Person Perception through Gait Information and Target Choice for Sexual Advances: Comparison of likely Targets in Experiments and Real Life

Point-light and full-view short video clips of female walkers were displayed on a CRT monitor and male students rated the likelihood of selecting a walker for various advances. Relationships between the ratings, the walkers’ self-reported frequencies of being approached, gait cues, and self-rated personality traits were examined. In the point-light condition, raters selected slow walkers with a short stride length and personality traits implying vulnerability as targets for inappropriate touching. In the full-view condition, the raters selected fashionably groomed or physically attractive walkers as sexual advance targets. These criteria corresponded partially with reported occurrences of advances. Awkward movement impression was suggested as a kinematic gait quality influencing sexual advance target choice.     

An Existential Approach to Risk Perception

Existential, or existential-phenomenological philosophical approaches to the social psychology of risk perception provide a novel framework for understanding issues that are common to all humanity, such as fear of death, freedom and responsibility, isolation and meaninglessness, as these anxieties are a function of existing, or being-in-the-world. These fundamental anxieties can be related theoretically to the ways people perceive risks within social and cultural milieus, and can also be used practically within case studies, as demonstrated in the three examples presented, which examine perceptions of climate change, food-related risks, and environmental awareness via a mixture of quantitative and qualitative techniques. The discussion focuses on the possible insights that can be gained from taking an existential perspective on risk perception, and relates notions of contemporary technologically-oriented societies to the existential challenges faced by individuals and societies in the contemporary world.     

Psychological taxing in Flemish municipalities

We analyse whether the psychological pricing in the private sector has a public sector counterpart in tax policy. Analysing the main theoretical arguments for the existence of price points, and applying them to the public sector, suggests that psychological taxing reveals itself by the use of non-0 ending tax rates. The tax rate endings of the local income taxes, which are set by 308 Flemish municipalities in the fiscal year 1998, suggests the presence of psychological taxing. Non-0 endings occur more frequently in municipalities where demand for public policy is more elastic (and where, therefore, the benefits to the politicians from setting a tax just below a tax point is higher). The pre-tax income inequality and the level of the tax rate positively affect psychological taxing. The latter effect is reinforced in those municipalities where the existing tax rate is above the average tax rate in neighbouring municipalities and below their neighbours’ minimum, although this effect has a limited effect and is offset the further below the minimum the tax is set.     

人类审美是怎样从无到有的--对新实践美学及实践美学的解析与提问

新实践美学和实践美学的审美发生理论都是以哲学方法取代科学实证方法,消解了哲学作为方法论的指导意义;都违反了辩证唯物主义立场,以意识性的哲学概念为物质性的审美发生的原点;都将现代人类的知觉混同于动物的知觉,不能解释为审美所必需的形式知觉力的发生和作用.认知科学美学认为:审美发生要以人类智能的高水平发展为物质基础;以现代人类特有的形式知觉力的形成为决定性的主体条件.审美情感、审美价值、审美属性都依据这一条件而发生.     

科学需要美感直觉

美是真理的光辉 ,美感直觉不仅对于艺术家 ,而且对于科学家都同样重要。事实上 ,对自然界中简洁、和谐、秩序美的坚信与追求曾无数次帮助科学家拨开遮挡真理之光的乌云     

STTEPping in the right direction? Western classical music in an orchestral programme for disadvantaged African youth

This article looks at STTEP, an outreach project currently housed at the University of Pretoria, which concentrates on the teaching of western orchestral instruments, plus background areas such as music theory, to disadvantaged children and youth from a variety of townships around Pretoria, South Africa. STTEP’s direction can well be described as ‘right’ – pupils are already surrounded by all kinds of global phenomena, and their formal music studies in western classical music are not making them forget their roots. In fact, the contrary has been found to be the case and some interesting cultural fusions are already seen – always a sign of a living culture.     

