Conscious Intra-Personal Development: The Experience Counts

The future of mankind will depend on the ability of the individual to acquire Self-knowledge. The preservation of autonomy of the individual is supported by learning to fathom one's own unconscious and inner being, the undiscovered self. By consciously developing Self-knowledge the possibility originates for the individual to make his own conscious choices and to understand an other human being. It often takes a great deal of effort from an individual to consciously open up to his inner being. Gaining experiences related to intra-personal development and consciously reflecting on those experiences, is essential to keep the conscious intra-personal development process in motion. Education can lend a helping hand during this process, from the start of the school career of children, by making room in the curriculum for affective and experiential education. Theory disturbs the experiential orientation and the focus on emotions. Offer affective and experiential education to children from an early age, with plenty of personal room, and continuing this form of education until they leave school, supports young people to become more and more self-directing. The way in which this form of education is taken care for is crucial for its success.

The Two Truths that Descartes Discovers in His Meditations on First Philosophy that Do Not Require the Divine Guarantee

In my paper, I show that there are two truths in Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy that do not require the divine guarantee, despite Descartes’ claim in the last sentence of the fourth paragraph in the third meditation that he cannot be certain of anything unless he knows that God exists as Descartes’ creator and that God is not a deceiver.

Anthony De Mello - A Missionary of the Twentieth Century

We live in a troubled, restless, confused world. The old landmarks have disappeared, are being challenged or replaced with all sorts of surrogates. There is talk of horizontalizing values, which is nothing more than relativizing and replacing them. What has shaped humanity for centuries and brought civilization, known as Europeanism, is increasingly criticized, judged, removed. Christianity is no longer lived, as the most wonderful way of life, as the most wonderful invitation to a loving partnership with God, but as a system of outdated values, because people perceive it according to the manifestations of some or others of those who say Christians and not after what he is. In this world, a missionary, like Anthony de Mello, seems outdated, yet his deeds and some of his teachings retain the beauty and depth that we discover in the ranks of Holy Scripture or in the writings of the Holy Fathers. Of course, reading his entire work, anyone will be able to say that Tony de Mello, as his friends called him, is syncretistic, heretical, and so on. But, remembering the exhortations given to the young people by St. Basil the Great, we can only collect the nectar of the flowers, even if some of them are of thistles or thistles. Far from capturing the whole spiritual charge of Father Anthony de Mello's work, our lines will be an invitation to read.

User Involvement: Effective Performance in Sustainable Social Housing

In the development of sustainable social housing, the residents, operating staff, and administrative staff - as users - face challenges in relation to a lack of involvement. The aim of this research is to contribute with results regarding these challenges. These contributions to the discussion are based on the results of a qualitative evaluation of sustainable social housing. The results suggest that it can be an advantage to utilise user experiences in the development of future sustainable social housing with a view to strengthening the user involvement process. The argument is that a greater degree of user involvement respects people’s experiences as being a contribution to the development of new projects. In addition, the research suggests that the early involvement of residents, operating staff, and administrative staff can strengthen the sense of project ownership and community, as well as the project’s social sustainability. It is claimed that user involvement can promote social sustainability, which is a significant factor, since the intention behind a project’s sustainability is that the residents will later have ownership and an interest in ensuring that it works in accordance with its intentions.

Security that Matters: General Knowledge and Correlations in the Context of Applied Satellite Navigation, Specific Interference-Events and the Use of the GNSS-Technology

Navigation through global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) has become an indispensable part of modern life with threats such as GNSS interference, making it necessary to uncover relevant psychological aspects in the context of the GNSS construct, diverse interference events, and the use of related technologies. A total of n = 122 subjects participated in an online survey, which included scales and specifically constructed items on GNSS usage, acceptance, dependence, and self-assessed sense of direction and relevance of basic psychological needs. In addition, frequently emphasized factors influencing acceptance and use of diverse technologies were recorded according to the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT; Venkatesh et al., 2003). Correlation analyses showed that the frequency of GNSS use was associated with both effort expectation of appropriate technologies, hedonistic motivation, habits of using GNSS-enabled devices, and specific aspects of mobility. In terms of reported GNSS dependency, negative correlations were found with self-assessed orientation ability. It was also possible to identify voluntariness in the use of related technologies, the age of the users, and the relevance of self-determination as essential variables in the context of GNSS use. The results underline the need for further investigation of psychological aspects and contribute to existing discussions in the context of various threat scenarios.

