Morality

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Allegory with a portrait of a Venetian senator (Allegory of the morality of earthly things), attributed to Tintoretto, 1585

Morality (from Latin: moralis, lit. 'manner, character, proper behavior') is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper and those that are improper. Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness".

Moral philosophy includes moral ontology, which is the origin of morals; and moral epistemology, which studies the knowledge of morals. Different systems of expressing morality have been proposed, including deontological ethical systems which adhere to a set of established rules, and normative ethical systems which consider the merits of actions themselves. An example of normative ethical philosophy is the Golden Rule, which states that: "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself."

Immorality is the active opposition to morality (i.e. opposition to that which is good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any particular set of moral standards or principles.

Philosophy

Ethics

Immanuel Kant introduced the categorical imperative: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law".

Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is the branch of philosophy which addresses questions of morality. The word "ethics" is "commonly used interchangeably with 'morality,' and sometimes it is used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group, or individual." Likewise, certain types of ethical theories, especially deontological ethics, sometimes distinguish between ethics and morals: "Although the morality of people and their ethics amounts to the same thing, there is a usage that restricts morality to systems such as that of Immanuel Kant, based on notions such as duty, obligation, and principles of conduct, reserving ethics for the more Aristotelian approach to practical reasoning, based on the notion of a virtue, and generally avoiding the separation of 'moral' considerations from other practical considerations."

Descriptive and normative

In its descriptive sense, "morality" refers to personal or cultural values, codes of conduct or social mores from a society that provides these codes of conduct in which it applies and is accepted by an individual. It does not connote objective claims of right or wrong, but only refers to that which is considered right or wrong. Descriptive ethics is the branch of philosophy which studies morality in this sense.

In its normative sense, "morality" refers to whatever (if anything) is actually right or wrong, which may be independent of the values or mores held by any particular peoples or cultures. Normative ethics is the branch of philosophy which studies morality in this sense.

Realism and anti-realism

Philosophical theories on the nature and origins of morality (that is, theories of meta-ethics) are broadly divided into two classes:

• Moral realism is the class of theories which hold that there are true moral statements that report objective moral facts. For example, while they might concede that forces of social conformity significantly shape individuals' "moral" decisions, they deny that those cultural norms and customs define morally right behavior. This may be the philosophical view propounded by ethical naturalists, however not all moral realists accept that position (e.g. ethical non-naturalists);
• Moral anti-realism, on the other hand, holds that moral statements either fail or do not even attempt to report objective moral facts. Instead, they hold that moral sentences are either categorically false claims of objective moral facts (error theory); claims about subjective attitudes rather than objective facts (ethical subjectivism); or else not attempts to describe the world at all but rather something else, like an expression of an emotion or the issuance of a command (non-cognitivism).

Some forms of non-cognitivism and ethical subjectivism, while considered anti-realist in the robust sense used here, are considered realist in the sense synonymous with moral universalism. For example, universal prescriptivism is a universalist form of non-cognitivism which claims that morality is derived from reasoning about implied imperatives, and divine command theory and ideal observer theory are universalist forms of ethical subjectivism which claim that morality is derived from the edicts of a god or the hypothetical decrees of a perfectly rational being, respectively.

Anthropology

Tribal and territorial

Celia Green made a distinction between tribal and territorial morality. She characterizes the latter as predominantly negative and proscriptive: it defines a person's territory, including his or her property and dependents, which is not to be damaged or interfered with. Apart from these proscriptions, territorial morality is permissive, allowing the individual whatever behaviour does not interfere with the territory of another. By contrast, tribal morality is prescriptive, imposing the norms of the collective on the individual. These norms will be arbitrary, culturally dependent and 'flexible', whereas territorial morality aims at rules which are universal and absolute, such as Kant's 'categorical imperative' and Geisler's graded absolutism. Green relates the development of territorial morality to the rise of the concept of private property, and the ascendancy of contract over status.

In-group and out-group

Some observers hold that individuals apply distinct sets of moral rules to people depending on their membership of an "in-group" (the individual and those they believe to be of the same group) or an "out-group" (people not entitled to be treated according to the same rules). Some biologists, anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists believe this in-group/out-group discrimination has evolved because it enhances group survival. This belief has been confirmed by simple computational models of evolution. In simulations this discrimination can result in both unexpected cooperation towards the in-group and irrational hostility towards the out-group. Gary R. Johnson and V.S. Falger have argued that nationalism and patriotism are forms of this in-group/out-group boundary. Jonathan Haidt has noted that experimental observation indicating an in-group criterion provides one moral foundation substantially used by conservatives, but far less so by liberals.

Comparing cultures

Peterson and Seligman approach the anthropological view looking across cultures, geo-cultural areas and across millennia. They conclude that certain virtues have prevailed in all cultures they examined. The major virtues they identified include wisdom / knowledge; courage; humanity; justice; temperance; and transcendence. Each of these includes several divisions. For instance humanity includes love, kindness, and social intelligence.

Fons Trompenaars, author of Did the Pedestrian Die?, tested members of different cultures with various moral dilemmas. One of these was whether the driver of a car would have his friend, a passenger riding in the car, lie in order to protect the driver from the consequences of driving too fast and hitting a pedestrian. Trompenaars found that different cultures had quite different expectations, from none to definite.

John Newton, author of Complete Conduct Principles for the 21st Century compared the Eastern and the Western cultures about morality. As stated in Complete Conduct Principles for the 21st Century, "One of the important objectives of this book is to blend harmoniously the fine souls regarding conduct in the Eastern and the Western cultures, to take the result as the source and then to create newer and better conduct principles to suit the human society of the new century, and to introduce a lot of Chinese fine conduct spirits to the Western world. It is hoped that this helps solve lots of problems the human society of the 21st century faces, including (but not limited to the Eastern and the Western cultures) what a single culture cannot."

Evolution

The development of modern morality is a process closely tied to sociocultural evolution. Some evolutionary biologists, particularly sociobiologists, believe that morality is a product of evolutionary forces acting at an individual level and also at the group level through group selection (although to what degree this actually occurs is a controversial topic in evolutionary theory). Some sociobiologists contend that the set of behaviors that constitute morality evolved largely because they provided possible survival or reproductive benefits (i.e. increased evolutionary success). Humans consequently evolved "pro-social" emotions, such as feelings of empathy or guilt, in response to these moral behaviors.
On this understanding, moralities are sets of self-perpetuating and biologically-driven behaviors which encourage human cooperation. Biologists contend that all social animals, from ants to elephants, have modified their behaviors, by restraining immediate selfishness in order to improve their evolutionary fitness. Human morality, although sophisticated and complex relative to the moralities of other animals, is essentially a natural phenomenon that evolved to restrict excessive individualism that could undermine a group's cohesion and thereby reducing the individuals' fitness.

