Forgiveness in The Arab and Islamic Contexts

This essay explores the current and historical meaning of forgiveness in Arab and Islamic cultural and religious contexts. It also hopes to encourage further empirical research on this understudied topic in both religious and peacebuilding studies. In addition to the perceived meaning of forgiveness in an Arab Islamic context, this essay examines the links between forgiveness and reconciliation. Relying on religious sources including the Qur'an and Hadith, as well as certain events in Islamic history, the essay identifies various ways to conceptualize and explain the meaning of forgiveness. This theoretical and conceptual segment is followed by a section which explores current perceptions of forgiveness among Arab Muslim teachers in five different communities. The empirical data for this analysis is based on a larger comparative regional study that has been completed through surveys and structured interviews with educators from Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Palestinians from the West Bank and Israel. Our study concluded that the teachers' perceptions of forgiveness were mainly derived from religious sources and identities and that Islamic religious discourse provided a solid foundation for framing the meaning of forgiveness.     

Agreeableness and the common core of dark traits are functionally different constructs

The Dark Factor of Personality (D) has been suggested as the basic disposition underlying dark traits, thereby representing their common core. However, it has also been argued that such commonalities reflect the low pole of Agreeableness. The present study (N = 729) employed five established inventories to model the Agreeableness construct and considered seven theoretically derived criterion variables, including one behavioral outcome. Results indicate that Agreeableness and D exhibit a substantial, but far from perfect, association of r = −.64. Further, D incrementally improved the prediction of all but one criterion measure. These results speak against the notion that the commonalities of dark traits can be reduced to low Agreeableness and rather support the contention to consider Agreeableness and D as functionally distinct constructs.     

BEWILDERMENT AND THEREAFTER: Some Reflections in Response to Lee Yearley

The following reflections were originally an oral response to issues raised in Lee Yearley's presentation in May 2009 at Harvard Divinity School. As written here, they follow upon his oral and now written comments, highlighting key issues and points for development, drawing on this respondent's expertise in comparative and Hindu studies.     

Response error and processing biases in confidence judgment

Previous studies showed that random error can explain overconfidence effects typically observed in the literature. One of these studies concluded that, after accounting for random error effects in the data, there is little support for cognitive‐processing biases in confidence elicitation. In this paper, we investigate more closely the random error explanation for overconfidence. We generated data from four models of confidence and then estimated the magnitude of random error in the data. Our results show that, in addition to the true magnitude of random error specified in the simulations, the error estimates are influenced by important cognitive‐processing biases in the confidence elicitation process. We found that random error in the response process can account for the degree of overconfidence found in calibration studies, even when that overconfidence is actually caused by other factors. Thus, the error models say little about whether cognitive biases are present in the confidence elicitation process. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Discerning the Ministries of Women

In 1988, the historic Rhodes Inter-Orthodox Symposium on the Place of Women in the Orthodox Church encouraged, among other things, fuller participation of women in the life of the church. This article reports on the results of a study that solicited the views of Orthodox Christians regarding the participation of women in the life of the church. Nearly three-quarters of respondents clearly stated or intimated that they would like to see more opportunities for women to serve in the church. One-third of the respondents identified the issue of deaconesses in their essays. Responses here revealed a great diversity of experience, education, and opinion. Nevertheless, more than half of the respondents commenting on deaconesses showed an openness to this ministry. This may be a powerful measurement indicating that exploring the pastoral need for this and other ministries may well be long overdue.     

One-person and two-person conceptions of attachment and their implications for psychoanalytic thought

There has been increasing interest among analysts in the possibilities of enriching psychoanalytic thought through fuller incorporation of attachment theory and research. This paper offers a clinical illustration of the ways in which attention to an attachment perspective can lead to novel and useful ways of addressing the patient’s issues. It also presents a number of cautions that it is necessary to be alert to if attachment thinking is to achieve its full potential in advancing psychoanalytic thought and practice. Conceptions of attachment and approaches to its study and clinical use actually vary quite substantially. Some are more one-person, static, and categorical. Others are more two-person, dynamic, and focused on the process whereby attachment patterns develop and are maintained over time. This paper explores the distinction between these two versions of attachment theory and research with two aims in mind – first, to refine our understanding of the potential role that attachment thinking can play in advancing the psychoanalytic paradigm; second, to utilize the insights achieved through examining the attachment paradigm to consider some broader issues in the construction of psychoanalytic theory more generally and its relational variant in particular.     

Inter-individual differences in intra-individual variability in personality within and across contexts

This study focuses on intra-individual variability in personality at work, and how it relates to job performance. 288 professionals completed contextualised adjective-based personality assessments in work and non-work contexts, and a non-contextualised personality measure. Ratings of their personality were also obtained from colleagues, family members and friends. Supervisors provided performance ratings for 130 participants. Results indicate that personality is context- and source-dependent, and varies systematically within contexts intra-individually regardless of source. Whilst this variability was predictive of some performance criteria when based on other-ratings, overall predictive effects were small in number and size. This study adds to the relatively small body of research on personality variability and performance and contributes to the conceptualisation of personality as a dynamic construct.     

Triggering Creative Self-Efficacy to Increase Employee Innovation Behavior in the Hospitality Workplace

This study investigated how creative personality, psychological empowerment, and job stress affect creative self-efficacy and innovative behavior in hospitality employees. A hypothesized moderating role of knowledge-sharing role in the relationship between creative self-efficacy and innovative behavior was also tested. Three hundred and thirty-nine employees and 89 supervisors employed by International Tourist Hotels in Taiwan participated in the study. A structural equation modeling analysis indicated that creative self-efficacy significantly mediates the effects of creative personality and psychological empowerment on innovative behavior in the hospitality industry. The positive effect of creative self-efficacy on innovative behavior was larger in high knowledge-sharing work environments than in low knowledge-sharing work environments. Theoretical and practical implications are further discussed.     

‘He's got his father's bias’: Parental influence on weight bias in young children

Our aim was to explore the role of parents in the transmission of stereotypical body size attitudes and awareness of weight loss strategies to preschool children. Participants were 279 3‐year‐old children and their parents, who provided data at baseline and 1 year later. Parents completed self‐report body size attitude and dieting measures. Child weight bias and awareness of weight loss strategies were assessed through interview. Over time, negative associations with large bodies and awareness of weight loss strategies increased. Fathers’ attitudes prospectively predicted boys’ weight bias and awareness of weight loss strategies. Among girls, parental attitudes were less predictive. Findings confirm the importance of fathers in the development of boys’ body attitudes and inform prevention programmes.