What relationship with nature shapes children’s desire to protect the environment? This study crosses conventional disciplinary boundaries to explore this question. I use qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse experiential, psychological, and contextual dimensions of Human-Nature Connection (HNC) before and after children participate in a project of nature conservation. The results from the interviews (N = 25) suggest that experiential aspects of saving animals enhance children’s appreciation and understanding for animals, nature, and nature conservation. However, the analysis of children’s psychological HNC (N = 158) shows no statistical difference before and after children participate in the project. Analysing the third dimension–children’s contextual HNC–provides further insights. Including children’s contextual relations with home, nature, and city, not only improves the prediction of their desire to work for nature, but also exposes a form of Human-Nature Disconnection (HND) shaped by children’s closeness to cities that negatively influence it. Overall, combining experiential, psychological, and contextual dimensions of HNC provides rich insights to advance the conceptualisation and assessment of human-nature relationships. People’s relationship with nature is better conceived and analysed as systems of relations between mind, body, culture, and environment, which progress through complex dynamics. Future assessments of HNC and HND would benefit from short-term qualitative and long-term quantitative evaluations that explicitly acknowledge their spatial and cultural contexts. This approach would offer novel and valuable insights to promote the psychological and social determinants of resilient sustainable society. Living within sustainable boundaries is a challenge that concerns this and the future generations of humans . How futThis study aims to advance the conceptualisation and assessment of human-nature relationships to better understand what promotes children’s desire to protect nature. To achieve this aim, this study investigates how participating in a project of nature conservation affects children’s human-nature relationship. In the sections below, I introduce the different dimensions of human-nature relationships that exist within disciplines, I described how the study is designed and the conservation project under examination, and then list the methods used. Afterwards, I describe the results of the study, summarise them in the context of the nature conservation project, and then discuss how they contribute to improving the conceptualisation and assessment of human-nature relationships to better predict children’s desire to work for nature in the future.psychological HNC) emerges from research that considers human-nature relationships as an attribute of the mind. This body of literature studies the psychological connection to an abstract form of nature. Changes in people’s connection with nature are measured using quantitative methods often to describe psychological dynamics or to predict specific pro-environmental behaviours  is representative of qualitative research that describes human-nature relationships as experiences of being in nature. Here, researchers observe and describe people’s interaction with local nature  emerges from research on ‘sense of place’ and it investigates human-nature relationships as the sense of belonging that people develop through time with geographical areas. Typically, these studies use questionnaires to study people’s attachment to specific natural landscapes (for review see  mean to you?”, “what is best about [city/home/nature]?”, and “what is worst about [city/home/nature]?”. These questions unpack the mental representations that children use when they are asked about their closeness to nature and city, and their home-nature and home-city closeness. Unfolding the attributes that constitutes children’s home, nature, and city allows investigating the set of meanings that form the foundation of children’s contextual HNC. All children’s written answers are coded using a thematic analysis. All the material above is translated to Swedish to make it accessible to Swedish children . All interviews are held in Swedish at the school during school time and they last about 10 minutes each. They are recorded, transcribed, and inductively coded using Atlas.ti following the systematic process described by Braun and Clarke .Children’s psychological and contextual HNC are assessed at the school that children attend during school hours using printed material. Participants receive brief oral instructions about the content of the activity and then are provided with a printed booklet for the assessment . All chiThe ethical protocol of this study has been approved by the responsible ethical committee . The author had a background police check which was provided to all schools before fieldwork. All participants’ parents or guardians received an informative letter about the study and provided written consent to allow children to participate in the study. This consent allowed the author to record the interviews, analyse results, and utilise quotes from the interviews anonymously. The names reported in the quotes are fictional.The results from interviews suggest that (i) all 25 children interviewed perceive salamanders in a different light after participating in the SP. In the eyes of these children, salamanders are now associated with aesthetic pleasure, feelings of care, empathy, and respect. Children wonder where salamanders are at night, how they feel, and what kind of life they have. In other words, children show the capacity to imagine what the life of a salamander is, and show concern for their livelihoods. The quotes below represent this finding.“I have started to like them and I know now that you have to be careful with them.” (Sky)“I had seen a salamander before (…) but I didn’t know so much about them. And now it feels like ‘Oh, I want to have my own salamander’! They are so smooth and soft! (…) They are so nice!” (Ellie)“First I felt, well … how can I explain? ‘Yeah it’s exciting but they are …like …just salamanders’. But now I feel more like, they are alive, they exist. Before I didn’t think ‘I wonder where they are.’ […] I care more about them.” (Loreta)“I have more […] respect for how they live because it’s quite … I wouldn’t survive if I were a salamander! … Now I see them in a different way. Before I thought they were like animals. Now it’s like they are beings that, well, they need help, just like people can need help sometimes.” (Roberto)These changes are not limited to children’s relation to salamanders. By immediate generalization, children transpose these insights to others animals. Most children state that participating in the SP has altered their relations to animals and nature in general, as the quotes below show.“I have started to think more about animals and nature. Actually a lot more than what I did before.” (Ale)“That you shouldn’t harm them because they are also animals and they often live a hard life.” (Quentin)“Yes, well, I have much more of a sense for nature.” (Megan)“Well, it’s like I’m less scared and I feel … more confident in nature.” (Stephan)Notably, children’s narratives repeatedly report a specific formative moment. The emotional reaction linked to finding salamanders is often associated with overcoming, what I call here, the ‘yuck barrier’ (ii). Once a child finds a salamander, it is his or her responsibility to collect it by hand and determine species and gender. Many children say that before participating in the SP they thought that holding a salamander is simply ‘yuck’, and this emotional threshold kept them from touching, or even considering touching, these animals. However, participating in the SP puts them in a position of responsibility that forces them to overcome this emotional barrier, as the quotes below show.“They were like this little slimy, I didn’t dare to hold it, but now I feel like, now I can hold one without a problem.” (Liz)“The first time it was a little scary. I'm a little afraid of animals so then it was a bit scary, if it would bite me or how it would feel if it was on my hands. It was a little nerve-racking the first time. […] Then it was completely normal.” (Filippo)All children are enthusiastic about participating in the SP. Moreover, the first-hand experience of saving the life of a salamander makes them understand the moral rationale that underpins nature conservation, as the quote below shows.“I have learnt to take care of animals. I'm maybe thinking about doing something like that maybe …to fix things so that everything is good with nature. (…) Yes …I have become more nature-friendly.” (Johan)Collectively, these results show that participating in the SP changes children’s relation to salamanders, other animals, and nature in general. The importance of the SP in shaping children’s relationship with nature is also confirmed in a follow-up study with the same children two years after they participated in the SP .The statistical analyses of psychological and contextual HNC are presented together because they share the same quantitative methodology and because they provide similar insights.All data from FlexiTwins have to be screened for consistency following a standard procedure prior to analysis (for details see ). ConseqThe software R  is used control group has a higher implicit association with nature than the treatment group, but the difference is moderate and statistically weak. For salamander empathy, that means that empathy towards salamanders is higher in children who will participate but have not yet participated in the SP (iii). In this case, the difference is quite large and statistically strong.There are no baseline differences across schools or classes between control and treatment groups for any of the methods employed for contextual HNC . There are also no baseline differences for the methods employed for psychological HNC (p>.1 for CNI and self-nature closeness), but for FlexiTwins  and salamander empathy . For FlexiTwins, that means that the There are no statistical differences before and after children participated in the SP for any of the methods employed for psychological or contextual HNC . Additional t-tests calculated on the mean difference between pre-SP and post-SP confirm these results. These results suggest that participating in the SP does not influence children’s psychological or contextual HNC (iv).There are statistical differences due to gender in both sessions of assessment. Females show significantly higher psychological and contextual HNC than males (v). This is true for all the quantitative methods employed (.094<p < .001). The differences range from small for contextual HNC , to moderate for self-nature closeness (d = 0.34), FlexiTwins (d = 0.39), and salamander empathy (d = 0.46), and large for CNI (d = 0.69).city, home, and nature produces 34 themes reported more than 1000 times , fumes (54), people (41), pollution (32), car (30) activities (28), fun (25), things (21), no nature (14), and friends (13). These are the themes the constitute the concept of city to which children are more or less close to. Differently, the 10 most frequent themes for home are: family (60), living (35), nature (34), room (28), house (25), animals (23), things (20), safety (19), messy (13), and peace (13). Lastly, the 10 most frequently reported themes that construct children’s concept of nature are: animals (94), plants (65), pollution (31), danger (26), nice (25), play (23), fun (21), peace (20), fresh air (19), freedom (16), and love (16). These results show that what children mean by city, home, and nature is a collection of meaningful everyday activities , social contexts , and emotions  (vi).The thematic analysis of how children describe the concepts of 00 times . These tnegatively with home-city (p = -0.37), and self-city closeness (p = -0.37).All children answer the question about their desire to work for nature by writing yes, no, or maybe . In line with all other methods, females show a higher desire to work for nature than males  (v). This difference is large and very significant. A correlation analysis  shows thBartlett’s sphericity test shows that the data are adequate for factor analysis (p<2.2e-16). The consequent principal component analysis shows that the majority of variance in this set of variables is explained by two opposing factors . In ordeHND-HNC model (CTN model) introduces a latent construct based on psychological conceptualisations of people’s relationship with nature (HNC model) integrates positive contextual relations with children’s psychological HNC .Children who attend the school responsible for the SP have higher empathy towards salamanders than children who don’t, even before participating in the SP.The quantitative methods used to assess children’s psychological and contextual HNC cannot distinguish between a child who participated in the SP and a child who did not.Female children show higher values across all indicators of psychological and contextual HNC, and