On this view, moral codes are ultimately founded on emotional instincts and intuitions that were selected for in the past because they aided survival and reproduction (inclusive fitness). Examples: the maternal bond is selected for because it improves the survival of offspring; the Westermarck effect, where close proximity during early years reduces mutual sexual attraction, underpins taboos against incest because it decreases the likelihood of genetically risky behaviour such as inbreeding.

The phenomenon of reciprocity in nature is seen by evolutionary biologists as one way to begin to understand human morality. Its function is typically to ensure a reliable supply of essential resources, especially for animals living in a habitat where food quantity or quality fluctuates unpredictably. For example, some vampire bats fail to feed on prey some nights while others manage to consume a surplus. Bats that did eat will then regurgitate part of their blood meal to save a conspecific from starvation. Since these animals live in close-knit groups over many years, an individual can count on other group members to return the favor on nights when it goes hungry (Wilkinson, 1984)
Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce (2009) have argued that morality is a suite of behavioral capacities likely shared by all mammals living in complex social groups (e.g., wolves, coyotes, elephants, dolphins, rats, chimpanzees). They define morality as "a suite of interrelated other-regarding behaviors that cultivate and regulate complex interactions within social groups." This suite of behaviors includes empathy, reciprocity, altruism, cooperation, and a sense of fairness. In related work, it has been convincingly demonstrated that chimpanzees show empathy for each other in a wide variety of contexts. They also possess the ability to engage in deception, and a level of social politics prototypical of our own tendencies for gossip and reputation management.

Christopher Boehm (1982) has hypothesized that the incremental development of moral complexity throughout hominid evolution was due to the increasing need to avoid disputes and injuries in moving to open savanna and developing stone weapons. Other theories are that increasing complexity was simply a correlate of increasing group size and brain size, and in particular the development of theory of mind abilities.

Moral cognition

Moral cognition refers to cognitive processes that allow a person to act or decide in morally permissible ways. It consists of several domain-general cognitive processes, ranging from perception of a morally-salient stimuli to reasoning when faced with a moral dilemma. While it’s important to mention that there is not a single cognitive faculty dedicated exclusively to moral cognition, characterizing the contributions of domain-general processes to moral behavior is a critical scientific endeavor to understand how morality works and how it can be improved.

Cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists investigate the inputs to these cognitive processes and their interactions, as well as how these contribute to moral behavior by running controlled experiments. In these experiments putatively moral versus nonmoral stimuli are compared to each other, while controlling for other variables such as content or working memory load. Often, the differential neural response to specifically moral statements or scenes, are examined using functional neuroimaging experiments.

Critically, the specific cognitive processes that are involved depend on the prototypical situation that a person encounters. For instance, while situations that require an active decision on a moral dilemma may require active reasoning, an immediate reaction to a shocking moral violation may involve quick, affect-laden processes. Nonetheless certain cognitive skills such as being able to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, emotions to oneself, and to others is a common feature of a broad range of prototypical situations. In line with this, a meta-analysis found overlapping activity between moral emotion and moral reasoning tasks, suggesting a shared neural network for both tasks. The results of this meta-analaysis, however, also demonstrated that the processing of moral input is affected by task demands.

Neuroscience

The brain areas that are consistently involved when humans reason about moral issues have been investigated by a quantitative large-scale meta-analysis of the brain activity changes reported in the moral neuroscience literature. In fact, the neural network underlying moral decisions overlapped with the network pertaining to representing others' intentions (i.e., theory of mind) and the network pertaining to representing others' (vicariously experienced) emotional states (i.e., empathy). This supports the notion that moral reasoning is related to both seeing things from other persons' points of view and to grasping others' feelings. These results provide evidence that the neural network underlying moral decisions is probably domain-global (i.e., there might be no such things as a "moral module" in the human brain) and might be dissociable into cognitive and affective sub-systems.

Brain areas

An essential, shared component of moral judgment involves the capacity to detect morally salient content within a given social context. Recent research implicated the salience network in this initial detection of moral content. The salience network responds to behaviorally salient events and may be critical to modulate downstream default and frontal control network interactions in the service of complex moral reasoning and decision-making processes.

The explicit making of moral right and wrong judgments coincides with activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC) while intuitive reactions to situations containing implicit moral issues activates the temporoparietal junction area.

Stimulation of the VMPC by transcranial magnetic stimulation, has been shown to inhibit the ability of human subjects to take into account intent when forming a moral judgment. According to this investigation, TMS did not disrupt participants' ability to make any moral judgment. On the contrary, moral judgments of intentional harms and non-harms were unaffected by TMS to either the RTPJ or the control site; presumably, however, people typically make moral judgments of intentional harms by considering not only the action's harmful outcome but the agent's intentions and beliefs. So why were moral judgments of intentional harms not affected by TMS to the RTPJ? One possibility is that moral judgments typically reflect a weighted function of any morally relevant information that is available at the time. On the basis of this view, when information concerning the agent's belief is unavailable or degraded, the resulting moral judgment simply reflects a higher weighting of other morally relevant factors (e.g., outcome). Alternatively, following TMS to the RTPJ, moral judgments might be made via an abnormal processing route that does not take belief into account. On either account, when belief information is degraded or unavailable, moral judgments are shifted toward other morally relevant factors (e.g., outcome). For intentional harms and non-harms, however, the outcome suggests the same moral judgment as the intention. Thus, the researchers suggest that TMS to the RTPJ disrupted the processing of negative beliefs for both intentional harms and attempted harms, but the current design allowed the investigators to detect this effect only in the case of attempted harms, in which the neutral outcomes did not afford harsh moral judgments on their own.

Similarly VMPC-impaired persons will judge an action purely on its outcome and are unable to take into account the intent of that action.

Mirror neurons

Mirror neurons are neurons in the brain that fire when another person is observed doing a certain action. The neurons fire in imitation of the action being observed, causing the same muscles to act minutely in the observer as are acting grossly in the person actually performing the action. Research on mirror neurons, since their discovery in 1996, suggests that they may have a role to play not only in action understanding, but also in emotion sharing empathy. Cognitive neuro-scientist Jean Decety thinks that the ability to recognize and vicariously experience what another individual is undergoing was a key step forward in the evolution of social behavior, and ultimately, morality. The inability to feel empathy is one of the defining characteristics of psychopathy, and this would appear to lend support to Decety's view.

Psychology

Kohlberg Model of Moral Development

In modern moral psychology, morality is considered to change through personal development. A number of psychologists have produced theories on the development of morals, usually going through stages of different morals. Lawrence Kohlberg, Jean Piaget, and Elliot Turiel have cognitive-developmental approaches to moral development; to these theorists morality forms in a series of constructive stages or domains. In the Ethics of care approach established by Carol Gilligan, moral development occurs in the context of caring, mutually responsive relationships which are based on interdependence, particularly in parenting but also in social relationships generally. Social psychologists such as Martin Hoffman and Jonathan Haidt emphasize social and emotional development based on biology, such as empathy. Moral identity theorists, such as William Damon and Mordechai Nisan, see moral commitment as arising from the development of a self-identity that is defined by moral purposes: this moral self-identity leads to a sense of responsibility to pursue such purposes. Of historical interest in psychology are the theories of psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud, who believe that moral development is the product of aspects of the super-ego as guilt-shame avoidance.

