Research Note: Anti-Semitism and Superstition

Superstitions and anti-Semitism are generally based on irrational beliefs. To date, no research has examined the relationship between anti-Semitism and superstition. Four groups, Arab-Muslim, Arab-Christian, Non-Arab Muslim, and Non-Arab Christian, responded to anti-Semitism and superstition measures. With respect to anti-Semitism scores, Arabs scored higher than non-Arabs and Muslims scored higher than Christians. Superstitions varied, however, with Arabs endorsing more New Age beliefs, while Muslims endorsed more traditional superstitious beliefs. The correlations between anti-Semitism and superstitious beliefs were significant, but low, and are explained in terms of cultural differences.     

Imams in Flanders: A Research Note

This paper presents the results of an exploratory, mixed-method study on imams in Flanders. The research question was mainly who are they?, in an attempt to draw the first picture of their socio-demographic background, ethnicity, functions, and expectations with respect to their position in Flanders, or in Belgium more broadly speaking. The first three sections give context information about Muslims, Islam, and mosques in Belgium and Flanders. In the next sections, the research design and the results are presented. This presentation focuses on four issues: imams as immigrants; their tasks and workload; their job situation and attitude towards official recognition and payment; and finally their ambiguous attitudes towards government initiatives. We give also some reflections in dialogue with research on imams in other Western European countries. The conclusion discusses the challenges for imams and the government to become real partners within the further integration process of the Muslim community in Flanders and Belgium.     

Reliability in Dream Research: A Methodological Note

The coefficients of internal consistency and retest reliability had been rarely investigated within the methodology of dream content analysis. Analyzing a dream series of elderly, healthy persons obtained from weekly telephone interviews, the internal consistency of a series of 20 dreams and retests after 4 or 22 weeks, respectively, had been computed. The findings indicate that dream recall and dream length are quite stable, but dream characteristics such as bizarreness and emotional tone underlie large intraindividual fluctuations. In order to obtain reliable measures for these variables which will be important for correlational studies, including waking-life trait measures, one has to obtain as many dreams as possible (about 20) in a very short time period. Further research is needed to extend the present findings to diary dreams and laboratory dreams.     

Research Note: Happiness among Kuwaiti College Students

Happiness was assessed in 140 Kuwaiti students by means of a single item self-report. Its retest reliability after one week was good (r=+0.86). It is argued that single question suffices for measuring states like happiness. Average happiness appeared to be quite low compared to students in other countries. Possible reasons for the low level of happiness among Kuwaiti college students are discussed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Christmas and Subjective Well-Being: a Research Note

According to Holmes and Rahe, Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 11(2), 213–218, (1967), Christmas is a critical life event that may cause feelings of stress that, in turn, can lead to reduced subjective well-being (SWB) and health problems. This study uses a quantitative approach and large-scale survey data to assess whether or not respondents in European countries indicate lower SWB before and around Christmas. Precisely, respondents interviewed in the week before Christmas or at Christmas holidays are compared to respondents who are questioned at other times throughout the year. Moreover, the assumption is tested if religious denomination and religiousness moderate the association between Christmas and SWB. Main findings suggest that the Christmas period is related to a decrease in life satisfaction and emotional well-being. However, Christians, particularly those with a higher degree of religiousness, are an exception to this pattern.     

Research Note: Sociology and the Study of Atheism

Historically, atheism has been neglected by the social sciences. This fact, in the light of the recent upsurge of popular and media interest in the subject, is particularly unfortunate. Rectifying this is, however, not a straightforward task: studies devised for exploring religion cannot, for example, reliably be used to investigate its lack. This research note presents findings from a preliminary survey, administered to Oxford University students in November 2007; it was specifically designed with the study of atheism and related issues in mind. In addition to revealing the religious attitudes and beliefs of students at a modern British university, the survey yields a number of significant results regarding contemporary atheism and unbelief.     

The Liberalization of Young Evangelicals: A Research Note

Media outlets and observers of American religion suggest that young evangelicals are retreating from the ranks of the “Christian right” and are embracing more liberal positions on controversial social issues. We test this hypothesis using the Baylor Religion Survey. We examine two separate measures of evangelical identity as well as a wide variety of political identifications and attitudes. Our study indicates that young evangelicals (1) are significantly more likely than older evangelicals to think that more should be done to protect the environment; (2) hold views similar to older evangelicals regarding abortion, same‐sex marriage, stem cell research, marijuana use, government welfare spending, spending on the nation's health, and the war in Iraq; and (3) remain significantly more conservative than nonevangelicals on these same social issues. We find no strong evidence to support the notion that young evangelicals are retreating from traditional positions or increasingly adopting more liberal positions on hot‐button or controversial social issues.     

Confidence in Religious Leaders in Korea: A Research Note

Korea may provide an important testing ground for assessing religious growth as a correlate of religious authority. In Korea from 1985 to 1995, all religious groups experienced growth, but from 1995 to 2005 only the Catholic population did so. Favorable images of Korean Catholicism compared to other Korean religions point to one factor that may account for this trend, namely, confidence in religious leaders. Up to now there has been no empirical test measuring confidence in religious leaders among different religious groups in Korea. Using the 2003–2007 Korean General Social Surveys cumulative data, we found a hierarchy of confidence in religious leaders ranging from highest to lowest as follows: Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, no religion. Our finding may suggest the continued vitality of Catholicism in Korea.     

Differences Between Founder-Led and Non-Founder-Led Congregations: A Research Note

Review of Religious Research - While sociologists have had a longstanding interest in religious leadership and congregational authority structures, most of the research in this area ignores the...     