higher desire to work for nature than male children.home, nature, and city is a collection of meaningful everyday activities, social contexts, and emotions.What children mean by Integrating contextual with psychological factors of HNC improves the prediction of children’s desire to work for nature.Self-city and home-city closeness represent a Human Nature Disconnection (HND) that is negatively linked to children’s desire to work for nature.Overall, the SP seems to be a formative experience for children’s relationship with nature even if the changes in how children value salamanders, animals, and nature in general could not quantified. The SP shares many conditions that characterize the most effective programs in environmental education: occurring over an extended period of time, learning about environmental issues and practising action skills, experiencing and taking ownership of environmental issues, and participating with role models . AccordiYet, there is a visible discrepancy between the results of the interviews and the assessment of psychological and contextual HNC. Psychological and contextual HNC do not change after children participate in the SP. Regardless of the unexplored and potentially speculative motivations for this discrepancy, recognising such discrepancy is further testimony to the value of interdisciplinary approaches to HNC. Identifying this discrepancy hints that in order to better conceive children’s relationship with nature and understand the premises of their desire to protect nature, HNC has to be operationalised, analysed, and discussed jointly from a multitude of disciplinary perspectives. The aim of this paper is to do exactly so and the results of this study promotes such opportunity.In the sections below, I combine the findings above to advance future operationalisations and assessments of human-nature relationships. The interdisciplinary findings of this study- with the associated roman numeral in the list above—are discussed in three following sections: conceptualizing human-nature relationships; assessing human-nature relationships, and children’s desire to work for nature and the everyday habitat.The interdisciplinary analysis of the results suggests two properties of human-nature relationships that are core characteristics of system thinking  and emboMost conceptualisations of HNC commonly suggest a separation between mind, body, and spatial and cultural context . SeveralHuman-Nature Disconnection (HND). HND is children’s identification with a system of meanings that demotivate their desire to work for nature. The thematic analysis suggests that those meanings relate to personal closeness to shopping, urban activities, or cars (vi). HND is further indication that human-nature relationships embed spatial and social context. Including the systems of positive and negative contextual meanings predicts children’s desire to work for nature more appropriately (vii).This study also shows that contextual relations can hamper, rather than promote, children’s desire to work for nature (viii). I aggregated these relations in what I preliminary called HNC and HND are conceptually similar to the opposing categories of biophilia and biophobia . BiophilInseparable interdependencies between self and context in human-nature relationships are also supported by another result of this study (iii). A salamander-friendly culture is the social background of only those children who attend the school responsible for the SP. In this school, children are indirectly and unconsciously exposed to a culture of acceptance and appreciation towards salamanders. This social context coincides with higher levels of empathy towards salamanders even before children participate in the SP (iii). However, participating in the SP does not further increment such empathy (iv). This result should not be considered a failing of the program, nor a failing of the methods used, but an additionally indication that children’s relationship with nature is context dependent and it is not solely identifiable through psychological analysis. These findings suggest that in this situation children’s empathy towards salamanders is more indicative of a social background than of a psychological trait.nature–as well as in the concepts of home and city. Children’s meaning of nature is a meaningful agglomeration of everyday activities, social contexts, and emotions (vi). Nature, in children’s minds, is not an abstract and universal concept as assumed by psychometric measurements, but a system of meaningful relations that includes physical environments , emotions , actions (e.g. play), and culture (e.g. freedom). This personal system of relations is what children connect to and it is what they consider when they reply to psychometric surveys like the CNI and INS used in this study. Implicitly, assessing children’s ‘enjoyment of nature’ (CNI) or closeness to nature (INS) means assessing attachment to a contextualised system of relations that embeds natural spaces and shared social values. Hence, psychological HNC is different when its geographical and cultural context is different. Not only nature experiences are embedded in social and political contexts as Clayton et al. [Relational and systemic properties of can be also found in the meaning of the very concept of n et al.  advocateThe last results that support a relational and systemic interpretation of human-nature relationships are those related to gender differences. Across all quantitative methods used, females have higher nature connection, lower disconnection, and are more inclined to work to protect the environment than males (v). These results echo many other studies that find that females have stronger pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours than men –86. WhetIn summary, this study suggest that human-nature relationships are better defined as systems of meaningful relations between mind, body, culture, and environment that can promote (HNC) or hamper (HND) sustainable living. Conceptualising human-nature relationship as systems of embodied relations enables such relationships to be categorised and investigated in new ways. For instance, one could distinguish between systems of child-animals relationships, female-forest relationships, or people-biosphere relationships and eventually explore their role to promote or hamper sustainable living. Operationalising human-nature relationships using embodied ontologies ,88 and sCurrent literature mostly proposes linear growth for psychological  and cont…just salamanders” (Loreta). After the SP, salamanders are considered animals with feelings, pain, and life struggles to which children can relate (i). This is not a linear increment in children’s HNC, but a transformative change in the structure that shape their relationship with nature. After overcoming the ‘yuck barrier’, children rely on new relations between their body , mind (appreciation rather than disgust), and context (new support from peers). This new system of relations is consolidated in memory [Overcoming the ‘yuck barrier’ is another indicator that human-nature relationships follow complex rather than linear dynamics (ii). This experience is similar to what is known as ‘environmental epiphany’ . Before n memory  and enabn memory . Childrebecome more nature-friendly” (Johan) and “have much more of a sense for nature” (Megan), the psychometric methods used do not report any statistical difference in how children enjoy, feel empathy, or feel connected to nature. In short, none of these tools could distinguish between a child who participated in the SP from a child who did not (iv). This discrepancy in assessments is a major obstacle for any educational activity that is designed to promote children’s HNC and that requires an evaluation of its effectiveness. Below, I present some limitations of the methods used here and discuss potential ways to improve future assessments of human-nature relationships.The insights from the multi-dimensional and multi-method investigation performed in this study suggest several ways to improve future assessments of human-nature relationships. One salient result is that the impact of participating in the SP on children’s HNC could not be quantified with the tools used here (iv). Despite children saying that they have “FlexiTwins has limitations when applied to real-world situations with children. First, the level of attention required to generate accurate results is incompatible with groups of children. In this paper, 30% of the participants’ scores have to be discarded because they are inconsistent or because of high error rates. Second, despite paying a considerable amount of attention to the selection of words used in FlexiTwins, previous research suggests that results might also be influenced by the translation to Swedish, the valence of the words chosen, and the cultural and geographical nuances associated with such words [Despite being a child-friendly videogame, ch words ,92.The assessment of children’s psychological HNC allows for further considerations. The group of children in the school responsible for the SP shows significantly higher empathy towards salamanders than the control group, even before participating in the project (iii). Yet, the subscale ‘empathy towards animals’ in the CNI, from which the scale ‘salamander empathy’ is created does not. These results suggest that the generality and de-contextualization of existing psychometric scales impede the identification of changes in psychological HNC. As salamanders are not as intangible as the whole animal kingdom, ‘salamander empathy’ efficiently identifies a pre-existing condition of greater association whereas ‘empathy towards animals’ does not. Children show that what they mean by nature includes emotions , actions (playing), and culture (freedom). The abstract, ambiguous, and impersonal concept of nature predominantly used in the literature to assess human-nature relationships  might beThose limitations are recognised in the literature ,93. ThesThese limitations can be addressed in a few ways. First, by taking into consideration the temporal dimension of HNC and HND. Quantitative methods show low accuracy when they assess real-world situations that operate in short time frames ,28,42. HFrom the results of this study is possible to draw some insights about the premises of children’s desire to protect nature and how they can be promoted. Human-nature relationships are often assumed in the literature to be predictors for environmental actions or sustainable living. This is the case whether the predicted outcome is actions of nature conservation , sustainThese results suggest that the everyday habitat might hamper children’s motivation to protect the biosphere. However, the opposite is also true. Children in the school responsible for the SP show high levels of empathy towards salamanders (iii). This implies that the everyday social and spatial habitat can also promote human-nature relationships favourable to environmental actions or sustainable living. This is also supported by other studies on nature routines . The conIt follows that changing the everyday human habitat should form a central part of any interventions to promote environmental actions and sustainable living. Ensuring a spatial and cultural context suitable for sustainable living is as important as–if not more–individuals’ education. Literature in environmental education recognises this need to shift from indoor individual learning to outdoor community building ,102. Theone sustainable human-nature relationship exists and that can be universally measured. De-contextualizing human-nature relationships from culture and space has created an array of useful and valid psychometric measurements that are however limited when applied to real-world situations. The findings of this study emphasize the embodied, contextual, and systemic properties of children’s relationship with nature. The results suggest that human-nature relationships are better defined as systems of meaningful relationships between mind, body, culture, and environment that can promote (i.e. HNC) or hamper (i.e. HND) sustainable living. These systems of relations likely progress through complex dynamics in which the everyday spatial and social habitat plays a major role.Many in academia suggest that human-nature relationships can be used as a tool to transform human’s unsustainable trends of development ,12. The Future operationalisations of HNC and HND would profit from adopting embodied ontologies ,75 and sS1 AppendixInterview guide used in this study to assess children’s experiential dimension of HNC.(PDF)Click here for additional data file.S2 AppendixTranslation in English of the booklet used in this study to assess children’s psychological and contextual dimensions of HNC.(PDF)Click here for additional data file.S3 AppendixBooklet used in this study to assess children’s psychological and contextual dimensions of HNC.(PDF)Click here for additional data file.S1 dataData utilised for the statistical analysis.(CSV)Click here for additional data file.


