Students or medical professionals: whose knowledge improved after social-medicine training? Results from a quasi-experimental evaluation study

Purpose Rehabilitation professionals are faced with judging and describing the social-medicine status of their patients. Rehabilitation professionals must know the core concepts of acute unfitness for work, psychological capacities, and long-term work capacity. Acquiring and applying this knowledge, requires training. The research question is if and to what extent medical professionals and students’ knowledge changes after social medicine training. Methods This quasi-experimental study was carried out in the real-life context of social medicine training. Psychology students (n = 42), physicians/psychotherapists (i.e. state-licensed health professionals) (n = 44) and medical assistant professionals (n = 29) were trained. Their social medicine knowledge was measured before and after training by a 10-min expert-approved and content valid knowledge questionnaire. Three free-text questions had to be answered on the essential aspects of present and prognostic work ability and psychological capacities. Answers were rated for correctness by two experts. Paired t tests and variance analysis have been calculated for group comparisons. Results All groups improved their social medicine knowledge from the pre- to the post-test. The students started with the lowest level of knowledge in the pre-test. After training, 69% of the physicians/psychotherapists and 56.8% of the medical assistant professionals, but only 7% of the students, obtained maximum scores for naming psychological capacities. Conclusions Social medicine knowledge increased after a training course consisting of eight lessons. The increase was greater for medical assistant professionals and physicians/psychotherapists than for students. Social medicine training must be adjusted to the trainee groups’ knowledge levels.

Some Methodological Issues in Neuroethics: The Case of Responsibility and Psychopathy

There are some distinct methodological challenges, and possible pitfalls, for neuroethics when it evaluates neuroscientific results and links them to issues such as moral or legal responsibility. Some problems emerge in determining the requirements for responsibility. We will show how philosophical proposals in this area need to interact with legal doctrine and practice. Problems can occur when inferring normative implications from neuroscientific results. Other problems arise when it is not recognized that data about brain anatomy or physiology are relevant to the ascription of responsibility only when they are significantly correlated with the psychological capacities contemplated by the legal formulations of responsibility. We will demonstrate this by considering two significant cases concerning psychopathy. Some paradigms that aim at measuring higher-order capacities, such as moral understanding, have limited validity. More robust paradigms for the study of learning in restricted controlled conditions, on the other hand, have limited ecological validity across individuals and context to be of any use for the law.

Managing Your Screen Time

The screen as a computer, mobile phone, tablet or television is a piece of present day life. Expanded screen time is related with heftiness, pernicious impacts on temperament and subjective and socio-enthusiastic advancement, prompting poor instructive execution in kids and thus ought to be diminished to 1-2 hours per day. Drawn out TV seeing brings down psychological capacities, particularly identified with momentary memory, early reading and math aptitudes and language development. Gaming animates outrage, viciousness, weight, epilepsy and social segregation in kids and teenagers. Enjoying over the top on line shopping is a type of web enslavement and has been named as Pathological purchasing and has a hidden patho-physiology of delight chasing or departure of negative feelings and intellectual instruments like impulsivity, disappointment in self-guideline, or basic leadership deficiencies. Extreme utilization of social networking sites like Facebook and texting Apps like WhatsApp has prompted compulsion causing well-being impacts as headache, low backache, obesity, burning eyes, insomnia, exhaustion, lowers self-esteem and causes depression. This review article examined the different well-being impacts of the expanding screen time in the cutting edge time and prescribes screen time to be constrained to 1-2 hours in a day and a break from the 'screen' during weekends and family travels

The quest of finding the self in the Bedhaya: Unravelling the psychological significance of the Javanese sacred dance

The Bedhaya is the avant-garde of Yogyakarta and Surakarta (Java, Indonesia) court dance. This classical dance replete with Javanese symbols, spirituality and cultural values embedded in its aesthetic elements. Furthermore, the Bedhaya was created not for entertainment but rather as a meditative medium that would allow individuals to gain wisdom and higher consciousness. These noble characteristics of the dance suggest that the Bedhaya has psychological purposes for the performers and the spectators. We may gain insight into the process of attaining mental growth through studying the embodied wisdom and aesthetic ideal of the Bedhaya, which reflects the development of the human’s psyche. Therefore, the author proposes an interpretation of Bedhaya’s underlying symbolism, aesthetic experience, and potential as means of psychological growth. The paper’s primary argument is delivered by studying a set of theoretical ideas that present Bedhaya as a distinguished aesthetic with psychological capacities. Further, art as an embodiment of cultural wisdom and ethics is also discussed by connecting Bedhaya and other artistic forms drawn from varied cultures.

Discourse module in mind: a biolinguistical hypothesis of macro-structure

Theoretical linguistics embraces the analytic micro-system of representation as the core of language ability, and thus deals primarily with the computations of phonology, morphology, and syntax for structural processes. Looking into recent progress in human biology, however, there have been continuous indications that the internalized language is organized for creating structural sequences larger than phrases and sentences. Research on the right cerebrum of the brain, for example, shows its neurological tasks for composing a coherent story while the studies of individuals with deficits in underpinning genotypes reveal disruptions in constructing narratives. Moreover, investigations of human evolution are compelled to acknowledge a mysterious gap in psychological capacities of Homo sapiens and their later descendant, Homo sapiens sapiens, implicating a distinct stage of the language origin beyond syntax. What all these pieces of neurobiological evidence suggest is that humans have been bestowed an inherent linguistic capability for computing the synthetic macro-system of representation.

