, of contemporary society. This is an issue of enormous importance, which not only poses ethical questions but also, and above all, methodological questions about how it will be achieved on a scientific plane. How such entities will be born and what their functions will be? For example, what kind of consciousness will they be equipped with, in view of the function of consciousness for distinguishing the Self from others, which is the foundation of the interactive life of relationships? Many scholars believe that rapid technological progress will lead to the emergence of organisms that will simulate the functions of the mind, learn from their experiences, decode real-world information, and plan their actions and choices based on their own values elaborated from vast amounts of data and metadata. In the not-too-distant future, it is believed that these entities will acquire awareness and, consequently, decisional freedom, and perhaps even their own unique morals. In this paper, we try to show that the path towards this goal cannot avoid clarification of the problems that neuroscience has ahead of it. These problems concern: a) the way in which consciousness comes about on the basis of well-defined brain processes; b) how it represents its own organization and not a simple brain function; c) how simultaneously contains multiple distinct contents, each with its own intentionality; d) how it expresses dynamic evolutionary relations and not a set of phenomena that may be isolated; e) finally, how its order is not rigidly hierarchical, but is supported by a multiplicity of horizontal levels, each of which is in structural and functional continuum with different phenomenal events. The empirical and theoretical research effort on this topic provides an intensive contribution to the development of IC Technologies
The Dark Side of Rationality. Does Universal Moral Grammar Exist?
No full textOver a century ago, psychoanalysis created an unprecedented challenge: to show that the effects of the unconscious are more powerful than those of consciousness. In an inverted scheme at present time, neurosciences challenge psychoanalysis with experimental and clinical models that are clarifying crucial aspects of the human mind. Freud himself loved to say that psychological facts do not fluctuate in the air and that perhaps one day, biologists and psychoanalysts would give a common explanation for psychic processes. Today, the rapid development of neuroimaging methods has ushered in a new season of research. Crucial questions are becoming more apparent. For instance, how can the brain generate conscious states? Does consciousness only involve limited area of the brain? These are insistent questions in a time where the tendency of neuroscience to naturalize our relationship life is ever more urgent. Consequently, these questions are also pressing: Does morality originate in the brain? Can we still say “being free” or freedom? Why does morality even exist? Lastly, is there a biologically founded universal morality? This paper will try to demonstrate how neurophysiology itself shows the implausibility of a universal morality
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Accogliere l’intruso. Integrazione psichica e funzione riflessiva nei pazienti sottoposti a trapianto di organi solidi
Full text linkLe recenti evidenze scientifiche nell’ambito della salute mentale della popolazione dei riceventi trapianti hanno evidenziato un aumento del rischio psicopatologico al netto delle tutele legislative e delle risorse profuse nella valutazione dell’idoneità e nella prevenzione della non-adherence medica. In questo lavoro viene analizzata la dimensione intrapsichica del Sé come matrice psico-corporea, derivata dal processo di graduale maturazione dell’apparato psichico verso la differenziazione dal mondo oggettuale. Da questo vertice, su questa dimensione si iscriverebbe l’esperienza critica del trapianto, in qualità di frattura dell’unità psico-somatica su cui si fondano le rappresentazioni del Sé in funzione di includere un oggetto estraneo nell’organizzazione dell’immagine corporea. In questo elaborato è stata ricostruita la letteratura psicoanalitica in merito all’integrazione d’organo e al rigetto psicologico, derivata dai maggiori autori che hanno avviato le loro ricerche e il loro impegno clinico in concomitanza con gli esordi della chirurgia trapiantologica, fino ad approdare alle più recenti evidenze nel campo della mentalizzazione, dove obiettivo primario è valutare e potenziare la capacità di integrare gli affetti, promuovendo una rappresentazione interna stabile e un senso coerente di Sé. Il presente lavoro di ricerca ha voluto presentare due studi quantitativi strutturati alla luce delle premesse teoriche esposte, che ha coinvolto N = 117 trapiantati di organi solidi: il primo studio consiste nella proposta di uno strumento self-report tradotto in italiano, il Transplanted Organ Questionnaire, volto ad indagare le rappresentazioni del trapianto e il rischio di rigetto psicologico; per tale questionario, unico nel suo genere e finora non disponibile in Italia, viene valutata anche la validità predittiva confrontandolo con dimensioni di salute mentale. Il secondo studio persegue l’obiettivo di estendere le conoscenze sul tema dell’adherence in rapporto alla funzione riflessiva, considerata come fattore protettivo attraverso analisi di regressione multipla gerarchica e di interazione. I risultati ottenuti sono stati, in conclusione, oggetto di riflessione in considerazione delle ripercussioni cliniche e spunti di innovazione perseguibili
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Modal Structure and Altered States of Consciousness
No full textAlthough it is a familiar experience for everyone, in the vast majority of cases we discover the importance of consciousness only when in front of someone who no longer appears to possess it: someone ‘absent’, with their eyes fixed in the void, while the heart beats vigorously and their muscle tone is intact; or a patient with a psycho-organic syndrome or brain trauma, who is awake, even alert, but no longer in contact with the surrounding environment. Despite the fact that millions of people around the world enter and leave the state of consciousness every day, neurophysiological and clinical knowledge about consciousness is still far from forming a coherent scientific corpus. In fact, nowadays, there is no general shared definition of an altered state of consciousness. In this paper we propose a structured model of the phenomenon of consciousness, viewed as a multivariate combination of independent factors, which includes the variations and transitions of consciousness from a normal state of wakefulness to a psychopathological condition (with discrete deviations in subjective experience), and to severe clinical-neurological pictures
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