Today’s organizations are operating in a highly competitive and changing environment that pushes them to continuously adapt their organizational structures to such environment. However, the success of change initiatives may face a barrier in the response of employees, especially when they lack readiness to change. While leadership can shape the culture of an organization and a culture of effectiveness can help increase employees’ readiness to change, ethical leaders, who serve as a guide and offer support, can also make a difference by reducing uncertainty. Yet existing research on the role of ethical leadership in the enhancement of the employees’ readiness to change is practically non-existent. Far less is the research that analyses the mechanisms that ethical leadership can use to foster employees’ readiness to change. This study aims to investigate whether the ethical leadership of middle–lower echelons influences on employees’ readiness to change positively (H1) and if this relationship is mediated through shaping an organizational culture of effectiveness (H2). Using data from 270 direct reports of middle–lower managers in public foreign trade Egyptian companies, the findings reveal that ethical leadership enhances employees’ readiness to change and that this impact is partially mediated by an organizational culture of effectiveness. Thus, with these findings, new light is shed on the positive role of ethical leadership and the mechanisms it uses to enhance employees’ readiness to change. Today’s organizations are operating in such a highly dynamic and competitive environment that they need to undergo continuous change. However, most change projects fail to achieve the expected results , and peoIndividual readiness to change thus plays an important role in every instance of organizational change  and appestatus quo  will be considered as helping to embed their beliefs and values into employees’ shared understandings cf., . Indeed,In this sense, ethical leaders have distinctive characteristics that can have a special influence on shaping an organizational culture of effectiveness, conceptualized as the shared assumptions, beliefs, and values that affect employees’ attitudes and behaviors in a way that drives effectiveness. For example, servant leaders, who practice an ethical form of leadership , have anThe principal research objective is therefore to explain the role of ethical leadership in encouraging employees’ readiness to change. To this end, this study examines the direct positive effect of ethical leadership, and the mediating effect of organizational culture of effectiveness in this relationship. These efforts advance previous research that has indicated that employees’ readiness to change is positively related to factors such as trust in management , supportThis study also advances previous research by investigating the mediating effect of organizational culture of effectiveness on this relationship, and thus by explaining how or why ethical leadership predicts or causes employees’ readiness to change. Although previous research has indicated a positive relationship between ethical leadership-related approaches and team-organizational effectiveness . All of the items used appear in the role clarification and power sharing behavioral dimensions are suggested to help employees to feel they can count on the information they may need at any time and they are self-efficacious, respectively , and the responses for each respondent were averaged. Because some items were reverse worded see the , we reveChange Readiness Survey . The responses for each respondent were averaged such that higher scores indicated a stronger employee readiness to change. A sample item was “when I am affected by organizational change, I am involved in identifying possible obstacles.” The scale’s alpha reliability was 0.72.Drawing on the s Survey , a selecs Survey , we usedThe results were controlled for age, tenure in the job, gender, and education, all of which can potentially relate to organizational behavior, and specifically to employees’ readiness to change . For exaSPSS 24.0 was used to (1) obtain descriptive statistics and (2) run an exploratory factor analysis to examine the potential for common method variance in the data . Then, fTo check for common method variance, and thus to assess whether variance in the data could be attributed to a single factor, the Harman’s one-factor test was run. This test, which involves an exploratory factor analysis of the data, revealed an unrotated factor solution involving 12 factors with eigenvalues >1. Because the first factor explained less than half (36%) of the total variance (78%), common method variance does not appear to affect the study findings .We also ran Means, standard deviations, and inter-correlations for both study and control variables are presented in p < 0.001), thus leading us to accept H1.Concerning the hypotheses, p < 0.001; p < 0.001; p < 0.001; p < 0.001; unstandardized beta with the mediator = 0.47, standard error = 0.12, p < 0.001; Regarding the partial mediation hypothesis, an examination of z = 6.40, p < 0.001). Thus, the positive impact of ethical leadership on employees’ readiness to change is partially mediated by organizational culture of effectiveness, in support of H2. With the mediator, the variance explained in employees’ readiness to change increases from 0.55 to 0.61 (ΔR2 = 0.06), thus implying a moderate to large mediating effect of organizational culture of effectiveness between ethical leadership and employees’ readiness to change . This is important in the context of the current ethical leadership literature, which over-focuses on Western contexts. This study is set in an Arab culture and reveals the influence of ethical leadership on one type of job response that is positive for the organization, namely, readiness to change, thus helping generalize existing theories across different contexts .The findings of this study reveal some practical ideas for managing organizational change. First, organizations interested in succeeding when coping with change should put ethical leaders in management positions. The more ethical leaders there are in such positions, the easier it is for employees to participate in decisions about the organization’s future. Therefore, feelings of insecurity can be reduced cf., , and truHowever, because only one bad, specific behavior is enough to damage the reputation of ethical leadership, human resource managers should make great efforts to design training programs oriented to managers developing these ethical leadership behaviors in an automatic and natural way. According to Second, if it is not possible to develop ethical leadership, managers have other means to motivate employees’ readiness to change. For example, they might shape an organizational culture of effectiveness that emphasizes aspects which, when strongly shared by employees, may facilitate readiness to change in the workplace. In particular, managers can emphasize aspects such as: “we are able to affect the environment and manage the change,” “we need to achieve goals and improve, constantly,” “we need to work as a coordinated team,” and “we need to meet our customers’ needs.” These aspects are critical to gain organizational effectiveness, as they all help build a workforce that is eager to improve, and confident enough about their resources  and abilities to face new challenges. It makes these people more open to change , and thuAs with any field research, the present research contains several limitations that offer opportunities for further research efforts. First, this study was conducted in a specific industry and cultural context , so the generalization of the findings of this study demands caution. These findings are in line with existing theories, but Egyptian culture presents contextual characteristics that may have affected them. For example, Egypt is highly collectivistic , so peopSecond, the data were cross-sectional, which limits the causal conclusions. However, prior meta-analytic research suggests that ethical leadership is a strong antecedent of positive outcomes in employees , which spost hoc test that was conducted suggests that this bias was not a problem. However, future research could extend the findings by measuring employees’ readiness to change using team colleagues’ or managers’ scores.Another limitation is that the study variables were based on self-reported data, which can create common method bias concerns. The current study followed procedural remedies to avoid this bias  and the Finally, this investigation focused on managers’ ethical leadership as a trigger for an organizational culture of effectiveness and employees’ readiness to change. However, interactions with team colleagues who have a strong ethical focus might also play a role here. Ethics approval was not required for this study, as per the guidelines of the University of Deusto. Participation was voluntary, and the purpose of the research was clearly explained in a cover letter. Informed and written consent was obtained from all participants. A group discussion session was conducted with the first author prior to questionnaire distribution where informed consent was obtained. Benefits and objectives of the study were explained in that session and participants were assured that their participation would be voluntary. They were then asked to sign the consent form and proceed to the questionnaire if they accepted taking part in the study. Participants were guaranteed that their data would be used for academic purposes only and that their responses would never be shared with their leaders. The purpose and procedures of the study were carefully illustrated to all participants and they were free to withdraw at any time.MM and DM conceived the presented idea, worked initially on the theory, and performed the computations. PR-P and MM developed and added value to the theoretical framework, and conducted the review of the study with LG. LG verified the analytical methods, supervised the findings, and contributed to the design of the study.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


