Generosity and Environmental Protection: How Strong Is the Relationship between Giving and Sustainability?

(1) Background: Sustainability is a crucial priority and a critical part of the modern world. Promoting pro-social values to the younger generation is an issue addressed throughout this paper. The present study aims to answer the question of whether generosity, as a positive attitude towards others, and sustainability, as a positive attitude towards the environment, are related. (2) Methods: The current research includes a sample of 4333 adolescents, ages 14 and 15, who attend schools in Bihor County, Romania. (3) Results: The regression analysis indicates a significant correlation between sustainable values, operationalized through adolescent involvement in environmental organisations, and generosity. (4) Conclusions: Sustainable behaviour can be considered a form of giving that contributes to the collective good. Our research outlines a significant need for a new set of competencies provided through a newly designed curriculum and/or through focused training, in order to cultivate generosity across cultures, ecologies, and generations; at the same time, we also highlight the significant role that the joint efforts of the school-family-library trifecta in supporting this goal.

Smart Cities and Sustainability

The term smart city is often synonymous with a sustainable city. The word smart implies the use of digital technology that serves to make processes and services more efficient and to connect the different actors on the urban scene. However, this is no guarantee of sustainability. A city can become sustainable if it changes its metabolism and from linear to circular as in nature's ecosystems. For this to happen, it is necessary to overcome the paradigm of quantitative economic growth based on the infinite substitutability between natural and economic capital. If smart city governance stakeholders primarily pursue profit according to the logic of the free market, the city may be smarter and efficient in the use of energy and resources, but it is not sustainable, often not even inclusive. The challenge of sustainability implies a paradigm shift and the use of digital technologies at the service of the collective good. In this context, after a general analysis of the characteristics of smart cities, the chapter focuses on an Italian case study, Turin Smart City.

Characteristics of Ethical Leadership: Themes Identification Through Convergent Parallel Mixed Method Design From the Pakistan Context

The current approaches in identifying the characteristics of ethical leadership proceed mainly from a Western perspective based on virtue-driven moral philosophy (i.e., relativism) and frequently ignoring the Asian perspective of morality based on idealism. This study aimed to conduct parallel analysis in convergent design by using qualitative and quantitative methods to extract person-driven ethical leadership themes by considering the Asian context. Using the hypothetico-deductive method, 13 themes were extracted altogether, out of which 4 are new context-driven themes (i.e., altruism, encouragement, collective good, and spiritual transcendence as the emerging themes of ethical leadership in the Asian context).

Simulating the best and worst of times: The powers and perils of emotional simulation

We are remarkably capable of simulating events that we have never experienced. These simulated events often paint an emotional picture to behold, such as the best and worst possible outcomes that we might face. This review synthesizes dispersed literature exploring the role of emotion in simulation. Drawing from work that suggests that simulations can influence our preferences, decision making, and prosociality, we argue for a critical role of emotion in informing the consequences of simulation. We further unpack burgeoning evidence suggesting that the effects of emotional simulation transcend the laboratory. We propose avenues by which emotional simulation can be harnessed for both personal and collective good in applied contexts. We conclude by offering important future directions.

Of Parochial Partisanship and Education: Towards Civic Duty or Polarization?

This article explored parochial partisanship among university students amid growing concerns about political polarization in Ghana. The paper used mixed research methods to gather data with the aid of an interview guide and a questionnaire. It argued that university education inculcates in and endows young people with a sense of civic-minded duty to prioritize the collective good of society and subordinate parochial partisan preferences in an analysis of political policies. The novel finding is that university education in Ghana has enlightened many young people to decipher between the facts and the propagandistic view held by political activists because of parochial partisan interest. However, university education was found to be a necessary but not sufficient condition to wipe out parochial partisanship which is the bane behind the growing political polarization in Ghana. The paper recommends continuous seminars on the dangers associated with negative partisanship in all tertiary educational institutions. Further, the winner-takes-all politics should be reviewed.

Positive Association between Individualism and Vaccination Resistance against COVID-19 Vaccination among Chinese Adults: Mediations via Perceived Personal and Societal Benefits

Background: Vaccination resistance is the key hurdle against herd immunity as it limits the final vaccination coverage. This study investigated the prevalence and factors of COVID-19 vaccination resistance (i.e., those indicating definitely not taking up COVID-19 vaccination), including individualism, perceived personal benefits (PPB) and perceived societal benefits (PSB) of COVID-19 vaccination, and related mechanisms of the association. Methods: A random telephone survey interviewed 395 unvaccinated adults aged 18–75 not having scheduled for COVID-19 vaccination in May 2021 in Hong Kong, China (response rate = 56.8%). Results: The prevalence of vaccination resistance was 56.5%. Adjusted for background factors, individualism, PPB, and PSB were significantly associated with vaccination resistance. Path analysis showed that individualism exhibited a direct effect on vaccination resistance and a 3-step indirect effect (individualism → PSB → PPB→ vaccination resistance) that explained 46.8% of the total effect. The two 2-step indirect paths via PPB only and via PSB only were non-significant. Conclusion: High prevalence of vaccination resistance was observed. Individualism increased vaccination resistance via its direct and indirect effects. Health promotion may emphasize collective good to reduce the impact of individualism and promote PPB/PSB, which may reduce vaccination resistance directly and alleviate the impact of individualism on vaccination resistance indirectly.