Because we are naturally prone to be empathic and moral, we have a sense of responsibility to pursue moral purposes, we still, at least occasionally, engage in immoral behavior. Such behaviors jeopardize our moral self-image; however, when we engage in immoral behaviors we still feel as though we are moral individuals. Moral self-licensing attempts to explain this phenomenon and proposes that self-image security increases our likelihood to engage in immoral behavior. When our moral self-image is threatened, we can gain confidence from our past moral behavior. The more confident we are, the less we will worry about our future behavior which actually increases the likelihood that we will engage in immoral behaviors. Monin and Miller (2001) examined the moral self-licensing effect and found that when participants established credentials as non-prejudiced persons, they were more willing to express politically incorrect opinions despite the fact that the audience was unaware of their credentials.

As an alternative to viewing morality as an individual trait, some sociologists as well as social- and discursive psychologists have taken upon themselves to study the in-vivo aspects of morality by examining how persons conduct themselves in social interaction.

Politics

If morality is the answer to the question 'how ought we to live' at the individual level, politics can be seen as addressing the same question at the social level, though the political sphere raises additional problems and challenges. It is therefore unsurprising that evidence has been found of a relationship between attitudes in morality and politics. Jonathan Haidt and Jesse Graham have studied the differences between liberals and conservatives, in this regard. Haidt found that Americans who identified as liberals tended to value care and fairness higher than loyalty, respect and purity. Self-identified conservative Americans valued care and fairness less and the remaining three values more. Both groups gave care the highest over-all weighting, but conservatives valued fairness the lowest, whereas liberals valued purity the lowest. Haidt also hypothesizes that the origin of this division in the United States can be traced to geo-historical factors, with conservatism strongest in closely knit, ethnically homogenous communities, in contrast to port-cities, where the cultural mix is greater, thus requiring more liberalism.

Group morality develops from shared concepts and beliefs and is often codified to regulate behavior within a culture or community. Various defined actions come to be called moral or immoral. Individuals who choose moral action are popularly held to possess "moral fiber", whereas those who indulge in immoral behavior may be labeled as socially degenerate. The continued existence of a group may depend on widespread conformity to codes of morality; an inability to adjust moral codes in response to new challenges is sometimes credited with the demise of a community (a positive example would be the function of Cistercian reform in reviving monasticism; a negative example would be the role of the Dowager Empress in the subjugation of China to European interests). Within nationalist movements, there has been some tendency to feel that a nation will not survive or prosper without acknowledging one common morality, regardless of its content. Political Morality is also relevant to the behavior internationally of national governments, and to the support they receive from their host population. Noam Chomsky states that

... if we adopt the principle of universality : if an action is right (or wrong) for others, it is right (or wrong) for us. Those who do not rise to the minimal moral level of applying to themselves the standards they apply to others—more stringent ones, in fact—plainly cannot be taken seriously when they speak of appropriateness of response; or of right and wrong, good and evil. In fact, one of the, maybe the most, elementary of moral principles is that of universality, that is, If something's right for me, it's right for you; if it's wrong for you, it's wrong for me. Any moral code that is even worth looking at has that at its core somehow.

Religion

Religion and morality are not synonymous. Morality does not depend upon religion although for some this is "an almost automatic assumption". According to The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics, religion and morality "are to be defined differently and have no definitional connections with each other. Conceptually and in principle, morality and a religious value system are two distinct kinds of value systems or action guides."

Positions

Within the wide range of moral traditions, religious value systems co-exist with contemporary secular frameworks such as consequentialism, freethought, humanism, utilitarianism, and others. There are many types of religious value systems. Modern monotheistic religions, such as Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and to a certain degree others such as Sikhism and Zoroastrianism, define right and wrong by the laws and rules set forth by their respective scriptures and as interpreted by religious leaders within the respective faith. Other religions spanning pantheistic to nontheistic tend to be less absolute. For example, within Buddhism, the intention of the individual and the circumstances should be accounted for to determine if an action is right or wrong. A further disparity between the values of religious traditions is pointed out by Barbara Stoler Miller, who states that, in Hinduism, "practically, right and wrong are decided according to the categories of social rank, kinship, and stages of life. For modern Westerners, who have been raised on ideals of universality and egalitarianism, this relativity of values and obligations is the aspect of Hinduism most difficult to understand".

Religions provide different ways of dealing with moral dilemmas. For example, there is no absolute prohibition on killing in Hinduism, which recognizes that it "may be inevitable and indeed necessary" in certain circumstances. In monotheistic traditions, certain acts are viewed in more absolute terms, such as abortion or divorce. Religion is not always positively associated with morality. Philosopher David Hume stated that, "the greatest crimes have been found, in many instances, to be compatible with a superstitious piety and devotion; Hence it is justly regarded as unsafe to draw any inference in favor of a man's morals, from the fervor or strictness of his religious exercises, even though he himself believe them sincere."

Religious value systems can diverge from commonly-held contemporary moral positions, such as those on murder, mass atrocities, and slavery. For example, Simon Blackburn states that "apologists for Hinduism defend or explain away its involvement with the caste system, and apologists for Islam defend or explain away its harsh penal code or its attitude to women and infidels". In regard to Christianity, he states that the "Bible can be read as giving us a carte blanche for harsh attitudes to children, the mentally handicapped, animals, the environment, the divorced, unbelievers, people with various sexual habits, and elderly women", and notes morally suspect themes in the Bible's New Testament as well. Christian apologists address Blackburn's viewpoints and construe that Jewish laws in the Jewish Bible showed the evolution of moral standards towards protecting the vulnerable, imposing a death penalty on those pursuing slavery and treating slaves as persons and not property. Elizabeth Anderson holds that "the Bible contains both good and evil teachings", and it is "morally inconsistent". Humanists like Paul Kurtz believe that we can identify moral values across cultures, even if we do not appeal to a supernatural or universalist understanding of principles - values including integrity, trustworthiness, benevolence, and fairness. These values can be resources for finding common ground between believers and nonbelievers.

Empirical analyses

A number of studies have been conducted on the empirics of morality in various countries, and the overall relationship between faith and crime is unclear. A 2001 review of studies on this topic found "The existing evidence surrounding the effect of religion on crime is varied, contested, and inconclusive, and currently no persuasive answer exists as to the empirical relationship between religion and crime." Phil Zuckerman's 2008 book, Society without God, based on studies conducted during a 14-month period in Scandinavia in 2005-2006, notes that Denmark and Sweden, "which are probably the least religious countries in the world, and possibly in the history of the world", enjoy "among the lowest violent crime rates in the world [and] the lowest levels of corruption in the world".