Computational tools are essential in the process of designing a CRISPR/Cas experiment for the targeted modification of an organism’s genome. Among other functionalities, these tools facilitate the design of a guide-RNA (gRNA) for a given nuclease that maximizes its binding to the intended genomic site, while avoiding binding to undesired sites with similar sequences in the genome of the organism of interest (off-targets). Due to the popularity of this methodology and the rapid pace at which it evolves and changes, new computational tools show up constantly. This rapid turnover, together with the intrinsic high death-rate of bioinformatics tools, mean that many of the published tools become unavailable at some point. Consequently, the traditional ways to inform the community about the landscape of available tools, i.e., reviews in the scientific literature, are not adequate for this fast-moving field. To overcome these limitations, we have developed “WeReview: CRISPR Tools,” a live, on-line, user-updatable repository of computational tools to assist researchers in designing CRISPR/Cas experiments. In its web site users can find an updated comprehensive list of tools and search for those fulfilling their specific needs, as well as proposing modifications to the data associated with the tools or the incorporation of new ones. Changing the genomic sequence of a generic organism in a precise, accurate and effective way has been one of the main goals of molecular biology. Such modifications are at the basis of many experimental approaches in this area, and have been shown to be of enormous utility for biotechnological and biomedical applications . There iStreptococcus pyogenes, but other nucleases are being also used, including Cpf1 [The latest addition to this family of approaches is the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats/CRISPR-associated (CRISPR/Cas), which enables targeted genome editing in multiple organisms with unprecedented accuracy and specificity . This teing Cpf1 , SaCas9 ing Cpf1  and otheing Cpf1 .Once the DNA is cleaved by the nuclease at the intended location (dictated by the gRNA), the intrinsic DNA-repairing mechanisms of the organism restore the continuity of the chromosome, while triggering the desired modification. These modifications are very diverse, leading to an ever-expanding CRISPR-based toolbox. Applications range from changing a single nucleotide to introducing/removing long stretches of DNA, repositioning genome loci in the nucleus , or simpThe design of a CRISPR/Cas experiment and the analysis of its outcome unavoidably require using computational tools at different stages. One of the most critical parts is the design of the sequence of the gRNA that will target the nuclease to the desired location. Besides the specific motifs required for being recognized by the nuclease, this gRNA should have the 18–25 nt sequence complementary to that of the targeted DNA site, so that it hybridizes with high affinity there. It is also important to avoid sequences that could hybridize with other genomic locations  besides that targeted, leading to off-target effects. Off-targets are especially critical for the reliability/specificity of this technique and its safety in therapeutic applications, especially those eventually involving human germ-line modifications . The curThere are many web-accessible computational tools and databases that help the researcher at all stages of a CRISPR/Cas workflow  and the online spreadsheet “CRISPR Software Matchmaker” (http://goo.gl/R0gANl). At the time of writing this manuscript, the system contains information for 83 tools. For each tool, some features were manually introduced into the system, while others are automatically retrieved and updated, such as the citation data.That initial list of CRISPR-related tools contained in WeReview was compiled from several recent reviews on the subject . The most recent date the tool was checked for availability is also shown.“Purpose”: Main goal of the tool: “Oligo designer,” “database” (database of pre-designed sets of oligos), “post-analysis”  or “other.”“Platform”: The way the user can access the tool: “Web” (web interface), “command-line” , “desktop” , “webapp” ).“Off-targets”: This indicates whether the tool is able to locate/score potential off-targets for the gRNA.“Score oligos”: It shows whether the tool is able to predict the binding efficiency of the gRNA to the intended target(s) in the genome.“Search by”: How the intended genomic target has to be specified as input for the tool; e.g., DNA sequence, gene ID or genomic coordinates.“Enzyme”: List of Cas nucleases or other enzymes admitted by the system.“PAM”: List of “protospacer adjacent motifs” allowed by the tool to be incorporated in the gRNA being designed.“Organisms”: List of organisms whose genomes are incorporated into the tool, so that they can be scanned for possible off-targets, etc.“Citations”: Total number of articles citing the tool in PubMed Central. A plot representing the yearly citation profile is also shown, so that temporal trends related to the popularity of the tool can be assessed.“Reference”: Bibliographic reference of the tool. It includes a link to the corresponding record in PubMed.“Comments”: Free-text area to store generic data that do not fit in any of the other fields. For example, it can be used to mention other system objectives besides those formalized in the “Purpose” column, or to indicate that the system is apparently unavailable forever.The features currently included are:It is possible to sort the table by any of these fields by pressing the up/down arrows in the corresponding column. The system also allows filtering the list of tools by searching those fulfilling given criteria. Pressing in the column headers (names of the features), a search box shows up. Depending on the feature, this is either a free-text box or a set of checkboxes . The heaS. pyogenes Cas9 nuclease (PAM: NGG in 3’). Moreover, you want a tool accessible through a web interface and able to calculate the affinity of the gRNA for the target sites. To look for the tools fulfilling these criteria you would select “Web” in “Platform,” the green check in “Score on-targets,” type “NGG” in “PAM” and “mouse” in “Organisms.” With these restrictions you would obtain a list of tools suitable for your experiment. This list could be further filtered or manually inspected, for example to select tools that are available or apparently widely used .It is possible to combine many of these searches (filters) to perform complex queries. For example, imagine you are interested in designing a CRISPR/Cas experiment to knock-out a gene in mice using the WeReview is intended to be a live tool that can be updated/changed frequently as the CRISPR/Cas field evolves, either by the developers or by the community. To facilitate this, any user can suggest changes to the contents or the addition of a new tool. This is done under a wiki-like schema, without requiring any registration or credentials. Nevertheless, all suggested modifications/additions are moderated, and they have to be approved by the authors of WeReview before being incorporated. For adding a new tool, press the “Add New CRISPR Tool” button in the top right corner and fill the form with the tool data. Some of the fields are free-text while in others the user has to choose among a set of possible values. For the bibliographic reference, just enter the PubMed ID (PMID) and the system will retrieve the corresponding record. Citation data is also automatically retrieved and updated. The user can optionally enter an email address to get feedback from the developers, such as a confirmation if the tool is finally incorporated. To change/edit the data for a given tool, just double-click in the corresponding table row.https://bioinfogp.cnb.csic.es/tools/wereview/crisprtools/.“WeReview: CRISPR Tools” is freely available at The motivation behind “WeReview: CRISPR Tools” is to offer interested users the most updated view of the landscape of tools for designing CRISPR/Cas experiments available at any given moment, so that they can explore it interactively and look for the tool that best suits their needs.Due to the tremendous pace at which the CRISPR/Cas field is evolving, together with the intrinsic high death-rate of bioinformatics tools, it is difficult to have a snapshot of the current landscape of available CRISPR-related computational tools. Even tools that are available and working properly can be “silently” obsolete; for example, if they do not incorporate the latest versions/assemblies of the genomes or those of recently sequenced organisms.There are many excellent “standard” reviews on the subject which inform the community on the established basis of this technology. Although some include lists of computational tools, these become outdated immediately after publication for the reasons commented. Indeed, in the process of recompiling tools for WeReview and writing this manuscript, some tools became unavailable, while around 30 new ones showed up. For the initial set of tools incorporated in WeReview, we tried to be comprehensive, including as many tools as possible, as the user can filter the list according with his/her specific needs. Similarly, for each program we included the fields we considered more useful for the researchers looking for a tool.While there are many excellent generic repositories of bioinformatics tools, their main drawback regarding the CRISPR/Cas field is that, since they are not specific to it, they do not include critical information required when looking for a tool. For example, while there is a list of CRISPR-related tools in the widely used OMICtools repository , it is nFinally, we think that this idea of a “web live list of tools” can be extended many other areas in bioinformatics.


