The divisiveness of Chinese identities in Singapore

In July 2019, the Jamestown Foundation, an American think tank, published a report accusing China of imposing a Chinese identity onto Singapore through propaganda and influence operations. In this article, I argue that the Jamestown report is factually inaccurate and is itself an influence operation aimed at engendering distrust towards China. The re-discovery of a Chinese cultural identity by some Chinese Singaporeans—from Lee Kuan Yew to Nathan Hartono—is fuelled not by China’s clandestine influence operations, but by an intrinsic desire to mend ruptures in one's cultural heritage. Historically, the Chinese in Singapore have discarded or re-adopted their Chinese cultural identities depending on the degree to which contact is kept with China. When contact with China diminishes, successive generations of Singapore Chinese inevitably cease to identify China as a cultural motherland. When contact with China resumes, the Chinese in Singapore have frequently become divided, split into those who culturally identify as Chinese and those who do not. Since the 1978 reform and opening-up of China, the restoration of contact between China and Singapore have led to a rekindling of interest amongst Chinese Singaporeans in their cultural identities. This rekindling yields three major consequences. Firstly, Chinese Singaporeans may become further divided in terms of their cultural identity, with de-Sinicised, monolingual English speakers on one extreme and re-Sinicised, cultural Chinese on the other. Secondly, successive generations of re-Sinicised Singaporeans may grow up imbibing China’s cultural exports, thereby becoming less distinct from their mainland Chinese counterparts. Thirdly, Singapore’s government will remain incentivised to continually emphasise the distinctness of the Chinese Singaporean identity from Chinese elsewhere.

Surgeons’ mental models of surgical site infection: Insights into adherence with complex prevention bundles

Of 10 surgeons interviewed in a descriptive qualitative study, 6 believed that surgical site infections are inevitable. Bundle adherence was felt to be more likely with strong evidence-based measures developed by surgical leaders. The intrinsic desire to excel was viewed as the main adherence motivator, rather than “pay-for-performance” models.

Self-control Failure Increases a Strategic Preference for Submission as Means to Avoid Future Failure

A plethora of theories on human motives proposes that people have a fundamental need for control and an intrinsic desire to avoid submission to others. The current paper investigated an important exception to this general claim. Five experiments show that self-control failure leads people to strategically prioritize more social submission. In Experiments 1 to 3, salience of self-control failure increased the preference for submission. The submission effect was replicated with two manipulations and four measures of submission. Additionally, Experiment 3 showed that the effect only occurs after self-control failure and not after failure in controlling others. Finally, in Experiments 4 and 5, the submission effect influenced concrete preferences related to actual self-control failures from participants’ personal lives. When confronted with a high likelihood of self-control failure (versus moderate likelihood), participants preferred more an intervention program offering external control rather than an intervention program offering guidance (Experiment 4) or pre-commitment (Experiment 5). Together, these findings show a highly replicable effect whereby strategical considerations prompt people to invite domination and seek submission to others.

The Intrinsic Metaphysical Tendency of Man in the Psycho-Philosophical Theory of Martin Buber

There is an intrinsic desire and striving for perfection in a every single rational being. This is as a result of man's obvious discovery of some lack in every individual person. Even though every individual is unique, yet no single person exhausts humanity but rather participates in it. Consequently, man's striving for relationship is as a result of this his nature. Invariably, man is an incomplete entity, and as such has a destiny to shape. In any given essence in the sensible material order, there are many individuals who though numerically distinct, participate in the same essence. Meanwhile, the person of plurality indicates that no single individual can exhausts the essential perfection. It will be appropriate, therefore, to posit that God through whom everything exists and is sustained ought to be and is actually the perfection of all that is. The wonder or the mystery of our being is fulfilled and surpassed only by the splendour and joy of our coming to life in God. Man, therefore, struggles for this splendour through his threefold relationship with the world/things, fellowmen and finally with God. It is in the de-materialization and spiritualization of this relationship that man comes into deep and permanent union with the Thou in whose presence everything is endowed with meaning. The researcher primarily uses the method of philosophical reasoning and presentation to achieve the purpose of the research.

Employee Engagement, “Myth or Reality”?