Dozens of studies have been conducted on this topic since the twentieth century. A 2005 study by Gregory S. Paul published in the Journal of Religion and Society stated that, "In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies," and "In all secular developing democracies a centuries long-term trend has seen homicide rates drop to historical lows" with the exceptions being the United States (with a high religiosity level) and "theistic" Portugal. In a response, Gary Jensen builds on and refines Paul's study. His conclusion is that a "complex relationship" exists between religiosity and homicide "with some dimensions of religiosity encouraging homicide and other dimensions discouraging it". On April 26, 2012, the results of a study which tested their subjects' pro-social sentiments were published in the Social Psychological and Personality Science journal in which non-religious people had higher scores showing that they were more inclined to show generosity in random acts of kindness, such as lending their possessions and offering a seat on a crowded bus or train. Religious people also had lower scores when it came to seeing how much compassion motivated participants to be charitable in other ways, such as in giving money or food to a homeless person and to non-believers.

Social cognitive theory

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Social cognitive theory (SCT), used in psychology, education, and communication, holds that portions of an individual's knowledge acquisition can be directly related to observing others within the context of social interactions, experiences, and outside media influences. This theory was advanced by Albert Bandura as an extension of his social learning theory. The theory states that when people observe a model performing a behavior and the consequences of that behavior, they remember the sequence of events and use this information to guide subsequent behaviors. Observing a model can also prompt the viewer to engage in behavior they already learned. In other words, people do not learn new behaviors solely by trying them and either succeeding or failing, but rather, the survival of humanity is dependent upon the replication of the actions of others. Depending on whether people are rewarded or punished for their behavior and the outcome of the behavior, the observer may choose to replicate behavior modeled. Media provides models for a vast array of people in many different environmental settings.

History

The conceptual roots for social cognitive theory come from Edwin B. Holt and Harold Chapman Brown's 1931 book theorizing that all animal action is based on fulfilling the psychological needs of "feeling, emotion, and desire". The most notable component of this theory is that it predicted a person cannot learn to imitate until they are imitated.

In 1941, Neal E. Miller and John Dollard presented their book with a revision of Holt's social learning and imitation theory. They argued four factors contribute to learning: drives, cues, responses, and rewards. One driver is social motivation, which includes imitativeness, the process of matching an act to an appropriate cue of where and when to perform the act. A behavior is imitated depending on whether the model receives a positive or negative response consequences. Miller and Dollard argued that if one were motivated to learn a particular behavior, then that particular behavior would be learned through clear observations. By imitating these observed actions the individual observer would solidify that learned action and would be rewarded with positive reinforcement.

The proposition of social learning was expanded upon and theorized by Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura. Bandura, along with his students and colleagues conducted a series of studies, known as the Bobo doll experiment, in 1961 and 1963 to find out why and when children display aggressive behaviors. These studies demonstrated the value of modeling for acquiring novel behaviors. These studies helped Bandura publish his seminal article and book in 1977 that expanded on the idea of how behavior is acquired, and thus built from Miller and Dollard's research. In Bandura's 1977 article, he claimed that Social Learning Theory shows a direct correlation between a person's perceived self-efficacy and behavioral change. Self-efficacy comes from four sources: "performance accomplishments, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological states".

In 1986, Bandura published his second book, which expanded and renamed his original theory. He called the new theory social cognitive theory. Bandura changed the name to emphasize the major role cognition plays in encoding and performing behaviors. In this book, Bandura argued that human behavior is caused by personal, behavioral, and environmental influences.

In 2001, Bandura brought SCT to mass communication in his journal article that stated the theory could be used to analyze how "symbolic communication influences human thought, affect and action". The theory shows how new behavior diffuses through society by psychosocial factors governing acquisition and adoption of the behavior.

In 2011, Bandura published a book chapter -- The Social and Policy Impact of Social Cognitive Theory—to extend SCT'S application in health promotion and urgent global issues, which provides insight into addressing global problems through a macro social lens, aiming at improving equality of individuals' lives under the umbrellas of SCT.

SCT has been applied to many areas of human functioning such as career choice and organizational behavior as well as in understanding classroom motivation, learning, and achievement.

Current status

Social Cognitive Theory originated in psychology, but based on an unofficial November 2013 Google Scholar search, only 2 percent of articles published on SCT are in the pure psychology field. About 20 percent of articles are from Education and 16 percent from Business. The majority of publications using SCT, 56 percent, come from the field of Applied Health Psychology. The majority of current research in Health Psychology focuses on testing SCT in behavioral change campaigns as opposed to expanding on the theory. Campaign topics include: increasing fruit and vegetable intake, increasing physical activity, HIV education, and breastfeeding.

Born in 1925, Bandura is still influencing the world with expansions of SCT. His recent work, published May 2011, focuses on how SCT impacts areas of both health and population in relation to climate change. He proposes that these problems could be solved through television serial dramas that show models similar to viewers performing the desired behavior. On health, Bandura writes that currently there is little incentive for doctors to write prescriptions for healthy behavior, but he believes the cost of fixing health problems start to outweigh the benefits of being healthy. Bandura argues that we are on the cusp of moving from a disease model (focusing on people with problems) to a health model (focusing on people being healthy) and SCT is the theory that should be used to further a healthy society. Specifically on Population, Bandura states that population growth is a global crisis because of its correlation with depletion and degradation of our planet's resources. Bandura argues that SCT should be used to increase birth control use, reduce gender inequality through education, and to model environmental conservation to improve the state of the planet.

Overview

Social cognitive theory is a learning theory based on the idea that people learn by observing others. These learned behaviors can be central to one's personality. While social psychologists agree that the environment one grows up in contributes to behavior, the individual person (and therefore cognition) is just as important. People learn by observing others, with the environment, behavior, and cognition acting as primary factors that influence development in a reciprocal triadic relationship. Each behavior witnessed can change a person's way of thinking (cognition). Similarly, the environment one is raised in may influence later behaviors. For example, a caregiver's mindset (also cognition) determines the environment in which their children are raised.

The core concepts of this theory are explained by Bandura through a schematization of triadic reciprocal causation, The schema shows how the reproduction of an observed behavior is influenced by the interaction of the following three determinants:

1. Personal: Whether the individual has high or low self-efficacy toward the behavior (i.e. Get the learner to believe in his or her personal abilities to correctly complete a behavior);
2. Behavioral: The response an individual receives after they perform a behavior (i.e. Provide chances for the learner to experience successful learning as a result of performing the behavior correctly);
3. Environmental: Aspects of the environment or setting that influence the individual's ability to successfully complete a behavior (i.e. Make environmental conditions conducive for improved self-efficacy by providing appropriate support and materials).