Mino-pimatisiwin is a comprehensive health philosophy shared by several Indigenous peoples in North America. As the link to the land is a key element of mino-pimatisiwin, our aim was to determine if Indigenous people living in urban areas can reach mino-pimatisiwin. We show that Indigenous people living in urban areas develop particular ways to maintain their link to the land, notably by embracing broader views of “land” (including urban areas) and “community” (including members of different Indigenous peoples). Access to the bush and relations with family and friends are necessary to fully experience mino-pimatisiwin. Culturally safe places are needed in urban areas, where knowledge and practices can be shared, contributing to identity safeguarding. There is a three-way equilibrium between bush, community, and city; and mobility between these places is key to maintaining the balance at the heart of mino-pimatisiwin. Indigenous culture, identity, knowledge, and practices are intimately linked to the land ,2,3. RelThere have been repeated governmental attempts to cut off Indigenous peoples from their lands and cultures ,11,12. FIndigenous well-being depends on access to culturally safe services and places where cultural identity is understood and can be expressed with confidence . Access mino-pimatisiwin, which could be loosely translated as “living the good life”, to describe a state of harmony, well-being, and comprehensive health based on relationships, cultural identity, and connection to the land . Interestingly, similar conceptions of a “good life” exist in several other areas around the world, for example, buen vivir or sumak kawsay for the Quechuas in Ecuador [kametsa asaiki for the Ashaninkas in Amazonia [tjukurpa for the Anangu people in Australia [hauora for the Māoris in New Zealand [ubuntu in South Africa [In North America, Indigenous peoples belonging to the Algonquian language family use the term the land . The min Ecuador , kametsaAmazonia , tjukurpustralia , hauora  Zealand , and ubuh Africa .mino-pimatisiwin. We show that there is a three-way equilibrium between bush, community, and city; and that Indigenous people in urban areas have various ways to maintain their link to the land, notably by accessing culturally safe sites and embracing broader views of “land” (including urban areas) and “community” (including members of different Indigenous peoples). In Canada, urban areas are increasingly important in the life paths of Indigenous people , more thmino-pimatisiwin and other related concepts as well as on 15 interviews with members of various Indigenous communities in Eastern Canada, recognized by their peers for their knowledge of mino-pimatisiwin and life in urban settings ; Anishnaabe participants were older (none <45 years old); and women participants were younger (none ≥60 years old) and mostly Anishnaabeg (4/5). That being said, the representations of mino-pimatisiwin of Indigenous people living in urban areas: (i) the land, (ii) urban environments, and (iii) support from family and friends. We conducted a thematic analysis [Semi-directed interviews—each lasting between 1 and 2 hours—allowed participants to freely express their viewpoints, while ensuring that certain themes were addressed. We based the interview guide on social representations of the land within the Kitcisakik Anishnaabeg . We consanalysis  with theWe obtained a certificate from the Ethics Review Board of Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue. Free, prior, and informed consent was granted by all participants, after we presented them with a form specifying the research objectives, the nature of their participation , the confidentiality safeguards, and how data would be processed and disseminated. We respected the key principles of research ethics in indigenous contexts . To respThree elements emerged from the interviews regarding how the participants defined the land. First, the land was defined either spatially, conceptually, or spiritually. Second, urban areas were often included in the definition of the land. Third, representations of the land differed between generations, reflecting diverse life paths.To me, the land is not associated to a precise place” (participant 10); “The land is nature, it is a spiritual land” (participant 15). The interviews revealed the multidimensional character of the social representations of the land, as already shown in . The lanWell-being includes both cultural and political dimensions, according to the Cree . The lanI always say ‘yes, I live in Val-d’Or, yes, I live in an urban area, but I’m still on Anishnaabe land’.... I’m ok with that, with living the mino-pimatisiwin in the city” (participant 6). “The land is where I feel good. It’s in nature, but also in town” (participant 1). “My perception is that I’m still on my land here ” (participant 2).Many participants said the city is included within the land and that the link to the land can be maintained in urban areas: “Nopimik used in the Anishnaabe language to refer to the bush, also means “where I am from” [Older participants more frequently referred to the land as “in the bush” compared to younger adults. The word am from” . Represeam from” ,50. MileAs you get older, (the land) becomes more important. There was a time when (my kids) turned their back on the land, as I did myself (when I was their age), but now they’re coming back” (participant 3). Mobility (even hypermobility) between the land, the community, and the city is characteristic of Indigenous people’s lives in contemporary Canada [In their quest for identity, teenagers want to explore new horizons, which often entails leaving the community (and/or the bush), but only to come back later: “y Canada ,51.I suffocate in the city. All this concrete blocks my spirit” (participant 11). “I realize the chock one can have (upon arriving in the city). In a community, if your kid is sick you can call the nurse and she’ll say ‘Perfect, I'll be there in 5 minutes’. Here in the city, you wonder where to go, who to ask?... In the community, when it’s 4:00 PM, it’s simple, I’m cooking supper, ‘Come on in!’ In the city, you have to plan a week ahead! It’s more complicated. It’s not easy, particularly if you’re shy or if you have low self-esteem” (participant 3).Indigenous people can feel outside their traditional cultural zone in urban areas : “I suffParticipants found their own ways of nurturing their connection to the land, even when living in the city, including by creating small-scale places of cultural safety in private backyards or in public parks , where pJust by seeing or touching a tree, talking to it, you feel better” (participant 15).In the worldviews of Anishnaabe and other Algonquian peoples, all elements of the environment are alive and have a spirit, and people rely on these elements to connect with the land . A partiI can find balance in the city. If I go through harsh times, I take a walk in the bush. I found ways to stay connected with nature: cross-country skiing, kayak” (participant 3).In urban areas, relationships between humans and nature occur mostly in public parks, gardens, and nature reserves . NeverthWelcome visitors who live in the community or in the bush;Stay connected with community members with phones or social networks;Meet with other Indigenous people living in the city;Participate in cultural events ;Visit organizations and institutions providing culturally safe services;Defend one’s culture, people, or community;Cook/eat/share traditional food;Respect oneself, adopt a healthy lifestyle;Respect nature;Be independent;Engage in outdoor activities ;Speak Indigenous languages;Learn/teach traditional knowledge/practices .The multidimensional character of the link to the land can be maintained in several ways, even in urban settings, as suggested in the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples : WelcomeCertain traditional practices can be remodeled in urban settings, in spaces of “cultural recovery” ,54; howeI keep my link to the land, thanks to my job with, and for my community, my people” (participant 5). Cultural practices take an important place in the participants’ lives, either at work or in training . Some participants worked in organizations offering services to urban Indigenous people or defending their rights, and mentioned that it provided meaning to their presence in the city and fed their identity; it allowed them to maintain connected with the land: “My home, it's in the bush. Many people belonging to my generation were born in the bush.... Today, the bush is a place where everyone finds healing... mino-pimatisiwin is to be well in your mind, in your heart” (participant 15). “The people of Pikogan take refuge in the bush, that's where we reconnect. We need that, it's in our blood” (participant 12).For most participants, it was important to be able to go in the bush occasionally, as it is a privileged place of knowledge transmission, healing, caring, and provisioning ,55. YounLife in indigenous communities is not complete if it does not allow for occasional stays in the bush. The real “home” is the bush and both the community and the city are somehow “out” of home (or they are “incomplete” places). Lévesque  suggesteThose who don’t go in the bush end up in the street” (participant 3), echoing Christensen’s [The constant interaction with the land, by knowing it with all five senses, guides individuals and provides what is needed to live in harmony with the environment, with each other, and with oneself. The reciprocal and dialogic relationship with nature provides not only the material needs but also the ethic, moral and spiritual underpinnings of living a good life”.The frequency and duration of stays in the bush vary from one person to another. According to the participants, health comes from the bush, which plays a role the city will never be able to play. A participant rather bluntly stated that “tensen’s  finding tensen’s  put it: A participant, who had returned to living in the bush after several years in his community, said he could feel his ancestors there and that he found a long-sought well-being. Several stories were shared of diabetes regulation, blood pressure stabilization, and even major improvement of children born with chronic health problems. The numerous benefits to health and well-being associated to living in the bush have been highlighted in several studies ,58,59,60But going in the bush requires a right of access, a family hunting ground, and a place to stay. One must also have access to the bush, either by owning a car, knowing someone who has one, or by living close enough to go on foot or an all-terrain vehicle, snowmobile, or canoe. Workers with less flexible schedules might lack the time needed to go in the bush (long and/or frequent holidays). Access to the bush can thus be challenging for people living in urban environments, but also in communities. This is why, for example, the (Quebec) Cree School Board has instituted goose break and moose break within the curricular schedule, so that families can leave the community together to hunt. real nomads live in the city” (participant 10), thereby underlining the courage, adaptability, strength, and autonomy needed to establish in the city. Maintaining one’s indigenous identity in the city through different cultural practices generates pride and nurtures self-esteem.A participant expressed her pride of getting by in the bush, while emphasizing that similar pride can be generated by overcoming the challenges associated to adaptation to the city. She even argued that “to be in touch with people like you, sharing your cultural identity, in the workplace, for example. To be in contact with your world, to practice cultural activities, but also to take your own place” (participant 8). When their families do not live in the city, Indigenous people surround themselves with people sharing similar experiences, hence broadening their definition of community: “When you are in an environment like Val-d'Or, the concept of people is broader: my people is Indigenous—Cree, Inuit, Innu, Anishnaabe, Atikamek” (participant 6).The family network provides support and creates a sense of solidarity among its members . The famKnowledge and practices are transmitted by parents or elders, usually in the bush . The parmino-pimatisiwin. We show that Indigenous people living in urban areas embrace broader views of “land” (including urban areas) and “community” (including members of different Indigenous peoples). Access to the bush and relations with family and friends are necessary to fully experience mino-pimatisiwin. Culturally safe places are needed in urban areas, where knowledge and practices can be shared, contributing to identity safeguarding. There is a three-way equilibrium between bush, community, and city; and mobility between these places is key to maintaining the balance at the heart of mino-pimatisiwin.A strong link to the land is fundamental to Indigenous people’s comprehensive health—