Intuitive Toxicology: Expert and Lay Judgments of Chemical Risks

Human beings have always been intuitive toxicologists, relying on their senses of sight, taste, and smell to detect harmful or unsafe food, water, and air. As we have come to recognize that our senses are not adequate to assess the dangers inherent in exposure to a chemical substance, we have created the sciences of toxicology and risk assessment to perform this function. Yet despite this great effort to overcome the limitations of intuitive toxicology, it has become evident that even our best scientific methods still depend heavily on extrapolations and judgments in order to infer human health risks from animal data. Many observers have acknowledged the inherent subjectivity in the assessment of chemical risks and have indicated a need to examine the subjective or intuitive elements of expert and lay risk judgments. We have begun such an examination by surveying members of the Society of Toxicology and the lay public about basic toxicological concepts, assumptions, and interpretations. Our results demonstrate large differences between toxicologists and laypeople, as well as differences between toxicologists working in industry, academia, and government. In addition, we find that toxicologists are sharply divided in their opinions about the ability to predict a chemical's effect on human health on the basis of animal studies. We argue that these results place the problems of risk communication in a new light. Although the survey identifies misconceptions that experts should clarify for the public, it also suggests that controversies over chemical risks may be fueled as much by limitations of the science of risk assessment and disagreements among experts as by public misconceptions.     

人力资本、公平感知与农村居民基本医疗保险参与——基于四川农村地区的实证分析

城乡居民基本医疗保险作为构成我国社会保障体系的核心内容,既是农村居民获得所需医疗服务、应对健康危机的兜底性保障,也是国家推进基本医疗卫生服务公平均等的基础性政策。然而,基于四川省农村地区的调研发现,仍然存在农村居民没有购买基本医疗保险的现象。深入剖析其影响因素,结果发现:(1)人力资本水平、对基本医疗保险政策的公平感知均会显著作用于农村居民基本医疗保险购买行为;(2)外出务工经历、缴费便捷程度、家庭收入水平等也对农村居民基本医疗保险购买行为有显著影响;(3)当前对基本医疗保险政策知识宣传不够,难以满足农村居民对政策知识的需求。基于以上研究结果,为进一步提高基本医疗保险参与率,提出了优化基本医疗保险政策宣传、提高基本医疗保险政策的认同感和加快医保管理服务系统信息化建设等对策建议。     

电商参与、技术认知对农户绿色生产技术采纳程度的影响

农户的绿色生产技术采纳不仅有利于粮食安全和生态环境保护,而且对农业的绿色生产转型具有重要意义,农产品的电商销售可成为农户进行绿色生产的可能路径。利用有序Logit模型测度电商参与对猕猴桃种植户绿色生产技术采纳程度的影响,使用结构方程模型中的均数方差调整加权最小二乘法 (WLSMV) 和 Bootstrap 法检验技术认知的中介效应,采用倾向得分匹配法对电商参与影响农户绿色生产技术采纳程度进行稳健性检验。研究发现:电商参与显著提高了猕猴桃种植户绿色生产技术的采纳程度,并且技术认知在此过程中起着积极的中介作用。政府应从加大宣传力度、提供技术和政策支持、提高农户绿色生产技术认知等方面提高农户绿色生产技术采纳程度。     

The Seveso Directive: An Italian Pilot Study in Enabling Communication

In 1982 the Council of the European Communities issued a Directive on the Major Accident Hazards of Certain Industrial Activities, commonly known as the Seveso Directive. Besides other requirements, the Directive specifies that members of the public liable to be affected by a major accident from certain industrial activities must be informed of safety measures and how they should behave in the event of an accident. The Directive was subsequently amended in an extensive way. Upon the transposition of the Seveso Directive and its amendments into national legislations, the 12 European Member States are faced with the task of "appropriately and effectively" informing the public about major accident hazards. Delays are observed throughout the community, both in transposing the Directives and implementing public information. A pilot study on "Risk Information Needs" was commissioned and carried out at two Seveso sites in Italy in order to begin to resolve some of the problems involved in the provision of public information and to suggest appropriate guidelines. One hundred subjects answered an experimental protocol designed to assess their "information needs." This article presents the theoretical background, the pragmatic aims, and the design of the study. It also summarizes its most relevant findings and suggests some recommendations for the provision of information to the public.