It is important to note that learning can occur without a change in behavior. According to J.E. Ormrod's general principles of social learning, while a visible change in behavior is the most common proof of learning, it is not absolutely necessary. Social learning theorists believe that because people can learn through observation alone, their learning may not necessarily be shown in their performance. These are interdependent on each other and its influence can be directly linked with individual or group psychological behavior. According to Alex Stajkovic and Fred Luthans it is critically important to recognize that the relative influences exerted by one, two, or three interacting factors on motivated behavior will vary depending on different activities, different individuals and different circumstances.

Theoretical foundations

Human agency

Social cognitive theory is proposed in an agentic perspective, which suggests that, instead of being just shaped by environments or inner forces, individuals are self-developing, self-regulating, self-reflecting and proactive. Specifically, human agency operates within three modes:

• Individual Agency: A person’s own influence on the environment;
• Proxy Agency: Another person’s effort on securing the individual’s interests;
• Collective Agency: A group of people work together to achieve the common benefits.

Human agency has four core properties:

• Intentionality: Individuals’ active decision on engaging in certain activities;
• Forethought: Individuals’ ability to anticipate the outcome of certain actions;
• Self-reactiveness: Individuals’ ability to construct and regulate appropriate behaviors;
• Self-reflectiveness: Individuals’ ability to reflect and evaluate the soundness of their cognitions and behaviors.

Human capability

Evolving over time, human beings are featured with advanced neural systems, which enable individuals to acquire knowledge and skills by both direct and symbolic terms. Four primary capabilities are addressed as important foundations of social cognitive theory: symbolizing capability, self-regulation capability, self-reflective capability, and vicarious capability:

1. Symbolizing Capability: People are affected not only by direct experience but also indirect events. Instead of merely learning through laborious trial-and-error process, human beings are able to symbolically perceive events conveyed in messages, construct possible solutions, and evaluate the anticipated outcomes;
2. Self-regulation Capability: Individuals can regulate their own intentions and behaviors by themselves. Self-regulation lies on both negative and positive feedback systems, in which discrepancy reduction and discrepancy production are involved. That is, individuals proactively motivate and guide their actions by setting challenging goals and then making effort to fulfill them. In doing so, individuals gain skills, resources, self-efficacy and beyond;
3. Self-reflective Capability: Human beings can evaluate their thoughts and actions by themselves, which is identified as another distinct feature of human beings. By verifying the adequacy and soundness of their thoughts through enactive, various, social, or logical manner, individuals can generate new ideas, adjust their thoughts, and take actions accordingly;
4. Vicarious Capability: One critical ability human being featured is to adopt skills and knowledge from information communicated through a wide array of mediums. By vicariously observing others’ actions and its consequences, individuals can gain insights into their own activities. Vicarious capability is of great value to human beings’ cognitive development in nowadays, in which most of our information encountered in our lives derives from the mass media than trial-and-error process.

Theoretical components

Modeling

Social cognitive theory revolves around the process of knowledge acquisition or learning directly correlated to the observation of models. The models can be those of an interpersonal imitation or media sources. Effective modeling teaches general rules and strategies for dealing with different situations.

To illustrate that people learn from watching others, Albert Bandura and his colleagues constructed a series of experiments using a Bobo doll. In the first experiment, children were exposed to either an aggressive or non-aggressive model of either the same sex or opposite sex as the child. There was also a control group. The aggressive models played with the Bobo doll in an aggressive manner, while the non-aggressive models played with other toys. They found that children who were exposed to the aggressive models performed more aggressive actions toward the Bobo doll afterward, and that boys were more likely to do so than girls.

Following that study, Albert Bandura tested whether the same was true for models presented through media by constructing an experiment he called Bobo Doll Behavior: A Study of Aggression. In this experiment Bandura exposed a group of children to a video featuring violent and aggressive actions. After the video he then placed the children in a room with a Bobo doll to see how they behaved with it. Through this experiment, Bandura discovered that children who had watched the violent video subjected the dolls to more aggressive and violent behavior, while children not exposed to the video did not. This experiment displays the social cognitive theory because it depicts how people reenact behaviors they see in the media. In this case, the children in this experiment reenacted the model of violence they directly learned from the video.

Observations should include:

• Attention Observers selectively give attention to specific social behavior depending on accessibility, relevance, complexity, functional value of the behavior or some observer's personal attributes such as cognitive capability, value preference, preconceptions.
• Retention Observe a behavior and subsequent consequences, then convert that observation to a symbol that can be accessed for future reenactments of the behavior. Note: When a positive behavior is shown a positive reinforcement should follow, this parallel is similar for negative behavior;
• Production refers to the symbolic representation of the original behavior being translated into action through reproduction of the observed behavior in seemingly appropriate contexts. During reproduction of the behavior, a person receives feedback from others and can adjust their representation for future references;
• Motivational process reenacts a behavior depending on responses and consequences the observer receives when reenacting that behavior.

Modeling does not limit to only live demonstrations but also verbal and written behaviour can act as indirect forms of modeling. Modeling not only allows students to learn behaviour that they should repeat but also to inhibit certain behaviours. For instance, if a teacher glares at one student who is talking out of turn, other students may suppress this behavior to avoid a similar reaction. Teachers model both material objectives and underlying curriculum of virtuous living. Teachers should also be dedicated to the building of high self-efficacy levels in their students by recognizing their accomplishments.

Outcome expectancies

To learn a particular behavior, people must understand what the potential outcome is if they repeat that behavior. The observer does not expect the actual rewards or punishments incurred by the model, but anticipates similar outcomes when imitating the behavior (called outcome expectancies), which is why modeling impacts cognition and behavior. These expectancies are heavily influenced by the environment that the observer grows up in; for example, the expected consequences for a DUI in the United States of America are a fine, with possible jail time, whereas the same charge in another country might lead to the infliction of the death penalty.

For example, in the case of a student, the instructions the teacher provides help students see what outcome a particular behaviour leads to. It is the duty of the teacher to teach a student that when a behaviour is successfully learned, the outcomes are meaningful and valuable to the students.

Self-efficacy

Social cognitive theory posits that learning most likely occurs if there is a close identification between the observer and the model and if the observer also has a good deal of self-efficacy. Self–efficacy is the extent to which an individual believes that they can master a particular skill. Self-efficacy beliefs function as an important set of proximal determinants of human motivation, affect, and action—which operate on action through motivational, cognitive, and affective intervening processes.

