Discussing the Scientific Evidence Generation and Psychological Research Methods in Postmodern Societies

Evidence generation by current Social and Health Sciences is coping with some important barriers that difficult credibility of scientific products. Information and communication technologies have a strong impact over social relationships in our postmodern societies. The incidence of post-truth in our context is generating a pernicious relativism, far from contrasting the information veracity. The aim of this paper is to analyze and discuss the challenges of research methods and statistical models, more specifically for Psychological research, taking into account the impact of novel techniques as big data and virtual reality. Special attention is also devoted to the discussion about statistical shortcomings of psychological research and to the reproducibility problem. Finally, some potential solutions are proposed to be applied in order to improve the quality of scientific evidence.

The People Demand Social Justice: The Social Protest in Israel as an Agoral Gathering

The summer of 2011 has seen the first mass-scale social protest in Israel in its 70 years of existence. This social wave that shook the country, showed unique characteristics a-typical of most social and political uprisings, that go largely unexplained by social theories of social change and crowd psychology. In this article I am analyzing published reports of the social protest of 2011, and draw the analogy with the concept of ‘Agoral Gathering’ that may account for these events and support discussion of their aftermath.

Is a 100% Renewable Energy Economy Possible in the Light of Wind Silence Occurrences?

This article is focused on analysing the present state of renewable electricity production and consumption coverage in Germany, concentrating on the intermittence of wind and solar energy production and considering the significance of the wind silence phenomenon. The development and promotion of renewable energy is a major goal set out by politicians of which one example is the German plan “Energiewende”. The author examines wind and solar energy complementarity and attempts assessing the possibility of basing Germanys’ electricity production on renewable energy sources, without significant advancements in technology and changes in consumer behaviour. Using the analysis based on hourly data of consumption and production by source of electricity in Germany in 2016, the research addresses the issues of renewable energy source effectiveness, intermittence and points to the critical matter of periodical unavailability of wind and solar energy.

Relationship Between the Intensity of the Internal and External Locus of Control and Relation to the Property of the Subjects

In this article the assumption that made to formulate the hypothesis that evaluation of attractiveness of financial instruments by the testees influence their perception of property was certainty that people who have got other attitude in terms of attractiveness towards particular products and financial instruments available on polish capital market, will experience notion of property differently.

Personality, Job Resources, and Self-Efficacy as Predictors of Volunteer Engagement in Non-Governmental Organizations

As volunteer engagement in non-governmental organizations vary between individuals, it is vital to get to know its predictors. It can be of profit to volunteers and the ones who profit from their activities. The aim of present study was to examine a model explaining volunteer engagement examining volunteer self-efficacy as a mediator and personality traits, job resources (skill variety and autonomy) as its predictors. Respondents (N = 165) were asked to fill in questionnaires accessible online. Those consisted of demographic questions as well as Ten-item Personality Inventory (TIPI), and three measures adjusted to volunteer environment: Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ), General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES), and Work Engagement Scale (UWES). Results. Results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that conscientiousness, skill variety and self-efficacy are statistically significant predictors of volunteer engagement. It was shown that the effects of conscientiousness and skill variety on volunteer engagement are mediated by volunteer self-efficacy.

Pedagogy of communion as promising educational approach for the achievement of global competencies.

This paper highlights the results of a theoretical analysis aiming to prove that the key dimensions of Global Competence framework as proposed by OECD in 2016 (knowledge, skills, attitudes and values) are integrated in the so-called Pedagogy of Communion: the educational approach sprouted from the experience of Chiara Lubich and the Focolare Movement (Lubich, 2001). The socio-ontological intelligence theoretical model may represent a valid support to all parties interested in developing the emerging OECD Education 2030 Framework aimed at establishing a common grammar and language, to support the design of curricula fostering the development of global competence. This theoretical reference framework used for the analysis proposed in this paper is an updated version of the Model of Social Intelligence (Gulotta & Boi, 1997; Boi, 2009;), integrated with an ontological perspective (Argiolas, 2014; 2017).

