Perceptions of Religious Hypocrisy: When Moral Claims Exceed Moral Action

In this study, we investigated perceptions of hypocrisy among Christian and non-Christian individuals. Specifically, participants (N = 121) were asked to evaluate people of different religious orientations in terms of perceptions of both claimed morality, actual behavior, and general hypocrisy. Across all designations, perceptions of moral hypocrisy were determined to be greater to the extent that moral claims exceeded actual behavior. Among non-Christian participants, perceptions of hypocrisy were highest with respect to “devout” and “evangelical” Christian targets. In contrast, among Christian participants, the highest ratings of hypocrisy were reserved for “casual” Christians (i.e., Christians who do not incorporate their faith into their daily life). Our findings have both theoretical implications regarding the nature of religious hypocrisy perceptions, as well as real-world implications for understanding inter-faith perceptions and interactions.     

印度宗教关系的发展特点及若干启示

印度宗教在世界宗教中占有重要地位,在古代也对中国文化有过较大影响。印度宗教最初发源于印度河文明,但对后世影响较大的是吠陀与奥义书时期的宗教形态。在印度历史上,影响较大的宗教派别是婆罗门教及主要由其演化出来的印度教。佛教、耆那教、伊斯兰教、锡克教等宗教在印度历史上也起了重要作用。印度近现代的政治冲突与此地区的宗教对立及民族矛盾有着直接的关系。当代中国在建设和谐社会的过程中,应借鉴印度宗教发展过程中的一些重要经验与教训,为世界和平与人类进步做出贡献。     

《六祖坛经》与道家、道教关系考论

本文通过对史料的分析,提出所谓曹溪本<六祖坛经>的编定者很可能是晚唐时期文人陈琡.从中唐至宋代的大量文献证明,曹溪本<六祖坛经>与道家、道教思想有密切关系,这就为以"洪州禅"为代表的南宗禅的道家化提供了新的证据,从而也可以清楚地看到中国宗教发展中"三教合一"思潮确实是一个不以人的主观意志为转移的历史趋势.     

Profiling Religious Maturity: The Relationship of Religious Attitude Components to Religious Orientations

This study examined the relationships between religious orientation and components of religious attitudes. Religious orientation was measured using Batson, Schoenrade, and Ventis' (1993) Religious Life Inventory. Affective, cognitive, and conative components of attitudes toward religious beliefs and practices were measured using an instrument constructed for the study. Participants were undergraduate students from four educational institutions in the United States. Systematic relationships were found among the dimensions of religious orientation and the components of religious attitudes. Means and Quest orientations had very similar profiles, characterized by high Cognition scores and relatively low Affect and Conation scores. By contrast, modestly low Cognition scores and significantly high Affect and Conation scores characterized the profile of the Ends orientation. Results are discussed in terms of the concept of mature religiosity.     

谈判者第一次出价对谈判破裂的影响：角色的调节作用

谈判者在大多数情况下都希望能顺利达成协议,但很多时候多种因素使得谈判进入僵局或者破裂。本研究利用模拟谈判的手段,综合考察了第一次出价对谈判破裂的影响。很多谈判者出于害怕吃亏或者希望获得更多收益,向对手提出较高的第一次开价。研究一证明第一次出价越高,谈判越容易失败。有趣的是,第一次开价的高低与谈判破裂之间的关系会受到谈判角色的影响,谈判者的权力不同会使得他们的第一次开价具有不同的作用。研究二证实,当谈判双方权力不对等时,第一次出价对谈判破裂的负面作用受到了权力的影响。弱者的第一次出价越高,谈判越容易破裂。中介分析表明,当弱者出价较高时,容易让对方感到竞争性过强,因此不愿意达成协议。本研究不仅丰富了谈判破裂和第一次出价的理论研究,而且对于谈判者具有实践意义     

宽容:宗教自由及宗教对话的前提

"宽容"(tolerance)出现于16 世纪,即在宗教教派分裂的历史语境下,从拉丁语和法语中借用而来.在此种生成语境下,这个词最初的含义比较狭窄,意味着对异己信仰的容忍.在16 和17世纪,宗教宽容渐渐变成了一个法律概念,各国政府颁布了倡导宽容的法律条文,规定官员和守法的信徒们在与宗教少数派的交往中,必须采取宽容态度.这样,从执政者颁布的、要求对另类信仰者及其实践采取宽容态度的法令中,逐渐衍生出一种普世的道德心态与行为准则,它允许一定条件下的充分自由和不同观点的共存,这种道德心态与行为准则就是我们通常所理解的"宽容".     