According to Bandura, self-efficacy is "the belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations". Bandura and other researchers have found an individual's self-efficacy plays a major role in how goals, tasks, and challenges are approached. Individuals with high self-efficacy are more likely to believe they can master challenging problems and they can recover quickly from setbacks and disappointments. Individuals with low self-efficacy tend to be less confident and don't believe they can perform well, which leads them to avoid challenging tasks. Therefore, self-efficacy plays a central role in behavior performance. Observers who have high level of self-efficacy are more likely to adopt observational learning behaviors.
Self-efficacy can be developed or increased by:

• Mastery experience, which is a process that helps an individual achieve simple tasks that lead to more complex objectives;
• Social modeling provides an identifiable model that shows the processes that accomplish a behavior;
• Improving physical and emotional states refers to ensuring a person is rested and relaxed prior to attempting a new behavior. The less relaxed, the less patient, the more likely they won't attain the goal behavior;
• Verbal persuasion is providing encouragement for a person to complete a task or achieve a certain behavior.

For example, students become more effortful, active, pay attention, highly motivated and better learners when they perceive that they have mastered a particular task. It is the duty of the teacher to allow student to perceive in their efficacy by providing feedback to understand their level of proficiency. Teachers should ensure that the students have the knowledge and strategies they need to complete the tasks.

Self-efficacy has also been used to predict behavior in various health related situations such as weight loss, quitting smoking, and recovery from heart attack. In relation to exercise science, self-efficacy has produced some of the most consistent results revealing an increase in participation in exercise.

Identification

Identification allows the observer to feel a one-to-one similarity with the model, and can thus lead to a higher chance of the observer following through with the modeled action. People are more likely to follow behaviors modeled by someone with whom they can identify with. The more commonalities or emotional attachments perceived between the observer and the model, the more likely the observer learns and reenact the modeled behavior.

Applications

Mass communication

Media contents studies

Social cognitive theory is often applied as a theoretical framework of studies pertained to media representation regarding race, gender, age and beyond. Social cognitive theory suggested heavily repeated images presented in mass media can be potentially processed and encoded by the viewers (Bandura, 2011). Media content analytic studies examine the substratum of media messages that viewers are exposed to, which could provide an opportunity to uncover the social values attached to these media representations. Although media contents studies cannot directly test the cognitive process, findings can offer an avenue to predict potential media effects from modeling certain contents, which provides evidence and guidelines for designing subsequent empirical work.

Media effects studies

Social cognitive theory is pervasively employed in studies examining attitude or behavior changes triggered by the mass media. As Bandura suggested, people can learn how to perform behaviors through media modeling. SCT has been widely applied in media studies pertained to sports, health, education and beyond. For instance, Hardin and Greer in 2009 examined the gender-typing of sports within the theoretical framework of social cognitive theory, suggesting that sports media consumption and gender-role socialization significantly related with gender perception of sports in American college students.

In health communication, social cognitive theory has been applied in research related to smoking quit, HIV prevention, safe sex behaviors, and so on. For example, Martino, Collins, Kanouse, Elliott, and Berry in 2005 examined the relationship between the exposure to television’s sexual content and adolescents’ sexual behavior through the lens of social cognitive theory, confirming the significant relationship between the two variables among white and African American groups; however, no significant correlation was found between the two variables in the ethic group of Hispanics, indicating that peer norm could possibly serve as a mediator of the two examined variables.

Public health

Miller's 2005 study found that choosing the proper gender, age, and ethnicity for models ensured the success of an AIDS campaign to inner city teenagers. This occurred because participants could identify with a recognizable peer, have a greater sense of self-efficacy, and then imitate the actions to learn the proper preventions and actions. A study by Azza Ahmed in 2009 looked to see if there would be an increase in breastfeeding by mothers of preterm infants when exposed to a breastfeeding educational program guided by SCT. Sixty mothers were randomly assigned to either participate in the program or they were given routine care. The program consisted of SCT strategies that touched on all three SCT determinants: personal – showing models performing breastfeeding correctly to improve self-efficacy, behavioral –weekly check-ins for three months reinforced participants' skills, environmental – mothers were given an observational checklist to make sure they successfully completed the behavior. The author found that mothers exposed to the program showed significant improvement in their breastfeeding skills, were more likely to exclusively breastfeed, and had fewer problems then the mothers who were not exposed to the educational program.

Morality

Social cognitive theory emphasizes a large difference between an individual's ability to be morally competent and morally performing. Moral competence involves having the ability to perform a moral behavior, whereas moral performance indicates actually following one's idea of moral behavior in a specific situation. Moral competencies include:

• what an individual is capable of;
• what an individual knows;
• what an individual's skills are;
• an individual's awareness of moral rules and regulations;
• an individual's cognitive ability to construct behaviors.

As far as an individual's development is concerned, moral competence is the growth of cognitive-sensory processes; simply put, being aware of what is considered right and wrong. By comparison, moral performance is influenced by the possible rewards and incentives to act a certain way. For example, a person's moral competence might tell them that stealing is wrong and frowned upon by society; however, if the reward for stealing is a substantial sum, their moral performance might indicate a different line of thought. Therein lies the core of social cognitive theory.

For the most part, social cognitive theory remains the same for various cultures. Since the concepts of moral behavior did not vary much between cultures (as crimes like murder, theft, and unwarranted violence are illegal in virtually every society), there is not much room for people to have different views on what is morally right or wrong. The main reason that social cognitive theory applies to all nations is because it does not say what is moral and immoral; it simply states that we can acknowledge these two concepts. Our actions in real-life scenarios are based on whether we believe the action is moral and whether the reward for violating our morals is significant enough, and nothing else.

Limitations

Modelling and mass media

In series TV programming, according to social cognitive theory, the awarded behaviors of liked characters are supposed to be followed by viewers, while punished behaviors are supposed to be avoided by media consumers. However, in most cases, protagonists in TV shows are less likely to experience the long-term suffering and negative consequences caused by their risky behaviors, which could potentially undermine the punishments conveyed by the media, leading to a modeling of the risky behaviors. Nabi and Clark conducted experiments about individual’s attitudes and intentions consuming various portrayals of one-night stand sex– unsafe and risky sexual behavior, finding that individuals who had not previously experience one night stand sex, consuming media portrayals of this behavior could significantly increase their expectations of having an one night stand sex in the future, although negative outcomes were represented in TV shows.

Information culture

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Information culture

Information culture is closely linked with Information Technology, Information Systems and the digital world. It is difficult to give one definition of Information Culture and many approaches exist.

Overview

The literature regarding Information Culture focuses on the relationship between individuals and information in their work. Curry and Moore are most frequently cited in the Information Culture literature, and there is consensus of that values accorded to information, and attitudes towards it are indicators of Information Culture (McMillan et al., 2012; Curry and Moore, 2003; Furness, 2010; Oliver, 2007; Davenport and Prusak, 1997; Widén-Wulff, 2000; Jarvenpaa and Staples, 2001). Information Culture is a culture that is conducive to effective information management where "the value and utility of information in achieving operational and strategic goals is recognized, where information forms the basis of organizational decision making and Information Technology is readily exploited as an enabler for effective information systems". Information Culture is a part of the whole Organizational culture. It is only by understanding the organisation that progress can be made with information management activities.

