Motherhood Modulates Cognitive Biases Toward Family Members: the Maternal Self-concept Re-examined Through Categorization Tasks

The self-bias is a robust effect where self-related information is processed with greater priority than other-related information. Interestingly, the advantages of self-bias can be extended to close others – faster and more accurate responses for one’s mother and best friend have been observed compared to strangers – suggesting that significant others play an important role in the formation of one’s self-concept. Moreover, important life experiences such as childbirth can also impact the self-concept. Motherhood is a major transformation for women as one prepares to become a mother while maintaining the integrity of the pre-pregnant self-concept to achieve an ideal maternal self. The current study explored how the transition into motherhood changes the self-concept and subsequently impact the categorization of information for family members in postpartum mothers. In two experiments, results consistently revealed biases towards the self and close kin (one’s baby and mother) regardless of stimulus type (names in Experiment 1, faces in Experiment 2) and response category (self/other, family/non-family, familiar/non-familiar). A family bias (for baby and mother) over friend was observed in the family/non-family but not in the familiar/non-familiar categorization task, suggesting that motherhood may enhance the boundary between family and non-family to facilitate the processing of family-related information.

Implementing Co-Creation as a Policy Norm in Sweden — Steering Strategies for a Robust Municipal Organisation

Building upon findings from a strategically selected case study of a pioneering Swedish municipality, Jönköping, a participant in a Horizon2020 project on co-creating public service innovations in Europe (CoSIE), this paper illustrates how local municipalities may take a systemic approach to creating the necessary conditions for sustainable co-creation and assesses whether this illustrates an ongoing paradigmatic shift in service management and culture. The strategic change management efforts in adapting a public sector organisation to a co-creation culture, are assessed against a normative theoretical framework for such a transformative change (Finansdepartementet 2018; Torfing et al, 2016;). The study employs the concept of co-creation to highlight the paradigmatic shift in the approach to citizens as service end users from passive clients to active citizens with resources and capabilities to exert an impact on service design, delivery, and value creation. Th e article offers new insights into how a robust organisation may be moving towards a new public administration paradigm that accommodates co-creation, and especially how a new approach to management based on trust may be strategically implemented as a key factor in facilitating systemic change (Torfing et al, 2016). Against the background of a significant shortage of studies exploring how conditions for such a transformative change are created at different system levels, the article examines a longitudinal real-time study and illustrates new management approaches, strategies, and tools used. The study also contributes a normative framework to explore a shift to more trust-based steering and a more nuanced explanation of an ongoing managerial shift towards a ‘co-creation’ paradigm. It argues that achieving trust-based steering has major potential to facilitate a co-creation culture but that a paradigmatic shift towards such a culture requires congruence in discourses and actions on different system levels and a major transformation of approaches, roles, and relationship dynamics between senior and first-line management.

Innovation Ecosystems in the Automotive Industry between Opportunities and Limitations

The creation of effective innovation ecosystems (IES) at the national or sectoral level remains a difficult and not always feasible task. Basing on evidence from the Brazilian automotive industry, a case of unused opportunities for building a strong IES is considered. This is due to the insensitivity of such ecosystems to new complicated configurations and the formats of non-traditional interaction that they suggest - a “new ecology of competition”, etc. The internal context of companies in relation to the practice of open innovation has been studied. Despite joint projects with close value chain partners, carmakers are showing a closed attitude to external collaboration, unlike players in industries such as aerospace or information and communications technology that gained growth and major transformation by building a broader IES. Only a high demand from the government for creating a strong IES can change the situation.

A Momentary Lapse of Reason? Assessing the Pre- and Post-Brexit Preferences of UK Citizens

We analyze the persistence of the major determinants of distrust toward the European Union (EU) and pro-Brexit voting attitudes of citizens of the United Kingdom. Looking both backward and forward, our analysis confirms that Euroscepticism is deep-rooted, although the data reveal differences across different parts of the country. We observe no major transformation in the favor of the EU over the last two decades or in the post-referendum period. We also carry out an age-period-cohort analysis by interacting age and cohort effects with time to analyze the evolution of individual preferences. We find that an aging population will promote Eurosceptic assertiveness. We then implement a demographic forecasting analysis to predict whether the level of distrust of older cohorts can be offset by differing attitudes among younger cohorts in the future. On the contrary, we find that demographic trends will tend to strengthen distrust in the EU.

Croatia: Strong Prime Ministers and Weak Coalitions

Since regaining its independence in 1991, Croatia experienced major transformation of constitutional and political system in 2000, when illiberal semi-presidential rule was replaced with functional parliamentary democracy. These changes also established a new pattern of executive politics, with coalition governments as a norm. Furthermore, in the post-2000 period the prime ministerial government was established as the dominant governance model, with prime ministers taking over the leading role in coalition politics. Building on this notion, this chapter identifies several major features of coalition governance in Croatia: very general and rather brief coalition agreements without written rules on cabinet decision-making and on how to resolve internal conflicts; an informal and personalized way of handling conflicts between coalition parties; the dominant position of the prime minister and limited ministerial autonomy; and the policy and personnel conflicts between coalition parties as the main reason for cabinet termination. Thus, similarly to some other countries in Central Eastern Europe region, all three stages of coalition governance in Croatia are heavily dominated by top party leaders and particularly prime ministers, thus creating the patterns of informal and personalized coalition decision-making. The prime ministerial dominance is reflected in weak coalition arrangements, with very limited coordination established between coalition parties and the lack of broader conflict resolution mechanisms, which makes coalition cabinets especially fragile and unstable, particularly when challenged by the inclusion of new parties in government.