Novel strategies to promote physical activity (PA) in adolescence are required. The vEngage study aims to test whether a virtual reality (VR) exergaming intervention can engage younger adolescents (aged 13 to 15 years) with PA.This study aimed to gather adolescents’ views of using VR to encourage PA and identify the key features they would like to see in a VR exergaming intervention via interviews.Participants were recruited through 2 schools in London, United Kingdom. Semistructured interviews were conducted with adolescents about their views on PA and what might work to increase PA, technology, knowledge and experience of VR, and desired features in a VR exergaming intervention. Data were analyzed using Framework Analysis.A total of 31 participants aged between 13 and 15 years  participated in this interview study. The vast majority had no awareness of government PA recommendations but felt they should be more thoroughly informed. All participants were positive about the use of VR in PA promotion. Rewards, increasing challenges, and a social or multiplayer aspect were identified by participants as crucial aspects to include in a VR exercise game. Barriers were related to cost of high-end systems. Being able to exercise at home was very appealing. VR exergaming was viewed as a way to overcome multiple perceived social and cultural barriers to PA, particularly for girls.Key elements that should be incorporated into a VR game for health intervention were identified and described. These also included the use of rewards, novelty and enjoyment in immersive game play, multiplayer options, and real-world elements, as well as continual updates and new challenge levels. The use of VR to promote PA in adolescents is promising, but some barriers were raised. The health benefits of performing sufficient physical activity (PA) are well established and include reduced risk of noncommunicable diseases, reduced risk of premature mortality, and better mental health -3. ThereIt remains unclear what works best to change adolescent PA behavior ,11. A reDespite recommendation that conducting formative work with target users is important to intervention development ,14, veryDigital interventions are likely to be particularly appealing for adolescents; more than 90% play video games for at least an hour per day . A varieLevels of PA and physiological response when exergaming are comparable with field-based PA, and significantly increased when compared with standard gaming . ExergamVirtual reality (VR) has the potential to enhance the exergaming experience through immersion and presence contributing to the feeling of absorption, flow, and fun ,24. New We hypothesized that a VR exergaming intervention could increase PA in adolescents. The aim of this study was to interview adolescents about their recommendations for a PA intervention, use of technology, gaming, and interest in VR for PA.Participants were recruited from 2 secondary schools in London, United Kingdom between January and July 2017. To be eligible, participants had to be aged between 13 and 17 years. Given the need to recruit a high number of girls, one was a girl’s school whereas the other was mixed. Both schools were in areas of high ethnic and socioeconomic diversity. Each school sent information packs home with students from 2 classes. In total, approximately 65 packs were sent to the interested students. Interested students each returned and completed the parental consent and child assent form. We aimed to interview approximately 30 young people based on guidance provided by Fugard and Potts  and we iEthical approval was provided by the University College London Ethics committee (Project ID 10213/001) with all participants and their parents/caregivers providing informed written consent.We used a semistructured interview. We asked the following: “What is the amount of time you spend being active as well as inactive per week in hours?”; “What is your average sitting time per day?”; “Do you know about the recommended guidelines for PA in your age group?”; What might encourage people of your age to become more physically active?”; “What is your current technology use- what do you use and how long per day or week?”; “What interest you about a particular game?”; “Do you know much about VR?”; “What are your experiences and/or opinion on using VR?”; “Do you use any other health-related technology?”; and “How would you help increase PA through use of technology and VR?”. Finally, participants were asked about key features desired in a VR exergame. Interviews were conducted face-to-face in schools between June and July 2017 by 2 researchers (EY and LV) and transcribed verbatim.Framework Analysis was used, which is a flexible and systematic approach for analysis of semistructured interviews . A totalA total of 31 participants aged between 13 and 15 years were interviewed. Of them, 58% (18/31) were girls. Participants identified their ethnicity as white British (n=7), white other (n=5), multiple ethnicities (n=5), Asian (n=5), Indian (n=2), Bangladeshi (n=2), Pakistani (n=1), Caribbean (n=1), African (n=1), and black (n=2). Interviews lasted for 40 to 70 min (mean 55 min). The themes were apparent and straightforward with no disagreements between the researchers. The main themes and their subthemes are described in should be informed of PA recommendations and the links between PA and health. Girls in particular reported this knowledge as a key motivation for being active and felt this would increase activity in their peers:Awareness of PA recommendations for adolescents was very low with 94% (29/31) participants guessing the recommended guidelines. The intensity or resistance exercises were not mentioned. Participants felt strongly that people of their age Give [young people] some of the risks that could happen in the future if you do not keep fit and not healthy.F, 14When probed about how they might like this information delivered, the consensus was visually:Maybe videos on how to do it because I don't think people [my age] really take in facts.F, 14But tangible rewards were also important motivators for PA:So there’s something to work for instead of just saying do it and you’ll be more active. You have to give them something at the end. Anything people my age will find fun. Probably mostly money.M, 15All participants used technology up to 6 hours per day , mainly for recreational uses  but also practical . Boys used technology mainly for gaming, whereas girls used technology for watching videos, listening to music, and socializing . There were positive and negative perceptions of technology related to PA:I saw this report, kids nowadays are more overweight compared to before, and that's probably because we're always just sitting down on our phones, tablets and stuff.F, 14[use technology to encourage people to go outside] because obviously with technology people don’t go outside as much as they used to. So, I don’t know, you just need to get people out. Because the phone is so interesting.F, 15The majority of participants engaged in some type of gaming. Games played were diverse, but common features were continual challenges/levels of difficulty, rewards, competition, social aspects, and story modes. A total of 5 participants specifically mentioned games that were simple, slow to build, and ongoing as leading to playing for a number of years. Exergames were often mentioned; all participants had played them, and they were generally described positively, but always in the past tense such as Just Dance (Nintendo Wii):I really liked that [Just Dance] but I don’t know, it just died out for some reason, I don’t know why. We had the dancing thing, to step on it, all that kind of stuff, yes. Yes, that was sick.F, 15Many participants described Pokémon Go (released in July 2016) as something they had tried but no longer used, with some stating technical reasons as off-putting:It was really fun in the beginning, but then the servers were overwhelmed with too many people playing.M, 14[I played it] only once then found out it used up most of my data.F, 13Many mentioned safety concerns preventing use , often reflecting on negative stories they had heard in the media. Others felt it had increased their PA, but still referred to it is as a previous experience:Well, at the time where it was big it was really cool because it actually made me go outside and look around and stuff. It did made me walk a lot more.F, 14Exergames were viewed as appealing because they were fun, motivating, and good ways to encourage incidental PA:I think it’s good because some people may think that, “I don't want to do this sport,” but actually, they are, without realising.F, 15It’s way better because you’re working out but you’re having fun and you don't realise you’re working out.F, 14Social benefits and competition when exergaming were also described as appealing:It’s nice because other people can actually watch it at the same time, it’s not just one person involved in it. So, it makes it fun and motivates the person to even try harder, so it creates competition as well.F, 15Participants particularly liked the idea that exergames allowed activity in the home:Getting fit isn’t always enjoyable and it could also make you confident to do it[...] You can do it in the privacy of your own home.F, 14Virtual reality...in your own home because people like going running but sometimes people can’t...my parents don’t always let me out, so doing it in my own home...Yes. And also for Muslims, you have to cover your body, so it’s hard to go running while covering your body, whereas at home it’s very easy.F, 14However, those who were already involved in sport tended to think exergames should not be a replacement:I think they're useful, but I think it's better for people to actually do sport.F, 14Nearly all participants were extremely positive about the idea of using or trying VR. More than half had tried some kind of VR . There were no apparent gender differences in wanting to try, having tried, or liking VR. A total of 6 participants described having tried a one-off fully immersive experience in an external venue, and 1 had high-end equipment at home. Very few had any kind of VR equipment at home, and if they did, it was usually referred to as being owned by a parent or older sibling. Participants wanted to own it but felt the price was prohibitive:I've used it once when I went to a big shopping centre. I thought it was quite cool but then I looked at the price: thousands.M, 15cool, exciting, fun, and highlighting the whole body movement, presence, and novelty as appealing. Only 1 participant thought it was pointless .Those who had tried VR were positive about it, describing it frequently as You’re actually in the game, you can feel you're moving with it, it’s not just your fingers and your eyes, it’s your whole body is involved so it’s more involved.F, 15I think it’s absolutely cool. For [named a standard games console], you sit in front of a TV, but now when it actually feels like you're there, it makes it way more interesting and fun.F, 15Other benefits were raised such as widening understanding/experience or creating safe spaces to try new activities:It is like being in real life, but safer, if you know what I mean. Like if you do something serious, it is not real. So, in a way, it is safer to learn things.F, 14There were technical barriers including the size and weight of the headset. Barriers were usually countered with belief that these issues would be addressed as the technology advanced:I think it’s a great concept, but I think it has a way to go. It’s not really developed as much yet...Because right now you have to wear like a massive headset that’s really heavy and you have to move around and it’s not as receptive of the little controls.M, 15, owned VR headsetAs with other types of gaming, a prominent concern was fear of addiction:Just as they're addicted to PlayStation and all of that, they would be addicted to this game.F, 14Some participants described physical symptoms of use, such as nausea, dizziness, headaches, and fear of bumping into others. However, nearly all believed that VR was going to be extremely popular in the future:I think virtual reality is the future of technology and it will be more involved in everyday life.F, 14Although participants felt positively about a VR exergaming intervention, there was a perception that parents might not be supportive:Some parents would be really opposing to it. Just because I know some of my friends, their parents don't like them being on electronics at all.F, 14Parents wouldn’t buy that for their children because obviously price.M, 13just tell us  or suggested that it was sitting rather than screen time that was the issue:When asked about how to counteract potentially conflicting public health messages around reducing screen time versus introducing an exergaming intervention, the consensus among participants was that providing information would be sufficient. Many said things like I would say if it's in front of a screen and it does encourage physical activity, it doesn't really matter that it's in front of a screen, as long as you're engaging.M, 14In addition, this approach could appeal to gamers, who were perceived to be sedentary:They’re [gamers] probably more interested in video games, so the virtual reality might encourage them more [to be physically active].F, 14This view was supported by participants who identified as gamers:Because it’s a game. Immediately I hear game, personally, I’m into it already and think it will be more exciting.M, 13Additional features that participants reported they would like to see in a VR exergame are shown in Our findings suggest strong support for the potential of VR to promote PA in adolescents. However, there were a number of factors relevant to researchers developing any digital PA intervention discussed below.Participants raised the importance of parental support, in line with previous research on digital health interventions for adolescents and studies exploring determinants of adolescent PA . We are digital revolution and the ubiquity and frequency of technology use by adolescents, highlighted in our study, has greatly increased potential reach.Awareness of any government guidelines around PA was low but desire for knowledge was high. Our participants (particularly girls) felt that an educational component would be desirable, and presenting information about benefits of PA in a visual format was recommended. This is in line with our previous work suggesting less than 20% of parents knew the government PA guidelines for their children . A revieRewards were suggested as being important to encourage PA engagement , in line with previous studies ,32. The Our data suggest that a home-based PA digital intervention is appealing to our target population. Most previous interventions targeting adolescent PA have been at least partially delivered in schools, but a more recent cohort found 70% to 81% boys and girls said they would choose to be active at home or in a gym/leisure center, as opposed to in school or outdoors . ParticuAt the time of writing this paper, the cost of the high-end VR equipment required to create a fully immersive exergaming experience was prohibitive (around £2000 for the equipment and necessary computer), and this was recognized as a barrier by our participants. However, participants expect costs to fall. This is likely and ownership will increase . We are Our study had specific and narrow aims and around 60 min worth of discussion per participant. Interviews were conducted by researchers experienced in working with adolescents. Therefore, we believed our sample size held sufficient information power to address the research questions .Our participants desired continual updates and additional challenge levels, and these are key elements of gaming that can map to specific behavior change techniques in a digital health intervention . EmbeddiThe results were obtained from a reasonable number of participants in comparison with other studies using thematic analysis , with a The results of this study suggest that an intervention to promote PA in adolescents that has VR exergaming at the core is promising. However, it is likely that additional elements will be required to produce sustained behavior change including educational elements, tangible rewards, prompts to encourage breaks, and parental support.