The Challenge of Religious Pluralism: The Association Between Interfaith Contact and Religious Pluralism

This research contributes to increasing understanding of the ways in which Christians think about religious pluralism in the United States. It does so by empirically uncovering the relationship between inter-faith contact and the willingness of white Christians to support tenets of religious pluralism. To that end, this study largely intimates that religious identity reinforces a dualistic world view. For white Christians, it is likely that contact with Jews and not Muslims is salient to their religious pluralist understandings. Nonetheless, more so than other Christians, Evangelicals tend to embrace a theology that views their belief system as being in conflict and competition with non-Christians. To that end, it is plausible that even when Christians have positive contact experiences with Jews and Muslims, Evangelicals are less willing than are other Christians to recognize them as members of the American religious polity.     

When Small Means Comfortable: Relations Between Product Attributes in Two‐Sided Advertising

The processes that mediate the effectiveness of 2‐sided advertising were studied. We predicted that (a) 2‐sided (vs. 1‐sided) advertisements increase perceived source credibility and that (b) the logical relation between the negative and positive product attributes mentioned in the 2‐sided ad (e.g., little space, implying a cozy atmosphere) facilitates favorable inferences about the positive attributes, especially when recipients have sufficient time to process the message content. Results supported these predictions. However, the effects of message type and processing time on attitudes were mediated by inferences about positive attributes but not by perceived source credibility. Implications of these findings for consumer judgment and decision making are discussed.     

Searching for Religious Eroticism: The Solitary and the Ocular in Gay Religious Studies

Abstract

In this article Jay Johnson responds to the previous papers which have argued for the religious significance of particular forms of gay eroticism. Jay is critical of the definitions of religions employed, which he believes are far too broad to be helpful. He also questions the assumption, which he believes to be prominent in the work of many gay scholars of religion, that for gay men ‘our eroticism is our religion’. Jay makes the point that this is an extravagant claim that may contribute to a near narcissistic obsession with the male form which is already a dangerous undercurrent in Western theology. However, he nevertheless believes that the papers he critiques are reaching, through the vehicle of religious eroticism, towards an intense longing for communion. This, Christians believe, results from God's own desire for humanity which finds its resolution through incorporation into the erotic community of the body of Christ.     

从困境到超越：顿悟的脑机制研究

在1913~1920年间,德国心理学家苛勒进行了有关顿悟的经典实验。苛勒发现挑战了当时占主导地位的“尝试-错误”学习理论,表明问题解决行为可以以一种突发的形式产生,并在一瞬间获得对于问题情境的全新的思考和把握。但是直到最近心理学家才开始逐渐认识顿悟的大脑机制。该文介绍了近期围绕顿悟过程开展的脑成像研究,介绍了有关的研究方法,并讨论了参与顿悟过程的各个关键脑区的功能     

The Step Model of Transformative Religious Experiences: A Phenomenological Understanding of Religious Conversions in India

This is a phenomenological study of individual conversion experiences to Christianity from different religious traditions in India. The author has collected 165 accounts of conversion experiences by using maximum variant sampling and multiple methods of data collection. By using grounded theory, the author has generated a step model of transformative religious experiences. The step model incorporates the religious experience in conversion to which the converts attribute great significance. It accommodates both the role of religious practices and social psychological factors in the conversion process. This study also brings to light the hostilities to conversion in a multi-religious context.     

The Commitment Process in a Religious Commune: The Shakers

Focusing on the Shakers and using census data, this paper quantitatively examines influences on religious commitment and the way these influences differed between new and veteran members. Whereas personal characteristics (age, sex, nativity, and occupation) were the primary sources of influence on the commitment of veteran members, new recruits were also influenced by interpersonal and organizational factors (kinship ties, social bonds, and membership in leading groups). The differential effect of influences on commitment illustrates the nature of the commitment process in a religious commune.     

