scholarly journals SITUATIONISM, RESPONSIBILITY, AND FAIR OPPORTUNITY

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 121-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
David O. Brink
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
Good Case ◽  
Low Incidence ◽  
Situational Pressures

AbstractThe situationist literature in psychology claims that conduct is not determined by character and reflects the operation of the agent's situation or environment. For instance, due to situational factors, compassionate behavior is much less common than we might have expected from people we believe to be compassionate. This article focuses on whether situationism should revise our beliefs about moral responsibility. It assesses the implications of situationism against the backdrop of a conception of responsibility that is grounded in norms about the fair opportunity to avoid wrongdoing that require that agents to be normatively competent and possess situational control. Despite the low incidence of compassionate behavior revealed in situationist studies, situationism threatens neither situational control nor normative competence. Nonetheless situationism may force revision of our views about responsibility in particular contexts, such as wartime wrongdoing. Whereas a good case can be made that the heat of battle can create situational pressures that significantly impair normative competence and thus sometimes provide a full or partial excuse, there is reason to be skeptical of attempts to generalize this excuse to other contexts of wartime wrongdoing. If so, moral responsibility can take situationism on board without capsizing the boat.

Broke people, broken rules: Explaining welfare fraud investigators’ attributions

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-46
Author(s):  
Spencer Headworth
Keyword(s):  
Situational Factors ◽  
The Other ◽  
Us States ◽  
Normative Function ◽  
Rule Breaking ◽  
Welfare Fraud ◽  
Normative Factors ◽  
Dispositional Factors ◽  
Situational Pressures ◽  
Time And Energy

There is a notable contrast between welfare clients’ and welfare fraud investigators’ accounts of rule breaking behaviors. Clients describe some actions (or inactions) that constitute rule violations as accidental, and tend to attribute others to situational factors: program rules’ complexity, the exigencies of day-to-day subsistence, and time and energy limitations. Fraud investigators, on the other hand, are comparatively likely to identify rule breaking as deliberate and cite clients’ dispositions to explain the behavior. In part, this disparity reflects the “fundamental attribution error,” the tendency to overestimate dispositional factors’ role in driving others’ behavior. However, evidence from interviews with welfare fraud workers from five US states reveals the impactful administrative and normative factors that encourage them to make and assert attributions of intentionality and dispositional motivation. First, administrative priorities foreground intentional violations: federal authorities financially incentivize deliberate fraud charges, and managers favor these cases, which permit client suspensions and disqualifications. Second, emphasizing internal motivations over situational pressures serves a valuable normative function, establishing punished clients’ blameworthiness and thus defending the legitimacy of both individual fraud workers and the units they compose. These findings demonstrate how policy structures and enforcement practices do not just respond to blameworthy or legally culpable behavior, but help construct narratives of blameworthiness and culpability.

Excusing Perpetrators

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Talbert ◽  
Jessica Wolfendale
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Military Personnel ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Moral Luck ◽  
Situational Pressures ◽  
Moral Blame

Chapter 4 turns to the issue of perpetrators’ moral responsibility. We consider various arguments for the conclusion that perpetrators have access to excuses allowing them to avoid moral blame for their actions. For example, some philosophers have argued that, as a result of situational pressures, it is often unreasonable to expect military personnel to accurately assess the moral status of their behavior and so it is often unfair to blame perpetrators for their wrongdoing. Concerns about moral luck might also suggest that perpetrators are not open to moral blame: if it is a matter of bad luck that military personnel are exposed to pressures that lead them to act as they do, then perhaps it is unfair to blame them for their actions.

scholarly journals EXPLORING THE WHISTLEBLOWING INTENTION

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-80
Author(s):  
Muhamad Naufal ◽  
Alfira Sofia ◽  
Ida Farida Adi Prawira ◽  
R. Nelly Nur Apandi
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
Sample Collection ◽  
Senior Year ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Research Organizations ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The City ◽  
Research Type ◽  
Whistleblowing Intention

This study’s goal is to understand how individual and situational factors influencing the employee’s psychological condition, which can impact the decision in conducting whistleblowing. This research type is descriptive qualitative. This study sample was the senior year students in the city of Bandung, Indonesia, who were undergoing the internship process with the purposive sampling sample collection technique. This research shows that employee sights materiality and advantages by doing the whistleblowing. Even if their whistleblowing result is not a success and gets the consequences, but they believe that they had done something right by doing the whistleblowing because of their moral responsibility. Through this research, organizations can get a new perspective in preparing a whistleblowing system, culture, and atmosphere that is suitable for whistleblowers so that the company will be more protected from possible frauds. This study has limitations on the theory used in looking at aspects that affect individuals in conducting whistleblowing. This research can be developed by looking at other elements that are also related to determining an individual’s intention in doing whistleblowing since human is a complex creature. Also, different participants in the research would give the possibility of different answers to this study.

Weighing dispositional and situational factors in accounting for suicide terrorism

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Funder
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Suicide Terrorism ◽  
Situational Pressures ◽  
Underlying Pathology

AbstractLankford's book makes the important point that analyses of suicide terrorists often commit the error of overestimating the importance of situational causes of behavior and underestimating dispositional causes, such as underlying pathology. Personality and individual differences are important; suicide terrorists are not ordinary people driven by situational pressures. However, citation of empirical evidence is haphazard; the scholarly argument is not well-developed.