Applying the Flanker Task to Political Psychology: A Research Note

One of the two stated objectives of the new “Research Note” section of Political Psychology is to present short reports that highlight novel methodological approaches. Toward that end, we call readers' attention to the “flanker task,” a research protocol widely employed in the study of the cognitive processes involved with detection, recognition, and distraction. The flanker task has increasingly been modified to study social traits, and we believe it has untapped value in the area of political psychology. Here we describe the flanker task—discussing its potential for political psychology—and illustrate this potential by presenting results from a study correlating political ideology to flanker effects.     

A Research Note: Happiness by Age is More Complex than U-Shaped

Happiness varies with age, but there is no general agreement regarding the feature of the variation. Many studies have found that it is U-shaped such that there is a minimum between approximately 40 and 50 years of age. The result largely depends on the control variables used in the happiness modeling. Some authors do not even allow the use of any control variables, but the conventional theory of U-shaped studies stipulates the inclusion of such controls that essentially influence the basic living conditions of people. In this study, we do not strictly follow earlier findings but estimate our age-shape with different versions of them, using the data of 28 or 30 European countries. We also estimate a model without proper controls. This does not give any minimum age and thus supports some studies. Moreover, using any or all of our three controls some type of U-shape is found in most countries. Our U-shapes are not as simple as conventional research suggests. Minimum happiness can occur either below 40 years, or much above 50 years. A special feature is that the U-shape phenomenon holds better for males than for females. We also estimated models to see what happens after the minimum age happiness. In the case of gender models, the turning points for males are substantially lower than for females. This means that the old-age happiness of males stops to increase approximately at 70 years but more than 10 years later for females.     

Research Note: Performing Bach's Passion Music in a Late Modern Context

The performance of Bach's Passion of St. Matthew in the Cathedral of Kristiansand (Norway) in 2010 is examined here as a characteristic cultural encounter with sacred symbols in a late modern context. The present study attempts to illuminate how modern participants reflect on the sacred origin of the work and its emotive appeal. The study is interdisciplinary, combining musicology and sociology of religion. Our methodological approach comprises observation, individual interviews with organizers and conductors, and group interviews with singers. The event is contextualized by theories of modern musicology, general sociology, and the sociology of religious emotion. Our findings indicate that, despite a variety of religious interpretations and attitudes, the work's reference to common existential conditions of human life inspires a sharing of emotions.     

Editor's Note: The Hope and Promise of Identity Theory and Research

International and multidisciplinary in scope, Identity is intended to provide a forum for identity theorists and researchers around the globe to share their ideas and findings regarding the problems and prospects of human self-definition. The unifying thread of these articles is identity in its various manifestations throughout the life course. The operating assumption is that people in many parts of the world are struggling with aspects of their identities and that many of these problems transcend national, political, and cultural boundaries-taking on global proportions.

In addition to a focus on substantive theoretical and empirical analyses, the journal also welcomes policy discussions, program recommendations, and evaluation studies. We especially want to provide a forum in which theoretical analyses find practical applications in dealing with these global problems. Submissions are invited from all fields and from the full range of methodologies. In these respects, the journal provides multiple bridges, across nations and disciplines, as well as between theory and research, and subjectivist and objectivist epistemologies. Our intention is to provide a nonpartisan forum within which researchers from the various areas concerned with identity can communicate their findings and stay apprised of the findings of other researchers, especially among those who use different technical languages.     

Falsifying Merton's Macro-Level Anomie Theory of Profit-Motivated Crime: A Research Note

The objective of our article is straightforward. We seek to derive, and to confront with data, an empirical model of Robert K. Merton's macro-level, anomie theory of profit-motivated crime. We use Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression equations to estimate the joint effects of measures of the acceptance of material success goals and absolute and relative deprivation, respectively, on cross-national rates of drug trafficking. Consistent with the predictions derived from Mertonian anomie theory, the coefficients for the product terms (the acceptance of success goals × absolute deprivation and the acceptance of success goals × relative deprivation) are significant and positive. This investigation provides what we believe is the first evaluation of the Mertonian proposition that the cultural (goals) and structural (means) components of social systems operate together to increase the level of profit-motivated crime. What is missing, of course, is a measure of anomie. We are forced to infer that anomie is the causal mechanism that links the joint influence of culture and social structure on pecuniary crime. Admittedly, this is an unavoidable limitation of the current investigation.     

Differentiating Suicide Ideators from Attempters: Violence—A Research Note

Which factors distinguish suicide attempters from suicide ideators is a relatively neglected question in suicidology. Data from the 2001 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, encompassing 1,439 youth suicide ideators and 1,097 attempters, was used to explore which factors best differentiate suicide attempters from ideators, with a focus on violence involvement. Measures of violence include the contexts of fights, dating, and weapons carrying. Controls were incorporated for psychiatric disorders, risky sexual behavior, school integration, and demographics. Controlling for the other variables, violence differentiated attempts from ideation: fighting (OR = 2.18) and weapon carrying (OR = 1.13). Psychiatric factors that predicted attempts over ideation included major depression (OR = 1.86), use of cocaine (OR = 2.34), and having a suicide plan (OR = 2.69), while demographic factors included gender, age, residence in the Midwest, and Hispanic, African American, or Asian ethnicity. A supplementary analysis (N = 11,546) determined that violence also helped to differentiate suicide ideators from nonsuicidal youth. Four factors (including violence involvement, eating disorders, and gender consistently) differentiated both between suicide attempts and ideation, and also between suicide ideators and nonsuicidal youth. The link between violence involvement and suicidality is interpreted in terms of the capability for suicide from the interpersonal theory of suicide.