Assertiveness

Young people are getting unhappier – a lack of childhood freedom and independence may be partly to blame

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Research, Friends, Freedom, Attention, Sport, Learning, Society, Environment, Parent, School, Human, Travel, Social media, Emotional intelligence, Parenting, Student, Psychology, Metal, Happiness, Love, Creativity, Boredom, Medicine, Emotion, Frustration, Assertiveness, Toy

Experts often highlight social media and harsh economic times as key reasons why young people are getting unhappier.

Key Points: 
  • Experts often highlight social media and harsh economic times as key reasons why young people are getting unhappier.
  • Younger generations have less freedom and independence than previous generations did.
  • The lack of childhood freedom isn’t just a result of parental control.

Emotional, social and cognitive effects

  • Psychologist Jean Piaget emphasised the importance of exploration and experimentation in cognitive development in the 1950s.
  • By restricting children’s freedom to explore and take age-appropriate risks, we deprive them of opportunities for intellectual curiosity and innovation.
  • The decline in independence can have implications for social and emotional development.
  • Research highlights the importance of peer interactions in shaping social competence and emotional intelligence.
  • By orchestrating play dates and entertainment, parents may therefore inadvertently limit their children’s ability to navigate social dynamics.

Age-appropriate freedom

  • Evidence supports the idea that freedom and independence is crucial for the happiness and wellbeing of young people.
  • A five-year-old, for example, can be allowed and encouraged to butter their own toast, make their bed, or play on their own in the garden.
  • A 10-year-old, meanwhile, should be able to walk to and from school on their own, be responsible for their homework and keep their space tidy.


Fiorentina Sterkaj does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Stephen Samuel's Evolution: From Pharmaceuticals to Pioneering Construction with Evolve Realty & Development Corp.

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
Quality control, Gait, Development, Construction, Trust, Samuel, Pharmacy, Glass, Architecture, Testament, Heart, Assertiveness, Textile

At the heart of Evolve Realty & Development's mission is a blend of hands-on construction expertise alongside the most cutting-edge technology available and direct sourcing of materials.

Key Points: 
  • At the heart of Evolve Realty & Development's mission is a blend of hands-on construction expertise alongside the most cutting-edge technology available and direct sourcing of materials.
  • As a harbinger of modern luxury apartments that offer the quintessence of living spaces, Stephen Samuel’s leadership approach challenges the norm.
  • Whether it is using innovative construction methods that minimize environmental impact or deploying technologies that streamline productivity, Evolve Realty & Development dedicates itself to pushing the bar higher.
  • Stephen Samuel Transforms Industries: From Premier Pharmacy Services to Evolve Realty & Development Corp: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stephen-samuel-transforms-industries-prem...
    Premier Pharmacy Services' Stephen Samuel: A Transition to Construction Excellence with Evolve Realty & Development Corp: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/premier-pharmacy-services-stephen-samuel-...

Is Japan joining AUKUS? Not formally – its cooperation will remain limited for now

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
Pillar, AUKUS, Intelligence, Partnership, Suggestion, Trump, Ship, United States Navy, Vacuum, Aircraft, Language, Collaboration, Five Eyes, Assertiveness, Legislation, Arms industry

With Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visiting Washington this week, rumours have circulated that Japan might soon join the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Key Points: 
  • With Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visiting Washington this week, rumours have circulated that Japan might soon join the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.
  • Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has downplayed the suggestion, indicating this is not something that will happen soon.

Partner on the ‘Pillar II’ level

  • For some time now, Japan was talked about as a potential fourth partner in the agreement.
  • The Pillar I level of the partnership involves the US transferring nuclear submarine propulsion technology to Australia.
  • This level focuses on the sharing of technology related to artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, hypersonic missiles and precision guided munitions.
  • Nonetheless, Japan has strong capabilities and critical skills in the areas covered by the Pillar II level of cooperation.

Complications to AUKUS expansion

  • This includes ensuring the drafting and implementation of procedural mechanisms to allow technology transfers to take place between the members.
  • No one inside AUKUS wants to mess with the dynamics that have enabled such close and trusted ties.
  • In addition, there is a reluctance to go beyond three core members of AUKUS until the envisioned technology sharing is proven to work.
  • Read more:
    Will the AUKUS deal survive in the event of a Trump presidency?

