In the first part of this paper, I take up some analytical questions about the theory of games and its application to social reality. I emphasize the importance of thinking, not in terms of one-off games or even of repeated trials, but in terms of the general motivations or dispositions that exist in a society. In the second part, I consider some complications in the idea of a ‘motivation to co...

Psychological essentialism is a cognitive bias that leads people to view members of a category as sharing a deep, underlying, inherent nature that causes them to be fundamentally similar to one another in non-obvious ways. Although essentialist beliefs can be beneficial, allowing people to view the social world as stable and predictable, essentialist beliefs about social categories such as race...

This paper advocates the application of VRML in the visualisation of social robotic behaviour. We present the Virtual Reality Workbench, which via the Social Robot Architecture integrates the key elements of Virtual Reality and robotics in a coherent and systematic manner. To support this, we deliver a development environment, Agent Factory, which facilitates rapid prototyping and visualisation...

Western-liberal discourses of power and the social practices associated with them are proving inadequate to the task of creating a peaceful, just, and sustainable social order. Having recognized this, progressive scholars and social reformers have begun articulating alternative discourses of power, along with alternative models of social practice. Together, these efforts can be interpreted as a...

Given the popularity of social networking sites, it is important to examine the impact of rumination while examining the rich content available, particularly after a stressful interpersonal event. This pilot study examined how individual differences in rumination are related to Facebook use following a breakup. Findings indicate that trait rumination was associated with the tendency to experien...

In this paper we describe a model for supporting the development of learning objects that are closer to the music domain and to the student’s digital social reality. A case study considering a music education activity, which was created using the proposed model, was conducted with high school students to demonstrate the applicability and benefits of our approach. Results show the importance of ...

Adolescents need to develop a socially-approved identity to ensure a healthy transition to adult life. This task is particularly challenging for immigrant youth growing into a social world where their home and host cultures differ considerably in terms of models of a healthy and acceptable identity. Immigrant adolescents need to acquire bicultural competence and flexibility as part of a secure ...

Changes in the education system are accompanied by changes of a person’s views on him/herself, his/her place in professional and social world. This leads to the difficulties with professional identity formation. The article presents the data showing the impact of young teachers’ participation in youth professional educational games on professional identity formation.