Recipes for Happiness: a Proposal for Analysing the Moral Orientation of Actions and Emotions

This paper draws up a proposal for analysing discourses on paths to happiness. Recipes promoted by the happiness industry are studied as moral guidelines for social action: imperative messages spread through the Internet seek to guide their recipients in their quest for happiness. In a fielddominated by positive psychology, we approach happiness from a sociological perspective, which is to say as: an institutionalised social discourse; a form of social production; a socially-framed emotion. Research is based on systematic Internet observation and on quantitative and qualitative textual analysis procedures. We show how digital media in the ‘happiness’ field: (a) promotes recipes; (b) provides scientific legitimation for said recipes; (c) focuses on a generic individual as the recipient of the messages and as protagonist. A typology is proposed based on the meaning, nature and object of the actions that lead to happiness. Results show how recipes involve normative and moral orientations of actions and emotions: they indicate what to do and how to think andfeel to be happy. Happiness as a moral obligation involves most concerns shaping the agenda of contemporary societies, with a strong emphasis on individualism and on a utilitarian understanding of social relations and the social environment.

The World Will Never Be the Same … But Will I Change? Anticipated Moral Change in Generation X Post-Corona Narratives

"In the “Letters from a Post-Corona Future” study, we asked participants to imagine a desirable world after the Corona crisis and their own place within it. In resulting narratives, any imagined that the future will not look like the past, but did they also imagine that their own moral orientation would change, that is, their stance towards what is a good human life, the norms and values deserving respect, and their moral behavior? To explore what we call “anticipated moral change”, we focused on Generation X participants (born between 1965 and 1980) since they may be sufficiently mature to have a settled moral orientation and feel concerned by the future, yet sufficiently adaptable to envision internal change. A total of 64 letters from 11 countries were examined. We used concepts from narrative ethics and futures studies to investigate whether anticipated moral change was present in the letters, and if so, in what direction. We identified six categories of anticipated moral change, from radical moral innovation to daily behavior change. We analyzed how these changes were depicted (e.g., metaphors, modals, idiomatic expressions, narrated futures), felt, justified or evaluated. Results consider the forward-looking moral self-perception of participants in terms of daily behavior, emotions, thoughts, self-advice, norms, values, ideals, images, and dreams, thus contribudting to a better understanding of prospective moral change in times of health crisis. We further conceptualized two important categories of change: the inclusion of personal change into collective moral change and renewed moral awareness. "

What became of the ‘eyes and the ears’?: exploring the challenges to reporting poor quality of care among trainee medical staff

The importance of trainee medical staff in alerting Trusts to patient safety risks and low-quality care was established by the Francis Report, yet many remain hesitant about speaking up. Known barriers include lack of feedback, sceptical attitudes to the likelihood of change and fear of consequences. The author explores other factors including moral orientation in the workplace, role modelling by senior clinicians, discontinuity, ‘normalisation of deviance’, human reactions to burnout/moral injury, loyalty and the spectrum of motivation. The issues of absent feedback and fear are discussed in detail. Challenges met by those receiving reports are also described, such as how to collate soft intelligence, putting concerns into context (the ‘bigger picture’) and stewardship of resources. Initiatives to encourage reporting of trainees’ concerns such as speak up guardians, ‘Speak Up for Safety’ campaign and simulation training are described. A proposal to embed proactive intelligence-gathering arrangements is presented.

Prosocial correlates of transformative experience at secular multi-day mass gatherings

For millennia, humans have sought out experiences that dissolve, transcend, or change their sense of self. Such experiences are frequently associated with participation in mass gatherings such as festivals or pilgrimages, and are thought to be epistemically and personally transformative. By weakening the boundary between the self and others, such transformative experiences may lead to enduring changes in moral orientation, such as increased generosity and an expanded circle of moral regard (“moral expansion”). Here we investigated the nature of transformative experiences and their prosocial correlates at multi-day mass gatherings by studying participants before (n = 600), during (n = 1,217), 0-4 weeks after (n = 1,866), and 6 months after (n = 710) they attended a variety of secular, multi-day mass gatherings in the US and UK. Transformative experiences at mass gatherings were self-reported as common, increased over time, and characterized by increased feelings of social connectedness. We observed high levels of generosity at mass gatherings, but generosity onsite was unrelated to transformative experience and did not increase over time. Meanwhile, participants’ moral circle expanded with every passing day spent at mass gatherings, an effect mediated by transformative experience and social connectedness. Immediately and six months following event attendance, self-reported transformative experience persisted and predicted both generosity and moral expansion. The nature of transformative experience and its prosocial correlates did not depend on whether event norms were communal or market-based. These findings characterize the psychological nature of transformative experience at secular mass gatherings and highlight how these experiences may be associated with lasting changes in moral orientation.