Neural plasticity, also known as neuroplasticity or brain plasticity, can be defined as the ability of the nervous system to change its activity in response to intrinsic or extrinsic stimuli by reorganizing its structure, functions, or connections. A fundamental property of neurons is their ability to modify the strength and efficacy of synaptic transmission through a diverse number of activity-dependent mechanisms, typically referred as synaptic plasticity. Research in the past century has showed that neural plasticity is a fundamental property of nervous systems in species from insects to humans. Indeed, studies into synaptic plasticity have not only been an important driving force in neuroscience research but they are also contributing to the well-being of our societies as this phenomenon is involved in learning and memory, brain development and homeostasis, sensorial training, and recovery from brain lesions. However, despite intense research into the mechanisms governing synaptic plasticity, it is still not clear exactly how plasticity shapes brain morphology and physiology. Thus, studying synaptic plasticity is clearly still important if we wish to fully understand how the brain works.The term “plastic” originates from the Latin word “plasticus,” which ultimately comes from the Greek term “plastikós” or “plastos,” originally meaning “molded, formed.” However, the roots of the modern concept of plasticity in neuroscience are still to be fully established  may represent a step forward (Polania et al., Synaptic plasticity is intrinsic to the development and function of the brain, and it is essential for learning and memory processes. In addition, the time windows for plasticity exist during development shape the connections in the brain and its activity Hensch, . Thus, iOn a different note, plasticity is also a phenomenon that aids brain recovery after the damage produced by events like stroke or traumatic injury. Indeed, the ability to manipulate specific neuronal pathways and synapses has important implications for therapeutic and clinical interventions that will improve our health. Promising therapies like deep brain stimulation, non-invasive brain stimulation, neuropharmacology, exercise, cognitive training, or feedback using real-time functional magnetic resonance (Cramer et al., All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


A comparative sociologist who has spent her international career in academia—Marion Fourcade—and a practically minded academic economist with an extended stint in the Swiss government—Aymo Brunetti—offer their views on the role of economists in politics and society. Although Fourcade and Brunetti differ a lot in terms of experience and interest, their insightful and nuanced assessments of economics today are often remarkably similar.Marion Fourcade addresses economists with the Japanese attitude of a 30-degree bow. She modestly calls her views “from below” and she refrains from throwing the gauntlet to the economics profession, as many representatives of social sciences have done in the past. That does not mean she turns a blind eye on some weaknesses of our field. Yet, she portraits problematic issues as interesting aspects of economics. Her text is a pleasure to read because it is an invitation to think about our field, rather than a challenge to a duel.More hands on, but not less interesting, Aymo Brunetti features another tension economists face: not between academic fields, but rather within the economics profession between academically and more policy-oriented scholars. Interestingly, both non-economists and economic practitioners often feel to be looked down upon by academic economists.Marion Fourcade’s label the “Veiled Moralists” is certainly appropriate for many, if not all, representatives of our profession. Gunnar Myrdal made a big effort to distinguish positive and normative economics and to warn his fellow economists of the gateways through which hidden value judgements enter into and contaminate our analysis. However, the dichotomy positive-normative is too narrow. Thomas Kuhn, in his analysis of “scientific revolutions”, found that, before drawing positive or normative conclusions, scientists need a way of looking at the world, a pair of glasses he called “paradigms”. A typical example would be Hayek’s “decentralized information” view, as Marion Fourcade calls it.A paradigm is not a value statement. Yet it can hardly ever be normatively or politically “clean”. The decentralized information paradigm, e.g. is quite conducive to pro-market attitudes: the market is viewed as a “regime of truth-telling”, a term coined by French historian Michel Foucault. “Moralism”, therefore, must be hidden on the very DNA of economics .Economists are a fortunate crowd, as is clear from Aymo Brunetti’s contribution: They can rely (not without limits) on the power of the price mechanism, following Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand”. None of the other social sciences seems to benefit from a similar source of rather robust first approximations. Of course, as any paradigm, it is open for ideological contamination. Yet, few would reject the view that the price mechanism can help to tackle many of today's challenges like climate change, congestion and demographic change.Interestingly, Marion Fourcade does not emphasize the price mechanism itself, but rather money as the unit of account, which turns qualities into quantities. However, as she rightly points out, money comes with its “own moral bag”. Her analysis is reminiscent of Aristotle’s difference between economics and chrematistics. For Aristotle, money must only be a medium of exchange and measure of value (economics), while the accumulation of money as the ultimate goal is an unnatural activity that dehumanizes those who practice it (chrematistics). Although economists are eager to point out that  utility must be the goal of any policy intervention, rather than money, the perception by the public is a different one. The “money is everything” view seems to be justified by the high rate of return of a degree in economics. .Are economists “fortune tellers” as Marion Fourcade suggests? The failure of most economists to predict the two big cases of the Great Depression and the recent Financial Crisis suggests that their fortune telling abilities are limited. More importantly, crisis and scandals around some famous representatives of the field have led to a loss of faith in economics itself. But, as Aymo Brunetti adds, (unforeseen) crises do not mean that the science of economics is inherently unreliable. There are many examples where economic reasoning has indeed led to accurate predictions and useful policy measures. Others—such as some crisis in the Euro Area—occurred because economists ignored what they knew, or because they were ignored by politicians. Marion Fourcade comes to the most powerful (and flattering) aid of economists: a counterfactual usually does not exist . We cannot know what would have happened if economists had not offered their advice. As comforting the support from another discipline may be, it will not spare economists from blame in the future for simple reasons: Not only do failures stand out more than the successes, the “dismal science” (Thomas Carlyle) is often also the bearer of bad news.The “denegation of politics”, as Marion Fourcade calls it, and Aymo Brunetti illustrates with examples, is a denegation of our very identity of economists. There is no immaculate conception of economic theories. Although economists are eager to distance themselves from politics, they are still considered as the most influential social science. I wonder whether this perception reflects the real world. Politicians rarely use economic knowledge to make decisions or set new laws. Apart from central banks, most bodies who decide the economic fate of a country (or a group of countries) do not include trained economists . The strive to be perceived as apolitical has the consequence that economic knowledge is overlooked and that economic advice is often left to pseudo economist. As someone often venturing out into the “real world”, I can also add that, very often, giving economic advice can be frustrating. Only in rare cases, the sought after advice is based on one’s own cherished academic research. In the majority of situations, basic economic principles do the trick, or even more daunting, advice is tantamount to the detection of mistakes in economic reasoning. Yet, the authority of an academic economist still counts.Is economics really influential, one could ask. Many observers from the inside and outside of the field would confine the impact of academic economic research to the ivory tower. Indeed, the choice of topics in academic papers seems to reflect personal interests, data availability and cool identification strategies more than the relevance of real-world economic problems. To some degree, such a phenomenon is unavoidable in any basic research. But the choice of research topics and biases in views and fields also derive from a pretty undiversified faculty dominated by US and European scholars with a low share of women.Communication is key, as Aymo Brunetti forcefully stresses. One way economists have seen their public impact rise is through blogs and commentaries. But the communication to the public being a public good, many platforms have seen declining the number of contributions by the best scholars. Even modern communication tools cannot resolve the basic trade-off between time devoted to academic research and other activities.On a brighter side, academic research has seen a rise in interest, perhaps not from politics, but from other fields. A recent analysis of citations to and from other disciplines  at the same time. Not even the behavioral economists did so. They found some results psychologists already knew or would have predicted, but they did so by way of controlled and repeatable experiments inspired by micro-economic thinking.We just should learn more from each other, from other disciplines and from practical economists closer to the real world. Instead of taking a “view from below”, we should take a look from the side—from all sides, to be sure.


