Changes in the Centurion on Paul’s Last Journey to Rome in Acts 27

Author(s):  
Sin Pan Ho

This article argues that Luke intends to delineate the changes of social distance between the character “centurion” and Paul throughout the voyage in Acts 27. The social location of the centurion consistently moves from outsiders towards the group “we” in the narrative. The story functions as a thought experiment for first readers to encourage them to establish trusting relations with Roman officials in times of trial. It conveys Luke’s commission to the first readers for gospel witness..

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leigh Wilton ◽  
Diana T. Sanchez ◽  
Lisa Giamo

Biracial individuals threaten the distinctiveness of racial groups because they have mixed-race ancestry, but recent findings suggest that exposure to biracial-labeled, racially ambiguous faces may positively influence intergroup perception by reducing essentialist thinking among Whites ( Young, Sanchez, & Wilton, 2013 ). However, biracial exposure may not lead to positive intergroup perceptions for Whites who are highly racially identified and thus motivated to preserve the social distance between racial groups. We exposed Whites to racially ambiguous Asian/White biracial faces and measured the perceived similarity between Asians and Whites. We found that exposure to racially ambiguous, biracial-labeled targets may improve perceptions of intergroup similarity, but only for Whites who are less racially identified. Results are discussed in terms of motivated intergroup perception.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Allen Thornton ◽  
Miriam E. Weaverdyck ◽  
Judith Mildner ◽  
Diana Tamir

One can never know the internal workings of another person – one can only infer others’ mental states based on external cues. In contrast, each person has direct access to the contents of their own mind. Here we test the hypothesis that this privileged access shapes the way people represent internal mental experiences, such that they represent their own mental states more distinctly than the states of others. Across four studies, participants considered their own and others’ mental states; analyses measured the distinctiveness of mental state representations. Two neuroimaging studies used representational similarity analyses to demonstrate that the social brain manifests more distinct activity patterns when thinking about one’s own states versus others’. Two behavioral studies support these findings. Further, they demonstrate that people differentiate between states less as social distance increases. Together these results suggest that we represent our own mind with greater granularity than the minds of others.


Author(s):  
Simin Zou ◽  
Xuhui He

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has caused a traffic tie-up across the world. In addition to home quarantine orders and travel bans, the social distance guideline of about six feet was enacted to reduce the risk of contagion. However, with recent life gradually returning to normal, the crisis is not over. In this research, a moving train test and a Gaussian puff model were employed to investigate the impact of wind raised by a train running on the transmission and dispersion of SARS-CoV-2 from infected individuals. Our findings suggest that the 2 m social distance guideline may not be enough; under train-induced wind action, human respiratory disease-carrier droplets may travel to unexpected places. However, there are deficiencies in passenger safety guidelines and it is necessary to improve the quantitative research in the relationship between train-induced wind and virus transmission. All these findings could provide a fresh insight to contain the spread of COVID-19 and provide a basis for preventing and controlling the pandemic virus, and probe into strategies for control of the disease in the future.


2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick F. Wherry

This article extends both Viviana Zelizer's discussion of the social meaning of money and Charles Smith's proposal that pricing is a definitional practice to the under-theorized realm of the social meanings generated in the pricing system. Individuals are attributed with calculating or not calculating whether an object or service is “worth” its price, but these attributions differ according to the individual's social location as being near to or far from a societal reference point rather than by the inherent qualities of the object or service purchased. Prices offer seemingly objective (quantitative) proof of the individual's “logic of appropriateness”—in other words, people like that pay prices such as those. This article sketches a preliminary but nonexhaustive typology of the social characterizations of individuals within the pricing system; these ideal types—the fool, the faithful, the frugal, and the frivolous—and their components offer a systematic approach to understanding prices as embedded in and constituents of social meaning systems.


2021 ◽  
pp. 014616722110027
Author(s):  
Kyle Fiore Law ◽  
Dylan Campbell ◽  
Brendan Gaesser

Is altruism always morally good, or is the morality of altruism fundamentally shaped by the social opportunity costs that often accompany helping decisions? Across four studies, we reveal that in cases of realistic tradeoffs in social distance for gains in welfare where helping socially distant others necessitates not helping socially closer others with the same resources, helping is deemed as less morally acceptable. Making helping decisions at a cost to socially closer others also negatively affects judgments of relationship quality (Study 2) and in turn, decreases cooperative behavior with the helper (Study 3). Ruling out an alternative explanation of physical distance accounting for the effects in Studies 1 to 3, social distance continued to impact moral acceptability when physical distance across social targets was matched (Study 4). These findings reveal that attempts to decrease biases in helping may have previously unconsidered consequences for moral judgments, relationships, and cooperation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 199-203
Author(s):  
Emilaine Ferreira dos Santos ◽  
Estela Iraci Rabito ◽  
Caryna Eurich Mazur ◽  
Rubia Daniela Thieme ◽  
Maria Eliana Madalozzo Schieferdecker

