Ulas Kaplan’s research while affiliated with Lesley University and other places

The objective of this study was to explore the mediators of environmental protective behaviors in Christians in Taiwan. Questionnaire data from a total of 699 participants were collected and subjected to a confirmatory factor analysis. The results revealed that the environmental behaviors of Taiwanese Christians are affected by their faith in three aspects. First, private environmental behaviors are associated with church attendance. Second, the awareness of environmental consequences generates a stewardship belief, which results in a willingness to sacrifice for the environment, private environmental behaviors, and political environmental activism. Finally, stewardship belief is also associated with political environmental activism.

Locus of control is a crucial factor in pro-environmental behavior. However, studies on pro-environmental behavior investigating the predisposing factors of internal locus of control are limited. Therefore, the objective of this study further explored the predisposing factors of locus of control and revealed that emotional stability may be a predisposing factor for internal locus of control and pro-environmental behavior. A questionnaire survey was conducted in Taiwan (n = 473) and the responses were explored using structural equation modeling path analysis. The results revealed that emotional stability can promote pro-environmental behavior through the mediation effect of internal locus of control, indicating that emotional stability is a predisposing factor for locus of control-generated pro-environmental behavior. Thus, the study results indicated that people with higher emotional stability and a stronger internal locus of control are more likely to engage in pro-environmental behavior. Hence, to promote pro-environmental behavior through environmental protection education, people's self-control awareness must be strengthened to enable them to remain calm and peaceful.

More and more evidence still points to something that practitioners in education have known for millennia: human learning and performance cannot be simply described from a cognitive or even sociocultural perspective alone. In order to fully understand how we process the world around us, we need to consider our affective responses to the information we perceive. This is especially important for the designers of digital educational materials, as these materials offer many important opportunities to incorporate emotional considerations. However, few if any theories of learning with media consider emotions, and if they do, they do so only in very limited ways. In this chapter, we first review definitions of key terms related to emotion and learning, and summarize research on emotional design in digital media for learning. We then present a theoretical framework of learning from digital media that emphasizes the integration of emotional and cognitive processing and of related design factors, and describe a resulting research agenda for the study of emotional design.

The real-life complexity of moral motivation can be examined and explained by reintegrating time and development into moral inquiry. This article is one of the possible integrative steps in this direction. A dynamic developmental conception of moral motivation can be a useful bridge toward such integration. A comprehensive view of moral motivation is presented. Moral motivation is reconceptualized as a developmental process of self-organization and self-regulation out of which moral judgment and action emerge through the interplay of dynamically intertwined cognitive and emotional components. Moral identity is proposed to emerge from long-term self-organization of moral motivation. In turn, as a higher-order construct, moral identity has a top-down influence on real-time self-organization. The article includes an account of short-term changes in moral motivation, and an account that connects real-time moral functioning with long-term changes. Moral motivation is qualified as a dynamic developmental process on the basis of self-organization, multicausality, nonlinearity, interconnectedness of time scales and substantial intrapersonal variability through motivational pluralism.

The purpose of this study was to examine the within-person multiplicity of moral motivation in the context of specific judgment choices using a new and integrative approach. This purpose serves to test a new model of moral motivation. In this model, Kohlberg’s six developmental stages are reconceptualized as dynamic structures of motivation that operate together within person, reflecting motivational pluralism. A total of 391 university students participated by responding to a questionnaire that elicited six different moral judgments. Three judgments were about hypothetical dilemmas, and three were about social policy issues (war, abortion, death penalty). Using a recognition task, the questionnaire presented participants with standard descriptions of motivational structures to be rated separately as possible reasons for decisions. Results provided support for the hypothesized within-person operation of multiple stages in each judgment context. The majority of motivational structures operated in ways that were significantly correlated with each other. Correlations observed a developmental order. Analyses revealed patterns of association between the use of specific developmental stages and different judgment choices in each judgment context. The most pervasive associations with specific judgment choices were revealed by a combination of stage 1 (obedience) and stage 4 (social order). The motivation of moral judgment involves the operation of multiple motivational strategies that are developmentally connected to each other. This motivational pluralism can be detected by the multiplicity of stage structures that are recognized by individuals as reasons behind their judgments, and by the multiplicity of relationships between stages and judgment choices. Limitations and possibilities of future research are discussed in terms of the need to examine individual developmental trajectories over time and across contexts.

