The Gift Economy of Direct Transnational Civic Action: How Reciprocity and Inequality Are Managed in Religious “Partnerships”

How does religion help facilitate civic action in transnational contexts characterized by material inequality and spatial separation? Short‐term mission (STM) travel, a popular activity among U.S. religious groups, exemplifies a recently emerged form of transnational civic action characterized by face‐to‐face, decentralized, pragmatic activity. Our research analyzes how participants in STM‐based relationships manage inequality while pursuing an ideal of partnership across distance. We match data from a mixed methods study of Arizona congregations that produce STM travel with interview data from foreign religious organizations that host STM travelers in El Salvador. We engage gift exchange theory (GET) to show how a discursive repertoire combines with organized gift exchange practices to manage inequality and produce partnership in STM‐based relationships. Our data provide evidence of a unique cultural process, the spiritualization of reception, which emerges during gift reciprocation. This process converts unequal material gifts from foreign hosts into spiritual understanding among STM travelers, stabilizing status indebtedness that could threaten a partnership. This research increases knowledge of STM travel, shows how gift exchange structures can facilitate transnational religious partnerships, and suggests ways to use GET to understand transnational civic action in general.     

Examining the Impact of Religious Initiation Rites on Religiosity and Disaffiliation over Time

Early religion scholars stressed the importance of institutionalized “rites of passage” to integrate and reinvigorate groups themselves. Surprisingly, little work, however, has explored the efficacy of such rites for the religious lives of individuals. Although research has examined the transformative role of semi‐institutionalized rites like short‐term mission trips and pilgrimages, we shift the focus to consider the potential influence of more fundamental initiation rites such as baptism, first communion, and bar/bat mitzvahs. Utilizing surveys 1 and 4 of the National Study of Youth and Religion and focusing on overall religiosity and disaffiliation as the outcomes, we examine whether experiencing a religious rite of passage during or before one's teenage years predicts the religious outcomes of young adults. We find no difference in religiosity over time between persons who experienced a religious rite passage and those who did not. However, those who underwent a religious rite of passage were 30 percent less likely to disaffiliate between data collection points. Tests for interactions show that the influence of such initiation rites does not vary across religious traditions. Findings suggest the experience of baptism, bar/bat mitzvah, confirmation, or other rites of passage matter primarily as durable markers of social identity, binding adherents to their faith community, if only nominally.     

The Role of Short‐Term Mission Teams in the New Centers of Global Christianity

Drawing on ethnographic and interview data collected in El Salvador and South Africa over a four‐year period, this article uses a social constructionist approach to describe two types of interaction between short‐term mission teams and their hosts. First, hosts encounter the flow of teams as foreign social products. Once they internalize this new part of their social reality, hosts seek to recruit and control teams. They also mimic the practice of short‐term missions, sending their own teams to remote locations. Second, hosts interact directly with visitors, engaging in world‐building activities that create transnational religious ties. Short‐term missions thus make residents of the new centers of Christianity more mobile in Christianity's global civil society and increase the number of ties between Christians across borders. These findings have implications for the scholarly debate about how to conceptualize Global Christianity; they also broaden the scope of the emerging discourse on short‐term missions.     

Promotion of Civic Engagement with the Family Leadership Training Institute

In this efficacy study, both quantitative and qualitative data were used to gauge the effects of the Family Leadership Training Institute (FLTI) on civic knowledge and empowerment, civic engagement, and community health. The sample of 847 FLTI participants and 166 comparison adults completed pretest and posttest surveys. Medium to very large short‐term effects were observed in civic literacy, empowerment, and engagement. Results mapping interviews were conducted with a stratified random sample of FLTI graduates (n = 52) to assess long‐term (M = 2.73 years) program impact. Most FLTI graduates (86%) sustained meaningful, sometimes transformative, levels of civic engagement after program completion. This engagement involved multiple forms of leadership, most often advocacy, program implementation, and media campaigns; 63% of graduates directed at least some of their activities to marginalized populations. Content analyses of graduates' civic (capstone) projects and results mapping story maps indicated that 81–90% of community activities aligned with public health priorities. Thus, one promising means to promote community health is to empower families to develop leadership skills, become engaged in civic life, and forge connections with diverse constituents.     

The Youth Ministry Mission Trip as Global Tourism: Are we OK with this?

Abstract : This article explores the rise of the short‐term mission trip in youth ministry. It argues that this escalation has much to do with transformations of globalization. This reality requires that the mission trip confront the conundrum of dealing with dichotomies between its service and its tourist activities. By exploring the work of sociologist Zygmunt Bauman we see why we face such dichotomies. The article concludes by providing some theological thoughts connected to Karl Barth's theology of the word that might help us move past these tensions between global service and global tourism.     