The Role of Religious Leaders in Promoting Healthy Habits in Religious Institutions

The growing obesity epidemic in the West, in general, and the USA, in particular, is resulting in deteriorating health, premature and avoidable onset of disease, and excessive health care costs. The religious community is not immune to these societal conditions. Changing health behavior in the community requires both input from individuals who possess knowledge and credibility and a receptive audience. One group of individuals who may be uniquely positioned to promote community change but have been virtually ignored in the applied health and consulting psychology literature is religious leaders. These individuals possess extraordinary credibility and influence in promoting healthy behaviors by virtue of their association with time-honored religious traditions and the status which this affords them—as well as their communication skills, powers of persuasion, a weekly (captive) audience, mastery over religious texts that espouse the virtues of healthy living, and the ability to anchor health-related actions and rituals in a person’s values and spirituality. This article focuses on ways in which religious leaders might promote healthy habits among their congregants. By addressing matters of health, nutrition, and fitness from the pulpit and in congregational programs, as well as by visibly adopting the tenets of a healthier lifestyle, clergy can deliver an important message regarding the need for healthy living. Through such actions, religious leaders can be effective agents in promoting critical change in these areas.     

Curvilinearity and Religious Types: A Second Look at Intrinsic,Extrinsic, and Quest Relations

The relation between Allport's intrinsic (I) and extrinsic (E) religious orientations, although of central conceptual importance, has never been clearly demonstrated. Allport (1960, 1966) initially hypothesized I and E to be endpoints of a bipolar continuum. Allport and Ross (1967) and subsequent researchers', however, failed to find consistent evidence for an inverse linear relation. Many researchers thus concluded that I and E—and later, Batson's (1976) quest orientation (Q)—are orthogonal. Study 1 demonstrates that I, E, and Q are not orthogonal, but inversely and curvilinearity related, offering some support for the use of religious types. Study 2 demonstrates that these types differ predictably on such dimensions as impression management, self-deception, and introjective depression. Conceptual and methodological implications for the study of religious orientation are discussed.     

Religious and Spiritual Struggles,Past and Present: Relations to the Big Five and Well-Being

The present research examined the relations between the Big Five factors of personality, religious/spiritual (r/s) struggles (tensions, conflicts, and strains pertaining to r/s life), and well-being. Participants comprised U.S. adults from an online sample (N = 1,047) and an undergraduate sample (N = 3,083). Regressions showed that people who reported higher Neuroticism and Openness, as well as lower Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, reported higher lifetime frequency of r/s struggles and a higher degree of current r/s struggles. In turn, both lifetime history of r/s struggles and current r/s struggles explained a modest amount of variance in different domains of well-being (psychological, hedonic, and social) above and beyond the Big Five. These results held when controlling for religiousness. Thus, lifetime history of r/s struggles and current r/s struggles may represent unique aspects of psychological experience with implications for well-being.     

Religious Orientation Among a Random Sample of Community-Dwelling Adults: Relations With Health Status and Health-Relevant Behaviors

This empirical study was designed as the first to describe the distribution of the four religious orientation types in the general population, based on Allport and Ross's Intrinsic/Extrinsic typology, and to test whether differences in health status and health relevant behaviors based on religious type exist. Throughout 2005–2006 individuals (N = 157) were randomly telephoned and administered a measure of religious orientation. They reported health status, height/weight, use of tobacco and alcohol, and engagement in aerobic exercise. All four religious orientation types were represented (Intrinsic = 19.1%, Extrinsic = 22.3%, Pro-religious = 36.9%, Non-religious = 21.7%). Intrinsic and Non-religious types reported the most favorable health perceptions and lowest body mass indexes. Intrinsic and Pro-religious types were least likely to smoke tobacco or drink alcohol. Religious orientation is a useful construct pertaining to health status and health relevant behaviors and further demonstrates the multidimensional nature of religion.