Suffering and Moral Status

It is a common claim in debates about abortion and the killing of animals that individuals, such as foetuses and non-human animals, that have psychological capacities significantly lower than those of adult human persons also have a moral status lower than that of persons. And those who defend this claim typically assume that it implies that the moral constraint against killing a foetus or animal is, if other things are equal, weaker than the constraint against killing a person. Many of these same people also claim, however, that the difference in moral status makes no difference to the strength of the constraint against causing suffering. They argue that the reason not to cause suffering to an individual who neither deserves nor is liable to be caused to suffer is equally strong whatever the nature or moral status of the potential victim is. There is, however, a type of individual whose psychological capacities and moral status are such that it is plausible to believe that the reason not to cause them to suffer is weaker than the reason not to cause equivalent suffering to a person. Most non-human animals are psychologically intermediate between these low-status individuals and persons. This raises the question, which is explored in this chapter, whether most animals have an intermediate moral status that makes their suffering matter more than that of the low-status individuals but less than that of persons.

Silent Scream of Malaysian Elderly: A Case Study in Noble Care Ageing Centres

Ageing is a normal biotic process, which ultimately reaches to every human being. The transitioning of young adult to older people may result as reduction of social, physiological and psychological capacities that bring social and health threats for the older population. The rich tradition of dignified ageing is exceedingly wearied away in developing countries, including Malaysia. The primary purpose of this research is to provide a snapshot of what it means to be living with chronic disease in Malaysia. This study was conducted in Klang Valley, Malaysia, due to the paucity of research in this area. The present study demonstrates the true stories of elderly associated with their physical, psychological and social experiences regarding immediate surroundings, friends, family and the society residing in Noble Care Malaysia, which is an established welfare and human services organisation, helping the deserving members of society. The qualitative research methodology is adopted, and an in-depth life history technique has been used for a deeper picture of the elderly’s memories and experience. The data is collected through five in-depth life history’s narrative of the elderly with chronic diseases. The study explains the true stories of the elderly in connection to familial neglection and abandonment for social awareness about ageing and older citizen feelings. Thus, it is imperative to keep the senior citizen self-esteem positive, along with the mental and physical activity. However, most importantly, the respect and mutual understanding between older citizen and the younger generation are getting worsen which need to be sustained harmoniously. This paper proposes some necessary measures to be addressed for graceful, proactive and gracious ageing.

The limits of the neuroscience of moral responsibility

The findings of the neuroscientist Benjamin Libet are among the most discussed in moral philosophy. They present a clear challenge to the notion of intentional action as a consciously chosen action. According to them, the awareness of the decision to act by the subjects of his studies came only after the moment of preparedness of the action in our brains, called “readiness potential”. Many, including Libet, saw these results as an evidence that we do not have free will nor moral responsibility. The aim of this article is to criticize the claim that moral responsibility would be in danger because of the Libet’s findings. First, the concept of free will as intentional action will be explained in order to understand how the notion of being conscious in deciding when and how to act is relevant. Then, the findings from Libet’s experiments and the argument of how they could be a challenge to the notions of free will and of moral responsibility are presented. At the end, it will be argued that the notion of moral responsibility involves more than psychological capacities, but, foremost, the attribution of social roles in a moral community.

Mental work ability: young professionals with mental health problems perceive lower levels of soft skills

This article published in Gruppe Interaktion Organisation (GIO) reports study results on soft skills and mental work ability in young professionals ready to enter the job market. The so-called soft skills (psychological capacities) are nowadays an entrance ticket into the modern working world. Thus, the question is to which degree young professionals who will soon enter the labor market are fit in their soft skills. Are physical or mental health problems related with deficits in soft skills? Which dimensions of soft skills are impaired?365 young professionals in advanced education from a technical college, who will soon enter the labor market, were investigated via online-questionnaire. Participants were asked to rate their self-perceived capacity level according to Mini-ICF-APP, mental and physical health problems, exam and education-related anxiety, self-efficacy and procrastination.Students with mental health problems had higher exam anxiety, and lower study-related self-efficacy as compared to students without health problems at all, or students with physical health problems. But, procrastination behavior was similarly present among students with mental health problems and students with physical health problems. Students with health problems did not report globally weaker capacity levels. Lower levels of capacities depend on the type of health problem: In students with mental health problems, social soft skills were impaired rather than content-related capacities. Physical health problems do not affect the self-perceived psychological capacities.In conclusion, focusing on specific soft skills in training and work adjustment could be fruitful in addition (or as an alternative) to training of profession-specific expertise.

Theory Before the Test: How to Build High-Verisimilitude Explanatory Theories in Psychological Science

Drawing on the philosophy of psychological explanation, we suggest that psychological science, by focusing on effects, may lose sight of its primary explananda: psychological capacities. We revisit Marr’s levels-of-analysis framework, which has been remarkably productive and useful for cognitive psychological explanation. We discuss ways in which Marr’s framework may be extended to other areas of psychology, such as social, developmental, and evolutionary psychology, bringing new benefits to these fields. We then show how theoretical analyses can endow a theory with minimal plausibility even before contact with empirical data: We call this the theoretical cycle. Finally, we explain how our proposal may contribute to addressing critical issues in psychological science, including how to leverage effects to understand capacities better.