Home enteral nutrition (HEN) provides care for the special need for food at home. Although the majority of patients in HEN is clinically stable, support from health professionals, and monitoring and evaluation for maintenance or evolution of therapy are necessary. However, the current pandemic situation of COVID-19 and the lack of specific treatment for coronavirus infection have led to changes in the health services work routine. The social distance recommendation to contain the progress of COVID-19 interferes with the home care service. Thus, in order to provide assistance effectively and safely to the patient, family members and health professionals, adaptations can be made. Therefore, the objective of this manuscript is to discuss elements and recommendations that contribute to HEN care during the COVID-19 pandemic.


K@iros ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony ORIVAL ◽  

Social distance and social link are important in the relationships between teachers and pupils. This question deserves to be examined with a sociological eye. The aim of this book chapter is to clarify the meaning of the terms (“social distance” and “social link”) and to analyze the influences of the social distance reconfigurations on the behavior of the first towards the second. Based on interviews with secondary school teachers, this chapter aims to show how do the influences of social distance reconfigurations change or not their oral language practices.


Lexicon ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yemima Febriani ◽  
Sharifah Hanidar

This research aims to analyze the request strategies used in an American TV Series entitled Full House season 7 episodes 1-12. The main characters are family members from three different age groups (adult, teenager, and children). This research attempts to see if there is any difference on the choice of request strategies used by the three age groups. Blum-Kulka and Olshtain’s (1984) theory on request directness level is used to classify the requests. Relative power and social distance are also studied to see how they influence the characters in making their requests. The results show that mood derivable is the most frequent strategy used by all age groups. Specifically, direct request is highly used by the adult age groups. On the other hand, indirect request is mostly used by the younger age groups. The results also show that all age groups tend to use direct strategy when the social distance is negative. However, when the social distance is positive, the choice of strategy depends on the authority of the speaker.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Samuele Tonello

<p>This thesis in divided in two main parts. First, I develop the claim that current democracies are unable to properly defend what I deem the pivotal feature to evaluate the quality of a political system - namely the people’s liberty - due to what I call a twofold democratic dilemma. On the one hand, common citizens are affected by biases that compromise their ability to successfully maintain forms of self-government. On the other hand, even representative forms of democracy that limit to a certain degree the people’s power are threatened by an oligarchic power. That is, oligarchs are using their wealth power to sway governments towards pursuing oligarchic interests rather than common ones, thus hindering the people’s liberty. For this reason, I argue that we ought to rely on Pettit’s view of liberty as non-domination to resolve the democratic dilemma. The thesis conceives these two threats as two forms of domination that must be avoided and focuses on adding a supplementary editorial and contestatory dimension of democracy to the classical participatory one. Republicanism could offer a solution to both sides of the dilemma. On the one hand, citizens’ political task would be more compatible with the people’s biases, since citizens would limit their participation to control that government’s policies do not entail oligarchic domination. On the other hand, framing liberty as a battle between dominating masters and dominated slaves, republicanism could offer the many the institutional means to counteract elites’ political domination. In this way, I conclude the first part of the thesis, but this opens the gates to the main question of the thesis, namely to how we should structure this contestatory democracy. The problem is that whereas republican scholars agree on the importance of setting freedom as non-domination at the basis of our political systems, there is no such agreement on the best way to institutionally enhance the republican ideal. I analyse this debate, maintaining that while Pettitt’s ideal is the view to pursue, we should reject his editorial solution because small committees of experts are likely to increase oligarchic domination rather than to protect the people’s liberty. Rejecting Pettit’s model does not yet imply refusing any editorial model, since I argue that critical scholars mistakenly identify the editorial component of democracy with Pettit’s answer only. In this way, they neglect alternative solutions to Pettit’s, such as Bellamy’s and McCormick’s. Having explained that Bellamy’s solution does not resolve the democratic dilemma, since this scholar rejects editorial bodies, I argue that McCormick’s “Machiavellian Democracy” framed on a divided conception of the populace offers instead the solution I am looking for. Institutionally recognizing the social differences among the populace, we could create modern bodies similar to the Roman “Tribune of the Plebs” to offer the weaker part of the population a class-specific institution to use as defence from oligarchic domination. The problem is how to implement a modern “Tribune of the plebs” making sure that these bodies are effective but popular in character at the same time. I thus explain how modern editorial tribunates could work in practice, drawing from McCormick’s “thought experiment”. I agree with most of McCormick’s ideas – lottery selection, wealth threshold exclusion, large size tribunates, etc. - but I suggest that we must review some of his suggestions with features more concerned with improving the people’s knowledge – specialization, education selection, etc. Hence, I conclude the thesis describing my thought experiment of a system of Specialized Ministerial Tribunates. In this way, I argue that we could better resolve the democratic dilemma. On the one hand, tribunates’ editorship would be more specific and would not require members of the tribunate to analyse the operation of governments on a too broad spectrum, thus reducing the problems of the people’s biases. On the other hand, tribunates’ operation could be primarily connected to detecting oligarchic features in the policies enacted by single ministries, thus challenging more precisely any oligarchic influence over governments. In sum, I argue that an editorial dimension could produce significant improvements to the people’s liberty. Thanks to a modern “Tribune of the plebs”, citizens could participate more meaningfully in politics, while taming more efficiently the influence oligarchs have on how modern societies are politically directed.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Samuele Tonello