Possibilities for Modernization of Conciliation Board Procedures in the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe - Online Dispute Resolution and Electronic Communication

Conciliation bodies are the main European forums for alternative dispute resolution for consumer disputes, providing an institutionalized opportunity to remedy consumer infringement cases quickly, cheaply and efficiently. The institution has excellent dispute resolution efficiency not only in Hungary, but also at the international level, which greatly contributes to the enforcement of the consumer protection legislation of the countries concerned. The scientific examination of the work of the bodies and the legislation related to them, the number of domestic and international scientific works resulting from them are modest, while the efficient operation of the bodies depends not only on practical and legal factors, but also on the theoretical basis. Although legislative reforms in this area have led to a number of innovations and modernizations, they have left untouched a number of theoretical and practical issues that also pose significant problems in law enforcement, such as the satisfactory settlement of cross-border disputes, electronic communication and even communication, that it is possible to involve artificial intelligence, other software solutions in decision-making or online dispute resolution within the framework of the procedure. Applied research on the operation of conciliation bodies covered bodies and bodies in Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. Due to the large number of consumer legal relations, the significance of these research results in the national economy cannot be considered negligible either. The research supported by the ÚNKP-20-3 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology from the source of the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund.

A Discursive Examination of White Americans’ Attitudes about White-Black Interracial Marriages in USA

The primary objective of this article is to manifest by means of discourse analysis the attitudes of White Americans towards White-Black interracial marriages. The research draws on qualitative analysis of the discourse of some white Americans to find out the genuine convictions they bear about interracial unions, especially those incorporating Blacks and Whites. Regardless of the fact that White Americans have asserted their approval of White-Black marriages, the results of the study reveal that some White-Americans are still not in favour of their close relatives marrying outside their own race. As Van Dijk (1992) postulates, one of the distinctive peculiarities of contemporary racism discourse is its denial. On accounts of rigid constraints posed upon overt expression of racist perspectives, individuals bring about a set of discursive strategies that enable the deliverance of negative constructs without being trapped by racism charges. In addition to the denial of racism, the results of the research disclose various strategic choices through which white Americans legitimize their views towards white-black interracial marriages. Such choices embark on justifications, denying, excuses, positive self-presentation, negative other-presentation, and blaming the victim. (Van Dijk: 1992)

Social Work and Social Protection in crisis circumstances – Organisation and activities of Centre for Social Work Banja Luka during the floods in 2014

Modern man is at constant risk to his/her security, which threatens him/her from natural disasters. Today, these risks are much more frequent and intense than they were before. Climate change is affecting more and more extreme natural disasters that bring greater security risks. The most common risks that lead to crisis situations are related to extreme events during the escalation of natural disasters, such as: fires, floods, earthquakes, heavy rainfall, landslides, etc. These situations require adequate systemic responses, which are recognized through the actions of various institutions, mainly public institutions of public systems towards the vulnerable groups. Increased interest in the work of institutions and services in crisis situations comes from the need to seek effective responses to the existential vulnerability condition, but also to the condition of social need that is often associated with existential vulnerability. The paper presents organization and of work terms of the Centre for Social Work (CSW) in Banja Luka during the extreme floods in 2014, which hit this city twice in six months period. Conclusions and recommendations that have been defined, aimed at systematically improving the protection of the population and professionals in crisis situations at the local level are based on the results of the analysis of the activities that have been carried out and the Centre’s direct actions, as well as an assessment of the achieved level of social protection and support to the population affected by the effects of the floods.

Families Face Pandemic – A Review of Psychological Suggestions and Empirical Findings Regarding the Covid-19 Pandemic

Aims. Even though child psychology researches related to a pandemic are extensive, the knowledge of practitioners about interventions and practices is still very limited. The complete novelty of such an epidemic situation in Europe, the diversity of terminology and methods are factors that make results hard to interpret. Therefore, the current study aims to give an overview of the psychological literature of the family aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Methods. A search was executed in four databases (Science Direct, Medline, Scopus, Google Scholar) using the following keywords: pandemic, Covid 19, family, children, adolescents, anxiety, depression. Our review focuses only on English language literature. Results. The majority of the articles focus on non-pathological phenomena and draws attention to the behavior of healthy populations (increase in internet use, the decline of concentration). Methods were dominated by online surveys. These surveys were mainly constructed ad-hoc and they preferred to address parents. Direct child investigations are underrepresented, but several suggestions were formulated for their optimal functioning. Conclusion:. Researches focusing on psychopathology emphasize the growth in the prevalence of disorders. However, other researches are needed to explore the psychodynamics of the pandemic on the family level. Our study aimed to contribute to the field by summarizing the main findings, suggestions, and interventions hoping that it might be a useful tool for practitioners and reduce the territory of the unknown.

Euroscepticism and Traditions of Nationalism

The European Union and its member states are in the effect of populism and its catalyzer populist parties. Most of populist parties are the right-wing parties and their politic discourses can be called nationalist. In this study, relations between tradition of nationalism within the context of its historic roots and in the current use, and Euroscepticism will be examined. European identity will be discussed as an important integration factor and populist parties of the European zone will be analyzed with internal and external factors.