Education as Cultural Frame

Education, both mass and elite, has spread everywhere over recent centuries, generally taking globally standardized forms. The studies in this book address its distinctively compulsory form. It is originally organized for the collective good of religious and later political society, and more recently formulated as a citizen—and later human—right. Educational expansion is global, and greatly affected by worldwide organizations. But regional variations matter too, as education spreads out from the Western core. A key to understanding the diffusion of education is to see it as reflecting cultural and political forces, not principally economic ones that obviously vary greatly around the world. Education reflects a cultural model of a secularized modern society, much more than economic interests and structures, and its commonalities are visible everywhere.

Islam, Globalism and Globalisation

This thought paper provides a general overview of globalisation, its interaction with Islamic civilisation and contemporary issues like Fourth Industrial Revolution, Extraterrestrial Imperative, COVID-19 Pandemic and more. The paper intends to identify and analyse the impact of globalisation on Islamic civilisation in various spheres of life including social, cultural, political, educational, religious, and economic. This is particularly crucial in the contemporary period of tension between Islam and the West due to numerous reasons. This paper will contribute to understanding and evaluation of the prevailing situation including the impact of Fourth Industrial Revolution. This paper will also assist in understanding the unique and dynamic challenges of globalisation and their consequences for Islamic civilisation, so, an idea about the way forward which is best for solving or effectively addressing these challenges, can be achieved. Contemporary globalisation and Fourth Industrial Revolution offer ground-breaking opportunities for collective good and for improvement of human condition. Now, it is up to Muslims, to effectively use benefits of globalisation and Fourth Industrial Revolution for civilizational revival and to produce second Islamic Golden Age.

Staatliche Krisenpolitik in der Pandemie: ausgewählte Lehren der Ökonomik

Zusammenfassung Gesellschaften erwarten von ihren Regierungen, dass sie die negativen Effekte eines Pandemieschocks minimieren. Dieser ist zugleich ein extremer Gesundheits-, aber auch ökonomischer und Gesellschaftsschock. Zudem beschuldigen Kritiker die Politik, individuelle Freiheit zu sehr zu beschränken, um Menschen vor Covid-19 zu schützen. Eine Pandemie wird idealtypisch in Phasen mit unterschiedlicher staatlicher Politik zur Kontrolle und Bekämpfung der Krise eingeteilt. Pandemien verursachen Kollektivgutprobleme, da temporäre Beschränkungen zur Krisenüberwindung nötig sind. Individuelle Eigenverantwortung reicht während einer Pandemie nicht aus. Ergänzend ist kollektive Selbstbegrenzung erforderlich, um Trittbrettfahrerprobleme zu überwinden. Abstract: Public Crisis Policy During a Pandemic: Selected Lessons of Economics Societies expect their governments to minimize the negative impact of the pandemic shock which represents both an extreme health as well as economic and societal challenge. At the same time, critics blame incumbent leaders often for hurting individual freedom and livelihood unpardonable in order to save lives from the covid-19 disease. The article considers ideal typical phases of a pandemic with differing public policies to control and fight the crisis. During a pandemic, space becomes a ‘collective good’ where some kind of rationing is needed if other protective measures work only insufficiently. Personal responsibility only is insufficient during a pandemic. Shared responsibility is needed also in order to avoid free riding problems.

Healthcare Activism, Marketization, and the Collective Good

This introductory chapter charts the book’s trajectory by engaging with three interlinked key dynamics of contemporary healthcare—marketization, digitalization, and individualization. It draws on several theoretical frameworks to conceptualize notions of the common, collective, or public good and to consider how healthcare activism may play into defining and defending the collective good when faced with the outlined societal, economic, and scientific dynamics. Presenting contemporary examples from the Covid-19 pandemic, the chapter argues that the way activists define and defend the collective good can only fully be understood by grasping how this good is shaped by other, often more dominant, stakeholders in healthcare: governmental institutions, professional experts, scientists, and private industry—the latter being a focal point of concern for this current volume.