A delicate balancing act

  • This is demonstrated in the trilateral arrangements between them, as well as the quadrilateral ties with India (known as the Quad).
  • Japan is also boosting its ties with the Philippines, South Korea and the United Kingdom.
  • So, it is a delicate balancing act to encourage Japanese engagement in external security arrangements, while being mindful the country still has a constitution that binds it to a strictly defensive and relatively benign military posture.


John Blaxland is director of the ANU's North America Liaison Office, based in Washington DC, and has been attending the US Navy's Sea Air Space Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.

She Builds Nation Report: Women in Construction Face Lack of Safety Equipment and Restroom Accessibility Gaps

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, March 7, 2024
Assertiveness, Organizational culture, Female, Woman, Construction, Parity, Optimism, Nursing

Lumber, a pioneering construction workforce management platform, developed this report from insights gleaned from a survey of over 100 women construction owners, executives, and decision-makers, delving into critical issues impacting women in construction.

Key Points: 
  • Lumber, a pioneering construction workforce management platform, developed this report from insights gleaned from a survey of over 100 women construction owners, executives, and decision-makers, delving into critical issues impacting women in construction.
  • Among the notable revelations, a staggering 67% of respondents cited the dearth of gender-friendly (smaller-sized) safety equipment such as PPEs, safety harnesses, hard hats, etc., with 85% expressing concerns over the absence of maternity-friendly safety gear.
  • Additionally, 64% of women reported the absence of women's restroom facilities at construction sites, highlighting a significant gap in infrastructure to address their needs.
  • Together, we can build a future where diversity is celebrated, opportunities abound, and women play a pivotal role in shaping the construction landscape."

Circus Group CEO Nikolas Bullwinkel named 'Future Thinker' by Business Punk

Retrieved on: 
Friday, February 16, 2024
Robotics, Assertiveness, Punk, Delivery Hero, AI, Entrepreneurship, Watchlist, Cryptocurrency

Business Punk highlights Bullwinkel's pioneering efforts in robotics and AI development in the food service industry.

Key Points: 
  • Business Punk highlights Bullwinkel's pioneering efforts in robotics and AI development in the food service industry.
  • The influential business publication annually honors the most impactful founders, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders in Germany.
  • Hamburg, 16 February 2024 - Nikolas Bullwinkel, Co-founder and CEO of the Circus Group (Xetra: CA1.DE ), has been distinguished in Business Punk magazine's Watchlist for 2024.
  • Circus SE, based in Germany, leads in kitchen automation, revolutionizing global food service operations with its cutting-edge AI, robotics, and unique software solutions.

New MIT Sloan Research: How the stereotype of East Asians lacking in creativity contributes to their underrepresentation in leadership roles in the USA

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, November 9, 2023
Journal, Organization, Television, MBA, Research, Creativity, Psychology, Student, MIT Sloan School of Management, Culture, Management, Associate, Assertiveness, Tourism, Tea, East Asian people

What do these common depictions of East Asian characters in mainstream American movies and television shows have in common?

Key Points: 
  • What do these common depictions of East Asian characters in mainstream American movies and television shows have in common?
  • They portray East Asians as hardworking and “book smart”—but not “street smart”—and lacking in creativity in a culture that places significant emphasis on creativity as a leadership quality.
  • As demonstrated by the experiments, the stereotype that East Asians lack creativity is salient in the absence of actual differences in creativity.
  • “Instead of focusing too much on a leader’s own creativity, organizations should consider encouraging leaders to nurture creativity in others,” says Lu.