Identity Conflict or Compatibility: A Comparison of Muslim Minorities in Five European Cities

Drawing on large‐scale comparative surveys across nine sociopolitical contexts, we address the question when and why ethno‐religious and city or national identities of European‐born Muslims are in conflict. We argue that the sociopolitical context makes the difference between identity compatibility or conflict and that conflict arises from perceived discrimination and related negative feelings towards the national majority. Using multigroup structural equation modelling, we examine how Turkish and Moroccan Muslims in five European cities combine their civic membership of the city and country of residence—as common identities shared with the national majority—with distinct ethnic and religious identities. In all sociopolitical contexts, participants combined significant city and national identities with strong ethnic and religious identifications. Yet, identification patterns varied between contexts from conflict (negatively correlated minority and civic identities) over compartmentalization (zero correlations) to compatibility (positive correlations). Muslims who perceived more personal discrimination were more committed to their ethnic and religious identities while simultaneously dis‐identifying from their country and city. Across cities, discrimination experiences and negative majority‐group evaluations explained away identity conflict.     

Religion and Civic Engagement in Muslim Countries

Previous studies of religion on civic and political participation focus primarily on Western Christian societies. Studies of Muslim societies concentrate on Islamic religiosity's effect on attitudes toward democracy, not on how Muslim religious participation carries over into social and political arenas. This article examines the relationship between religion and civic engagement in nine Muslim‐majority countries using data from the World Values Surveys. I find that active participation in Muslim organizations is associated with greater civic engagement, while religious service attendance is not. In a subset of countries, daily prayer is associated with less civic engagement. The main area in which Muslim societies differ from Western ones is in the lack of association between civic engagement, trust, and tolerance. Religious participation is a more significant predictor of secular engagement than commonly used “social capital” measures, suggesting a need to adapt measures of religiosity to account for differences in religious expression across non‐Christian faiths.     

Mid‐ and Long‐Term Effects of Family Constellation Seminars in a General Population Sample: 8‐ and 12‐Month Follow‐Up

In a previous randomized controlled trial (RCT), short‐term efficacy of family constellation seminars (FCSs) in a general population sample was demonstrated. In this article, we examined mid‐ and long‐term stability of these effects. Participants were 104 adults (M = 47 years; SD = 9; 84% female) who were part of the intervention group in the original RCT (3‐day FCS; 64 active participants and 40 observing participants). FCSs were carried out according to manuals. It was predicted that FCSs would improve psychological functioning (Outcome Questionnaire OQ‐45.2) at 8‐ and 12‐month follow‐up. Additionally, we assessed the effects of FCSs on psychological distress, motivational incongruence, individuals’ experience in their personal social systems, and overall goal attainment. Participants yielded significant improvement in psychological functioning (d = 0.41 at 8‐month follow‐up, p = .000; d = 0.40 at 12‐month follow‐up, p = .000). Results were confirmed for psychological distress, motivational incongruence, the participants’ experience in their personal social systems, and overall goal attainment. No adverse events were reported. This study provides first evidence for the mid‐ and long‐term efficacy of FCSs in a nonclinical population. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

The Influence of Avoidance Temperament and Avoidance‐Based Achievement Goals on Flow

In the present research, we conducted two studies designed to examine the joint influence of avoidance temperament and avoidance‐based achievement goals on the experience of flow on a creativity task. In both a laboratory study (N = 101; M_age = 22.61, SD_age = 4.03; 74.3% female) and a naturalistic study (N = 102; M_age = 16.23, SD_age = 1.13; 48% female), participants high in avoidance temperament were shown to experience greater flow when performance‐avoidance goals were induced; no differences were found in any of the other three achievement goal conditions from the 2 × 2 achievement goal framework. These findings reveal a short‐term benefit for a disposition‐goal match grounded in avoidance motivation, and point to the need for more research on both avoidance‐based matches and the short‐term versus long‐term implications of such matches.     

Social capital and religious and civic participation in Riga,Latvia: findings from the 2014 social survey

The article discusses the link between religious and civic participation in Riga based on the data obtained from a social survey in 2014. Religious and civic participation is a prerequisite for building social capital within a local community. Four types of relationships between civic and religious engagement have been identified: (1) individuals with no religious or civic activity; (2) religiously active individuals with no civic activity; (3) individuals involved in civic activities but who are religiously inactive; and (4) individuals involved in both religious and civic activities. Although the survey data indicate a weak correlation between civic and religious activities, religiously active individuals are more likely to be involved in civic activities.     