<p>This thesis in divided in two main parts. First, I develop the claim that current democracies are unable to properly defend what I deem the pivotal feature to evaluate the quality of a political system - namely the people’s liberty - due to what I call a twofold democratic dilemma. On the one hand, common citizens are affected by biases that compromise their ability to successfully maintain forms of self-government. On the other hand, even representative forms of democracy that limit to a certain degree the people’s power are threatened by an oligarchic power. That is, oligarchs are using their wealth power to sway governments towards pursuing oligarchic interests rather than common ones, thus hindering the people’s liberty. For this reason, I argue that we ought to rely on Pettit’s view of liberty as non-domination to resolve the democratic dilemma. The thesis conceives these two threats as two forms of domination that must be avoided and focuses on adding a supplementary editorial and contestatory dimension of democracy to the classical participatory one. Republicanism could offer a solution to both sides of the dilemma. On the one hand, citizens’ political task would be more compatible with the people’s biases, since citizens would limit their participation to control that government’s policies do not entail oligarchic domination. On the other hand, framing liberty as a battle between dominating masters and dominated slaves, republicanism could offer the many the institutional means to counteract elites’ political domination. In this way, I conclude the first part of the thesis, but this opens the gates to the main question of the thesis, namely to how we should structure this contestatory democracy. The problem is that whereas republican scholars agree on the importance of setting freedom as non-domination at the basis of our political systems, there is no such agreement on the best way to institutionally enhance the republican ideal. I analyse this debate, maintaining that while Pettitt’s ideal is the view to pursue, we should reject his editorial solution because small committees of experts are likely to increase oligarchic domination rather than to protect the people’s liberty. Rejecting Pettit’s model does not yet imply refusing any editorial model, since I argue that critical scholars mistakenly identify the editorial component of democracy with Pettit’s answer only. In this way, they neglect alternative solutions to Pettit’s, such as Bellamy’s and McCormick’s. Having explained that Bellamy’s solution does not resolve the democratic dilemma, since this scholar rejects editorial bodies, I argue that McCormick’s “Machiavellian Democracy” framed on a divided conception of the populace offers instead the solution I am looking for. Institutionally recognizing the social differences among the populace, we could create modern bodies similar to the Roman “Tribune of the Plebs” to offer the weaker part of the population a class-specific institution to use as defence from oligarchic domination. The problem is how to implement a modern “Tribune of the plebs” making sure that these bodies are effective but popular in character at the same time. I thus explain how modern editorial tribunates could work in practice, drawing from McCormick’s “thought experiment”. I agree with most of McCormick’s ideas – lottery selection, wealth threshold exclusion, large size tribunates, etc. - but I suggest that we must review some of his suggestions with features more concerned with improving the people’s knowledge – specialization, education selection, etc. Hence, I conclude the thesis describing my thought experiment of a system of Specialized Ministerial Tribunates. In this way, I argue that we could better resolve the democratic dilemma. On the one hand, tribunates’ editorship would be more specific and would not require members of the tribunate to analyse the operation of governments on a too broad spectrum, thus reducing the problems of the people’s biases. On the other hand, tribunates’ operation could be primarily connected to detecting oligarchic features in the policies enacted by single ministries, thus challenging more precisely any oligarchic influence over governments. In sum, I argue that an editorial dimension could produce significant improvements to the people’s liberty. Thanks to a modern “Tribune of the plebs”, citizens could participate more meaningfully in politics, while taming more efficiently the influence oligarchs have on how modern societies are politically directed.</p>


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