Organizations struggle to comply with legal requirements as well as customers' calls for better data protection. On the implementation level, incorporation of privacy protections in products and services depends on the commitment of the engineers who design them. We interviewed six senior engineers, who work for globally leading IT corporations and research institutions, to investigate their motivation and ability to comply with privacy regulations. Our findings point to a lack of perceived responsibility, control, autonomy, and frustrations with interactions with the legal world. While we increasingly call on engineers to go beyond functional requirements and be responsive to human values in our increasingly technological society, we may be facing the dilemma of asking engineers to live up to a challenge they are currently not ready to embrace. ARTICLE HISTORY

Objectives This study investigated whether common factors underlie the established mindfulness facets, as assessed by the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) and some of the mechanisms, which have been previously proposed to explain the beneficial effects of mindfulness on mental health. Methods Multigroup exploratory structural equation models (ESEM) were fitted to samples of non-meditators and meditators (total N = 3265) to (1) identify the number of factors that underlie the facets and mechanisms of mindfulness, (2) establish measurement invariance, and (3) conduct path analyses to determine the associations of extracted factors with psychological symptoms. Results Five measurement-invariant common factors were found to underlie the mechanisms and facets of mindfulness. The FFMQ facets loaded distinctly, but none of them highest, on these common factors. The common factors represented different ways of focusing, dealing with distress, and relating towards one’s own thoughts, feelings, emotions, and body sensations. Three of the common factors appeared to specifically reflect meditation experience. The FFMQ facets accounted for less variance of depression, anxiety, somatization, and stress scores than marker scales of the five common factors, all of which derived from the proposed mechanisms. Conclusions The common factors appear to be elements of the supporting mechanisms and psychological faculties of mindfulness. Their existence may explain the mutual interrelations between mechanisms and self-reported mindfulness but also suggests that self-reported mindfulness may not be factorially distinct from its assumed mechanisms. Longitudinal studies as well as behavioral data are needed to probe the generalizability and causality of these psychometric results.

The wide distribution of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has affected our lives in the working environment as well as in private and social contexts and has done so not only in a positive, but also threatening way. Researchers and scholars have therefore called for a sustainable and value-based design of technologies. However, in order to propose better designs, we first need to understand how ICTs affect users. While many studies have focused on the effects of the internet, smartphones, and social media, reported results suggest that the influences of these technologies are complex and often depend on contextual factors. This study aims to provide a starting point for future value-based designs of ICTs by offering insights on how students, as representatives for regular users of new technologies, experience the changes ICTs have brought to their lives. A qualitative content analysis of twelve indepth, semi-structured interviews identifies values that flourish with ICTs but also discovers paradoxical effects: ICTs affect many of these values also in a negative way. Results indicate that users of ICTs are aware of negative effects, but lack the control to change their own behavior. Our findings point out that users need better protection and motivate the adoption of ethical design frameworks for ICTs.

Depression has been widely studied by researchers from different fields, but its causes, and mechanism of action are still not clear. A difficulty emerges from the shifting from objective diagnosis or analysis to exploration of subjective feelings and experiences that influence the individuals' expression, communication and coping in facing depression. The integration of the experiential dimension of the first-person in studies on depression–and related methodological recommendations–are needed to improve the validity and generalizability of research findings. It will allow the development of timely and effective actions of care. Starting from providing a summary of the literature on theoretical assumptions and considerations for the study of the mind, with particular attention to the experiential dimension of patients with depression (aim #1 and #2), this contribution is aimed to provide practical suggestions for the design of research able to incorporate first- and third-person accounts (aim #3). It is also aimed to review qualified phenomenological methods for the acquisition and interpretation of experiential data in patients with depression (aim #4). Recognizing the first-person perspective in the study of depression is a major step toward a better understanding and treatment of this disorder. Theoretical constructs and technique suggestions that result from this review offer a valid starting point for the inclusion of the experiential dimension to common third-person research in the study of the mind.