RISULTATI RICERCA

Job burnout ed efficacia personale negli operatori penitenziari - This contribution has investigated job burnout, interpersonal strain and self-efficacy, by administering a self-report questionnaire to 130 correctional officers. Two ANOVAs investigated the differences related respectively to the type of contact between operators and prisoners, direct versus indirect, and to job position. Four simple regressions examined the role of self-efficacy as a predictor of burnout and interpersonal overload. Overall, the correctional who have a direct contact with prisoners do not display different levels as compared to the others. With regard to the job position, the educators display lower levels of professional efficacy as compared to the assistants, supervisors and inspectors. Finally, self-efficacy is a significant predictor of burnout and interpersonal strain.

Keywords: job burnout, interpersonal strain, self-efficacy, correctional officers.

Parole chiave: job burnout, sovraccarico relazionale, efficacia personale, operatori penitenziari.

This contribution has investigated job burnout and interpersonal strain by administering a self-report questionnaire to 1032 subjects from healthcare (503) and productive organizations (529), and, within the latter, 159 from a call centre. Two ANOVAs investigated the differences related respectively to the type of organization: (a) healthcare and productive organizations; (b) healthcare, call centres and other productive organizations. Surprisingly, healthcare organizations display lower levels of job burnout and interpersonal strain as compared to the productive organizations. Nevertheless, call centre’ operators, separated by the other productive organizations, displayed higher levels of job burnout and interpersonal strain as compared to employees from other productive organizations, and especially by those from the healthcare settings.

We analyze the content of four articles by John Bates Clark published between 1878 and 1887, during his Christian Socialist period in order to show that next to the marginalist Clark and beyond the neoclassical principles outlined in The Distribution of Wealth, the whole Clark’s work is a strongly coherent body, deeply rooted in positions less extreme than the ones held by more reformer-minded economists like Richard T. Ely or John R. Commons containing an array of different contributions to political economy displaying a certain originality and coherence, and enrolling in a thematic environment that today would be broadly defined as social economy. In particular, the main ideas emerging from this selection of papers are his organismic idea of society, the role of moral forces in shaping economic activity, and his promotion of profit sharing and cooperation as better regimes for production and distribution with respect to competition.

The aim of this paper is to highlight the position of John Bates Clark about the Treaty of Versailles and the U.S. approach to Foreign Policy in the aftermath of World War I. To achieve this goal, we analyze some unpublished manuscripts from the Rare Book & Manuscript Library of Columbia University and four pub-lished articles written by Clark between 1918 and 1919 about the consequences of the Treaty and, more generally, the future of Europe. The main ideas emerging from this material are that Clark supported the Trea-ty because he thought that given the threat of a resurgent Germany, only a League of Nations including the U.S. could be able to maintain world peace. On the other hand, he also criticized it because he shared with Keynes the view that the very harsh provisions imposed on Germany would generate another World War in the near future. Finally, Clark saw the union among European countries as a tool for preventing another war.

John Dewey e la fede laica - Lo sfondo religioso del pensiero di John Dewey ha una forte incidenza sulla sua concezione della democrazia, la quale tuttavia prevede espressamente l’affrancamento dalle credenze nel soprannaturale. Il carattere ‘quasi-religioso’che egli assegna agli ideali democratici è un’espressione peculiare di un ‘naturalismo umanistico’ che valorizza la capacità immaginativa e la conoscenza scientifica, quali strumenti basilari per sviluppare le migliori possibilità umane, prescindendo dall’individualismo e da ogni forma di dogmatismo. La complessità del pensiero deweyano, delle sue fonti di ispirazione così come delle sue istanze più originali, sembra offrire sufficienti motivi tanto per mitigare i rischi di un incauto scientismo quanto per lasciare spazio a un ulteriore approfondimento del problema delle credenze religiose, problema che, nel nostro tempo, appare tutt’altro che secondario.

John Dewey e la lettura fenomenologica di una soggettività drammatica - L’articolo assume come sfondo specifico le dinamiche della relazione uomo-natura in John Dewey, cercando di ricostruire in chiave drammatica il problema della personalità individuale. Attraverso l’utilizzo di un metodo di tipo fenomenologico, vengono messe in luce le tappe che conducono l’individuo a un processo di realizzazione etica di sé. Particolare risalto viene dato al dramma che il soggetto vive nella scelta razionale dei valori. Dramma che induce il filosofo americano a trovare nell’etica lo sviluppo finale della logica. Questa svolta muove l’intero processo della soggettività sul piano della responsabilità. Una responsabilità drammatica e rischiosa, che costituisce l’unica via che il soggetto può percorrere se aspira a qualificare la realtà in cui si trova inscindibilmente incarnato in modo intelligente, personale e creativo.

John Locke’s account of personal identity (Essay 2.27) is one of his most discussed theories. Opposing the Cartesian ontology of mind, Locke argued that the soul does not always think - for thinking is simply one of its operations, but not its essence -, and that personal identity consists in consciousness alone. Against Locke, an anonymous commentator published the Remarks upon an Essay concerning Humane Understanding (1697-99) charging Locke’s view with possible immorality. Catharine Cockburn rebuffed the Remarker’s objections, in her Defence of Mr. Locke's Essay (1702), depicting his view as more dangerous for morality than Locke’s. This paper shifts the focus from Cockburn’s defence of Locke’s moral thought, to her apology for his theory of personal identity, including his probabilistic arguments in favour of the immortality of the soul. This shift of focus yields an alternative account of Cockburn’s originality: first, because she offered a non-substance interpretation of Locke’s theory of personal identity, that, for its time, was unusual, and remains relevant for contemporary philosophical debates over Locke; and second, because, following Kristeller, in the very act of defending and articulating anew Locke’s theory, Cockburn in some sense appropriated it.