Multiple moral emotions were examined from a dynamic motivational framework through two hypothetical dilemmas that originate from the cognitive-developmental research program in morality. A questionnaire based on recognition task measurement of moral motivation and emotions was administered to 546 college students. As part of the dynamic complexity of moral motivation, intrapersonal operation of multiple emotions were expected and found toward each emotion target in each judgment context. Compassion and distress were among the most important moral emotions. Relatively strong degrees of anger and hate were reported toward the victimizers in ways that distinguished judgment choices. Participants distinguished a variety of positive emotions from anger and hate through differential associations with judgment choices. The study revealed orderly patterns of variability in the multiplicity of moral emotional experience based on relations with specific emotion targets, judgment choices, and developmental quality of moral motivation. The overall developmental quality of moral motivation was negatively associated with hate and positively associated with anger toward the victimizers. Emotional awareness was also found to be positively related to the developmental quality of moral motivation. Exploring the intrapersonal multiplicity of moral emotional experience has important implications for understanding the complexity of moral decision making and motivation.

In this study, we present a qualitative approach to changes in daily well-being as a function of mental imagery practice. Each morning for a period of 1 week, participants practiced a brief (approximately 1- to 2-minute long) mental imagery practice designed to facilitate well-being. Upon completing each exercise, they provided brief written reflections on their well-being. Qualitative analysis of these subjective reports revealed significant patterns that correspond to three of the four major components of well-being (positive affect, vitality, negative affect) examined by researchers from a Self-Determination Theory perspective. All participants reported immediate well-being benefits of mental imagery practice, and these benefits reflected several patterns that we identified. As these changes take place in seconds and minutes, this study reflects a microdevelopmental approach to well-being from a Dynamic Systems perspective. The value of exploring short-term imagery-related improvements in well-being in combination with long-term influences is discussed.

This study is based on a broad conception of moral motivation by applying self-determination theory and dynamic systems perspectives. Accordingly, not only moral action, but also moral judgment is motivated. We carried out a detailed exploration of intrapersonal variability as a central aspect of moral motivation. Kohlberg’s six stages of moral development are reconceptualized as dynamic process structures of motivation that operate together within person simultaneously in different degrees. A total of 546 college students responded to a new instrument to assess moral motivation using a recognition task. Findings provided support for the notion that individuals use multiple motivational structures in different degrees as they make moral judgments. The majority of correlations between within-person operation degrees of motivational structures were significant. Variations in these correlations are explained to a large extent by developmental proximity of stage pairs. Results revealed both variability and developmental order in moral motivation. Implications of a dynamic developmental perspective are discussed in terms of understanding the complexity of moral motivation in ways that are sensitive to both intrapersonal and contextual variability.

ABSTRACT Intrapersonal variability and multiplicity in the complexity of moral motivation were examined from Dynamic Systems and Self-Determination Theory perspectives. L. Kohlberg's (1969) stages of moral development are reconceptualized as soft-assembled and dynamically transformable process structures of motivation that may operate simultaneously within person in different degrees. Moral motivation is conceptualized as the real-time process of self-organization of cognitive and emotional dynamics out of which moral judgment and action emerge. A detailed inquiry into intrapersonal variation in moral motivation is carried out based on the differential operation of multiple motivational structures. A total of 74 high school students and 97 college students participated in the study by completing a new questionnaire, involving 3 different hypothetical moral judgments. As hypothesized, findings revealed significant multiplicity in the within-person operation of developmental stage structures, and intrapersonal variability in the degrees to which stages were used. Developmental patterns were found in terms of different distributions of multiple stages between high school and college samples, as well as the association between age and overall motivation scores. Differential relations of specific emotions to moral motivation revealed and confirmed the value of differentiating multiple emotions. Implications of the present theoretical perspective and the findings for understanding the complexity of moral judgment and motivation are discussed.