Life Beyond 1MeV

1980 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 30-33
Author(s):  
K.H. Westmacott
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
The Other ◽  
Good Case ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The U.S

Life beyond 1MeV – like life after 40 – is not too different unless one takes advantage of past experience and is receptive to new opportunities. At first glance, the returns on performing electron microscopy at voltages greater than 1MeV diminish rather rapidly as the curves which describe the well-known advantages of HVEM often tend towards saturation. However, in a country with a significant HVEM capability, a good case can be made for investing in instruments with a range of maximum accelerating voltages. In this regard, the 1.5MeV KRATOS HVEM being installed in Berkeley will complement the other 650KeV, 1MeV, and 1.2MeV instruments currently operating in the U.S. One other consideration suggests that 1.5MeV is an optimum voltage machine – Its additional advantages may be purchased for not much more than a 1MeV instrument. On the other hand, the 3MeV HVEM's which seem to be operated at 2MeV maximum, are much more expensive.

Multiple Perspectives on the Barriers to Identification and Management of Pediatric Voice Disorders

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-56
Author(s):  
Jana Childes ◽  
Alissa Acker ◽  
Dana Collins
Keyword(s):  
Academic Success ◽  
Voice Disorders ◽  
School Personnel ◽  
Voice Disorder ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Vocal Qualities ◽  
High Prevalence ◽  
Pediatric Populations ◽  
Low Incidence ◽  
University Settings

Pediatric voice disorders are typically a low-incidence population in the average caseload of clinicians working within school and general clinic settings. This occurs despite evidence of a fairly high prevalence of childhood voice disorders and the multiple impacts the voice disorder may have on a child's social development, the perception of the child by others, and the child's academic success. There are multiple barriers that affect the identification of children with abnormal vocal qualities and their access to services. These include: the reliance on school personnel, the ability of parents and caretakers to identify abnormal vocal qualities and signs of misuse, the access to specialized medical services for appropriate diagnosis, and treatment planning and issues related to the Speech-Language Pathologists' perception of their skills and competence regarding voice management for pediatric populations. These barriers and possible solutions to them are discussed with perspectives from the school, clinic and university settings.

Carotid endarterectomy following thrombolysis for acute ischaemic stroke

VASA ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naz Ahmed ◽  
Damian Kelleher ◽  
Manmohan Madan ◽  
Sarita Sochart ◽  
George A. Antoniou
Keyword(s):  
Ischaemic Stroke ◽  
Carotid Endarterectomy ◽  
Acute Ischaemic Stroke ◽  
Intravenous Thrombolysis ◽  
Hospital Length ◽  
Hospital Length Of Stay ◽  
Wound Complications ◽  
Cardiac Complications ◽  
High Dependency ◽  
Low Incidence

Abstract. Background: Insufficient evidence exists to support the safety of carotid endarterectomy (CEA) following intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) for acute ischaemic stroke. Our study aimed to report a single-centre experience of patients treated over a five-year period. Patients and methods: Departmental computerised databases were interrogated to identify patients who suffered an ischaemic stroke and subsequently underwent thrombolysis followed by CEA. Mortality and stroke within 30 days of surgery were defined as the primary outcome end points. Results: Over a five-year period, 177 out of a total of 679 carotid endarterectomies (26 %) were performed in patients presenting with acute ischaemic stroke. Twenty-five patients (14 %) received IVT prior to CEA in the form of alteplase. Sixty percent of patients were male with a mean age of 68 years. Sixteen patients (64 %) underwent CEA within 14 days of IVT and the median interval between thrombolysis and CEA was 7.5 days (range, 3–50 days). One female patient died of a further intraoperative stroke within 30 days of surgery, yielding a mortality rate of 4 %. Two patients (8 %) suffered from cardiac complications postoperatively resulting in a short high dependency unit stay. Another two patients (8 %) developed local wound complications, which were managed conservatively without the need for re-operation. The median hospital length of stay was 4.5 days (range, 1–33 days). Conclusions: Our experience indicates that CEA post-thrombolysis has a low incidence of mortality. Further high quality evidence is required before CEA can be routinely recommended following IVT for acute ischaemic stroke.

Implicit Association Test: Separating Transsituationally Stable and Variable Components of Attitudes toward Gay Men

2003 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie C. Steffens ◽  
Axel Buchner
Keyword(s):  
Gay Men ◽  
Implicit Association Test ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Implicit Attitudes ◽  
Association Test ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
Situational Factor ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Implicit Attitude ◽  
Implicit Association

Implicit attitudes are conceived of as formed in childhood, suggesting extreme stability. At the same time, it has been shown that implicit attitudes are influenced by situational factors, suggesting variability by the moment. In the present article, using structural equation modeling, we decomposed implicit attitudes towards gay men into a person factor and a situational factor. The Implicit Association Test ( Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998 ), introduced as an instrument with which individual differences in implicit attitudes can be measured, was used. Measurement was repeated after one week (Experiment 1) or immediately (Experiment 2). Explicit attitudes towards gay men as assessed by way of questionnaires were positive and stable across situations. Implicit attitudes were relatively negative instead. Internal consistency of the implicit attitude assessment was exemplary. However, the within-situation consistency was accompanied by considerable unexplained between-situation variability. Consequently, it may not be adequate to interpret an individual implicit attitude measured at a given point in time as a person-related, trait-like factor.

Situational Factors Competing for Attention

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weiyu Zhang ◽  
Se-Hoon Jeong ◽  
Martin Fishbein†
Keyword(s):  
Task Performance ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
Sexual Content ◽  
Sexually Explicit ◽  
Explicit Content ◽  
Audio Information

This study investigates how multitasking interacts with levels of sexually explicit content to influence an individual’s ability to recognize TV content. A 2 (multitasking vs. nonmultitasking) by 3 (low, medium, and high sexual content) between-subjects experiment was conducted. The analyses revealed that multitasking not only impaired task performance, but also decreased TV recognition. An inverted-U relationship between degree of sexually explicit content and recognition of TV content was found, but only when subjects were multitasking. In addition, multitasking interfered with subjects’ ability to recognize audio information more than their ability to recognize visual information.

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