DINAMIKA PENALARAN MORAL REMAJA YANG MENGIKUTI MENTORING AGAMA ISLAM DI KOTA BANDA ACEH

This study aims to determine the dynamics of moral reasoning among adolescents who take part in the Islamic mentoring program in Banda Aceh. This study used a case study qualitative approach involving six research subjects from 3 high schools in Banda Aceh who had participated in Islamic mentoring for more than one year. The data collection methods used was interviews, observation and FGD. The data analysis used is thematic analysis. The results of this study shows that the moral reasoning of six research subjects has been at the level of post conventional moral reasoning, social contract orientation stage of legality and moral orientation with universal ethical principles. Dynamic moral reasoning in the six subjects is formed from several factors, namely religious education from parents, religious education in schools especially the mentoring programs, curriculum and mentoring implementation methods, length of time for implementing mentoring, mentoring environment, and continuity of mentoring or length of time following mentoring.

SPIRITUAL AND MORAL DIRECTION OF THE EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF VOLUNTEERS AT LEISURE AND RECREATION SITES

Представлены теоретические основания организации волонтерской деятельности студентов – будущих педагогов для решения задач духовно-нравственного воспитания детей и подростков на площадках досуга и отдыха. Обоснована специфика воспитательной деятельности духовно-нравственной направленности, конкретизированы цель и результат данной деятельности с учетом возможных ограничений, выделены виды и формы совместной деятельности детей и волонтеров, позволяющие инициировать духовные усилия воспитанников на самоанализ деятельности и поведения. Данные теоретические положения прошли практическую проверку и доказали свою результативность в рамках проекта «Ребята с нашего двора», который реализуется в течение пяти лет студентами Соликамского государственного педагогического института (филиала) ФГБОУ ВО «ПГНИУ». The article raises the question of finding effective forms and means of overcoming the value disorientation of the younger generation. As a solution to this problem, the author proposes to use the volunteer resource of student youth, to attract future teachers to work with children’s associations of different ages at leisure and recreation sites. The content, purpose, objectives, methods and forms of interaction between volunteers and children at such sites determine the spiritual and moral orientation of their joint activities. To understand the specifics of such social practice, the author of the article presented the rationale for the peculiarities of educational activities of a spiritual and moral orientation, concretized the pedagogical goals and the result of this activity, taking into account possible restrictions, methods of selecting specific types and forms of interaction between children and volunteers, which allow initiating the spiritual efforts of pupils to self-analysis of activities and behavior, to motivate them to choose creative ways of self-realization. These theoretical propositions have been tested in practice and have proven their effectiveness within the framework of the “Guys from Our Yard” project, which has been implemented for five years by students of the Solikamsk State Pedagogical Institute (branch) of the Perm State National Research University. The materials proposed in the article can be used by volunteer associations, student pedagogical teams for organizing educational activities of a spiritual and moral orientation at leisure and recreation sites (or in working conditions with children’s associations of different ages at the place of residence).

Spontaneous Dramatization as Dialogical Space in the School Context

The use of dramatization as teaching/learning methodology, useful for the improvement of social, emotional, creative skills, and for the acquisition of knowledge on subject matters such as history, is an established field of research and practice. Yet, there are very few studies on children’s spontaneous dramatization in educational context and its potential role in development. The term dramatization, as we will use here, refers to the human activity of staging in narrative and ritualistic form, enacted through the whole person and multiple channels, communicative and self-presentation meanings. The school context is a privileged arena to observe spontaneous dramatization between peers and between children and adults. Besides, school everyday routine is often filled with staged dramatizations aimed for instance at building collective identity or providing moral orientation. We propose a new theoretical framework and analyse field observation in kindergarten and primary school to interpret spontaneous dramatization and collective school routines.

Fazekas Mihály költői és szerkesztői munkásságának folklór és populáris irodalmi kapcsolataihoz

The article aims to assess the social and mentalistic history of the Debreczeni Magyar Kalendáriom (“Hungarian Calendar of Debrecen”), edited by Mihály Fazekas for ten years, based upon its short prose texts. The predecessors of the stories in the calendar are mostly German literary texts, or they were taken over from German calendars and anecdote collections, most of which were parables. The majority of the texts belong to the genres of anecdote, but there are also fables, paramyths, short story tales, jokes and crime stories. The purpose behind rewriting the texts in a parable form was to educate the readers to have a practical point of view, as well as to help them with moral orientation. The ideology of Volklsaufklärung is behind the writing of the texts. Fazekas’s knowledge of German literature also takes us closer to the source of his masterwork, Lúdas Matyi, an epic poem. At the turn of the 19th-20th century positivist and literary historical researches connected the work with literary predecessors. The work having a peasant oral tradition would have suited better the Marxist approach in the 1950s, which tried to focus the understanding of the work to the plebeian-patrician conflict, however, only one folklore data was collected to support their claim. The article argues that the story had various written versions in Hungary and Europe in Fazekas’s age, and Fazekas willingly borrowed from contemporary literary pieces and popular readings, thus the written origin cannot be excluded. At the same time, the written sources may indicate the presence of the story in oral form, therefore it is not unlikely that the author might have heard it at one of his posts.