Exemplification of Expectations and their Implications for Trust and Credibility of University Teachers in the Students’ Opinion

The article describes the question of trust and credibility of university teachers, i.e. fulfilling the expectations and obligations towards students who have placed their trust in the teachers. It focuses on the importance of credibility understood as expectations concerning relations. The discussion aims at presenting of the significance of academic teachers’ credibility for students and finding the answer to the question about the basis on which the teachers’ credibility is evaluated in students’ opinion. The conclusions base on the analysis of the subject literature and the author’s own research results. The article explains the notions of trust, credibility and expectations, discusses ideas and various meanings of a trusted person’s credibility. The author refers to the theoretical model of trust by P. Sztompka, particularly credibility as a relation, as well as classification of credibility as instrumental, moral and care-taking one basing on characteristics of expectations and obligations. The research results exemplify the fulfilled and unfulfilled expectations of students on the basis of which the author attempts to create a system of expectations referring to the mentioned above credibility variants. Conclusions point to mutual benefits following from the fact that a university teacher is credible in the opinion of students. The area under discussion seems to be particularly interesting as credibility is a model of the interpersonal capital and the credibility capital in turn defines the notion of authority.

Forgiveness: love relationship

The article highlights the relationship between forgiveness, relation and love. It is divided in three sections: an experience of forgiveness which took place in Burundi in the ‘90s, an outline of the culture of that country and some theories about forgiveness in the psychological field. The giving of forgiveness is not immediate, but when the victim is able to grant it, he becomes a subject with the power to release himself from a oppressor-oppressed relationship, wherein, if he doesn’t forgive, he might be trapped. Without a victim, there is no offender, even although the guilt and the crime remain as such. By forgiving, conflict between victim/offender is overcome and the two parts enter into a relationship with each other. In a relationship, every time we connect with the other and we recognize him, we enter into a relationship with him and this recognition becomes a gift. At this point for-give-ness itself becomes a gift, because it has as it’s centre a gift, it becomes a relationship of love where I am able to recognize the other for what he really is.

Harnessing Social Processes for the Common Good

This article argues that harnessing social processes for the common good depends on creating a learning society which will innovate, learn, and evolve in the long-term public interest. In essence, this involves establishing more embedded, interconnected, and interacting, “organic” feedback (sociocybernetic) loops which do not depend on long and distorting chains of “accountability” to distant “representative” assemblies of “decision takers”. Several important steps toward doing this are discussed. However, all depend on undertaking a great deal of adventurous, problem-driven (as distinct from literature-driven) research. By far the most important of these research programmes would be to develop a better understanding of the currently invisible (Kafkaesque) network of social forces that have the future of our species and the planet in their grip … and then to find ways of intervening in that network. It is suggested that this is analogous to Newton first conceptualising physical forces and then showing how to measure, map, and harness them. Answering the question of how work like Newton’s could be funded and conducted in modern society – and especially under current research-funding arrangements – thus emerges as crucial to finding a way forward.

Educate to Relationships through Relationships: The Role of Social and Prosocial Abilities in the Construction of Collaborative and Inclusive Educational Communities

The Youth Report 2014 recognizes the possibility to take positive action towards the others as an element that contributes to let young people achieve a sense of happiness. Despite this, we can observe in schools the presence of individualistic and competitive educational models affirming the predominance of fixed cognitive standards. That can bring to a situation of marginalization of those who are hegemonically located outside of a pre-established definition of norm. Considering these assumptions, the authors have developed an inclusive and prosocial teaching model, based on the Cooperative Learning approach, aimed to encourage prosocial skills among students. The research, that used qualiquantitative data, has involved a sample of 42 students and 12 teachers of the Middle School. The comparison between pre and post test highlights a higher increase in helping dimension and in the subsample of males students, joint to general improvements within teaching-learning processes and relationships.