An impact of Lutheran theology on the formation of the church and society in Tanzania

This article analyzes the impact of Lutheran theology on the life of the church and society in Tanzania, beginning with an introduction to the basic teachings of the Lutheran Church in Tanzania and their connection to the theological foundations of Reformation. The second part of the article deals with the story of the establishment of the Lutheran Church in Tanzania and how it interacted with the social context of Tanzania. Finally, the article correlates the basic theological foundations of Lutheranism and their influence on the formation of the church itself and society as a whole.     

Identity configurations: a new perspective on identity formation in contemporary society

This paper deals with the theoretical construct of "identity configuration." It portrays the different possible ways in which individuals configure the relationship among potentially conflicting identifications in the process of identity formation. In order to explicate these configurations, I analyzed narratives of identity development retold by individuals describing personal identity conflicts that arise within a larger context of sociocultural conflict. Thirty Jewish modern orthodox young adults were interviewed regarding a potentially conflictual identity issue (i.e. their religious and sexual development). Their deliberations, as described in the interviews, were examined, and four different configurations were identified: a configuration based on choice and suppression; an assimilative and synthesizing configuration; a confederacy of identifications; and a configuration based on the thrill of dissonance. The different configurations are illustrated through exemplars, and the possible implications of the concept of "configuration" for identity theory are discussed.     

History of modern psychology in Germany1 in 19th‐ and 20th‐century thought and society

This entry surveys the characteristics, stages, and lines of development of modern psychology as an empirical psychology in Germany during the 19th and 20th centuries. These developments occurred in the context of very different political periods in German history, during a time span extending from the period of the Restoration after the Vienna Congress of 1814/15 to the present‐day “Berlin Republic”. At the centre lies the question of continuities and discontinuities in the evolution of psychology during the profound sociocultural changes that marked the politically heterogeneous developmental phases of German history. The stages are indicated by headings treating the development of psychology during the period of Restoration after 1814/15, in the German Empire (1871–1918), in the Weimar Republic (1919–1933), during the time of National Socialism (1933–45), in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, 1949–1990), in the German Democratic Republic (GDR, 1949–1990), and in united Germany after 1990. The result will be to demonstrate how psychology in 19th‐ and 20th‐century Germany developed from modest beginnings into a richly elaborated scientific field with diverse institutions and a differentiated professional structure. The fate of individual German psychologists during this time can be only tangentially considered.     

Rainbows in the society: A measure of hope for society

The aim of this study was to develop and validate a measure of social hope. Previous studies have extensively reported on personal hope and its outcomes. Although a few studies have suggested the concept of collective or social hope, there is no instrument to assess the construct. In this study, we created a 5‐item scale, drawing on Snyder's hope theory, and collected two sets of survey data online. Analysis of these data sets revealed that the new scale was structurally unidimensional and internally consistent. In association with Snyder's State Hope Scale, the Social Hope Scale showed convergent and discriminant validity. The social hope construct also exhibited theoretically meaningful relationships with political efficacy and self‐construal (concurrent validity). Finally, social hope was higher for those who had participated in certain types of social activism than it was for those who had not (predictive validity). These results suggest that the Social Hope Scale is a reliable and valid self‐report measure of hopeful thinking for society.     

Language acquisition as concept formation; an experimental approach

Abstract.— A concept formation task which in important respects was meant to simulate a natural language acquisition situation was constructed. The experimental focus was on the establishment of the semantic relation between names and their objects. The task contained both relevant and irrelevant stimulus and response items, and different types of informative feedback were given. The results showed that a self-controlled selection strategy was more efficient than a fixed reception strategy. However, the superiority of the selection strategy was found to depend on the level of task difficulty. With an easier task, no difference between the two strategies was observed. Ambiguous feedback turned out to be less effective than unambiguous feedback. The findings suggest that word learning takes place as a concept formation process.     

Self and society in the claims of individualism

The paper argues that an assessment of individualism requires distinguishing five individualistic claims about the self and society: 1) Philosophical Individualism holds that individuals are distinct from society in their reality and capacity for knowledge; 2) The dignity of the individual is a moral belief about the status of human beings; 3) The ideal of individuality is a value belief about the value of diversity; 4) Moral individualism is a comprehensive moral theory based upon philosophical individualism; 5) Political liberalism is a theory of social justice based on construing human dignity in terms of equal liberty. It is argued that philosophical individualism should be rejected and, hence, moral individualism, that individuality is desirable but not obligatory, and that political liberalism, if it can avoid a tendency toward favoring individualistic conceptions of the good, is necessary for dignity in a modern society.     