Ginman defines Information Culture as the culture in which the transformation of intellectual resources is maintained alongside the transformation of material resources. Information Culture is the environment where knowledge is produced with social intelligence, social interaction and work knowledge. Multinational organizations (MNOs) are characterized by their engagement in global markets (Umanath & Campbell, 1994). In order to remain competitive in today’s global marketplace.

In many organizations Information Culture is described as a form of Information Technology. As Davenport writes, many executives think they solve all information problems with buying IT-equipment. Information Culture is about effective information management to use information, not machines, and Information Technology is just a part of Information Culture, which has an interactive role in it.

Information Culture is the part of organizational culture where evaluation and attitudes towards information depend on the situation in which the organization works. In an organization everyone has different attitudes, but the information profile must be explained, so the importance of information should be realized by executives. The Information Culture is also about formal information systems (technology), common knowledge, individual information systems (attitudes), and information ethics. Information Culture does not include written or conscious behavior and what seemingly happening in the organization. Information Culture is affected by the behaviors of internal factors of organization more than external factors, which comes in form of Information Culture, the attitudes and the traditions. Information Culture deals with information, information channels, the attitudes, the use and ability to forward or gather information with the environmental circumstances effectively. Knowledge base of any organization can be viewed according to Nonaka’s theories about the organizational knowledge production and Cronin & Davenport's theories about the social intelligence. According to these theories it is important to look at the organization Information Culture how the user uses the information. Cultural differences need to be understood before information technology developed for an organization in one country can be effectively implemented in an organization in another country.

A highly developed Information Culture leads the organization to success and work as a strategic goal that positively associated with organizational practices and performance. Choo et al. looked at Information Culture as the socially shared patterns of behaviors, norms and values that define the significance and use of information in an organization. Also, scholars like Manuel Castells posits that the Information Culture transcends the confines of organizations and government participation through policies is relevant for achieving the norms and values. Norms are standards and values are beliefs and together they mold the information behavior as normal that are expected by the people in organization. In so far, information behavior is the reflection of cultural norms and values. Marchand, Kettinger and Rollins identifies six information behaviors and values to profile an organization's Information Culture:

• Information integrity is defined as the use of information in a trustful and principled manner.
• Information formality is the willingness to use and trust formal information over informal sources;
• Information control is the extent to which information is used to manage and monitor performance;
• Information transparency is the openness in reporting on errors and failures;
• Information sharing is the willingness to provide others with information;
• Proactiveness is actively using new information to innovate and respond quickly to changes.

Information Culture typologies

Based on a widely applied construct from Cameron and Quinn that has been used to differentiate organizational culture types and their relationships to organizational effectiveness, Choo develops a typology of Information Culture. He emphasizes elements from information behavior research. The Information Culture typologies are characterized by a set of five attributes:

1. the primary goal of information management;
2. information values and norms;
3. information behaviors in terms of information needs;
4. information seeking;
5. information use.

In addition, Choo classifies Information Culture into four categories: Relationship-based Culture, Risk-taking Culture, Result-oriented Culture, and Rule-following Culture.

Relationship-based Culture: information management supports communication, participation, and a sense of identity. Information values and norms emphasize sharing and the proactive use of information. These values promote collaboration and cooperation. The focus is on internal information.

Risk-taking Culture: innovation, creativity, and the exploration of new ideas are encouraged while information is managed. Information values and norms emphasize sharing and the proactive use of information. These values promote innovation, development of new products or capabilities, and the boldness to take the initiative. The focus is on external information. Information is used to identify and evaluate opportunities, and promote entrepreneurial risk-taking.

Result-oriented Culture: information management enables the organization to compete and succeed in its market or sector. Information values and norms call attention to control and integrity: accurate information is valued in order to assess performance and goal attainment. Information is used to understand clients and competitors, and to evaluate results.

Rule-following Culture: information management reinforces the control of internal operations, rules and policies. Information values and norms emphasize control and standardized processes. The focus is on internal information. The organization seeks information about workflows, as well as information about regulatory or accountability requirements. Information is used to control operations, improve efficiency, and provide accountability.

Information Culture in government organization

Information governance is beginning to gain traction within organizations, particularly where compliance is a concern, and Davenport and Prusak’s models of governance are useful tools to inform the design of information governance. Most public sector organizations in Canada have informal information governance models (or policies) Davenport, Eccles and Prusak have developed four models of information governance, to inform a progression of control. They describe the levels of information governance using political terms: information federalism, information feudalism, information monarchy, and information anarchy. Their observations allow to evaluate the effectiveness of their governance models in terms of information quality, efficiency, commonality, and access.

Oliver’s  research on three case study organizations found several factors that characterized and differentiated the Information Cultures were associated with the organizational information management framework, as well as attitudes and values accorded to information. Compliance requirements for the management of information have a significant place in shaping Information Culture.

Research suggests that poor compliance to formal information governance policies reinforces the fact that sound knowledge and records management practices are often neglected.

Information Culture affects support, enthusiasm and cooperation of staff and management of information, asserts Curry and Moore. If such an Information Culture is critical to the successful management of information assets, then it becomes vital to develop and nurture the commitment from both management and staff at all levels. Curry and Moore have developed an exploratory model of Information Culture, which included components needed within a strong Information Culture: effective communication flows, cross-organizational partnerships, co-operative working practices and open access to relevant information, management of information systems in accordance with business strategy, and clear guidelines and documentation for information and data management. Trust is a characteristic that has more recently come to the forefront in literature. The social dynamics between supervisors and workers relies upon trust, or the lack of trust, which will also have an effect on information sharing.

Information Culture and Information Use

Curry and Moore define Information Culture as "a culture in which the value and utility of information in achieving operational and strategic success is recognised, where information forms the basis of organizational decision making and information technology is readily exploited as an enabler for effective information systems". Information Culture is manifested in the organization’s values, norms, and practices that affect how information is perceived, created and used. The six information behaviors and values identified by Marchand to characterize the Information Culture of an organization are information integrity, formality, control, sharing, transparency, and proactiveness. A part of culture that deals specifically with information —the perceptions, values, and norms that people have about creating, sharing, and applying information— has a significant effect on information use outcomes. It is possible to systematically identify behaviors and values that describe an organization’s Information Culture. It is possible to systematically identify behaviours and values that characterize an organization’s Information Culture, and that this characterization could be helpful in understanding the information use effectiveness of all sorts of organizations, including private businesses, government agencies, and publicly funded institutions such as libraries and museums. A study by Choo and others suggested that organizations might do well to remember that in the rush to implement strategies and systems, information values and information culture will always have a defining influence on how people share and use information.