Observations about peculiarities in the autistic population concerning type and frequency of references to subjective states, and lack of perspective taking, have been on the whole referred to as the paradox of the autistic self, i.e. a co-presence of ego-centeredness and weak self-referentiality (Lombardo & Baron Cohen  The expression ‘paradox of the autistic self’ . It is most likely the exact opposite of autists. They are in an extremely localized state, extremely aware of themselves, extremely aware of others and in a battle for their life to hold back the intensity and pain of it all’  is a discipline born in sociology for the understanding of social interaction [Session 17 INI [07:27:00] FR: Francis, client. DA: Darren, counsellor]1. FR: )2. I had a curious phone call last (.) Wednesday- evening.3. ((raises head))4. DA: Mhmh.5. FR Anduh:, (0.2) it was this chap who was a relat= I don’t-6. I don’t know if I told you I had to miss a session7. at the beginning of November because I had to gofuneral down in Bristol. ((opens eyes looks at DA))8. to a 9. DA: Yeah.10. FR: Uhm well this chara=person who di:ed uhm, his-dealt with the matter11. some relative of his who sort of 12. rang me last Friday.=Wednesday night,13. out of the blue:, saying that he wanted my::-14. to 01 DA: Okay so what we’r:e gonna j’z (.) talk about02 is really y-, (0.3) your relationship with-Burrow or Ma:rgie=03 (0.8) would you call her 04 how would you refer 19 Then it was Doctor [((right index finger out))20 21 DA: [°Yeah.] at the time=so.Yeah.]30 DA: [31 FR: Uhm >sorry< uhm >yeah.<32 DA: [Tha:t’s fine,Burrow, whatever you like.33 FR: [Call her Doctor Burrow, whatever you like.’ Additional recollections, however, starts to be narrated at this juncture, concerning the respect attached to the Doctor’s name by other medics. A series of caustic remarks follow, played as a dialogue between Francis and the medics, around how the latter were not able to help him in his predicament of having lost the psychotherapist, and how this caused him later being sectioned in a psychiatric hospital.The counsellor’s question about the Doctor’s name is a ‘utilitarian’ one, within a turn that is hearably a prelude to a longer spate of talk; the question, however, turns out not to have a simple answer for Francis. He recalls how he changed the way he called the Doctor (within himself) throughout the therapy, progressively using more intimate names; this was visible to the Doctor when Francis wrote down in the diary the date of the next appointment, and he recalls how it made her angry  bosses were always so official=33 FR: BUT- tell you 35 =it was Margie this Margie tha:t, [Margie36 DA: [Yeah.greatest psychothe:rapist since Freu:d,>37 FR: the <38 so I said well I should see her then=39 =no answer to tha:t.40 DA: Yeah.41 FR: And=uh=and Freud >actually didn’t run outme:<42 on his patients and put them in- where they put 43 (.) except of course he was thrown out of Austria in44 nineteen[thirtyeight hahaha45 DA: [Yeah uh=hmthat either he[hh46 FR: They didn’t like Ye:s.47 DA: [leans towards counsellor))48 FR: Sorry hmhm? , exerting some pressure toward resuming the topic he had initiated earlier. Similarly to the end of the naming narrative in Extract 2a, this spate of talk ends with an apology from Francis, and a more definite handover of the floor marked also by the leaning posture . The therapist then continues on with the initial project, which is restarted by using the same words of the beginning (line 51).The ‘naming’ episode taken as the whole (Extracts 2a and 2b) shows almost opposite features to the story in Extract 1 about the newly met relative. There, the narrative seemed to offer insufficient personal meaning; here, there seems to be an overabundance of meaning that makes the talk exorbitant, causing a long detour from the conversational trajectory set out by the counsellor at the beginning of the extract. Francis’ response to the question about how to call the Doctor went straight into the traumatic experience of more than 25 years earlier, as he mentioned his growing attachment to the therapist, the brusque separation, his frustrated attempts to persuade the medical authorities to let him see her again, and his hospitalisation (‘where they put me in’). Emphasising the respect of ‘her bosses’ towards the psychoanalyst also adds weight to the loss Francis endured, and is evidence in favour of his claim that the therapy had been beneficial. These contents are all relevant to the topic the counsellor had attempted to initiate, i.e. Francis’ relationship to Doctor Burrow, and demonstrate the ability to identify feelings behind one’s conduct.In terms of perspective-taking, again we have two sets of observations. On the one hand, those stories were displaced in a way that might look egocentric vis-à-vis the therapist conversational project: they were appended to the naming question in the middle of the introductory turn of the counsellor and created some awkwardness, with the therapist stalled and proffering ‘yeahs’ that are typically used in to curtail a speaker’s production, and Francis’ repeated apologies. In any case, because of the sequential position, those contents did not become available for counselling. On the other hand, Francis’ apologies themselves display awareness of the oversized response, and the packaging of the narratives as asides  are consistent with their sequential location. Other indicators of collaborative (and competent) speakership can be observed in the conversational devices that prepare the listeners to the response going somewhat off track, like the turn beginning ‘Well’ , so Francis explained the different ways in which he himself had called the Doctor over time, rather than suggesting a way for the counsellor to call her.Once the orientation to the other in narrative talk is lifted, other motives can overtake, like emotional relevance, or care for precision: for example, the counsellor in Extract 2a has asked ‘would A profile of Francis as an interactional participant has emerged from the analysis of both extracts: he displays awareness of other people’s intentions as manifested in their turns at talk, can do perspective work in including relevant information that enables listeners to follow a story, and can provide information on internal states where relevant, although at times in ways that may be oblique for a neurotypical listener. However, we also observed in both examples that the way the stories were delivered made it difficult for the co-participant to engage in collaborative meaning-making or proffer validation for their content.Turning now finally to Bruner, we will see how his theories about narrative and the self might help us tease out the psychological layers pertaining to these different types of conduct., I will summarise in the following Bruner‘s theories on self based on his much more substantial research on early development and family autobiographical narratives, which I believe provide a better foundation for interpreting current knowledge about autistic forms of life.When Jerome Bruner and Carol Feldman presented their theories on autism  there waBruner,I and You.Culture played out in interaction provides people with ‘folk psychology’ – a loose set of theories about the world and the mind - that varies not only across broad cultural communities but also across families and other groups Bruner . Folk psBruner’s theory is consistent with developmental research showing the role of even very young infants in structuring interactions with caregivers  thus acquire identities defined by this lack and pathologized by their resistance to therapy. Like the Age of Meritocratic Intelligence before it, the Age of Empathy will strive to create its barbarians to be placed outside the gates. Mc Donagh (Perhaps most important, it points to a disturbing movement in writings that use autism as a test case for validating the concept of empathy. This strategy succeeds only at the cost of creating The combination of normo-centric research paradigms and unexamined assumptions about psychological processes in typical individuals (see also Gallagher Psychology could perhaps become a better science if it examined more carefully its tacit assumptions and reconnected to its philosophical roots in order to avoid smuggling in, as a by-product of its research paradigms, disturbing and unethical ‘images of man’ Shotter .Conversation Analysis was used in this study to examine in detail two narratives of a person with autism during counselling, selected because they could illustrate how perceptions of weak self-referentiality and of ego-centredness in autistic people could arise. The analysis revealed that, rather than from specific narrated contents, such perceptions could derive from the fact that the stories did not embed opportunities for the co-participant to intervene in the joint realization of meaning; interactional alignment was found at the level of turn-by-turn organization and informational perspective-taking, but there was no apparent need to have the recounted experience validated by the interlocutor, as is mostly the case in story-telling in both everyday and psyhcotherapeutic settings.I argued that Bruner’s theories about early interaction and the development of self through narrative exchanges, if applied to such observations, suggest that early disruptions in basic coordination skills might reduce opportunities for training in intersubjectivity and gradually learning, from within experiences of co-narration, how to structure one’s stories in conventional narrative form, and displaying a culturally recognizable self. People with autism, with all the differences that different biographical paths entail, may thus draw on partially different resources in assembling a sense of who they are, an may develop a self more autonomous from the social environment than is generally the case for neurotypical individuals. However, this would still represent an ‘adaptive common variant pathways of human functional brain development’, as Johnson :5 puts i