Religious Right,Religious Left,Both, or Neither? Understanding Religio‐Political Identification

In this article we analyze the effects of religious, political, socioeconomic, and demographic variables on religious Americans’ propensity to identify with religio‐political movements. Using data from the 2013 Economic Values Survey collected by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), we sort nonsecular Americans into four categories: religious right, religious left, both religious right and religious left, or neither religious right nor the religious left. We estimate a multinomial logit model in which we depict religio‐political identification as a function of religious affiliation, worship attendance, religious embeddedness, religious convictions, political attitudes, and socioeconomic and demographic controls. We find that a wide range of religious, political, and socioeconomic/demographic variables affect individuals’ identification with the religious right and/or religious left. Our empirical results also permit us to analyze the seeming paradox of identifying with both the religious right and the religious left. We find that individuals who identify with both movements come from the ranks of the highly religious, those who believe that being moral requires one to believe in God, Tea Party supporters, strong partisans, those with lower education and income, older individuals, and blacks and Hispanics.     

Chewing gum moderates the vigilance decrement

We examine the impact of chewing gum on a Bakan‐type vigilance task that requires the continual updating of short‐term order memory. Forty participants completed a 30‐min auditory Bakan‐task either with, or without, the requirement to chew gum. Self‐rated measures of mood were taken both pre‐ and post‐task. As expected, the vigilance task produced a time‐dependent performance decrement indexed via decreases in target detections and lengthened correct reaction times (RTs), and a reduction in post‐task self‐rated alertness scores. The declines in both performance and subjective alertness were attenuated in the chewing‐gum group. In particular, correct RTs were significantly shorter following the chewing of gum in the latter stages of the task. Additionally, the gradients of decline for target detection and incline for correct RTs were both attenuated for the chewing‐gum group. These findings are consistent with the data of Tucha and Simpson (2011), Appetite, 56, 299–301, who showed beneficial effects of chewing gum in the latter stages of a 30 min visual attention task, and extend their data to a task that necessitates the continuous updating of order memory. It is noteworthy that our data contradict the claim (Kozlov, Hughes, & Jones, 2012, Q. J. Exp. Psychology, 65, 501–513) that chewing gum negatively impacts short‐term memory task performance.     

The dominance dilemma: Do women really prefer dominant mates?

Previous research has led to a widely accepted conclusion that heterosexual women prefer mates who are high in dominance. Three experiments designed to distinguish dominance from prestige and examine moderating contextual factors challenge this conclusion. College women at 2 U.S. universities evaluated hypothetical, potential mates described in written vignettes. Participants in Study 1 preferred a high‐prestige to a high‐dominance target. With dominance and prestige manipulated independently in Study 2, participants preferred high to low prestige but also preferred low to high dominance. Participants in Study 3 preferred high to low dominance, but only (a) when displayed in the context of an athletic competition and (b) in ratings of attractiveness and desirability as a short‐term (vs. long‐term) mate.     

Visual discrimination,sequential learning and memory retrieval in the Australian desert ant <Emphasis Type="Italic">Melophorus bagoti</Emphasis>

Bees, wasps and ants—so-called central-place foragers—need potent homing strategies to return to their nest. Path integration and view-based landmark guidance are the key strategies for the ants’ navigation. For instance, they memorise different views in a sequence (sequential memory) but also have a step counter that informs them about the covered distance during each foraging trip (odometer). The sequential memory and the odometer information can act as contextual cues during travel for retrieving the appropriate stored view. When and which cue is used at different stages and lengths of the foraging trips is still unknown. In this study, we examined how the Australian desert ant Melophorus bagoti uses sequential memory and odometric information to retrieve visual memories. Using a set-up made out of channels and two-choice boxes (Y-mazes), we demonstrate first that M. bagoti foragers are able to learn and discriminate a variety of visual stimuli in a sequence of views along the inbound trip back to the nest. We then forced the homing ants to encounter a fixed sequence of two visual patterns during their inbound trips. By manipulating the position and distance of the visual stimuli and decision boxes, we could set the two contextual cues (sequential memory and odometer) into conflict. After the short 4-m outbound distance, a preference for odometric information as a contextual cue was found, but after the long 8-m outbound distance, ants relied primarily on their sequential memory retrieval. Odometer precision deteriorates with increasing travel distance, and accordingly, our findings imply that desert ants may be relying on the most reliable contextual cue for retrieving visual memories.     

