This paper analyses the critical responses to the official Chinese Communist Party narratives of scientific progress and social harmony found in Han Song's 韩松 2016 novel Hospital (医院, Yiyuan) and Cao Fei's 曹斐 2019 film Nova (新星, Xin xing). Both works challenge the state's vision of a technologically determined, utopian future. The study explores how these texts subvert the official discourse by critically examining four thematic areas: the relationship between past and future, China and the outside world; the personal dimension of the quest for scientific progress; the disconnect between state-level achievements and the livelihood of ordinary citizens; and the concept of personal freedom and happiness. Both works depict a relentless pursuit of progress that leads to the erosion of individual agency, transforming citizens into objects of (bio)technological experimentation. By offering counter-narratives to the state's sociotechnical imaginary, Han Song and Cao Fei provide an ambivalent vision of China's future, one rooted in the anxieties of its present.
Although honesty is vital for trust and stability, individuals in romantic relationships may sometimes favor deception over harsh truths. This study examines the relationship between relationship satisfaction, resilience, and the preference for hearing prosocial lies from a romantic partner. We hypothesized that prosocial lies may be positively linked to relationship satisfaction, especially for less resilient individuals who rely on positive feed- back to manage stress. First, we piloted scenarios depicting prosocial and egoistic lies in romantic relationships. Next, individuals (N = 672) chose whether they preferred their partner to lie or tell the truth. Results showed that lower relationship satisfaction was associated with a greater preference for hearing prosocial lies. This association was mediated by perceiving truth as harmful at mean and high levels of emotional resilience, indicating that prosocial lies are less desired in satisfying relationships but preferred in strained ones.
The article analyses the attitudes and expectations of young Europeans towards the democratic system in the context of declining trust in political institutions. The aim of the discussion is to identify the reasons for the observed criticism and to examine the extent to which the solutions proposed by young people (recommendations for policymakers and the education sector) focus on deepening participation and increasing the transparency of decision-making processes. The article presents the results of the Youth Democracy Labs workshops organised as part of the ActEU project (“Towards a new era of representative democracy: Activating European citizens’ trust in times of crises and polarisation”), which served to examine the attitudes of young Europeans towards the democratic system and to develop the aforementioned recommendations. Based on 17 workshops conducted in 10 European Union countries, including Poland, the main areas in which changes should be made were identified. The results indicate that young Europeans, although critical of institutions, remain committed to democratic values and willing to participate actively in public life, provided that mechanisms conducive to this are created. An analysis of the recommendations also reveals the specific local context, e.g. the strongly emphasised need in Poland for civic education and the development of digital tools to facilitate civic participation.
This study aimed to examine the associations between both provided and received emotional social support and relationship satisfaction among romantic couples in which at least one partner was HIV positive. In addition, couples’ serostatus concordance and sexual orientation were tested as potential moderators of the effects of social support exchange. A total of 105 couples participated in the study, of whom 46.7% were seroconcordant and 73.3% were same-gender couples. Each partner independently evaluated provided and received emotional social support using the relevant subscales of the Berlin Social Support Scales. Relationship satisfaction was assessed individually using the Relationship Assessment Scale. In the actor–partner interdependence model (APIM), actor and partner effects were comparable for provided support, whereas for received support, the actor effect was slightly stronger than the partner effect. Partners within dyads were empirically classified as indistinguishable. This classification was further supported by the absence of moderating effects of either serostatus concordance or sexual orientation at the dyadic level. The findings suggest that the perceived provision of emotional support functions as a couple-level resource, whereas the perceived receipt of emotional support operates primarily as an individual-level resource for relationship satisfaction. This pattern of support exchange appears consistent across couples, regardless of HIV serostatus or sexual orientation, among our sample of highly functioning people living with HIV who are receiving treatment.
Mimicry is a key mechanism of social interaction that promotes affiliation and prosocial behavior. In autism spectrum disorder (ASD), however, evidence is mixed: basic imitation abilities often appear intact, but their regulation by social cues and context may be altered. This study tested whether children with ASD show prosocial behaviors after being mimicked. Thirty children with ASD (ages 6–9) were randomly assigned to a mimicry or no-mimicry condition during interaction. Prosocial behavior was measured using a pen-dropping task. Mimicked children were more likely to help and picked up more pens, although wide confidence intervals render the true size of the effect uncertain. These findings provide preliminary evidence that mimicry may foster low-cost helping in ASD, though replication with larger, better characterized samples is essential.