Employee engagement refers to an employee's highest degree of loyalty, commitment, and participation towards organizational goals, objectives, vision, and mission. It is a technique for instilling an intrinsic desire and passion for excellence in employees by winning their head, heart, and soul. In other words, it can be said it is an art and science of engaging people in authentic and recognized connections to strategy, roles, performance, organization, community, relationship, customers, development, energy, and well-being as we leverage, sustain, and transform our work linkages into results. An engaged employee understands the market context and collaborates with co-workers to enhance job performance for the betterment of the company. Engaged employees want their organization to be successful and excel because they are physically, professionally, emotionally, and even spiritually associated with its goals, objectives, purpose, vision, and mission. Employee engagement has grown into a vital component of business performance today.

Lighting the wick in the candle of learning: generating a prediction stimulates curiosity

Curiosity stimulates learning. We tested whether curiosity itself can be stimulated—not by extrinsic rewards but by an intrinsic desire to know whether a prediction holds true. Participants performed a numerical-facts learning task in which they had to generate either a prediction or an example before rating their curiosity and seeing the correct answer. More facts received high-curiosity ratings in the prediction condition, which indicates that generating predictions stimulated curiosity. In turn, high curiosity, compared with low curiosity, was associated with better memory for the correct answer. Concurrent pupillary data revealed that higher curiosity was associated with larger pupil dilation during anticipation of the correct answer. Pupil dilation was further enhanced when participants generated a prediction rather than an example, both during anticipation of the correct answer and in response to seeing it. These results suggest that generating a prediction stimulates curiosity by increasing the relevance of the knowledge gap.

Arranging for School Jazz Ensembles

School music teachers have a unique opportunity to cultivate creativity, yet teachers often report spending little time on composing, improvising, and arranging music. This chapter demystifies the process of writing for a school jazz ensemble so that arranging becomes a part of the culture in a school music program. Jazz arranging in a school setting can foster an intrinsic desire among students to create music, allow for a variety of instrumentation best suited for the school, accommodate nontraditional learners, differentiate for the strengths and weaknesses of the ensemble, allow the teacher to assess knowledge through performance-based activities, and increase the school’s library of repertoire without breaking the budget. This chapter explores (a) considerations before arranging, (b) writing for rhythm sections, (c) writing for winds, and (d) basic harmonization techniques.

The “Uneconomics” of Ballet,

Haskell (1977) described the life of a ballet dancer as: “She lives definitely for her art, and not for what it can bring. Its rewards are painfully meagre; many years of over work at a bare living wage, a very generous share of applause from a small public, a few press cuttings with her name misspelt, bouquets, photographs, with the end almost inevitably a school, and the grind all over again, this time vicariously.” Despite the “meagre rewards”, millions of people around the world, given half the chance, are enrolled in ballet classes, many aspiring toward a career in dance almost from the first lesson. My personal interest in this topic began with my own foray into beginner’s ballet several months ago. After personally experiencing the rigors of ballet – the intense physical and emotional demands, and willingly bearing the tremendous cost in lesson fees and appropriate gear (despite knowing that my own career as a ballerina is virtually nonexistent), the economist in me was motivated to discover the intrinsic desire fuelling ballet dancers to pursue their ambition - behaviour that could be considered economically irrational but which makes sense within the cultural context (Plattner 1998).

Children's comprehension of the distinction between want and need

ABSTRACTTwo experiments examined the development of children's understanding of the difference between want and need. In experiment 1, children were tested on their knowledge that want represents an intrinsic desire whereas need represents an instrumental desire. Forty-five children between three and five years of age heard four stories in which one character encountered a problem, while another did not. A desirable object which could alleviate the problem was then introduced, and after both characters requested the object, the children were asked whether each character wants the object or needs it. Three-year-olds were unable to differentiate the two terms in such contexts, whereas four- and five-year-olds were significantly more likely to say that the character experiencing the problem needed the object, while the other wanted it. In experiment 2, 45 subjects between three and five years of age were tested on their understanding that a request employing need expresses a stronger desire than one employing want. Subjects were required to give an object to one of two characters, one of whom asked for it using need and the other using want. In this experiment, three-year-olds were equally likely to give the object to the character using want as to the one using need. Both four- and five–year–olds were significantly more likely to give the object to the character who used need. The results from these two experiments show that the understanding of the semantic and pragmatic difference between want and need develops at about four years of age.