Mapeo del consumo de medios en los jóvenes: redes sociales, 'fake news' y confianza en tiempos de pandemia

The explosion of the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a major transformation in media consumption and the use of social networks. New habits and extensive exposure to connected devices coupled with unmanageable amounts of information warn of a worrying reality, especially among the younger population. The aim of this research is to discover the degree of trustworthiness of Generation Z towards the media, their media consumption preferences and the association they make between media consumption and fake news. Using a descriptive and exploratory quantitative methodology, a study is presented with a sample of 225 young people belonging to this population niche. The study addresses three dimensions: media consumption, social networks and perception of fake news. The results show that generation Z is an intensive consumer of the media they trust the least and perceive traditional media as the most trustworthy. The findings indicate that social networks are the main source of information consumption for this ge­neration, among other content, despite also being the least trustworthy and the most likely to distribute fake news according to their perceptions. There is a lack of media literacy from a critical rather than a formative perspective.

‘Boom Boom in the Zoom Zoom Room’: Online music therapy with children and adolescents with visual impairment

The COVID-19 pandemic created a major transformation in the delivery of music therapy services worldwide as they moved online. Telehealth research is in its infancy and online work with children and adolescents with visual impairment has yet to be investigated. This survey-based study explored the experiences and perceptions of parents of children and adolescents with visual impairment ( n = 11) who engaged in online music therapy. Video playlists were accessed regularly and almost all parents reported positive (2/11) or very positive (8/11) responses and perceived them as beneficial in engaging with their child. Ninety-five percent (10/11) of parents perceived the teleheath programme to be a positive experience for their child, 73% (8/11) observed positive behaviours directly after the sessions, and 82% (9/11) indicated that the programme was a valuable family resource that supported bonding and interaction. Inductive reflexive thematic analysis generated four themes from the qualitative data: (a) positive impacts, (b) interactive family resource, (c) connection to school, and (d) challenges. A discussion of the findings is followed by implications for practice.

Nano-powered nanorobots offer promises in gene therapy and nanomedicine

Cancer-fighting, blood-roaming Nanorobots have the potential to transform our lives, but they have yet to demonstrate their use in real-world settings. This review describes the requirements for a nanomotor to survive the in vivo environment, locate its targets, operate as needed, and terminate when the mission is complete. A nanorobot should be the proper size, constructed of biocompatible or biodegradable materials, and capable of rapid, autonomous propulsion through a network of blood arteries with a flow rate of about cm s1. A major transformation of the existing system is now required, since progress is reported across multiple laboratories and in different areas. Other options exist, such as hybrid nanomotors that combine chemotaxis with biological propulsion.

A Struggle for Institutionalization: the Tunisian Assemblée des Répresentants du Peuple and the Dominance of Consensus-Oriented Politics

This article is part of the Special Issue “Parliaments in the Middle East and North Africa: A Struggle for Relevance.” Tunisia’s parliament has undergone a remarkable internal transformation process since 2011, from a formerly mostly irrelevant institution to an influential locus of policy-making. This successful progress notwithstanding, the parliament’s transformation to a democratic assembly has not been fully concluded yet. A main challenge is that the legislature still shows a number of characteristics of an “authoritarian parliament”: besides a lack of staff and financial resources, the continuous dominance of personal kinship over institutionalized power structures remains particularly problematic.While private networks of individual decision-makers were perceived as crucial for Tunisia’s stability during the turbulent post-revolution years, they concomitantly contain the risk for a resurrection of former authoritarian structures. The article thus traces the Tunisian parliament’s major transformation steps from a former irrelevant legislature to a consolidated, influential assembly, and points out the still existing challenges.

Environmental Transformation and the Current State of Hydrogeological Condition in the Wojkowice Area—Southern Poland

Based on the analysis and interpretation of maps, remote sensing data published in the literature, and environmental reconnaissance, this article discusses environmental transformations in the Wojkowice area in southern Poland (up to the year 2020). A comprehensive analysis was carried out concerning spatial development, mining activity, hydrogeological conditions and the biotic environment. The current state of the hydrogeological conditions was also characterized. Mining activity in the vicinity of the studied town caused significant changes in its relief, which contributed to its area dropping by about 5 m. In fact, these terrain forms are overgrown by various forms of vegetation that colonized these areas both naturally and as a result of forest reclamation. The contemporary vegetation of Wojkowice differs from the potential natural vegetation, which is an indicator of the complete anthropogenization of the natural environment. Over 100 years of industrial activity in Wojkowice has also contributed to a strong transformation of the groundwater. There has been a quantitative depletion of usable groundwater in the Triassic and Carboniferous formations. With inflows to the ore mines of up to 17 m3/min, the groundwater table has dropped by more than 60 m. The aquifer of Muschelkalk has been practically drained. At present, wells extract the waters from the Röth aquifer. There has been a major transformation of groundwater chemistry. The waters of the Triassic carbonate complex are anthropogenically transformated and are characterized by increased mineralization, multi-ionic types and usually with a quality class III and IV, and, therefore, they require some treatment.