Shifting Focus: Single Family Home Sales Drive Canada’s Luxury Market as Consumer Demand Evolves

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
The Conference Board, Multiple listing service, Sale, Four Seasons Private Residences at 706 Mission Street, Assertiveness, Attention, Real estate, Housing, Conference, Recession, Pressure, Face, Season, GTA, City, Environment, MLS, Privacy, Negotiation, Quebec, Outremont, Quebec, Property management, Bottled water, Cryptocurrency, Oil, Greater Toronto Area

TORONTO, Oct. 18, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As the country’s housing market continued to wrestle with the challenges of elevated mortgage rates, uneven economic performance and intense geopolitical turbulence, reviving luxury single family home sales in the third quarter of the year revealed the relative resilience and adaptability of luxury real estate buyers, as well as Canadians’ unwavering desire to attain home ownership. According to Sotheby’s International Realty Canada’s Top-Tier Real Estate: Fall 2023 State of Luxury Report, luxury single family home sales in Canada’s largest residential real estate markets renewed in the third quarter of 2023, even as activity in the luxury condominium market tempered, a reflection of changing housing considerations, consumer preferences and financial strategies in light of rising housing prices and carrying costs.

Key Points: 
  • In the month of September, luxury single family home sales moderated, as sales over $4 million fell 26% year-over-year to 14 homes sold.
  • According to Sotheby’s International Realty Canada experts, despite recent sales gains, the city’s luxury single family home market has normalized.
  • GTA luxury single family sales activity in the initial month of fall suggests an active market in the months ahead.
  • Sales activity in Montreal’s luxury single family home market was uneven throughout the summer and hinted at a transition to a more balanced market.

Why the United States will have to accept China's growing influence and strength

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, August 30, 2023
United States Congress, State, Partnership, Democracy, Public opinion, Politics, Policy, Taoism, Trump, Metaphor, AUKUS, International Space Station, Phrase, Treasury, Congress, Peaceful coexistence, Assertiveness, Colonialism, Barack Obama, Bush, Politics of the International Space Station, News, Renewable energy, Rare-earth element, Management, Hunting

It doesn’t represent the tense geopolitical landscape saturated with sanctions, investment restrictions and containment efforts.

Key Points: 
  • It doesn’t represent the tense geopolitical landscape saturated with sanctions, investment restrictions and containment efforts.
  • These overtures come on the heels of concentrated American efforts against what the U.S. perceives to be China’s increasing expansion and assertiveness in Asia.
  • President Joe Biden’s administration has made its intentions clear about maintaining the status quo in Asia, and Beijing is responding cautiously.

Conflicting policies

    • In 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested the Barack Obama administration wanted to go further than Bush had in developing the China-U.S. relationship:
      “We need a comprehensive dialogue with China.
    • The strategic dialogue that was begun in the Bush administration turned into an economic dialogue.”
      “We need a comprehensive dialogue with China.
    • During Donald Trump’s administration, U.S. policy priorities on China shifted back to economic relations as the trade deficit between the two nations became a central point of contention.
    • The Trump approach was no longer dialogue, but rather direct confrontation.

Chinese pragmatism

    • Since the 1990s, China has been explicit in its grand objective of a multi-polar world in which global politics is shaped by several dominant states.
    • When Xi Jinping ascended to the presidency in 2013, this aspiration became increasingly overt and assertive.
    • But even though China trails the U.S. in many areas, it doesn’t need American support as much as it used to.
    • Astonishingly rapid development in the last two decades is probably still far from China’s most creative and innovative phase.

American limitations

    • There are also limits to the American field of influence in the region.
    • The U.S. has failed to move beyond strengthening existing alliances and fortifying its military installations.
    • China is not deterred by American policy.
    • Will China abide by its Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence and its claim that it will never seek world domination?

Four indicators of what lies ahead

    • Several indicators, however, point to a somewhat balanced co-existence between the two as dominant power centres in the coming decades.
    • Second, China is already present around the globe in terms of human capital, investment, manufactured products — and world public opinion about China is changing.
    • Third, to use the Taoist metaphor, China is a hub that has many spokes and has the capacity and will to invent many more.
    • The hub is united and efficient; an economic downturn will only slow the social organism, not cause it to collapse.