Information Culture and Organizational Culture

In industrialised countries, most of the diseases and injuries are related to mental health problems and are the main reason of employees absenteeism. There are number of risk factors or stressors that may cause psychological strain and ill health, resulted in occupational stress interventions that occur in isolation, independent of organizational culture. Paying more attention to organizational culture paves the way for a contextualized analysis of stress and distress in the workplace. An integrated framework is used in which the association between organizational culture and mental health is mediated by the work organization conditions that qualify the task environment like information management, information sharing and decision making. Organizational cultures somehow intertwined with the Information Culture. Information Culture is a part of Organizational Culture as values, behaviour of employees in the organisation somehow effect the Information Culture. The framework links organizational culture to mental health via work organization conditions and is inscribed within the functionalist perspective that views culture as an organizational construct that influences and shapes organizational characteristics. Organizational culture is conceptualized in terms of the four quadrants of the Quinn and Rohrbaugh typology. Which are Group Culture, Developmental Culture, Hierarchical Culture and Rational Culture and by knowing these cultures organisations can easily adopt the relevant culture according to their work related conditions. Although work organization conditions and organizational culture are closely intertwined, they should not be confounded (Detert, Schroeder, & Mauriel; Schein; Witte & Muijen, 1999). Just as societal cultural values would influence organizationally relevant outcomes (Taras, Kirkman, & Steel, 2010), organizational culture might influence work organization conditions. Schein views organizational culture as a multilayered construct that includes artifacts, values, social ideals, and basic assumptions. Artifacts such as behaviors, structures, processes, and technology form a first layer. At a more latent level, organizational culture is noticed in the values and social ideals shared by members of the organization (i.e., ideology of the organization). These values and ideals are revealed in symbolic mechanisms such as myths, rituals, stories, legends, and a codified language, as well as in corporate objectives, strategies, management philosophies, and in the justifications given for these.

Group Culture encourages employees to make suggestions regarding how to improve their own work and overall performance. As a result, the group culture creates an empowering environment in which individuals perceive they have autonomy and influence. Consequently, in the Group Culture, individuals recognize that their work has meaning and that they have the skills to carry it out. Considering also that information sharing is an important feature of employee participation, informational support from leaders is likely to be high in the group culture. Group Culture tends to develop task designs that promote the use of skills and decision authority, which are protective factors and also implement work organization conditions that promote social support whether from colleagues or from supervisors, which thereby have a beneficial influence on employee mental health.

Developmental Culture is helpful to develop decentralised work design that promotes the use of skills and decision authority with benefit to employee mental health. In Developmental Culture, employees are likely to enjoy significant rewards that could have beneficial effects on employee mental health.

Hierarchical Culture is helpful to promote social support and thereby play a beneficial role in employee mental health. In this type of culture, it could well be seniority that determines both compensation and career advancement, giving employees a certain level of job security that could prove beneficial for employee mental health.

Rational Culture with clear performance indicators and measurements is likely to minimize conflicting demands that could be beneficial for employee mental health.So these integrated model can help the organisations and the managers to choose the suitable culture. Integration of organizational culture into occupational stress models is a fruitful avenue to achieve a deeper understanding of occupational mental health problems in the workplace and this framework can also helpful to serve as a starting point for multilevel occupational stress research.

HKU study finds that ocean circulation in the North Atlantic is at its weakest since the past 1,500 years

Public Release: 23-Nov-2018 by The University of Hong Kong

Original link:  https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-11/tuoh-oci112318.php?fbclid=IwAR0yqMSxxrse1df16kHXvFqCnzwePaJX_N92N1v6Ke28uZ_dxRLmN1_FN2g 

IMAGE: This is a schematic of the circulation in the western North Atlantic during episode of strong (left) and weak (right) westward transport of the Labrador Current (LC). The oceanography of... view more 

Credit: @The University of Hong Kong

The research co-led by Drs. Christelle Not and Benoit Thibodeau from the Department of Earth Sciences and the Swire Institute of Marine Science, The University of Hong Kong, highlights a dramatic weakening of the circulation during the 20th century that is interpreted to be a direct consequence of global warming and associated melt of the Greenland Ice-Sheet. This is important for near-future climate as slower circulation in the North Atlantic can yield profound change on both the North American and European climate but also on the African and Asian summer monsoon rainfall.

The findings were recently published in the prestigious journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is the branch of the North Atlantic circulation that brings warm surface water toward the Arctic and cold deep water toward the equator.
This transfer of heat and energy not only has direct influence on climate over Europe and North American but can impact the African and Asian monsoon system through its effect on sea surface temperature, hydrological cycle, atmospheric circulation and variation in the intertropical convergence zone. Many climate models predicted a weakening, or even a collapse of this branch of the circulation under global warming, partly due to the release of freshwater from Greenland Ice-Sheet. This freshwater has lower density than salty water and thus prevents the formation of deep water, slowing down the whole circulation. However, this weakening is still vigorously debated because of the scarcity of long-term record of the AMOC. Drs. Not and Thibodeau used microfossils, called foraminifer, found in a sediment core to estimate the past temperature of the Ocean. The sediment core used is located in the Laurentian Channel, on the coast of Canada, where two important currents meet. Thus, the strength of these currents will control the temperature of the water at the coring site which implies that the temperature reconstructed from this core is indicative of the strength of the North Atlantic circulation. With their collaborators from the United-States of America, they validated their results using instrumental data and two numerical models that can simulate the climate and the ocean.

"The AMOC plays a crucial role in regulating global climate, but scientists are struggling to find reliable indicators of its intensity in the past. The discovery of this new record of AMOC will enhance our understanding of its drivers and ultimately help us better comprehend potential near-future change under global warming" said Dr. Thibodeau.

Interestingly, the research team also found a weak signal during a period called the Little Ice Age (a cold spell observed between about 1600 and 1850 AD). While not as pronounced as the 20th century trend, the signal might confirm that this period was also characterized by a weaker circulation in the North Atlantic, which implies a decrease in the transfer of heat toward Europe, contributing to the cold temperature of this period. However, more work is needed to validate this hypothesis.

"While we could ground-truth our temperature reconstruction for the 20th century against instrumental measurement it is not possible to do so for the Little Ice Age period. Therefore, we need to conduct more analysis to consolidate this hypothesis" said Dr. Not.

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About the journal paper

"Last century warming over the Canadian Atlantic shelves linked to weak Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation", Geophysical Research Letters.

About the research team

Drs Not and Thibodeau are leading the Environmental Geochemistry and Oceanography research group at The University of Hong Kong and are member of the department of Earth Sciences and the Swire Institute of Marine Science.

For media enquiries, please contact Ms Cindy Chan, Senior Communication Manager of HKU Faculty of Science (tel: 3917 5286/6703 0212; email: cindycst@hku.hk) or Dr. Thibodeau.

Image download: http://www.scifac.hku.hk/news/media?page=1