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Purpose – To present Hayek's model of the sensory order, especially in relation to communication, classification and subjective knowledge, arguing for the necessity of a more articulated theory of the “inter-personal” dimension of the mind. We proposed then to integrate Hayek's model of the mind with the concept of “folk psychology” or “theory of mind” elaborated by modern philosophy.

Methodological approach – This chapter is philosophical but draws on the empirical.

Findings – Hayek proposed a model of the mind and the social order that explains how dispersed and fragmented knowledge can spread in a society of individuals [Hayek, F. A. (1945). The use of knowledge in society. The American Economic Review, 35(4), 519–530]. His social and psychological theories have been dedicated to the study of the spontaneous emergence of orders: institutional and mental orders are tightened together in his epistemology. However, we found that Hayek developed only in nuce the social dimension of the mind: behaviors are determined by mental events and his philosophical psychology is then “mentalistic,” that is focused on the understanding of individual inner psychological states, their relation with external stimuli and behaviors, without explaining how individuals interpret other people's mental states.

Research limitations/implications – Hayek seems not to explicitly consider the interaction between personal psychological events and other people's mental events, missing then a fundamental activity played by the mental order, that is the capacity to understand, interpret, and attribute other people's mental states, in a word to mentalize.

Originality/value of the paper – To read Hayek's philosophical psychology under a new light, which focus on the importance of the interpersonal dimension of mental processes.

Simulation is one of the most widely used tools within management science. The teaching of simulation has traditionally involved theory and practical model development. With the advent of modern software, practical model development can be undertaken with very little knowledge of simulation theory. This enables students who are more able in model building to develop their capabilities in this area and use their strengths to help develop the theoretical knowledge as they progress. This paper demonstrates how a little knowledge of the principles of simulation has been used to help students to develop working models by prototyping.

To present results of research closely linked to real life applications and to resume the work of a period of a few years.

The combination of finite‐element method (FEM) and boundary‐element method is applied to simulate the electromagnetic, mechanical, and acoustic behaviour of an induction machine with squirrel‐cage rotor. The paper gives an overall view of the workflow and the implemented mathematics, starting off with the two‐dimensional, transient electromagnetic simulation and the succeeding three‐dimensional, static electromagnetic simulation. Theory and results of the mechanical and acoustic simulations are discussed.

A main result of the research work is that the simulation of the acoustic behaviour of an electrical machine is very time‐consuming. Furthermore, geometry adoption, especially of the mechanical model, is very sensible.

Using the FEM for simulation of structure dynamic problems is often limited to how the boundary layers are handled. In real life materials are not “connected” but glued or clamped. Therefore, the behaviour can only be adapted by manipulating the material parameters. There are other methods known for simulation, which could be applied. On the other hand, measurements could be used for iterative parameter adoption.

A significant result of the work is that the results obtained only allow for comparison. Exactness is more a question of modelling the real behaviour than matching the results to measurement in terms of values.

This paper gives an overview of how to simulate the complete chain from electromagnetics to acoustics of an electric machine.

Although questions about nonhuman animal mind and selfhood have been a long-standing interest of philosophers, psychologists, biologists, and cognitive ethologists, sociologists have been reluctant to acknowledge the importance of such questions. This is due, in part, to George Herbert Mead’s denial of consciousness, especially self-consciousness, in animals. Indeed, the exclusion of nonhuman consciousness was a fundamental axiom of Mead’s very conceptions of mind and self. However, recently a growing number symbolic interactionists have begun to build a body of research that demands a reconsideration of Mead’s anthropocentric and phonocentric definitions of mind, self, and the nonhuman participants who cohabit the everyday world of social life. Here we provide a brief account of their work and present evidence from evolutionary biology, cognitive ethology, and neuroscience that strongly validates their contention that the processes of consciousness and self, which constitute the cornerstone of meaningful social action and interaction, can no longer be denied to several species of nonhuman animals.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is an evidence-based treatment for common mental health problems that affect children, young people and adults. The suitability of CBT for children has been questioned because it requires children to think about their thoughts, feelings and behaviours. The purpose of this paper is to investigate which cognitive and affective capacities predict children’s ability to relate thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

A total of 59 typically developing children aged between 8 and 11 years took part in the study. CBT skills were assessed on a story task that required children to relate the character’s thoughts to their feelings and behaviours. Children also completed an assessment of IQ, a feeling-of-knowing metamemory task that assessed metacognition, and a higher-order theory of mind task. Furthermore, parents rated their child’s empathy on the children’s empathy quotient.

The findings suggest that CBT is developmentally appropriate for 8–11 year old children; however, young children and children with mental health problems may have impaired metacognition and CBT skills. Metacognition and empathy may moderate the efficacy of child CBT and warrant further investigation in clinical trials.

This study provides evidence for the cognitive and affective skills that might predict the outcome of CBT in children. Metacognition and empathy predict children’s ability to relate thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and therefore may moderate the efficacy of CBT.

Criticisms of naturalistic coherentism are suggested that are not raised by its critics in the literature. The rejection of traditional foundationalism does not necessarily entail the acceptance of coherentism. Coherentism can be seen as another version of foundationalism. Most interestingly, Evers and Lakomski’s stance on “strong vs weak” naturalism seems to be vague. Then, in closing, it is suggested that a recent theory in epistemology termed “foundherentism” might provide some avenues for the further development of naturalistic coherentism, such as by emphasising empirical input in coherentism and adopting a weak version of naturalism.

The chapter examines to what extent research from social cognitive neuroscience can inform ethical leadership. We evaluate the contribution of brain research to the understanding of ethical leaders as moral persons as well the understanding of their role as moral managers. The areas of social cognitive neuroscience that mirror these two aspects of ethical leadership comprise research relating to understanding oneself, understanding others, and the relationship between the self and others. Within these, we deem it relevant for ethical leadership to incorporate research findings about self-reflection, self-regulation, theory of mind, empathy, trust, and fairness. The chapter highlights social cognitive neuroscience research in these areas and discusses its actual and potential contributions to ethical leadership. The chapter thereby engages also with the broader discussion on the neuroscience of leadership. We suggest new avenues for future research in the field of leadership ethics and responsibility.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to be as comprehensive as possible about what is known about mirror neurons at this time.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter offers a comprehensive critique including Churchland's hesitations about findings on mirror neurons (2011) which are balanced by Ramachandran's conviction that much of the research on mirror neurons is valid (2011). Following this is a summary of the results of the Mirror Neuron Forum (2011) wherein leading mirror neuron researchers exchange their views and conclusions about this subject.

Findings – The few single cells measures that we have show that they are much wider distributed throughout the brain than we have previously imagined. It should be stressed that single measures of mirror neurons have occurred albeit in limited situations. This establishes once and for all their relevance to humans.

Originality/value – The work on mirror neurons is a critical contribution from neuroscience to bringing the social brain into sociology and refining our understandings of intersubjectivity and of our biologically driven connections with others.