The Effect of Violent Videogame Playtime on Anger

Studies have found evidence that, after playing violent videogames for 20 min, people experience a mean short‐term increase in aggression, hostility, and anger. The current research investigated whether or not players habituate during longer, more realistic lengths of play. Participants (N = 98) were randomly assigned to play the game Quake III Arena for either 20 or 60 min. Participants in the long condition showed a smaller change in state anger (CSA) from pre‐ to post‐gameplay than those in the short condition, although this did not reach significance. Change in scores for gamers (not novice players) showed that short gaming led to a larger increase in anger ratings than long gaming. When the results for violent videogame players were analysed separately, there was no significant increase in anger post‐gameplay—irrespective of length of time playing. Results also supported the hypotheses that females would show a significantly larger CSA than males and that participants previously unexposed to violent videogames would show a significantly larger CSA than exposed participants.     

Intellectual humility and forgiveness of religious leaders

This article presents two studies that examined how perceptions of intellectual humility affect response to a transgression by a religious leader. In Study 1, participants (N = 105) rated the religious leader on intellectual humility regarding different religious beliefs and values, as well as general humility and forgiveness of the leader for a transgression. Perceived intellectual humility was positively associated with forgiveness, even when controlling for perceived general humility. In Study 2, we replicated the findings from Study 1 on an independent sample (N = 299). Also, the type of offense moderated the association between perceived intellectual humility and forgiveness. For participants, who reported an offense in the area of religious beliefs, values, or convictions, the association between perceived intellectual humility and forgiveness was stronger than for participants, who reported a different type of offense. We conclude by discussing limitations and areas for future research.     

Internal causes of return trip effect based on eye movement and EEG indices

When traveling by car, the driver normally feels that the return trip is shorter than the outbound trip. The reason for this feeling, called return trip effect, is not clear. To explore the internal causes of this return trip effect, an indoor driving simulation experiment and a real car driving experiment were performed in this study. Questionnaires were used to obtain the estimated time of the outbound and return trips of the drivers. An eye tracker and an electroencephalograph equipment were used to record driver's eye movement and EEG data in the real-car driving experiment. The physiological indices and questionnaire results showed that the difference in the driver's cognitive loads of the outbound and return trips was the internal cause of the return trip effect. Drivers who were unfamiliar with the road had a different cognitive load between the two trips, which resulted in the return trip effect. However, drivers who were familiar with the road did not experience a return trip effect due to the close cognitive loads of the two trips.     

Living on the Margins of Democratic Representation: Socially Connected Community Responsibility as Civic Engagement in an Unincorporated Area

We examine the civic engagement processes and practices among Viva Live Oak! photovoice project participants residing in an unincorporated area with limited local democratic representation and institutional resources. Eight individual interviews and thirty‐one group photovoice meetings were conducted, audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. We describe how social structures of unincorporation shaped community life, and how this unique context informed participants’ civic engagement. We argue for a conceptualization of civic engagement that centers a social connection model of community responsibility, to make legible the social, relational, and civic actions of unincorporated area residents.     

Religion and Charitable Financial Giving to Religious and Secular Causes: Does Political Ideology Matter?

Previous research on charitable giving has identified a significant relationship between political conservatism and greater financial giving to charitable causes. Yet that research has not adequately explored the important role of religion in that relationship, nor differences in financial giving targets (i.e., religious congregations, noncongregational religious organizations, and nonreligious organizations). Support for competing theories concerning political ideology, religious practice, and charitable financial giving is assessed using data from the Panel Study on American Ethnicity and Religion (PS‐ARE). For both religious and nonreligious giving, the effect of political ideology is completely mediated by participation in religious and civic practices. These findings support recent arguments on “practice theory” in cultural sociology and suggest that it is less the effect of ideology than of active participation in religious, political, and community organizations that explains Americans’ financial giving to religious and nonreligious organizations.     

Missio Dei Trinitatis and Missio Ecclesiae: A Public Theological Perspective

In this article I address the mission of the triune God (missio Dei trinitatis) and the mission of the church (missio ecclesiae) that participates in the mission of God the Trinity, particularly from the perspective of public theology. First, I investigate that the concept of the missio Dei trinitatis so expanded our understanding of mission that the church‐centred view of mission was replaced by the public mission taking place in the midst of the world. Second, from the public theological perspective I argue for the need of the diakonia mission in order to realize the reign of God in the world. Third, I insist that the mission of the church participating in the mission of the triune God ought to appropriate the post‐colonial hermeneutics of suspicion and develop a post‐post‐colonial public mission theology for the sake of a mature democratic civil society. Fourth, I suggest that the mission of the church participating in God's mission should develop a transcultural‐indigenous public hermeneutics of mission in such a way as to encourage different stories through transcultural‐indigenous interpretations of the biblical narrative.