Ubuntu and the modern society

The incompatibility school of thought maintains that ubuntu is incompatible with modern society’s politico-juridical order and neoliberal economic system that promotes individualism and unequal distribution of wealth in the context of economic marginalisation and severe impoverishment of the black African majority. Furthermore, the postcolonial state tends to undermine the common good of society. The pro-ubuntu camp maintains that ubuntu is relevant as a normative ethical concept and as the underlying moral framework of reconciliatory politics of South Africa’s rainbow nation. I will show that the limitation of ubuntu due to its application in the framework of liberal constitutional democracy and neoliberal “global institutional order” that serve the interests of global capital and at the same time undermine the economic interests of impoverished black Africans requires ubuntu normative ethical theory to establish an understanding of a rearrangement of the “global institutional order” in a way which fits ubuntu. This work is novel as I appropriate Metz’s understanding of ubuntu as a normative ethical theory to show the importance and the nature of the realignment of the “global institutional order” to ubuntu in a way which promotes the common good of the global community of human beings.     

Knowledge in the information society

The German Council for Research, Technology and Innovation defines the “information society” as a type of society where the acquirement, storage, processing, exchange, diffusion and utilization of knowledge inclusive of their technological possibilities of interactive communication, here become increasingly important. In this notion, knowledge has become the decisive factor for economic growth and technological advance. As a social scientist I transform the term “information society” into processes of automatization of knowledge, which is called its informatization and computerization. It is argued that these processes affect the societal condition of knowledge in that the part of knowledge relating to the contents diminishes while the importance of the technical and/or formal part increases. In contrast to the claim of many social scientists, this trend does not lead to a superficial or shallow type of knowledge. What is changing is the social requirement of professional skills and qualifications. The great looming question about information society then is: Which knowledge do people need to behave competently, effectively and successfully in a world full of computers? The structure of this article is as follows. First I will have a look at the micro‐level of the composition of knowledge, next I will proceed to the historical shift from subject‐specific knowledge to media‐competence and finally I will talk about the meaning of the evolving dominance of—what I will call “media‐competent experts”.     

Psychoanalysis and the regulation of society

Multiple losses can be associated with both infertility and child sexual abuse. This work seeks to explore the ways in which such connections can affect a survivor who subsequently experiences infertility and who may choose to pursue medical treatment. The potential consequences of such mirroring are explored from the perspective of counselling practice under the provisions of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (1990).     

Violence and the disaggregated society

This paper reviews the evidence that social disaggregation is a major cause of destructive violence in non-human animal societies. The multifactorial theory of agonistic behavior is modified into a polysystemic theory which relates factors on each level to each other in an integrated model. As a result, it is suggested that disaggregation of systems on any level may lead to maladaptive violence. On theoretical grounds it is concluded that disaggregations of ecosystems and social systems are more probable and hence more dangerous than those of physiological and genetic systems. Applications of these findings to human affairs are discussed, both as explanations and as guides to positive action.     

Justice in the genetically transformed society

This paper explores some of the challenges raised by human genetic interventions for debates about distributive justice, focusing on the challenges that face prioritarian theories of justice and their relation to the argument advanced by Ronald Lindsay elsewhere in this issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal. Also examined are the implications of germ-line genetic enhancements for intergenerational justice, and an argument is given against Fritz Allhoff's conclusion, found in this issue as well, that such enhancements are morally permissible if and only if they augment primary goods.     

Predicting violence in the violent society

It is argued (a) that the leadership position of the United States in respect to our domestic rates of interpersonal violence is likely to remain unchallenged so long as public policy continues to encourage and support the rearing of biologically susceptible children by parents (especially single parents) who are unwilling or unable to socialize those children. This high incidence of violent crime in America underscores the importance of two additional issues of special interest to psychologists: (b) Are mental health professionals able to predict violence in individual mental patients or in criminal offenders (and how accurate do such predictions need to be in order to meet ethical standards)? and (c) How should clinicians apportion their “duty to protect” between their patients and their patients' potential victims? These issues are briefly reviewed, and the interested reader is referred to more comprehensive discussions in the recent literature.