'Every flight is a learning event’: why the V-22 Osprey aircraft won’t be grounded despite dozens of crashes and 54 fatalities

Retrieved on: 
Monday, August 28, 2023
Adoption, Learning, Marine Rotational Force – Darwin, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Accident, Tiltrotor, Marines, United States Air Force, Ernest K. Warburton (US Air Force), National Commission, Black Hawk, Osprey, Aircraft, United States Marine Corps, United States Department of the Army, Ship, Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, Death, United States Army, Bell V-280 Valor, Navy, Assertiveness, Accidents and incidents involving the V-22 Osprey, Knowledge, Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, Crash, Chicago Blackhawks, Safety, Ridesharing, Transport, Jet fuel, Forging, Dredging, Airline, Instrumentation, Corps, Melville Island

At the weekend a V-22 Osprey aircraft crashed on Melville Island north of Darwin.

Key Points: 
  • At the weekend a V-22 Osprey aircraft crashed on Melville Island north of Darwin.
  • The Osprey is a relatively new type of aircraft, with a patchy track record for safety.

What is the V-22 Osprey?

    • The Osprey has long been controversial, initially for its high cost and long development time, and in recent years for safety concerns.
    • The Osprey is at the leading edge of aviation technology, with nothing else in operational service like it.

Why is the Osprey so useful?

    • The Marine Corps is famous for landing soldiers across beaches during combat but in the modern era this is difficult.
    • The Osprey solves this by allowing amphibious ships to remain hundreds of kilometres at sea and launch assaults onto the beach “from over the horizon”.
    • The Marines first brought the Osprey into service in 2007, and it has been central to the adoption of a whole new way of war.

Why is the Osprey’s safety record so patchy?

    • The downside of being leading-edge technology is having little historical experience of similar aircraft to fall back on.
    • Every Osprey flight is a learning event for the pilots, the maintenance personnel and the aircraft’s manufacturer.
    • The central concern today is flying safety and here the Osprey has a mixed record.

Will the Osprey get safer?

    • As the Osprey has flown more, more knowledge has been gained and the accident rate has declined.
    • This all compares very unfavourably with American civil aviation, which has a much better safety record.
    • Historically, the safety record of revolutionary aircraft like the Osprey improves as more operating experience is gained and unknown technical problems are found and addressed.

Will we see more tiltrotors like the Osprey in future?

    • The US Army has chosen a new generation tiltrotor, the V-280 Valor, to replace its ageing Blackhawk helicopters.
    • Tiltrotors like the Osprey and its successors are likely to fly in Australian skies well into the future.

The defence dilemma facing NZ's next government: stay independent or join 'pillar 2' of AUKUS?

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, August 23, 2023
Charter, State, Partnership, Ministry, Policy, Anglosphere, Government, Tribunal, Antique car, Free and Open Indo-Pacific, UN, Assertiveness, Artificial intelligence, Hague Tribunal, Arms industry, Renewable energy, Film industry, Tea, Uranium mining, Pacific Ocean, New, AUKUS, Labour

But good strategy in global politics has proved easier said than done.

Key Points: 
  • But good strategy in global politics has proved easier said than done.
  • It’s an urgent question the next government will need to think about very carefully before deciding.

The means and ends of AUKUS

    • Read more:
      AUKUS is already trialling autonomous weapons systems – where is NZ's policy on next-generation warfare?
    • But, to date, AUKUS leaders have failed to make a sustained public case for how the means and ends of this security pact fit together.

New Zealand and AUKUS

    • Initially, non-nuclear New Zealand was not involved in AUKUS.
    • In late July, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed the “door is open” for New Zealand to engage with AUKUS.

A complex global picture

    • Read more:
      NZ’s first national security strategy signals a 'turning point' and the end of old certainties

      But this is an incomplete picture.

    • China is an authoritarian state with global ambitions, but these should not be overblown.
    • The country’s rise to superpower status has been built on an outstanding trade performance in the global capitalist economy.

Nuclear politics

    • Also, a number of those states have criticised AUKUS for potentially fuelling nuclear proliferation through the Australian submarine deal.
    • The region is already home to the 1986 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone and the 1995 Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone treaties.

NZ independence on the line

    • New Zealand shares a great deal politically with Australia, the UK and US, and it is important Wellington boosts its defence capabilities.
    • It does little to advance its independent foreign policy interests, including a core commitment to strengthen the international rules-based order.